Hulk Hogan
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Hulk Hogan
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Hogan in 2014
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| Born |
Terry Gene Bollea
August 11, 1953 Augusta, Georgia, U.S.
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| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1976 (musician) 1977–2012 (wrestler) 1982–present (actor) |
| Spouses |
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| Children | Brooke Hogan Nick Hogan |
| Relatives | Horace Hogan (nephew) |
| Ring name(s) | Hollywood Hogan[1] Hollywood Hulk Hogan[2] Hulk Boulder[3] Hulk Hogan[4] Hulk Machine[5][2] Mr. America[2] Sterling Golden[6] Terry Boulder[2] The Super Destroyer[2] |
| Billed height | 6 ft 7 in (201 cm)[4] |
| Billed weight | 302 lb (137 kg)[4] |
| Billed from | Hollywood, California (as Hollywood Hogan) Venice Beach, California[4] (as Hulk Hogan) Washington, D.C. (as Mr. America)[7] |
| Trained by | Hiro Matsuda[2] |
| Debut | August 9, 1977 |
| Retired | January 27, 2012 |
| Website | hulkhogan |
Terry Gene Bollea[8][9] (/bəˈleɪə/; born August 11, 1953), better known by his ring name Hulk Hogan, is an American retired professional wrestler. He is signed to WWE as a brand ambassador. Known for his flamboyance and massive physique, and his trademark blond horseshoe moustache and bandanas, Hogan is widely regarded as the most recognized wrestling star worldwide, the most popular wrestler of the 1980s and one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time.[10][11]
Hogan began his professional wrestling career in 1977, but gained worldwide recognition after signing with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) in December 1983. There, his persona as a heroic all-American helped usher in the 1980s professional wrestling boom, where he headlined eight of the first nine editions of the WWF’s flagship annual event WrestleMania.[12] Hogan also was a regular headliner of Saturday Night’s Main Event and its spin-off The Main Event. During his initial run, he was a five-time WWF Champion, with his 1,474-day reign being the longest of the WrestleMania era ever. He is the first wrestler to win consecutive Royal Rumble matches, winning in 1990 and 1991. His match with André the Giant on WWF The Main Event on February 5, 1988, still holds American television viewership records for wrestling with a 15.2 Nielsen rating and 33 million viewers.[13]
In 1993, Hogan departed the WWF to pursue a career in film and television. He was lured back to the ring when he signed with rival promotion World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in 1994. He won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship six times, and holds the record for the longest reign. In 1996, he underwent a career renaissance upon adopting the villainous persona of “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan, leading the popular New World Order (nWo) stable.[14] As a result, he became a major figure during the “Monday Night War“, another boom of mainstream professional wrestling. He headlined WCW’s annual flagship event Starrcade three times (1994, 1996 and 1997) in which Starrcade 1997 was the most profitable WCW pay-per-view in the company’s history.[15]
Hogan returned to the WWF in 2002 following its acquisition of WCW the prior year, winning the Undisputed WWF Championship for his record equaling (for the time) sixth reign before departing in 2003. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005, and inducted a second time in 2020 as a member of the nWo.[16] Hogan also performed for the American Wrestling Association (AWA), where he headlined the inaugural AWA closed circuit supercard, Super Sunday in 1983, New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) – where he was the inaugural winner of the original IWGP Heavyweight Championship – and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA).[17][18][19]
During and after wrestling, Hogan had an extensive acting career, beginning with his 1982 role in Rocky III. He has starred in several films (including No Holds Barred, Suburban Commando and Mr. Nanny) and three television shows (Hogan Knows Best, Thunder in Paradise, and China, IL), as well as in Right Guard commercials and the video game, Hulk Hogan’s Main Event. He was the frontman for The Wrestling Boot Band, whose sole record, Hulk Rules, reached No. 12 on the Billboard Top Kid Audio chart in 1995.
