Hulk Hogan: Real American (2026) s01e03 Episode Script

[Linda Hogan] Here.
-[Hulk Hogan] Is it ready? Is it running?
-[Linda] Yeah. Filming.
-[Hogan] How do you know?
-[Linda] I made it film.
-[young Nick] I'm walking!
-[Hogan] Okay, let go. Let go.
Come here, Nick. Come here.
-Let him go.
-[yells excitedly]
-[Linda] He's walking!
-[woman] There he is!
[Linda] All right! Cookin' it up,
but check it out who's cooking.
[crowd cheering]
[Hogan] People say, "Hulk Hogan,
we know you've got a lot of things going."
[Linda] Say happy birthday to Nicky.
[Hogan] "You got family.
You got other ventures out there."
"Are you gonna retire?"
When I sit here and actually think
about my last match at WrestleMania,
it chills me to the bone.
[pulsing music playing]
[Bruce Pritchard]
Hulk was going to retire.
Yes. Sure. Absolutely.
-[Jessie Ventura] "Hogan's gonna retire."
-I won't know till I come out of the ring.
Bullshit.
Fuck no.
[Ventura] He had
a ten-year retirement tour.
["Walking on a Thin Line"
by Huey Lewis & The News playing]
I curse the dark
And I pray for the light… ♪
[reporter] Hulk Hogan is going
to stop wrestling at WrestleMania.
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
No, he isn't.
-Thank you for Hulkamania.
-Thank you.
[Paul Levesque] He'd always say,
"This is probably the last one."
And then it was like,
"No, no, no, fuck that."
He'd go crazy if he had to do that.
A year ago, you and I speculated
on the future of Hulkamania.
I want to change that around now.
You know something?
I've been thinking about coming back.
-[host] Ooh!
-For all the right reasons.
My daughter was there when I won
the WWE Championship in WrestleMania.
She saw Ric Flair say
he was the real world champion.
[Linda] Why were you crying?
She burst into tears.
She says, "Daddy, he's got your belt."
-…so easy to ignore ♪
-[crowd cheering]
Is that what I was fighting for? ♪
[commentator 1]
He's fighting for his life.
[commentator 2]
No one has gotten up from that!
Walking on a thin line… ♪
Being Hulk Hogan,
that's like being master of the universe.
[Natalya Neidhart]
When you're a top guy like that,
you wanna keep that spot.
It's like a drug.
Walking on a thin line… ♪
[cheering]
Even the other day, he was saying,
"I was thinking about one more match."
You know? And I'm like,
"All right, here we go."
-[thud]
-[music stops]
[crowd cheering]
[cheering fades]
-Morning.
-Hey.
-How you doing?
-All right.
All right.
Howdy.
-How you doing?
-Good, how are you?
-[man] Good.
-[announcer] Mr. Hulk Hogan!
[Linda] It was the '90s.
And so his career at that point in time
was just like hurricane-strength famous.
And there was just no room for error.
[applause]
-Sounds like Madison Square Garden here.
-[laughter]
Boy, I'm tellin' you.
For the last five years,
the kids have been training
and saying their prayers.
And, uh, now that we've got
Hulkamania vitamins,
I think the sky's the limit
with this thing.
[pulsing music playing]
[Linda] Anybody that knew Terry
knew he was a health buff.
He woke up and must have taken, like,
I don't know, 100 vitamins every day.
We had to carve out a whole cupboard
in my kitchen for his vitamins.
I wanna give you guys
a little dose of the medicine here.
Once you get hooked on this stuff,
there's no return.
I would not advise this, obviously,
for anyone to…
That's incredible.
He trained, said his prayers.
We said a prayer every night.
He took his vitamins. It was so simple.
So he made that kind of his mantra.
If you train, pray, eat your vitamins,
the first thing you know,
you'll be ripping out in the backjack.
If you train, if you say your prayers,
if you eat your vitamins, man,
sooner or later, you'll get what you want.
Those are the three demandments
to be a Hulkamaniac.
-[interviewer] Demandments?
-Demandments. Yes, sir.
-Be a Hulkster.
-[interviewer] Wonderful.
[laughter]
He was already doing that,
and he thought, "Why not?"
If you know what Hulkamania is all about,
the training, the prayer, the vitamins,
you should've known that the Hulkster
would never sell out, brother.
[Ventura] You know how he used to tell
kids to take their vitamins and all that?
What are we talking about?
Orals or injectables?
What kind of vitamins we talking here?
Most of us think of professional wrestling
as harmless entertainment
and Hulk Hogan as the king of the ring.
But was there
a sinister side to his success?
[newsreader] He's taken steroids
through the whole decade of the '80s.
The '80s were when steroids
really injected itself into wrestling.
Back then, the mindset was
steroids were safer than sugar.
They were legal.
I first started using
two or three years after high school.
I just kept getting bigger
and bigger and bigger and bigger.
I'd be getting ready for school,
and Dad would be down in the gym at 7:15.
7:30 in the morning.
We're already in the gym.
We're trying to get Brutus's body
as hard as his head.
I'm going to do the thing…[grunts]
[Hogan] Right now.
I had Ultimate Warrior
going out one door puking.
-[man] Yeah.
-[Hogan] Brutus started puking blood.
You know, you need to do a few more.
I respect this guy right here.
The thing is, when I was taking steroids,
I was between 300 and 348 pounds.
Yeah.
[Hogan] But in the early 90s, there was
a bunch of controversy about steroids,
and the laws had changed.
Tougher federal penalties against steroids
took effect in February.
[newsreader]
A drug bust in Phoenix, Arizona,
not for heroin or cocaine,
but for something just as dangerous.
When it did become illegal, well,
how do you teach an old dog new tricks?
You know, you just can't.
And he just kept doing it.
[Hogan] All the wrestlers used steroids.
Everybody across the board.
But for some reason,
with me, it's a different game.
-They're on a witch hunt.
-[interviewer giggles]
They're on a witch hunt.
They're after us all.
They're after all of us.
They're after all of us.
And I told him, "In life,
everybody's going to have speed bumps."
"Everybody's going to have speed bumps,
but you know what you've gotta do?"
"You gotta wear that seat belt, baby."
A doctor will go on trial
charged with prescribing anabolic steroids
to several professional wrestlers,
including the biggest name in the ring,
Hulk Hogan.
I went, "What the fuck?" Excuse me.
Didn't mean to say that. "What the heck?"
We got the rug pulled out from under us.
The timing was bam, bam.
So I knew I had to do something.
And I decided to go on Arsenio Hall
because he was a friend of mine.
I actually got Arsenio Hall his job.
So I said,
"Friendly fire. Let's give it a shot."
-You had been in the news.
-That's the problem.
-People read the paper to be informed.
-Mm-hmm.
Sometimes you read the paper,
and you get misinformed.
[chuckles]
"Steroids, I never took a shot."
Basically, what I'd like to do is,
with all due respect,
inform you and everybody else
that's misinformed by the newspapers.
