Love, Hate, and Complication: Remembering Hulk Hogan

Last week was a tough week for loss in pop culture. Malcom-Jamal Warner, Ozzy Osbourne, and the one that is really hard for me, Hulk Hogan. I made a post on Facebook that I think captured what many wrestling fans felt, have felt in recent years, and throughout the weekend it felt nostalgic but conflicted at the same time.

Right away, if you’re looking for a detailed play by play breakdown of Hogan’s life, career, matches, and fall from grace, I am not doing that because 1) I’m sure plenty of wrestling insiders, skeptics, etc will give you that because we all know Hogan was not known for his “work rate” in matches and the wrestling  politics that have beaten to death but are relevant. 2) Approaching this the way I am going to try to do is more genuine, objective, and understandable for us fans who are really going through it in some way because the relationship is difficult.

About 14 years ago there was a quote around the time when Randy Savage passed away that was so true and it went along the lines of this “As wrestling fans, we are hit with the fact our superheroes are real, because you just can’t get another person to be that superhero”.  Because when a beloved wrestler dies it hits differently because of that emotional connection and investment we had with them.  

However, the passing of Hulk Hogan was just various levels of sadness; Sad because Hogan never redeemed himself after that last appearance on Monday night Raw for the debut on Netflix where he was boo’d out the arena, never redeemed himself in the of fans who look like me, and sad he didn’t redeemed himself to the very thing that made it all possible and makes this loss so complicated that is pro wrestling because one of the things that makes pro wrestling so damn special is when it is done right is that the closure of a feud well told, but sadly  it is never that simple.

Unfortunately, last Thursday was very conflicting for us the wrestling fans because somewhere along the way, Hulk Hogan let us know exactly who he was for a long time unintentionally or intentionally where the ego and old school ignorance/bigotry of Terry Bollea messed everything up and made this moment so complicated when it should have been a celebration of the moments and memories he provided many of our childhoods with.

Because this is where the real main event happens for us fans. Not in a ring, but in our own hearts and minds. How do you separate the joy of your five to ten -year-old self-screaming for Hogan to get up, to the disappointment of learning who he really was? How do you honor the genuine happiness those moments brought us while acknowledging the pain his words and actions caused others?

To be honest, we can’t. Which is the uncomfortable truth we must live with. Those childhood memories aren’t less real because we later learned disappointing things about their source. The community you felt with other fans, the lessons about perseverance and standing up for what’s right, the pure theatrical joy of good triumphing over evil regardless of how corny or campy it may have been, none of that disappears because the man who delivered it was incredibly flawed. But neither can we ignore the harm caused by those words and actions, as well as pretend that the excuses should trump the person’s accountability. The same person who taught us about fighting for what’s right also said things that were deeply wrong. Both things are true, and we have to hold both aspects simultaneously.

Now should that change the nostalgic feeling you get when you hear that guitar riff from Real American? Probably not, or should you fight the temptation to play air guitar when you hear Jimi Hendrix’s Voodoo Child? You shouldn’t but if you do that’s ok, because those reactions and emotions represent something memorable to us and shouldn’t be tainted but for some it may be because the choices made by Terry Bollea, however it should not be strong enough to take that away from us as fans.

Now there is no way anyone can take away how much he meant to professional wrestling, because it is absolutely undeniable, I used this comparison before that Hulk Hogan was wrestling’s equivalent to what Michael Jordan was for the NBA, which brings the most simplest human aspect of whole situation is that at the core of this, that Hulk Hogan wanted to be liked and beloved by everyone, we all do whether we admit it or not (even the “cool” people who say they don’t care, they actually do because why the hell else make the statement in the first place, the high school psychology truly sticks with us all) because Hulk Hogan represented the ultimate good guy.

But as we get older and grow up we learn heroes, real ones, are human. And humans are flawed, complicated, capable of both inspiring greatness and devastating disappointment. Hogan’s fall from grace wasn’t a single moment but a slow revelation of who the man really was beneath the character. From the racial comments caught on tape, to the political statements that seemed to contradict everything the “Real American” character once stood for.

 Also, what makes his passing and the last decade of his life, so heartbreaking was because I don’t believe any of us fans saw that coming from Hulk Hogan. The same guy who teamed with Mr. T at Wrestlemania 1, who hung out with Dennis Rodman, the guy who called everybody brother, who came out to Hendrix is a racist on top being a wrestling politician? No way, no freaking way.

And that is because we believed in something so simple and dare I say pure. In a world where adults seemed to constantly disappoint us with their complexities and contradictions, Hogan didn’t. He was unambiguously good. He stood for America, for fairness, for never giving up. When he slammed Andre the Giant at WrestleMania III, he wasn’t just lifting a giant, he lifted our spirits, showing us that even the impossible could be overcome.

I thought after giving this some time to sit, I would write something more composed, but I was wrong and just wrote from a raw place, emotional place because this shouldn’t be so complicated or conflicting writing but here we are.  So last Thursday night after work, doctor’s appointment because I’m old, and attending a funeral service for a family member, I went home disconnected from socializing and went home to make frozen pizza, ate my sadness and feelings while rewatching Hogan vs. Andre at Wrestlemania 3 and Hogan vs. Warrior at Wrestlemania 6 where the same thing happens every time I watch those matches.

That nostalgic rush of joy surged that I have not felt in ages, I got choked up where tears poured probably soaking my shirt. But as the weekend came and went, I tried to hop on YouTube and watch old promos, matches, whatever and I could not shake that looming but justified question or questions of “Damn man, why couldn’t you have made this easier on us?” “Why did you have to say and do all that shit man” which absolutely sucks but also was justified.

 The grief of losing a childhood hero whose real-life actions later challenged everything we thought we knew about him. It’s the complicated mourning of someone who gave us some of our purest moments of joy, even as his later controversies forced us to reckon with the difference between the character we loved and the man behind it all. Perhaps what’s most important to remember is that we loved the idea of Hulk Hogan: the symbol, the shared experience of believing in something bigger than ourselves. We loved the anticipation of pay-per-views, the playground arguments about who would win. We loved having heroes and villains clearly defined in a world where such clarity is desired.

Pro Wrestling teaches us about storytelling, about the power of mythology, about how performance can create genuine emotion. It showed us that sometimes the most important truths aren’t literal ones, they’re emotional truths, truths about hope and resilience. Because wrestling fans like wrestlers who love wrestling, we don’t like wrestlers who try to get over on us or there to hawk their product to make a quick buck on.

We can honor the joy Hogan brought to our childhoods while also acknowledging the hurt he caused. We can be grateful for the lessons about perseverance and standing up for what’s right while rejecting the prejudice and hatred. We can love what wrestling taught us about storytelling and community while demanding better from our heroes. This is the work of being an adult fan of something we loved as children by learning to hold complexity, to love imperfectly, to find meaning in flawed sources. It’s harder than the clear-cut morality plays we watched on Saturday morning, but it’s also more honest.

But that enthusiastic chubby 5-year-old has a question for us today, “Whatcha gonna do when the memories run wild on you” which feels like the poetic way to wrap this thing up. So, thank you for letting me emotionally ramble and repeat myself probably but had to write this to hopefully show some fans that they are not alone with the complicating feelings about this sad moment, but it’s back to reality where we can try to follow what we fell in love when we were childeren.