Early life
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Hogan was born in Augusta, Georgia, on August 11, 1953,[2] the son of construction foreman Pietro “Peter” Bollea (December 6, 1913 – December 18, 2001) and homemaker and dance teacher Ruth V. (née Moody; 1922 – January 1, 2011). Bollea is of Italian, Panamanian, Scottish, and French descent;[20] his paternal grandfather also named Pietro was born in 1886 in Cigliano, Province of Vercelli.[21] Bollea had an older brother named Allan (1947–1986) who died at the age of 38 from a drug overdose.[22] When he was one and a half years old, his family moved to Port Tampa, Florida.[23] As a boy, he was a pitcher in Little League Baseball. Hogan attended Robinson High School.[24] He began watching professional wrestling at 16 years old. While in high school, he revered Dusty Rhodes,[25] and he regularly attended cards at the Tampa Sportatorium. It was at one of those wrestling cards where he first noticed Superstar Billy Graham and began looking to him for inspiration;[25] since he first saw Graham on TV,[25] Hogan wanted to match his “inhuman” look.[25]
Hogan was also a musician, spending a decade playing fretless bass guitar in several Florida-based rock bands.[1] He went on to study at Hillsborough Community College and the University of South Florida. After music gigs began to get in the way of his time in college, he dropped out of the University of South Florida.[26] Eventually, Hogan and two local musicians formed a band called Ruckus in 1976.[27] The band soon became popular in the Tampa Bay region.[27] During his spare time, Hogan worked out at Hector’s Gym in the Tampa Bay area, where he began lifting.[28] Many of the wrestlers who were competing in the Florida region visited the bars where Ruckus was performing.[25] Among those attending his performances were Jack and Gerald Brisco,[25] two brothers who wrestled together as a tag team in the Florida region.
Impressed by Hogan’s physical stature, the Brisco brothers asked Hiro Matsuda—the man who trained wrestlers working for Championship Wrestling from Florida (CWF)—to make him a potential trainee.[29] In 1976, the two brothers asked Hogan to try wrestling. Hogan eventually agreed.[30] At first, Mike Graham, the son of CWF promoter Eddie Graham, refused to put Hogan in the ring; according to Hogan, he met Graham while in high school and the two did not get along. After Hogan quit Ruckus and started telling people in town that he was going to be a wrestler,[31] Graham finally agreed to accept the Brisco Brothers’ request. During the first session in training, Matsuda broke Hogan’s leg. After 10 weeks of rehab, Hogan returned to train with Matsuda and blocked him when he tried to break his leg again.[32]
Professional wrestling career
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Early years (1977–1979)
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In mid-1977, after training for more than a year with Matsuda, the Brisco brothers dropped by Matsuda’s gym to see Hogan. During this visit, Jack Brisco handed Hogan a pair of wrestling boots and informed him that he was scheduled to wrestle his first match the following week.[33] In his professional wrestling debut, Eddie Graham booked him against Brian Blair in Fort Myers, Florida, on August 10, 1977, in CWF.[34][35] A short time later, Hogan donned a mask and assumed the persona of “The Super Destroyer”, a hooded character first played by Don Jardine and subsequently used by other wrestlers.
Hogan eventually could no longer work with Hiro Matsuda, whom he felt was an overbearing trainer, and left CWF. After declining an offer to wrestle for the Kansas City circuit, Hogan took a hiatus from wrestling and managed The Anchor club, a private club in Cocoa Beach, Florida, for a man named Whitey Bridges. Eventually, Whitey and Hogan became close friends, and opened a gym together; the gym became known as Whitey and Terry’s Olympic gym.[36]
Soon after, Hogan’s friend Ed Leslie (later known as Brutus Beefcake) came to Cocoa Beach to help Hogan and Bridges manage both the Anchor Club and the Whitey and Terry’s Olympic Gym. In his spare time, he and Leslie worked out in the gym together,[36] and eventually Beefcake developed a muscular physique. Hogan was impressed by Beefcake’s physical stature and became convinced that the two of them should wrestle together as tag team partners. Depressed and yearning to return to wrestling, Hogan called Superstar Billy Graham in 1978 with hopes that Graham could find him a job wrestling outside of Florida; Graham agreed and Hogan soon joined Louie Tillet’s Alabama territory. Hogan also convinced Leslie, who had yet to become a wrestler, to come with him and promised to teach him everything he knew about the sport.[37]
In Alabama, Hogan and Leslie wrestled as Terry and Ed Boulder, known as The Boulder Brothers. These early matches prompted a rumor among wrestling fans (who were not aware of the inner workings of the wrestling business) that the two really were brothers,[38] as few people actually knew their real names outside of immediate friends, family, and the various promoters the two worked for. After wrestling a show for Continental Wrestling Association (CWA) in Memphis, Jerry Jarrett, the promoter for the CWA, approached Hogan and Leslie and offered them a job in his promotion for $800 a week; this was far more than the $175 a week they would make working for Tillet.[39] Hogan and Leslie accepted this offer and left Tillet’s territory.[39]
During his time in Memphis, Hogan appeared on a local talk show, where he sat beside Lou Ferrigno, star of the television series The Incredible Hulk.[40] The host commented on how Hogan, who stood 6 ft 7 in (201 cm) and weighed 295 pounds with 24-inch biceps, actually dwarfed “The Hulk”. Watching the show backstage, Mary Jarrett noticed that Hogan was actually bigger than Ferrigno, who was well known at the time for having large muscles. As a result, Hogan began performing as Terry “The Hulk” Boulder[41] and sometimes wrestled as Sterling Golden.[1]
On December 1, 1979, Hogan won his first professional wrestling championship, the NWA Southeastern Heavyweight Championship (Northern Division), recognized in Alabama and Tennessee, when he defeated Bob Roop in Knoxville, Tennessee. He dropped it in January 1980 to Bob Armstrong. He briefly wrestled in the Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW) territory from September through December 1979 as Sterling Golden.