Of course, I lied to him.
I'm not a steroid abuser,
and I do not use steroids.
All of us in the wrestling business,
we sat, and we went, "Jesus."
-I read the paper.
-The paper don't mean nothing.
[David Shoemaker] In a situation
where it was unnecessary,
he just completely lied.
Everybody watching,
with even, like, the most passing concept
of what steroids were, knew he was lying.
It was just sad to see a hero doing that.
My name is David Shoemaker.
I write columns about wrestling.
I've been a huge fan of Hulk Hogan
since I was 6.
Almost my whole life.
You had a whole generation
of little Hulksters training with you.
Saying prayers with you, dude.
Eating their vitamins with you.
And you sold them out.
[Shoemaker] I understand why he did it.
You've got to keep up the image, you know.
Like, Superman doesn't do steroids.
Superman is gifted with abilities, right?
Hulk Hogan is like that.
He's a hero. He's a god.
There are millions of kids
that believe in me and what I stand for.
Basically, it put a dark cloud
over everything that I believe in.
[Shoemaker] But part of Hulkamania
also was being honest and forthright.
Now we know you're lying.
So what else are you lying about?
It's the lie that gets you in the end.
It's like Nixon.
It's like, you know,
when you lie, you're a liar.
[Hogan] We'll have to take it
to the Supreme Court of the Hulkamaniacs,
the highest court in the land.
I'm upset at him.
I don't like him as much now.
[reporter] There's a crescendo of opinion.
What Hulk Hogan preaches
is apparently not what he practices.
Congress ought to investigate.
[interviewer] What do you think
is gonna happen to Hulkamania?
It's gonna die.
It's something that would be classified
in the "mistake" category.
If I could relive it,
I wouldn't do it again.
[reporter] We have not been able
to reach Hogan for a response.
[Hogan] I was getting major heat
from the investigation.
So it all just made sense
to move away from wrestling.
I didn't have much of a choice.
I hope you have a good life
after you quit wrestling.
I'm like, "Oh my God." You know?
Hold on a minute,
you mean I can't be Hulk Hogan anymore?
[Linda chuckles]
-Terry.
-Huh.
[Linda laughing]
Oh, no, he's got the gruels.
Honey. What are you doing?
[grunts] We're putting
the Batcave Command Center together.
[Linda] Uh-huh.
We have a swing trip door
behind the ground.
-[Linda] Oh, that looks cool.
-Look at this watch.
[Shoemaker] Hulk, for all I knew,
was never coming back.
["Return the Hitman" playing]
You gotta build somebody
to fill Hulk Hogan's shoes.
Pretty big shoes.
Who's going to be our next champion?
And it's, like, that guy.
[announcer] Bret "The Hitman" Hart.
-[music continues]
-[crowd cheering]
[Hart] I was as stunned
and sort of blown away by that as anybody.
I was different than Hulk Hogan.
Hulk Hogan was Elvis Presley.
I was the Robert De Niro of wrestling.
[cheering]
[Shoemaker] He's one of the absolute
best professional wrestlers of all time.
Every Bret Hart match was a great match.
-[music continues]
-[crowd cheering]
The fans were ready to embrace him
and say, "This is the age of Bret Hart."
[Hart] I always thought
that Hulk would be happy for me.
[Hogan] I said,
"No, brother, it ain't happening."
[announcer speaks indistinctly over TV]
Bret Hart isn't that feature film
that you thought you were going to see.
"The film wasn't as good
as I thought it was."
So I said,
"No, brother, you don't want that."
Hulk was now fishing about coming back.
Hulk Hogan is not afraid to admit
he's made mistakes.
On a personal level, I've made mistakes.
On a business level,
I don't always make the right decisions.
[Prichard] Hulk fucked up,
but I think Vince heard the pitch,
and Hulk Hogan was his Babe Ruth.
Hulkster, please tell us
what we want to hear. Come on!
I'm back in the WWE!
[crowd cheering]
[Shoemaker] Hogan had been gone.
Bret Hart is your champion.
And then Hogan comes back
without the acknowledgement
of the steroid allegations.
It just is a weird situation.
In some ways, it felt like he was
either unwilling to change
or unable to change.
I don't know what the plan was,
but it wasn't the right time
for him to come back.
[tense music playing]
It was announced Hulk Hogan would team
with his buddy, Brutus Beefcake,
and challenge
for the Tag Team Championship
at WrestleMania IX.
Make sure you get it all the way.
There's no tag team
ever put together like this.
Hulk Hogan. Brutus "the Barber" Beefcake.
Together, they are unstoppable!
[Shoemaker] That was supposed to be
Hulk Hogan's sole role.
[giggling]
Okay.
[Neidhart] Hulk was always
at the top of the food chain.
Everybody wants to keep that spot.
So my uncle, Bret Hart.
The more successful Bret got,
the more he got in Hogan's lane.
All of a sudden,
it's like the claws come out.
["Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave playing]
[Hart] I remember walking up to him
and said, "Hey, Terry."
I stood up with my hand out
to shake his hand for about 30 seconds.
He wouldn't look at me.
He kept talking to Beefcake.
[Hogan] I can't imagine
doing that intentionally.
Maybe I had an off day.
Maybe I was drunk. Maybe I was high.
I don't know what to tell you,
but it wouldn't have been intentional.
[Hart] I knew right then and there, like,
I got the belt, and I got what he wants.
I'm the enemy now.
…comes a tall, handsome man ♪
In a dusty black coat
With a red right hand ♪
[music sting]
[Hogan] I had that Hogan stroke back then.
Me and Vince were just bonded at the hip.
I could pull the plug
on certain things or certain people.
Vince ultimately made the decision
for Hulk to win the title of Mania.
Beautiful.
That day, I remember thinking,
"What a step backward."
It was a whole different audience,
and they were liking me, not Hulk Hogan.
Bret got all up in my face
and got all rattled.
I said, "What's with this guy?
I thought he was a team player."
I said to him, "It's going to backfire,
and it's going to be really bad."
Vince made the decision.
It's just one of those things.
Fuck you.
[crowd cheering]
[Hart] Hulk came up with
such a phony, bullshit match.
The kind of match Hulk would dream up.
[crowd cheering]
Bret Hart was wrestling
Dastardly Yokozuna.
Yokozuna's manager,
the inscrutable Mr. Fuji,
throws some ceremonial salt
in Bret Hart's eyes.
[crowd cheering]
Bret is blinded…
["The Pursuit of Power"
by Keith Mansfield playing]
…and he's beaten for the title.
-[bell ringing]
-[crowd cheering]
But WrestleMania's not over yet.
-[Hogan] No!
-[Hart] Hulk Hogan came out like the hero.
[commentator] The Hulk is concerned
with helping his friend Bret Hart.
[sarcastically] Yeah, he's my friend
coming out to run to my rescue.
"Go get him, Hulk."
You know, "Go in there and win my belt."
"Win it for me."
[crowd cheering]
[Hart] It sucked.
