ORIGINAL HEADLINE: The World of Hulk Hogan
By Bruce Mitchell, Torch columnist
Originally Published: November 30, 2002
Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter #733

Even with the famous Hulk Hogan ego at work, "Hollywood Hulk Hogan," the auto-biography, is an interesting look into the mind of the biggest name in pro wrestling of the last twenty years. Hogan has clearly spent some time thinking about his legacy and how he wants it to be perceived, but ultimately his famed self-absorption tells more of his story then he may have wanted.

Hollywood Hulk Hogan is another one in the series of WWE associated books from Simon and Schuster and, as such, has all of the trademark "Are you sure sports entertainment fans can read?" touches. Take out all of the black and white pictures, the oversized font on the chapter titles, and the triple spaced first page of the two and three page chapters, and this 343 page book could have clocked in at a slim 150 pages or so. Add to that the interference/editing from the McMahons and that's not much room to tell the story of a pro wrestling icon who has been everywhere in the business in the last 25 years.

Thankfully, Hogan is serious about telling his story, so this isn't just a rambling collection of road stories like Bobby Heenan's book. The reader gets a real sense, particularly in the early chapters, of Hogan's innate intelligence and drive. He came by those traits honestly, as his father was a construction foreman; Hogan describes him as determined to get the job done, no matter how long and how hard he had to work.

Hogan was a worker, too, and not just in the way he is usually described. He hustled a buck as a musician while he was in high school, and clearly thinks if he hadn't achieved wrestling superstardom, then he would have as the world's largest bass player. Whether it's dealing with Verne Gagne, Hollywood producers, Vince McMahon, Eric Bischoff, or the new money men who want to start up wrestling promotions, Hogan wisely never forgets he's a businessman. Hogan was smart enough, and strong enough, to bounce back from college party time and Florida Championship Wrestling trainer Hiro Matsuda's sadistic breaking of his leg his first day of training. He was a big wrestling fan, watching Dusty Rhodes shake his fat ass twice a week at CWF shows, but he was smart enough to have options. He ran a bar. He got into the longshoreman's union, then worked his way up to stevedore. Hogan has always been a guy who was willing to work hard to make the best of any opportunity, while looking out for the next one.

What Hogan never explains, though, is why he was sure to get a real opportunity in pro wrestling after he showed Hiro Matsuda, Jack and Jerry Brisco, and CWF owners Eddie and Mike Graham that he was tough enough to stick it out. He is candid about his lack of athletic ability, but he never explains why, after a desultory run in the Pensacola and Memphis areas, former champion Terry Funk, who was a major star at the time, called to encourage a rookie no one ever heard of to stick it out. Funk had even called Vince McMahon Sr., owner of the most lucrative territory in the country, the WWWF in the Northeast, on Hogan's behalf.

It wasn't because of his in-ring work or his imitation Billy Graham/Dusty Rhodes interviews that everyone saw potential in Hogan as a box office attraction. It was because he was big.

Really big.

Even before all of the advancements in the pharmaceutical sciences, Hulk Hogan at the beginning of his career is still one of the biggest muscleheads in the business' history. You can see it in the book's pictures and particularly in Hogan's first-ever match in Madison Square Garden against Ted DiBiase, as documented in the recent WWE DVD "Hogan Still Rules." Hogan is so juiced up he can only manage the most simple of moves. Hogan was tailor made, even from the beginning, for the McMahon's Big Man promotions. In 25 years that much hasn't changed.

The Steroids/Image Enhancers issue still hangs over Hulk Hogan and the best part of this book is his first real, public attempt to deal with it with some honesty. Hogan devotes a couple of chapters to steroids, and admits his infamous appearance on Arsenio Hall, where he claimed he had only "experimented" with steroids a couple of times, was a mistake. He is clearly trying to reconcile the reality of what he did with what he wishes he was, and in that sense he is no different than the rest of us.

"If a doctor prescribes steroids for a patient with arthritis or AIDS or dwarfism, that's one thing," Hogan wrote on pg. 210. "But anyone who uses drugs to run real hard and have his body weight fifty to a hundred pounds over the normal level is a total idiot. It's not healthy. It's not safe. It's just plain stupid. There are valid reasons for people to take doctor prescribed steroids. Becoming a wrestling hero isn't one of them."

