KELLER'S TAKE VIP - KELLER: Hogan Knows What? His shameful response to Nick's driving (PWTorch #989/990) Sep 12, 2007 - 5:47:38 PM

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Below the Bottom Line editorial
Headline: Hogan Knows What? His shameful response to Nick's driving
By Wade Keller, Torch editor
Originally Published: September 15, 2007
PWTorch Newsletter #989/990

While most wrestling fans were trying to figure out which wrestler on the WWE roster Vince McMahon fathered many years ago, Hulk Hogan was dealing with a real-life fatherly dilemma.

Hulk's son, Nick "Hogan" Bollea, was just making his ol' pop proud, wizzing around city streets and highways, getting his macho adrenaline rush while putting the lives of innocent people around him in jeopardy when something went wrong. On Aug. 26, Nick hit a lamppost. He walked away with bumps, bruises, and breaks, but nothing serious. His passenger, a long-time pal just back from fighting in Iraq, wasn't so fortunate. He's still unconscious, over two weeks later, in a coma with brain damage. He may die. He probably will never be the same.

I'm sure Nick feels terrible. I'm sure in some ways he'll never get over what happened. He's only 17. He has to carry this guilt for a very long time. Coping with it now and learning a lesson and doing some good might be the only therapy that can make up for a very costly "youthful indiscretion." It might actually be a wake-up call. Nick isn't stupid. He seems smart enough to know that driving 100 miles per hour on public roads can hurt not just himself or his passenger, but if something goes wrong - which it inevitably will at those speeds - you can kill someone who didn't sign on for the potential consequences of his little adventure.

Hulk Hogan, Nick's father, has been exposed on "Hogan Knows Best" as hardly an admirable dad. He plays into every stereotype, wanting a virginal obedient daughter with a white wedding and a son who scores as often as possible with as many girls starting at the youngest age possible. His daughter will find meaning in life from being a successful pop star, while his son can take the fruits of Hogan's labor and success and be a race car driver (since he's too small to be a big-time wrestler).

Sometimes, though, all it takes is one event to change someone's thinking, to realize they've been shallow and a bad parent, leading his kids down a dangerous path, enabling them to make potentially deadly mistakes without consequence over and over to the point that they haven't been properly equipped to deal with reality. This was that moment for Hulk Hogan to step up and really "know what was best."

Well, it should have been. But so far, there's no sign that Hulk sees this as a lesson in anything. Instead, he's practicing damage control and making excuses. One after another.

He's gone public saying Nick was being treated unfairly by the media because Nick's a good kid. Nick may be a good kid. Nobody is saying he isn't. But his actions are criminally irresponsible and reprehensible. For Nick to put his desire for a thrill ahead of the safety of others time after time after time (he's only 17 and he has multiple speeding tickets, including at least two for going over 100 mph) is shameful. It's self-centeredness of the worst kind.

What is sad is that his parents (his mom, Linda, should be included in this, too) find his macho male lust for adrenaline exciting and something to be proud of. Now, Nick has some growing up to do. Too bad it took nearly killing a friend and himself to teach him an obvious lesson - which is that driving thousands of pounds of metal through busy streets at excessive speeds can kill people in the car or outside of it. It's time to reassess his sense of entitlement to drive how he wants, where he wants.

While Hulk is in spin control, trying to protect the image of his son who also happens to be the co-star of his successful VH1 "reality" series, Nick faces a potential 15 years in state prison for vehicular manslaughter, according to U.S. News reporter Ken Baker. That is, if John Graziano, his passenger dies.

Hulk Hogan flew in a specialist to provide a second opinion on how John's injuries to his brain and other internal organs are treated. He also hired a new high-profile criminal defense attorney this week. He's doing all he can with the money he has to fix what went wrong. This may not be a situation money can fix, though. Hulk, with a net worth probably above 50 million, could have built his son a fake city with privates streets to race his car on. Now, he'll instead pay an attorney and live with the reality that his son may have ended a life of a friend in his prime. A Marine, no less, just back from Iraq.

If it wasn't Aug. 26, it could have been the next night. Or the night before, apparently.

The New York Post interviewed a woman who says she witnessed Nick driving dangerously the day before. "He was acting like a jerk, racing the Viper and, at one stage, a Mustang, and probably doing speeds of 80 or 90 mph in an 45 mph limit," she said. "[Nick and another car] were racing between lights for ten minutes or more. Speeding off and weaving in and out of traffic. The driving was incredibly irresponsible."

Even John's mother is defending Nick's actions. "We are two families who love John. It was a horrific accident. Nick is experiencing every step in the process with us," she said in a public statement to the media. "One week ago, two good friends got into a tragic accident. Two families are devastated. Two mothers are comforting each other and caring for each other's children according to their needs and will continue to do so until, as Terry said, we walk John out of here."

It was an accident in the sense that leaving a loaded gun around the house while your nine year old son has a slumber party is "an accident." Nick's macho recklessness was encouraged. Evidence is on Hogan's own TV show.

Hulk has even been defending Nick's driving in a way, saying he was not drag racing when it happened - as if it matters whether he was racing another car when he decided to drive 100 mph, give or take, into a lamp post.

"It's just so unfair. There's not a bad bone in my son Nick's body," he told US Weekly. "The most important thing to me was from all the eyewitnesses and from everyone who saw the accident, was that they were not racing. Nick's car was the only car involved. The media jumped on my son. I tell my son to stay strong because at the end of the day when all the facts are in, it was an accident."

It's just so unfair, isn't it Hulk, that Nick is being criticized for his driving insanely above the speed limit on streets full of other cars and pedestrians, that he has a terrible driving record, and that he

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