People would be going, like,
"Why'd they do that to Bret Hart?"
[Shoemaker] It was basically
this revolving-door gimmick
to take the title off of Bret Hart
and put it back on Hulk Hogan.
And even as a kid, you know,
it just felt like Hogan was a bad friend.
[Hart] He was a good guy once upon a time.
But in the end, he was a backstabbing,
knife-wielding piece of shit.
[pensive music playing]
[Greenberg] People might have been getting
a little weary of Hogan to begin with.
This is not 1985 anymore.
[Hart] The Hulk's shtick
was starting to wear pretty thin.
It was the same match
every night for six, seven years.
And people were getting tired
of the leg drop
and, uh, you know,
the milking the crowd and the Hulking up.
[Levesque] The truth is, it had passed.
I don't wanna say he was a one-trick pony,
but you'd seen it.
It wasn't drawing anymore.
People had moved on.
And Vince would always do
what was best for business.
Ladies and gentlemen,
my good friend, my boss,
and the toughest dude I've ever been
in the ring with, Vince McMahon.
[Shoemaker] Hogan, I'm sure, believed
he was not only the reason
for WWE's success,
but he had a lot left in the tank.
[Hogan] I thought I might be able
to keep climbing that ladder
with the support of the machine.
And when I asked Vince what's next,
he goes, "I think your run's about over."
He said, "The red and yellow is dead."
And I wasn't going to get
a push there anymore.
Hulk said, "We might have a major problem
starting to happen. I talked to Vince."
I said, "What happened?"
He told me. I went, "Oh my God."
For me, it was the classic Vince McMahon,
in my opinion, mistake.
["Broken Wings" by Mr. Mister playing]
Baby, don't understand ♪
Why we can't just hold on
To each other's hands… ♪
[Hogan] He may know what he knows
on how to run a huge company
ten times, a million times better than me.
But as far as my character
and what I know about my brand and name,
I thought he was way off.
This time might be the last, I fear ♪
Unless I… ♪
[McMahon] We had our differences.
And Hogan's ego, on occasion,
would get out of line.
[Hogan] It took two to build an empire.
I felt we were close personally.
But for him,
the personal stuff
was actually a business front.
And in so many words, he said that to me.
[commentator]
Listen to these people at Rumble.
So I made a decision
that nobody's gonna hurt me again.
[commentator]
It's the power of Hulkamania!
So take these broken wings ♪
And learn to fly again… ♪
Vince called me,
and I went on a rant
because I was so mad at him.
[McMahon] He said,
"We'll find out who's stronger."
"The machine behind me or me."
[Hogan] I just went nuts. You name it.
Every… bad name that you could say
that would get you canceled.
You know?
-[commentator 1] He's in a bad spot now.
-[commentator 2] In a very bad situation.
[Prichard] Hulk was unhappy.
Vince was unhappy.
It was really tough to watch.
[Hogan] Vince drew a line and said,
"You'll never work here again."
[commentator]
He's going to bomb Hulkamania!
I'm good at getting fired.
[commentator 1] Hulkamania is dead.
[commentator 2] Children crying.
This is an emotional moment.
[commentator 1] The heart of America,
Hulk Hogan, has just stopped beating.
And when we hear the voices sing ♪
You got to learn to fly
Learn to live, to love so free ♪
[Prichard] It was sad. It was sad.
But I think Hulk saw it as an opportunity
to, to get away
and make himself worth more.
Should I say "Mr. Hogan"?
Maybe "Hulky"? Is that too familiar?
"Muscles" is an option, I suppose.
Although that was
the name of Michael Jackson's snake.
He sometimes likes "Hulkster,"
but that sounds ridiculous.
Hulk, H-H.
-Hulkster.
-The Hulkster.
-The Hulkster.
-Um… now, you're making movies now.
Yes, sir.
You've moved on from wrestling,
and you're making movies.
Basically, I want to work. I'm too young
to sit in a rocking chair with my kids.
I don't want my kids to think Daddy eats
peanut butter sandwiches and watches TV.
So, the people
in the film industry said, "Wow."
"This guy can walk, chew bubblegum,
talk, and maybe he's articulate too."
-[Hogan yells]
-[thud]
[yelling]
[heroic music playing]
Outside of wrestling,
Hulk was really the first person
to transcend WWE.
[heroic music continues]
[Neidhart] Doing movies
and TV shows and commercials.
A true artiste should be remembered
for his inspiration, not his perspiration.
[baroque music playing]
[Neidhart] You know,
mingling with Hollywood.
Suburban Commando.
The Hulkster is Shep…
Whoop!
…Ramsey.
A valiant galactic warrior
stranded on Earth.
-I'm here to rent the apartment.
-Honey, it's for you.
[Lloyd] At first, I was intimidated.
You know, I didn't want to piss him off.
That physique and the build and his face…
He looked like he was from outer space.
How the hell was I supposed to know
you were some sort of alien Rambo?
But he wasn't scary as a person.
He was just so friendly.
He was a friend right away.
[Hogan] And the crossover to film,
that's helped me so much.
I just need people around me
like Christopher Lloyd and Shelley Duvall
to make sure I'm on the mark.
Take off the bandana,
wash the old bald head.
The wife holds the iron fist,
and I play Mr. Nanny at home.
Sing.
Twinkle, twinkle, little star ♪
I never pictured myself as a movie star
because I can look in the mirror.
It's not Brad Pitt staring at you
across the mirror or Sean Connery.
[Neidhart]
He had a larger-than-life presence.
You're bigger than most trees.
-My cat.
-[meows]
[Neidhart] Even if you didn't know
or watch wrestling,
or you didn't know what WWE was,
you knew that he was a star.
-Gremlins? In this theater? Now?
-[gremlins chattering]
What a departure for you.
-The poster has you wearing a tutu.
-[Hogan] A tutu?
But this cross-dressing,
this wearing this tutu,
is this something you did for the film,
or have you done this privately?
You look positively effervescent.
May I offer you tea?
[Lloyd] He wasn't going to be
going out and doing King Lear.
That was not his ambition.
[Hogan] The media killed me.
My face is so much like a character,
a cartoon character.
As soon as I open up my eyebrows,
bam, the whole screen blows.
People who watch Hulk Hogan on television
and kids who have the Hogan character,
and they see this movie,
are just going to be offended
and disappointed in it.
I already heard about one 12-year-old girl
who walked out midway.
You have to be very bad
to get a child to leave the theater.
Whatever.
I was cool with it, man.
I knew I was a wrestler, just scamming by.
[Kermit] You mentioned
you were shooting in Florida.
You're originally from Florida, right?
-[Hogan] Yes.
-[Kermit] I thought you were.
-I spent a lot of time in the swamps.
-[Hogan] In the swamps?
[Kermit] Thunder in Paradise.
[Nick] He was filming locally
with these really awesome boats.
It was almost like, um,
Baywatch, but cooler.
We'd get to spend time with him on set.
[Hogan] Well, when I was wrestling,
I was on the road
and gone more than I was home.