This truthfulness is limited, however. For one thing, his current physical appearance, at the age of 49, brings into doubt what he really thinks of that last line. Hogan could have something important to say about this issue, something more important than just an admission of wrong doing. With the exception of Arnold Swartzenegger, no one has profited more from this than Hulk Hogan. He's at a point in his life where he could afford to tell his story, all of his story. His legend in the business is lasting and permanent, and his future is assured. Hogan, for all of his ego and old school working, seems genuinely interested in being a hero. The most heroic thing he could do at this point would be tell and teach everything he knows about this provocative, complicated issue. If he really was addicted to the good guy values of the Hulk Hogan character, he would use this opportunity to help anyone contemplating the use of these substances.

Was it worth it? What cost did he really pay? What works? What doesn't work? Does he have any long term medical effects from his use? How does he feel when he hears about the death of John Studd, whom he worked so closely with? He has decades of experience, real hands-on experience, with muscle enhancers, both legal and illegal. Who has seen more than Hulk Hogan?
What is left out of the book is telling. Hogan talks about his key testimony in the McMahon trial, and in self-centered Hogan fashion claims his truthful testimony saved Vince McMahon from conviction. (There were also major jurisdictional problems with the federal government's case.) What he leaves completely out, though, was there was a major trial a year or so before this one, of the doctor who dispensed drugs out of the WWF dressing room, George Zahorian. Hogan, a key witness who made the front page of USA Today, was excused suddenly by the judge, who ruled his appearance could cause damage to his career. It was an interesting ruling and Hogan avoided ever bringing it up.

Surprisingly, the best part of the book is the part I was looking forward to the least: the Hollywood chapters. Hogan knows Hollywood is just a business, and he's refreshingly realistic about his place in it. Hogan doesn't have stars in his eyes about working with Sylvester Stallone, Cyndi Lauper, or the Saturday Night Live cast. He's not the least bit insecure about categorizing his movies as low budget trifles, but points out that they all made money. His characterization of "The A Team's" Mr. T as a crybaby nut job pain in the ass is fun, and his explanation of what happened on Richard Belzer's cable show was an effective illustration of the frustrations inherent in trying to straddle the '80s WWF line of Sports (Is wrestling real?) with Entertainment (It's all fun!). Hogan expands that by explaining some of the unique pressures in playing the bad boy in the dressing room with making corporate appearances and charity dates. No one has ever had the nonstop schedule and pressure Hogan dealt with during those years, not even the Rock or "Stone Cold" Steve Austin.

He's candid about what it was like to deal with celebrities such as Dennis Rodman, Karl Malone, and Jay Leno, and like most of us almost forgets Diamond Dallas Page had anything to do with it all.

Still, the old Hogan eye on the next chance is never far away. He leaves out much of anything negative about anyone he could possibly be in business with again someday. One of the more provocative chapters in any autobiography of Hogan should have been his tempestuous relationship with Randy Savage, perhaps his greatest opponent. They were closely connected both in and out of the ring, and fell out of love and hate several times during their years together. (They are reportedly back in "hate" these days.) He never says anything about Roddy Piper's refusal to ever job to him in the heyday of Hulkamania. He sticks to the sacred Wrestling Autobiography tradition of not saying much of anything bad about Vince McMahon (the two of them are back on the outs now, too). His shaky explanation of why he never passed the torch to Bret Hart and his lack of any explanation at all of why he cut the storyline legs off the Hitman on his arrival in WCW aren't a high point of the book. Neither is his complete lack of explanation of how he cooled off WCW's hottest babyface Sting at their ultimate showdown at Starrcade.

Hogan, of course, takes no responsibility at all for WCW's demise, though, unlike Heenan, he gives them credit for giving him the most lucrative deal of his career. He fills in more details in how WCW handled his leaving and how he understandably was shaken by how Vince Russo treated him. To this day I'm not sure which part of this was work and which part was a shoot, but it was clearly a disaster for all involved, particularly Vince Russo and Time Warner's lawyers. He takes almost complete credit for the NWO's success, even though he jumped on the Outsiders' bandwagon only after it was clearly a hit, and points fingers at Kevin Nash and Scott Hall for all the damage they did while never mentioning the infamous one finger job Nash did for him for the WCW Title. His close relationship with WCW head Eric Bischoff, and all that entails, never comes up much, except Hogan charitably thinks Bischoff now has the experience to run a wrestling company.