World Wrestling Federation (1979–1981)
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In the fall of 1979, former NWA World Heavyweight Champion Terry Funk introduced Bollea to the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) owner/promoter Vincent J. McMahon, who was impressed with his charisma and physical stature. McMahon, who wanted to use an Irish name, gave him the last name Hogan, and also wanted him to dye his hair red. Bollea claims his hair was already beginning to fall out by that time, and he refused to dye it, simply replying, “I’ll be a blond Irish”.[42] Bollea wrestled his first match in the WWF under the ring name “Hulk Hogan” by defeating Harry Valdez[43] on the November 17 episode of Championship Wrestling. He made his first appearance at Madison Square Garden on December 17, 1979, defeating Ted DiBiase after a bearhug.[44] After the match, Hogan thanked DiBiase for putting him over and told him that he “owed him one”, a favor he repaid during DiBiase’s second run with the company in the late 1980s and early 1990s as “The Million Dollar Man”.[45] McMahon gave Hogan former tag team champion Tony Altomare as chaperone and guide.[46] At this time, Hogan wrestled Bob Backlund for the WWF Championship,[47] and he started his first big feud with André the Giant, which culminated in a match with André at Shea Stadium in August 1980.[48] During his initial run as a villain in the WWF, Hogan was paired with “Classy” Freddie Blassie, himself a villainous wrestler-turned-manager.
New Japan Pro-Wrestling (1980–1985)
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In 1980, Hogan began appearing in New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) where Japanese wrestling fans nicknamed him “Ichiban” (一番, “Number One”). Hogan first appeared on May 13, 1980, while he was still with the WWF. He occasionally toured the country over the next few years, facing a wide variety of opponents ranging from Tatsumi Fujinami to Abdullah the Butcher. When competing in Japan, Hogan used a vastly different repertoire of wrestling moves, relying on more technical, traditional wrestling holds and maneuvers as opposed to the power-based, brawling style American fans became accustomed to seeing from him. In addition, Hogan used the Axe Bomber, a crooked arm lariat, as his finisher in Japan instead of the running leg drop that has been his standard finisher in America. Hogan still made appearances for the WWF, even unsuccessfully challenging Pedro Morales for the Intercontinental Championship on March 26, 1981.[49] On June 2, 1983, Hogan became the first International Wrestling Grand Prix (IWGP) tournament winner and the first holder of an early version of the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, defeating Antonio Inoki by knockout in the finals of a ten-man tournament.[50][51] Since then, this championship was defended annually against the winner of the IWGP League of the year until it was replaced by current IWGP Heavyweight Championship, that is defended regularly.[51]
Hogan and Inoki also worked as partners in Japan, winning the MSG (Madison Square Garden) Tag League tournament two years in a row: in 1982 and 1983. In 1984, Hogan returned to NJPW to wrestle Inoki to defend the early version of the IWGP title after that Inoki won in the finals of the IWGP League, becoming the new No. 1 contender to the championship.[51] Hogan lost the match and title belt by countout, thanks to interference from Riki Choshu. Hogan also defended his WWF World Heavyweight Championship against Seiji Sakaguchi and Fujinami, among others, until ending his tour in Nagoya on June 13 losing to Inoki via count-out in a championship match for the early version of the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. Hogan was the only challenger in the history of that title that didn’t win the tournament to become the No. 1 contender to the championship.[52]