I started making more movies.
I was home with the kids.
He loved spending more time at home.
It felt good. It felt nice.
[screams playfully]
[Linda laughs]
-[Linda] Are you happy?
-Yeah.
He'd pack their lunches.
He'd beat me to the kitchen.
I'm like, "You didn't have to, babe."
He's like, "I wanted to."
He liked figuring out
what to put in their lunch pails.
It was new to him.
Your dad made him
a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
I love you very much.
-[Linda] Love you too.
-I love you very much, poop.
Do you love me? ♪
[Linda] And we have the star of our show,
Thunder in Paradise,
Hulk Hogan, with his son, Nicky.
I'll take you to the entrance.
That's very close.
[Linda] Out he goes. Good luck.
[Hogan] I was making these movies
but didn't have my heart all the way in.
I have a hard time
sitting around for 14 hours a day,
waiting for the 1st AD to get me
for three minutes.
I didn't like the process
because I was so spoiled with wrestling.
Wrestling for 10 or 15 minutes
and making the "million-dollar minimum."
When he got up in the ring,
he was a showman.
He wanted to share his pleasure.
Crowds yelling and screaming.
The acting, it was kind of a lark,
but I don't think
it mattered to him that much.
I'd love to climb back in there once more,
maybe have Kermit as my business manager.
I'd love to. I've never been
in a wrestling ring before.
I started going squirrelly.
Take some beach towels.
I said, "I appreciate
becoming the next John Wayne,
but I gotta get out of here.
This is driving me crazy."
-[director] Cut!
-[man] Cut it. Print it.
[Hogan] I'll go back to wrestling.
[crowd cheering]
[Regis Philbin] Pull me up! Pull me up.
Come on.
You know and I know there could be
a possible return to the ring, Hulkster.
You know something, brother,
I was in the airport last night.
When I flew here to see Regis,
a little old lady came up to me and goes,
[in old woman's voice] "Hulk Hogan,
you make me feel 18 years old again."
She said, "I quit watching wrestling
when you weren't on there."
"You were the greatest there ever was,
ever will be."
"It's not the same without you."
[epic music playing]
[clattering]
[commentator]
Smells like the rodeo's in town.
So, we were at Disney Studios,
and our soundstage for Thunder in Paradise
was right next to the wrestling soundstage
for the WCW wrestling.
[screams]
[dramatic music plays]
Ow!
[grunts]
[Hogan] WCW wasn't sports entertainment,
it was "wrestling."
Eye for an eye,
tooth for a tooth "wrestling."
I'm bringing the rope in.
They can say I can't spit tobacco.
They can say everything they want!
It was a real distant,
real distant number two
from what the WWE was.
It was rough.
[announcer]
From the Pacific Northwest, Big Josh!
WCW had never turned a dollar of profit
and was losing
millions of dollars every year.
[announcer] Here comes Robocop, Bob!
[Bischoff] Our idea of a good turnout
in an arena was like 1,200 people.
[announcer] He pulled that door off!
[Bischoff] Especially
if half of them were sober.
[announcer] What strength by Robocop!
[Bischoff]
Either we fix it, or we pull the plug.
[cheering]
[Bischoff] My primary goal
was to convince advertisers and sponsors
that we were legitimate.
[announcer] And now he sticks his head
into that watering trough!
Because WCW was perceived to be
just a notch or two above porn,
I needed Madison Avenue
to look at WCW as a competitor to WWE.
[woman screaming]
[man grunts]
And I needed Hogan to do that.
I knew Hulk was on the lot,
we're on the lot,
and I took advantage
to get a meeting with Hulk.
He comes approaching me
and asked me if I'd come to work for him.
I said, "Let me think about it."
-[Linda laughs]
-Happy New Year.
[Linda] And then
he looked at me one day, and he's like,
"Well, are you ready to do another run?"
Happy New Year!
I thought he'd be home
a little bit longer,
but, you know, work was a-calling.
And, uh, '94 will be better
than '92 and '93 for sure.
[Linda] Yeah, honey. Love you.
[Hogan] By the time I'd cut my deal,
it was ridiculous.
I got the money.
We got the money ♪
[Hogan] I had to actually give back
some of the deal that I did
so that certain people
would not get fired.
[Linda] And money, we had a lot of money.
It didn't matter
if he slowed down or sped up.
It was… We were comfortable.
But he never wanted to retire.
He was just addicted to the ring.
Did you ever think, at age 40,
this would be kind of a comeback for you?
Yeah, well, you know,
this is kind of like 40 going on 18.
[cheerful music playing]
Who do you want to see in WCW?
[crowd] Hulk Hogan!
Hulk Hogan knew he had value in his brand.
The single most popular wrestling star
in the history of the sport here.
[Hogan] He told me
I could run the company any way I wanted.
I could take over and run the company.
He said, "Promise me
you'll put lightning in a bottle."
I said, "No problem at all."
[Shoemaker] By the early '90s,
there was no denying the fact
that the Hulkamania machine
was winding down.
[crowd cheering]
He comes to WCW, and they have
a more prehistoric version of Hulk Hogan.
[Bischoff] This is the greatest day
that professional wrestling has ever seen.
There is this incredibly staged parade,
where he's in this red Corvette.
There are fake reporters.
There is a fake audience.
[Bischoff] Look at the faces of the kids
and the excitement.
That's what they wanted,
to see Hogan back,
and that's what they got.
[reporter] Like The Babe in the town,
like Henry Aaron.
[Shoemaker]
WCW was leaning into the nostalgia.
We're in a new era now.
"So why are you the only people
that don't see this?" You know?
[reporter] Oh, hi.
People compare this move
to Joe Montana's
from the 49ers to the Chiefs.
-What do you think about that?
-You know something, brother?
The big man upstairs, he moves mountains.
In seven days and seven nights,
he created the heaven and the Earth.
And on the eighth day, dude,
he created Hulkamania.
So I can't wait to come into the WCW
and show them
what the strongest force is all about.
[triumphant music climaxes]
Hulk Hogan in WCW
I don't think had the impact
it would have had a few years earlier.
Particularly in the wake
of the steroid scandal,
which wasn't over.
[reporter] The Feds accused this man,
Vince McMahon,
of pumping his stable of stars
with steroids.
The federal government contended
that Vince was a steroid dealer.
[Hogan] Vince got indicted.
I was subpoenaed
to be the star witness for the Feds.
[newsreader] If the Feds
pin Mr. McMahon with a conviction,
he could face 11 years in jail.
[Greenberg] It was the anticipation
that Hulk Hogan would get up on the stand
and reveal secrets about Vince McMahon
no one had ever heard before.
They wanted me to say
that Vince sold me steroids.
I wanted to move on. Shut this crap down
that was still going on.
So I went in the federal courtroom.
I told the truth.
[newsreader] Defense, "Do you recall
Mr. McMahon handing you steroids?"
Hulk replied, "Never."
I said he never sold me steroids.