Two other omissions are very telling. Hogan never talks about how he feels about the man who became a bigger mainstream and pro wrestling star in the nineties than he did in the '80s: Steve Austin. All he says about Austin is he was part of the Jerry Springer trend in pro wrestling. He never talks about Austin's refusal to work with him when he returned to WWE, which must have been galling.

Hogan also never touches on the WWF/WCW war of the '80s and his professional rivalry with Ric Flair. After all the years he still doesn't have much to say about the man most wrestling historians think was the greatest all-around performer ever.

There are also some howlers in the book. Hogan claims he first got over in Japan when he went against the planned finish of a match (a twenty minute broadway) and beat up former South Korean Olympic wrestler Riki Choshu and pinned him in three minutes. Uh huh.

Hogan is so self-absorbed he spends a chapter describing in detail how he got a black eye in a jet ski accident right before a Wrestlemania just to refute the long forgotten rumor that Randy Savage gave him that black eye in a fight. He neglects to mention that his best friend Ed Leslie (Brutus Beefcake), who was with him at the time, almost lost his life later on in a similar accident.

Then there's this line:

"One of the things Vince was strictest on was drugs." (pg. 173)

You have to wonder if Linda McMahon contributed that one.

One of the most annoying parts of the book was Hogan (and McMahon's) continuing attempts to rewrite history as it pertains to Andre the Giant. Andre was one of the most colorful characters in wrestling history, and as a special attraction, was a worldwide box office draw. He wasn't the flag-bearer for the entire industry, particularly at the time of his and Hulk's famous match at Wrestlemania III. Hogan was.

Once again Hogan trots out that hoary old story about how no one was certain until the last minute that the grumpy old Giant would pass the torch, go up for the big slam, and give up his "undefeated streak" to the respectful and deserving young Hogan.

You didn't have to be an insider to know the finish of that particular match months in advance. Hulkamania was going to run wild like he always did in those days. It was what all those fans paid to see. Andre's big payday was coming. Why would he ever mess with that? Hogan and McMahon accomplished enough in pro wrestling without having to negate all that was done by non-WWF performers with this nonsense.

At least he left out that ridiculous story he told on the DVD about how he first won Andre's respect by handling himself when Tatsumi Fujinami tried to shoot on him and steal the WWF Title on the last-ever WWF/New Japan co-promotion.

The book is set up on two tent poles at its beginning and the end. Hogan sees redemption in this year's Wrestlemania match with the Rock. He was hurt by the Russo debacle and wanted to write his own ending to his superhero story, and even admits he doesn't want to do that anytime soon. He's clearly more comfortable discussing the Rock than Steve Austin, and is careful to not seem jealous about his mainstream big money Hollywood Success. Instead of explaining how he set up anticipation for the return of the Red and Yellow by returning as part of the NWO with Hall and Nash, he recounts how he was shocked, shocked that the fans cheered him on his return. He recalls with a straight-face how he sat around with Vince McMahon trying to think of ways to keep Rock the babyface before the big match, like it didn't work out the way he wanted it to all along.

"He (Rock) said, "Can you take another one? I said, ‘No.' The Rock said, ‘Come on, brother, one more for me.' Even though he was a kid, I respected the hell out of him. I didn't want to let him down. So I said, ‘Okay, let's do it.'" (pg. 332)

That blow-by-blow of how he took the three Rock Bottoms despite all of his broken ribs was quite the inspirational story, or at least it would have been if I had believed a word of it .

Hulk Hogan is a shrewd, smart man and the Babe Ruth of Sports entertainment, just like he says he is. This book is as candid as he's ever been in his career, and for that reason is well worth reading. You have to hope, though, that someday he'll lay the politics and work aside and have the confidence to tell an important story in its entirety.

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Bruce Mitchell has been a PWTorch columnist since September 1990. For your reading pleasure, he recommends "In The Pit with Piper" by Roddy Piper with Robert Picarello. You can write to Bruce with thoughts on this column.

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