The Immortal Hulk Hogan: A Too Brief Look at The Career that Shaped an Industry

On July 24th, Terry Bollea, the man and wrestler who portrayed and popularized the character of Hulk Hogan in the WWF/E died. He was 71 years old, and rumors had previously been circulating about his health. There is nothing to say about Hogan that hasn't already been said, quite loudly, by himself or the laundry list of people who know him best. His legacy is a complicated one, but incredibly memorable and worthy of discussion for years to come. I believe that on the day somebody passes, you pay your respects or you say nothing at all. There is always time later on to discuss legacy. Others do not, and I respect and validate that opinion, noting now that whatever fans and coworkers are feeling about Hulk Hogan in 2025, he almost certainly earned that reaction through his actions.

Now, Hulk Hogan is inarguably one of the most important names in wrestling history. What that means to a person may vary wildly, but that stands as a fact. The WWE, under its equally controversial founder, Vince McMahon, set about disrupting the territory system and the broader media landscape. Like any movie or show, though, you need a star to put on the poster, and in the world of wrestling, that ended up being Hulk Hogan. Plucked from relative obscurity, he was, as he famously tried to say on live television, "the right guy, at the right place, and at the right time" to start a Hulkamania movement with the momentum to launch what is now a multi-billion dollar industry. A quick recap of the career and a retrospective look at the legacy he leaves behind.  

WWE marked the start of Hulk Hogan's rise

Before he was a wrestling icon and '80s pop culture lynchpin, he was just a gym guy with a look that made Lou "The Hulk" Ferrigno seem small. That was enough for Jack and Gerald Brisco to lobby The Hulkster to learn how to run the ropes. What followed was a year of training, and then, shockingly, a journeyman path through Japan and the territories, as well as an early heel run in the WWF for Vince McMahon Sr. It wasn't until 1983, when Hulkamania ran wild, that he became synonymous with the entertainment genre of professional wrestling. For the next 10 years, Hulk Hogan was on top. Vince McMahon Jr, the infamous one most folks know today, had all but handed him the keys to the castle by making him a singular force within the promotion.

The Hogan of this era stood for truth and justice. This was precisely what parents wanted to hear in the 1980s from their children's favorite athlete. His signature energy collided in sparks with every major name in the industry. It becomes obscured with time, but some legends made their name teaming with or opposing Hogan during this period, when wrestling was at its peak and Hulk was its golden boy. Multiple Royal Rumble wins back to back, a bona fide world champion, and the main character in the mega powers storyline, which still resonates with the fandom today. He rode this success into TV and movie roles that never really fit his over-the-top style and hulking size, the way wrestling did.

Creating a New World Order in Wrestling

Hogan joined WCW in 1994, but is best known for his heel turn and alliance with the New World Order (NWO) of Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. The epitome of cool in Nash and Hall met the carney spirit that birthed sports entertainment in a magical way that had no business working, but very much did. NWO was wrestling, and NWO was cool, which led thousands of young people, especially young men, to decide that wrestling was cool. The threat of a Hogan-led alternative kicked WWE into high gear, revamping their New Generation stars, including The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels, and Bret Hart, and building new stars, such as Mankind, Stone Cold, The Rock, and the McMahon-Helmsley dynasty.

If the basic tropes of sports entertainment can be traced back to Hogan's babyface run, then his time in the NWO gave wrestling an edge that has persisted in the branding, even as the product shifted away from gore and nudity. Hulk Hogan, even in the wild west of the mid-1990s, did not involve himself in stories like that. For everything WCW did wrong, NWO was always a wrestling angle even when it got so much bigger than that. Hollywood Hogan didn't just master the heel turn; he invented the modern wrestling angle, maintaining grit and edge without a TV-MA rating.

The "future endeavors" of Hulk Hogan

After WCW, Hulk Hogan made several returns to WWE, with each one being less impactful than the one before it. Hogan then became involved with an upstart promotion in TNA, which was initially viewed as a major coup for the new company, aiming to compete where WCW had failed. That TNA Impact is still around today may be in spite of Hulk Hogan, not because of him. When his time in WCW came to an end, he did what so many '80s stars were doing. He got a reality TV series called Hogan Knows Best and put his name, image, and likeness on anything he could think of.

It would be unfair at this juncture not to mention the scandal that rocked Hulk Hogan's fans 10 years ago. His repeated use of slurs and other inappropriate behavior in leaked videos and calls from 2007 and 2008 (both coming to light in 2015) became a sad reality in the post-wrestling era of Hulk Hogan, and portrayed a very different man from the one behind the mania that dominated the 80s and reshaped the industry in the 90s. The character inspired a generation, but the man took a far different approach.

Hulk and Terry, but can they coexist?

In wrestling, there is a trope, one that may have started with guys like the Ultimate Warrior and Hulk Hogan back in their prime. When two opposing forces of similar or equal stature are set to collide, they often must first coexist as a team. Sometimes they can, the simmering tension building before the big blow off. At other times, their animosity or lack of cohesion doom the stars to failure, and usually, a chaotic brawl ensues after the match is finished. The complex nature of the Hogan legacy comes from a similar place. The things that Terry Bollea said are not rendered okay by the character be brought into people's homes for decades. Likewise, the things Hulk Hogan did for wrestling, wrestlers, and fans do not disappear because of what Terry Bollea said.

In the feud between Hulk and Terry, it is not at all unfair to say that Bollea won. Using his character's fame, the man who claimed to be Hulk Hogan engaged in further schemes to enhance his fame and increase his power and wealth. This often came at a rejection of the values he had previously espoused to his fans. Still, he had shared those values loudly and proudly for decades. Real American bellowed out that you have to fight for the rights of every man. Vitamins and prayers may not be for everyone, but they are hardly objectionable and often sound advice. The stark shock in all of this, as Terry and Hulk became one, is that he still had the magic of kayfabe, he was the one guy for whom it still felt real, and seeing that beloved character join us in the real world away from the confines of the WWE Universe was never going to be easy even under favorable conditions.

Immortality

What does Hulk Hogan's passing mean for professional wrestling? Realistically, nothing now. He may have paved the road his contemporaries now traverse, but Terry Bollea left the path a long time ago for many fans and colleagues, ironically, 10 years to the day of his passing, to be exact. As the consensus continues to build amongst the "sides" online, as with so much of our world today, I want to set that aside and provide a fan's farewell to The Hulkster. Not as somebody who adores him, or as a person who cannot forget the things he said. This is just a fan of wrestling's perspective, for the character who built the business, of which I am a massive fan.

Hulk Hogan made wrestling real, even after he left his zenith for frankly sparse pastures. He had an uncanny carnival charisma that told you it was an illusion but dared you to try and prove it simultaneously. His energy was built on camp and chaos, all being taken as seriously as an eviction notice. That concoction is alive and well, pulsing through the product of every North American wrestling promotion on the planet. The way shows end, factions begin, alliances explode, and comebacks happen in a wrestling ring are all still viewed through the prism of Hulk Hogan. The industry doesn't need Hogan the man, because the myth and legend are the foundation by which the industry still stands. No one is immortal, and no one is perfect. He wasn't close to either. But Hulk Hogan is and always will be the spark of the industry, whose work remains ever present, even when the man was not welcome or wanted. As long as wrestling and the WWE live on, a part of Hulk Hogan truly is immortal, for all that is worth.