I told the judge
it was just a carton of cigarettes.
"Give me a carton of cigarettes.
I'll pay you back." Just like that.
"Sometimes my steroids
were sent to the office,
and I picked it up with my fan mail."
He said yes, he took them, finally,
and said yes, it was of his own volition.
[reporter] A former wrestler
admitted publicly for the first time
that he used steroids for 13 years.
He basically sunk their case.
[reporter] After 2 days of deliberations,
the verdict, not guilty.
Hulk's testimony
definitely helped WWE's case.
[Hogan] Then the next thing you know,
on the courtroom steps,
the media hit Vince.
[reporter] Did you feel badly
Hogan testified against you?
Yes, when it's really tough to have
someone with whom you've worked with
to, uh, to take the stand
and tell certainly not the whole truth.
It looks like some kind of wrestling promo
that Vince cut outside the courthouse.
And it just blew me away
that he'd say that when I saved his ass.
We say in the WWE,
and it could very well be,
that the hunters soon will be the hunted.
Oh, really?
You know, you really want me
to tell the truth? Okay.
I know where the bodies are buried.
If it had been a day for vengeance,
I guess he would be getting out about now,
and I'd be owning the wrestling business.
[Greenberg] Clearly, there was
personal animosity between these guys.
Hogan had already left the company
to work for the competition.
Mr. McMahon is the winner.
Oh, man,
I couldn't wait to get down to WCW
and win that World Title.
Teach everybody a lesson
about who the man was.
[reporter] Outside court,
Hulk was tamer than usual.
Did Vince give you steroids?
[reporter] The only thing Hulk said,
"Watch my pay-per-view special."
He's American made ♪
[announcer] He's back! He's back!
He's got the red white and blue
Running through his veins ♪
He was born and raised
In the U.S. of A ♪
[Hogan] After the steroid trial,
I believe I got that respect
that I had lost back.
[announcer] The Hulkster is in the ring!
[Hogan] It seemed like a real good night.
My run wasn't over.
Vince apparently was wrong.
I was still hot.
American ♪
[commentator 1] The Hulkster
throws him on the buckle!
American ♪
[commentator 1] Down goes Flair.
Hulkster never looked better.
[commentator 2] I never thought
I'd see him back in the ring.
[commentator 1]
The Hulkster looks tremendous!
Great shape!
[commentator 2] Whoa! Did he drill him!
[music fades]
I don't mean to be mean,
but I do remember watching that match
and thinking
that this was an older Hulk Hogan.
[commentator 1] Come on,
squeeze that mustache right off his face!
[Rhodes] It was not the same Hogan
that body-slammed Andre the Giant.
By no means. It felt like it was
more of the winter of his career.
[crowd cheering]
Come on, baby.
[Shoemaker] It was just very tired to me.
As a kid, I'm like,
"What's wrong with him?"
"He's not the muscle-bound hero
he used to be."
-Three!
-[bell ringing]
[announcer] The good old days are back,
and believe me, Hulk Hogan,
congratulations.
You have done it again, my friend.
What a day!
Hulkster still rules! Whoo!
All right!
[Bischoff] The first three or four months
when Hogan arrived,
everybody was still so excited.
It was still… It's Hulk Hogan.
But all of a sudden, you started hearing
more boos.
[crowd booing]
Oh, really?
So you want to boo me?
Your hero?
Well, you know what?
What goes around comes around.
And there were signs out there.
I didn't bang on too much,
but I did see them.
-Negative signs out there.
-[interviewer] What did they say?
They said,
"Did you take your shot today?" Whatever.
Some smart-ass thing from some fans
that were trying to rile me up.
For such a long time,
people went crazy over him.
All of a sudden, he started to get
more boos, more boos. You know?
One night they love you,
one night they don't.
I know it hurt Hulk.
If you do that character for so long…
That's who Hulk Hogan is, you know?
[Linda] He was just that person.
He would get up,
take a shower, have his coffee.
-[Hogan] I've got shit to do.
-[Linda] Like what?
Find the stuff I'll need
for four days and for interviews
and get my headbands washed.
[Linda] Throw down what you need.
I'll be in in about 20 minutes.
All of a sudden,
it would just be like, "Woo."
All of a sudden, he was Hulk.
Look what I'm married to.
Yeah, yeah.
Come on. Go ahead and smile. You love it.
[Hogan] I wasn't happy.
I was out of it.
I didn't know what I was doing.
Didn't know who I was anymore.
[Linda] Can I see the blue eyes?
It was the end of an era
where you could have pure good guys.
And that character
had just run its course with the audience
because they were seeing
other cooler stuff.
We're going absolutely nowhere.
We do, however, have--
-Wait a minute.
-What?
Now look at this.
[propulsive music playing]
[Kevin Nash]
I'm not one of these fucking guys
that since I was seven years old,
I wanted to wrestle.
I watched this as a kid.
I thought it was fake as shit.
We got a ticket.
Came to see the big boys! [laughs]
[Nash] The reason I got in this business,
because I saw Hulk.
I thought,
"I'm a better athlete than him."
"I look better than him."
"If he can fucking do this
and make that money, I can."
[commentator] They moved him outside.
They've got baseball bats in their hands.
Ladies and gentlemen, never have we seen
or witnessed anything like this.
There won't be a hostile takeover of WCW.
You can't walk in and say you run things.
[Bischoff] There has never been
a wrestling storyline
that has come close to the nWo
because it blurred the lines
between what's real and not.
It was two guys,
Kevin Nash,
Scott Hall,
both of whom
had previously worked for WCW.
Because they felt like
they were disrespected,
they go to WWE, they become huge stars.
Say hello to Razor Ramon.
[Bischoff] So big that they decided
to come back to WCW
and make everybody pay.
[Nash] Yeah, where's Hogan? Where's Hogan?
Out doing another episode
of Blunder in Paradise?
I went, "Oh, wow."
"This is really interesting."
"This looks like somebody jumped the fence
and got in through the back door."
"This looks real. And they're coming in."
Oh, for cr-- Whoa.
[Shoemaker]
Hogan was watching Hall and Nash
and all the attention they were getting.
[crowd cheering]
You could imagine him saying,
"That should be me."
[commentator] Unbelievable!
[Hogan] It hit me like
I put my finger in a light socket.
The times were edgy.
People were tired of the good guys.
The milkshake men in the back of the yard
and all that milkshake crap.
They were ready
for some edgy Mack 10 stuff for life.
They were ready for some gangster stuff.
I went, "Okay. I think I get it now."
[crowd cheering]
[Bischoff] Bash at the Beach, 1996,
changed the wrestling business.
Completely changed it.
[Rhodes] So I was actually there as a kid,
and the energy in that building was…
It was so perfect
for what was about to happen.
[Bischoff]
I had never experienced anything like it
because it was just
such an emotional and sensory overload.
[crowd cheering]
It was better than a high.
I've done my share.
And this was like the best high
I've ever been on.
[commentator 1]
Hulk Hogan is here! Hulk Hogan's here!
Hulk Hogan is in the building!
[commentator 2] You're damn right he is!
[Bischoff] He wasn't announced.
Wasn't advertised.
We didn't know
'til he walked through the curtain.
[intense music playing]
[Bischoff] The audience was reacting.
They think their hero's coming down
to save the other hero, right?
[Shoemaker] We hated that Hulk Hogan.
That do-gooder, clinch-jaw face
that he had when he came to help Hart.
It's like, "He's coming
to put himself in the spotlight."
"Not, not this again."
[Hogan] You know,
between the whole steroid thing
and fans thinking
the red and yellow was dead,
I just flipped the script on 'em
and give them something
they'll never forget as long as they live.
[commentator 1] Hulk, Hulk, Hulk!
-[commentator 2] What has he done?
-[commentator 1] Oh my God!
[commentator 2]
What the hell is going on here?
[commentator 1]
Hulk Hogan has betrayed WCW!
[commentator 2]
You just sold your soul to the devil.
[Rhodes] There's a kid behind me,
and he asked
the simplest question to his dad.
He literally just said,
"Dad, why did he do that?"
He's a bad guy now.
[crowd booing]
[crowd] One, two, three!
[Nash] There's this moment of silence.
It doesn't take you long
before you realize
you're in a riot situation,
and they wanted to come
and pull you apart like the living dead.
[commentator 1] We got a fan coming in
to try to help matters out.
-[crowd exclaiming]
-[thudding]
[commentator 2] He didn't last long.
I felt like it was a classic case of…
innocence lost.
Hulk Hogan, excuse me, excuse me.
What in the world are you thinking?
Mean Gene, the first thing you need to do
is to tell these people to shut up
if you want to hear what I gotta say!
[Hogan] Then it got evil in there, man.
As soon as I saw
Mean Gene's nose get split open,
and I plugged into that crowd.
My mindset is to screw the audience.
All this crap in the ring
represents these fans out here.
I did everything for the charities.
I did everything for the kids.
And the reception I got
when I came out here,
you fans can stick it, brother.
There was parts of him that wanted
to let people know what he really thought.
It felt great.
There was so much heat. It was incredible.
I looked at people in the eyes,
at five feet away from me,
and they wanted to kill me.
They had blood coming out
of their eyeballs 'cause they were so mad.
I knew I could just rule.
I could rule the business.
This right here
is the future of wrestling!
You can call this the New World Order
of wrestling, brother.
What you gonna do? What are you gonna do?
Don't touch me.
I've got a fleet of lawyers.
I remember him saying like, "You know
all the red and yellow, good guy stuff?"
"That's out the window.
I'm a bad guy now."
[director] Here we go.
Can everybody see that? And…
[Linda] He was crazy.
[Hogan] Hulk doesn't work anymore.
He said, "Do I have any black,
patent leather boots? I have to go see."
So I go in his closet, dig around.
I'm like, "These?"
They're a hundred years old from 1965.
He's like, "Yeah, those."
You better get going.
[Hogan] I'm going.
I'm on time. I got two hours.
I give him my black leggings.
He's like, "Yeah, that's it."
Puts the belt around him.
I say, "That's it."
[announcer] Now,
he's turned his back on it all.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Hollywood Hogan!
[rock music playing]
[Shoemaker]
Nothing was ever the same after that.
If Hulk Hogan can turn heel,
then anything can happen.
Hulk was trying to fit
into this new world, this new society.
And it worked tremendously.
He has one of the greater changes
in all the history of our industry.
-My gosh.
-It flips everything.
[Hogan] I laid it out straight
for all those kids, brother.
They didn't want to follow the path,
so I'm done with them!
[Jake Roberts]
Hulkster was doing it out of anger.
He was the shit, you know.
He was the dude.
You piece of trash.
[Nick] You know, the cheap shots
and the dastardly evil type character,
like a Batman villain.
He wasn't afraid to break the rules.
You know, take over the announcer's table.
Is there any question now?
Who is the most powerful man
in professional wrestling?
[Rhodes] He's yelling at old ladies?
He's phenomenal.
["Who Made Who" by AC/DC playing]
[Hogan] I don't have to play by any rules
as Hollywood Hogan.
I can lie, cheat.
Lie to your face and get away with it
because I'm a bad guy.
Who made who? Who made you? ♪
If you made them and they made you
Who picked up the bill? ♪
Ooh, and who made who? ♪
You can't have that
without having the red and yellow.
You know, it's a juggling act here.
[Nick] That duality of, like,
the good guy turned bad.
Who turned the screw? ♪
It was the coolest thing he'd ever done.
[Linda] Nick is going
on his trip with his dad.
Can you zip this up?
-[Linda] This?
-Zip it up.
[Linda] So, you look so cute.
It's my absolute favorite,
favorite era of his career.
[Booker T] Hulk Hogan was changing
the mentality and the mindset of the fan,
the purity,
the good guy against the bad guy.
[commentator] Unbelievable!
[Booker T] And people gravitated to that.
Hold him up.
Who made you?
If you made them and they made you ♪
Who picked up the bill
And who made who? ♪
[Hogan] The more the crowd booed me,
the more evil I wanted to be.
Who made who? ♪
I'd take my belt off
and whip the good guys.
[imitates whipping]
[grunting]
[Hogan] The people were
just cheering me out of the building.
[Hart] Isn't that crazy? He's beating
people up, doing everything you can
to make people hate you,
and people loved him again.
[Hogan] It was like Hulkamania in '84.
That vibe was there, man.
I was up for another lightning bolt run.
[newsreader] Turner Broadcasting's
WCW Monday Night Nitro
has become one of the hottest two hours
of live programming each week on cable TV.
[Booker T] Everybody in the country
wanted to be a part of the nWo.
Who picked up the bill
And who made who? ♪
Well, it was so successful
it beat the WWE for 83 weeks.
Who made you? ♪
So, I ended up basically… showing
Vince McMahon that he was wrong.
And you know what?
Now I'm gonna wish
a happy birthday to me, brother.
To top this off, happy birthday, Linda.
The reason we're in a wrestling mode
tonight is because…
Put this over your shoulder.
That's so heavy.
We won the World Heavyweight Title
for what,
the sixth or seventh time, Brutus?
-[Brutus] Seventh.
-[Hogan] Seventh time.
I don't recall who he was wrestling, nWo…
All that stuff is a blur in my mind.
…the heavyweight title.
[Linda] I lost track
because we were so busy.
I had two kids out here.
[Hogan] When I was gone,
she handled everything.
She didn't need…
She didn't need me around.
They had him going more than anybody.
And Brooke maybe had a Christmas concert,
or Nick might have had a soccer game,
and he was out of town.
When he was home, something changed.
He just got kind of cold
and just wasn't really,
I don't know, not… not my soulmate.
I was just so unhappy.
I was just so lonely.
I was just by myself.
Well, it looks like it's gonna rain.
Very rainy day.
And I know it hurt the kids too,
because, gosh, "We want to be with Dad,
but we can't be with Dad
because everybody wants to be with Dad."
Y'all love this. This is life.
For life. Forever, baby.
That's our bag, baby.
There are some things
worth missing practice for, brother.
[laughter]
And that's definitely the nWo, brother.
[Booker T] They were partying,
rolling up in the limousines,
flaunting and flossing.
That's the way it was.
When you're getting older,
you still want to be young.
Yeah, I mean, you could really have
what's called a midlife crisis.
I think, perhaps,
he went through that midlife crisis.
I am God!
It happens to a lot of guys
that aren't ready to let it go.
But one thing
about, you know, Father Time,
it waits for no man.
Um, a couple things. Immediately post-op,
like tonight on the way home.
Um, for whatever reason,
I'm sure you've had surgeries before.
-No.
-No?
-No.
-Okay. That's good, I think.
-[laughs]
-Yeah. I don't know if it is or not now.
Yeah, well, you did a lot
for not having surgery.
[doctor] You wouldn't think an athlete
could do anything on that type of knee.
Obviously, he has a high pain tolerance.
[Hogan] The injuries were getting there.
They were getting there.
Because I blew my knee out
on January 23rd, '84,
when I wrestled the Sheik,
I had a knee that was blown
and needed to be fixed,
but I just kept working on it forever.
I lasted as long as I could
before I finally had my first scope job.
I know what I wanted to ask you.
-What about drinking alcohol afterward?
-[doctor] You're fine.
-I mean, tomorrow and stuff.
-[doctor] Yeah.
[Hogan] You know,
I'd been grinding since '77.
See, he let it go too long is the problem.
-[Linda] Was trying to be cool. It's not.
-[doctor] A matter of time.
[doctor 2] You the man.
That's what they used to say.
[whirring]
He couldn't wrestle the way he used to
because of his injuries.
He may have decided,
"I want to take some time off."
He'll explore the other opportunities
that come his way because he's Hulk Hogan.
This really helps me segue
into being the next president of the US.
[host] That's what I wanted.
The next president!
[Hogan] I had gotten so hot as a bad guy,
I decided I was gonna be
the president of the United States.
-[interviewer] Did you believe that?
-Yeah.
[Okerlund] Thank you.
That's a strong statement.
We can assume that's official.
-What party? I'm curious.
-You know something?
We are in heavy negotiations,
strategic meetings.
You could debate Gore and Bush on issues?
They'd have to bring me up to speed.
I remember him with balloons and boas,
running for president.
There's not a deeper storyline here.
Storyline-wise, it was me.
All I'd have to do is stand in the ring.
You're kidding, right?
No, I'm not kidding.
[Hart] Some of his ideas were
completely wacky and off the wall
and almost, like, delusional.
[Hogan] We really pushed hard
for about three months,
and then I backed out.
I just got scared. [chuckles]
Thought I might win.
I'm glad you're not coming into comedy.
Let me…
All of the chaos that was going on.
The finger wasn't on the pulse.
The foot wasn't on the gas.
It seemed like nobody was in control.
[Nash] If your deal is you're in charge,
and you got creative control,
God bless you, man.
Our job is to make sure
that we're as close to that as possible.
One of the things me and Hulk did
was called the Finger Poke of Doom.
We were in front of, like,
60,000 people in the Georgia Dome.
We're gonna have a match.
And you always knew
that, like, you were gonna get hit.
But we were two big, giant guys
that were beat to shit.
[bell ringing]
And I just heard him say, "Easy, brother."
"We already got their money."
["Va, pensiero" from Nabucco
by Giuseppe Verdi playing]
[commentator 1] What was that about?
-[referee] One, two, three.
-[commentator 1] What's going on there?
[bell ringing]
[Shoemaker] All you're doing at this point
is just sort of messing with it.
[commentator 2] What happened?
[Shoemaker]
If they don't take you seriously as a fan,
if they're not engaged with you,
you can't stay engaged with them.
The Finger Poke of Doom
was justifiably seen
as the moment
where it comes crashing down.
The audience was ready to give up
on Hogan and the WCW.
[reporter] Next week
begins a brand-new era.
WCW creative team
has a brand-new direction.
[Hogan] This Vince Russo guy came in.
And he was the new head writer at WCW.
You know, he stepped up.
He had a different attitude.
And I came really willing to do anything
I possibly could do to help this company.
He kicked it off the hinges.
Shut up, you old goats!
Everyone of youse!
Which one of you is passing the gas?
You people stink, you old bags!
He wanted to fire anybody over 40.
You're just too damn old!
[Russo] There were high-priced players
who didn't perform in the ring,
who went through the motions
and collected their paycheck,
laughing all the way to the bank.
[Hogan] This is gonna get ugly.
They started
the Viagra on the Pole matches.
Whoever wins gets the Viagra off the pole.
It was disrespectful.
It was really bad.
The old boy's management is over!
[Hogan] I was having problems.
[doctor] When you get done with surgery,
there's a real thin plastic bladder…
[Hogan] I know I'm not done yet.
Can I please get an autograph?
[woman] We're really
running behind tonight.
[Hogan] He did everything to basically see
if he could undermine what I had going.
[crowd exclaims]
[commentator]
The New Blood sending a message…
[Hogan] It was ugly. [chuckles] Oh yeah.
Russo was the poison,
the final nail in the coffin.
I want to go back to the beach.
[Russo] Hogue went the hell home,
and I promise everybody,
or else I'll go in the goddamn grave,
you will never see
that piece of shit again!
[crowd roars]
The harder they tried,
they faltered into the point
of the company no longer being profitable.
And the WCW
was put on the market for sale.
["Porpoise Song" by The Monkees playing]
I knew it was gonna crash and burn,
especially if I disappeared.
And Vince McMahon went in.
He bought it
for two and a half million bucks.
So it was pretty crazy.
Obviously, you all know
I have acquired WCW.
[crowd cheering]
That's right, I bought my competition.
[crowd cheering]
Mm.
My, my
The clock in the sky is pounding away ♪
There's so much to say… ♪
[Linda] He was in a slowdown period.
Just our family unit together.
Everything was at peace,
knowing Dad was home.
We gotta go.
An overdub has no choice ♪
[Linda] But something was off.
I could always sense it.
-Hey, Terry.
-Hey, Linda.
[Linda] Look at me.
-What's up?
-[Linda] Hi.
I'm pretty intuitive.
Terry, he's not gonna hide his mood.
You knew if he was in a good or bad mood.
It was kind of all the time
not a good mood.
But the porpoise is laughing… ♪
[Linda] We'd built a beautiful home,
and we had beautiful kids.
What else do you need?
I was trying to be
everything in the bedroom
and trying to stay looking young,
looking good, going to the gym,
and my body was good.
I thought, "What am I not doing that
he's still looking for something else?"
Ugh!
Jesus Christ.
But I was really married
to the Hulk character more than Terry.
And with that comes an ego.
Everybody knows
I'm the greatest wrestler in the world.
-I made Vince McMahon millions of dollars.
-[man] Folks, I need your attention.
-It's Linda's birthday!
-[Linda] Now, attention.
Hollywood Hogan was the man.
Still is to this day.
["Porpoise Song" continues to play
then fades gradually]
And when I left WCW,
I thought I was completely done.
[Linda] Uh-oh. It's Superman. Superman.
[Hogan] But then the phone rang,
and it was Vince McMahon.
And he goes, "I need you to come home."
I said, "I've heard that before."
[chuckles]
I said, "What's going on?"
He goes, "I need you because I know
how hot you are as Hollywood Hogan."
I said, "You finally admit it, huh?"
And Vince wanted me to wrestle
The Rock at WrestleMania.
[crowd cheering]
How do you feel about headlining
one more WrestleMania with The Rock?
[Hogan] I said,
"That's pretty darn interesting."
At that time, The Rock was on fire.
He hadn't made any movies yet,
but he was peaking
as far as his wrestling career.
If you smell…
[exclaims]
…what The Rock is cookin'.
People also tell me
I look like a sexy Rob Schneider.
[crowd cheers]
[Prichard] It was icon versus icon.
Hulk versus Rock.
And it was a natural.
It'll be a pleasure
to kick your ass at WrestleMania.
[Johnson] I was feeling
like I had accomplished
everything I wanted to accomplish
in wrestling.
And then the idea
of Hulk Hogan coming back,
it was the opportunity to create
something that was once in a lifetime.
[Hogan] Everything
is a calculated risk with me.
You can say,
"Do I have enough left for another run?"
Hulk Hogan is attacking midlife
with a headlock.
The superstar
is climbing back into the ring.
Going into WrestleMania X8,
I was hurt two weeks before, really bad.
They shot me up with five doses
of lidocaine during the day.
They shot me up with Toradol.
The doctor says, "You won't feel a thing."
Yeah, right. [chuckles]
[announcer] Welcome, ladies and gentlemen
around the world, to WrestleMania X8.
[heroic music plays]
[Rhodes] WrestleMania X8,
I will go on record, it's the greatest
WrestleMania match of all time.
It's the greatest match of all time.
[crowd cheering]
It's simple. It's a story of the old lion,
the young lion.
[Hogan] Two iconic wrestlers
during their generational run.
And with me stacking
multi-generations on top of my legacy.
[announcer] Many of the crowd
chanting for The Rock.
He was a big Hulkamaniac as a young man.
The place was erupting.
[crowd cheering loudly]
[epic music continues playing]
[Hogan] And I realized,
they're cheering me instead of him.
[Hart] They're supposed to love Rock.
Even Vince said,
"Hulk, they'll boo you tonight."
He said, "Okay."
[crowd exclaiming]
[crowd booing]
[Hogan] But as soon
as he started punching me, "Boo!"
[crowd booing]
[Shoemaker] Here's what's great
about the wrestling fans.
Any given night, anything can change.
[Hogan] The audience
is in total control, bro.
You surrender,
let the audience tell you what to do.
[crowd] Hogan! Hogan! Hogan!
It was a poetry in motion.
Even The Rock said
it's the greatest match he's ever had.
[Johnson] One of the most incredible
nights I've ever had in my career.
[commentator 1] He's gonna
beat The Rock! Oh my God!
-[referee] Two…
-[commentator 1] There's a two! And three!
The Brahma Bull kicked out!
Got his shoulder up.
There's a Rock drop.
There's a Rock Bottom on Hogan.
A hook of the leg.
-And this… Hogan kicked out!
-No!
-My God, Hogan kicked out.
-[commentator 2] Look at this!
[commentator 1] The Rock can't believe it.
[commentator 2] Wait a minute.
Is he gonna Hulk up JR? He is!
[commentator 1] Rock cannot believe it!
Every single soul in the entire building
was alive in that moment.
-[commentator 1] What'll you do, Rock?
-[commentator 2] Rock can't believe it!
[commentator 1] What are you gonna do?
[commentator 2]
And Hulk scores the right hand.
[crowd cheering]
[commentator 1]
Hogan’s setting The Rock up for the ride!
[Hogan] I felt like I slammed the Giant
and won the belt in Madison Square Garden.
You can see him so happy that,
"Hey, they're…"
"That's for me."
It's crazy because it was always for you.
We went on a ride with you.
[commentator 1] …at WrestleMania X8!
[cheering]
[commentator 1] He beat Andre the Giant
with that move! The leg is hooked and…
Oh my God! My God, The Rock kicked out!
[crowd cheering loudly]
[triumphant music playing]
[commentator 2] Hogan!
[commentator 1] He's held on, but Hogan…
[crowd cheering]
The Rock got the one, two, three
and beat me.
But I actually won the match
because it put me back on the map
in a major way.
[crowd cheering]
[triumphant music continues]
[Hogan] Right away, Vince goes,
"You need to put the red and yellow on."
All I remember is getting to Montreal,
reestablishing the red and yellow,
and getting some crazy standing ovation
for like 25 or 30 minutes.
[crowd cheering]
Oh, shit, that was great.
I mean, because it showed you
how the fans loved Hulk.
[crowd chanting] Hogan! Hogan! Hogan!
[Hogan] With that kind of stroke,
it kept me that I could hang out
as long as I wanted in the WWE.
The way I feel
with all my Hulkamaniacs out here,
when I'm in this very ring,
I'm in my own dream world,
my own fantasy world,
and I hope it never ends.
[crowd cheering]
[Greenberg] There's unfortunately
an insider term in professional wrestling
called "being a mark
for your own gimmick."
Is the camera rolling?
You're supposed to tell me.
You've been portraying
a character for so long
that you believe you are that character.
Is it art? Is it fakery? What is it?
[Hogan] Believe in the American dream,
that you can be somebody
if you want to be.
[Linda] The character was so strong
Terry somehow got lost along the trip.
I trusted in Hulk Hogan
to the promised land
and to a higher level.
There's nothing they can do to Hulk Hogan.
[court clerk] State your name.
Terry Gene Bollea.
[man] What is wrong with you?
[Hart] The reality show
was kind of a recipe for disaster.
[Hogan] It was just years and years
of craziness and drama.
Enough was enough!
If I could reset it
now that I know exactly how it ended,
I would change
everything to the end of WrestleMania X8.
[crowd chanting] Fuck you, Hogan!
Fuck you, Hogan!
There's your reality check.
["American Made" playing]
He's American-made ♪
He's got the red white and blue
Running through his veins ♪
He was born and raised
In the U.S. of A ♪
He's government inspected
He's U.S. grade ♪
If you mess with the flag
It's like a slap in his face ♪
-He's American-made ♪
-American ♪
-He's American-made ♪
-A real American ♪
-He's American-made ♪
-American ♪
He's American, 'merican, made ♪
He's got the stars and stripes
Running through his veins ♪
He was born and raised
The American way ♪
[music fades]