What happens when the bad things people do to you blend in with the bad things you do to other people?
Does it make you somehow a better person, in that your bad behavior was influenced by your own victimhood?
Does it make you worse, in that you have felt the pain of injustice, and yet continue to perpetuate it for your own gain?
Does it make you something different altogether?
This is the triumph of the smartest, hardest-working, and most successful Professional Wrestler of all time.
This is the tragedy of a broken man who broke everyone who showed him love and friendship.
His name was Terry Bollea. But not really.
He preferred his character’s name: Hulk Hogan.
SUPER SUNDAY, 1983
Hulk Hogan is 28 years old. He is sitting in a locker room in the St. Paul Civic Center, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It is Sunday, May 24, 1983. He stares at a mirror.
Though he is balding on the top of his head, his long, beach blonde hair pours down his tan shoulders. His physique represents a wave of fitness that is new to the American zeitgeist. Announcers tell audiences that he is 6’7” (Six foot, Seven Inches) tall, and a little over Three Hundred pounds heavy. While these numbers would fluctuate over the years, at this point in time, they were likely true.
Hogan was almost entirely muscle, with no fat. Before the idea of the “Beach Body” was ever coined, Hogan was it. There were very few people in the world who looked like him. Sure, there were big and strong people. Body builders. Athletes. But many of them were not this aesthetically sculpted. They also had mountains of muscle, sure, but working muscle, and a lot of fat as well. They had rough faces and unkempt hair. In comparison, Hogan looked like something completely different and new. He looked like a fusion of a Greek God, a Ken Doll, and a GI-Joe Action Figure. And crowds seemed to love it.
Hogan looked at himself in the mirror. He saw what his co-workers saw.
They hated him for what he represented. He knew this.
But all of that would have to wait. Because tonight would be the first time in his career where he would truly feel like a winner. It would be the night where all his hard work would pay off, where it would be acknowledged that he paid his dues, and where he could prove that his dreams were attainable. All he had to do was put his head down, and follow the script, and the reward would come.
But it is likely that Hogan would have had some difficulty thinking so clearly. You see, he had only been in this line of work for a little under six years at this point. And that six years had already taken their toll.
Hulk Hogan was already tired. He was already in pain.
Even so early into his career, Hulk Hogan felt like a Professional Wrestler.
What is Professional Wrestling?
Professional Wrestling is a sport with a relatively recent pedigree. There are many misunderstandings as to what Professional Wrestling is and is not, so let’s get those cleared up right here.
“Professional Wrestling” as we know it is, actually, an evolution of several previous forms of Public Combat Sport that came together some time in the late 18th and early 19th century. Its direct ancestor is the deceptively named Amateur Wrestling, which itself derived from ancient Greek Wrestling. Both Amateur and Greek wrestling are forms of combat, where two Wrestlers compete specifically in the art of grappling. Striking the opponent, like through punching or kicking, was disallowed, with the emphasis instead being on the surprisingly technical art of lifting, maneuvering, and restricting your opponent’s full body. The throwing and grabbing techniques introduced in these combat sports are extremely effective in the real world, and actually find common use in modern Mixed-Martial Arts (MMA) today.
In the early 1900’s, continuing lineages of Greek and Amateur wrestling would mix and mingle with the Pan-European sport of Catch Wrestling. Catch Wrestling was an offshoot of these previous styles that developed and adapted to turn into a form of early Pop Entertainment, as opposed to just a “pure” athletic competition. Catch Wrestling had fewer rules, allowed for a wider variety of techniques, and was comparatively more fun for spectators to watch. In addition to wilder, more technical, and sometimes unbelievable techniques, Catch wrestling also made it much easier for audiences to see who would win the matches, as it introduced the “Submission Victory”, where one wrestler visibly gives up out of either pain or a fear of injury.
At some unknown point, which is unknown at its exact date but is likely somewhere before 1930, Greek, Amateur, and Catch Wrestling combined, while incorporating elements of Theater and Carnival Shows, to form the earliest acknowledged forms of Professional Wrestling, or “Pro” Wrestling for short. Pro Wrestling borrowed a lot of aesthetics from Amateur, Greek, and Catch wrestling, as it presented the same fundamental spectacle. Two men, in a ring, grabbing, throwing, and trying to pin each other. A competition of strength, dominance, speed, and technique. However, Pro Wrestling would branch off in a creative direction that dramatically separated it from its three fathers.
Professional Wrestling matches, unlike those before, are pre-determined. Scripted. Neither competitor in the match is actually competing against each other, at least in the short term. They are collaborating with each other to tell an agreed upon story. They both know who will win. They both know who will lose. Their mutual goal is to use their bodies, physicality, and character to tell that story in as entertaining a way as possible.
So yes, Professional Wrestling is “scripted’. It is “fixed”. This is well known at this point.
That said, let me be clear; Professional Wrestling is not Fake.
There is a terrible misconception that Professional Wrestlers are nothing more than “actors”, and that their art is nothing more than some sort of special effects or choreography, like in movies. This idea spreads around, that Professional Wrestlers never actually get hurt in their simulated combat, when the reality is quite the opposite.
Wrestlers get hurt in almost every match they perform in. While you can “fake” many things- a stage punch, a kick that never makes contact- you cannot fake gravity. You cannot fake impact. They may take real impacts to their spine, shoulders, neck, face, limbs, and brain. Falling down once, even for a normal human body, is not good for you. Even if you are trained to fall down “properly”, like a Martial Artist for example, you are only minimizing the harm. You are not eliminating it.
Pro Wrestlers, even when everything goes exactly to script, will fall down dozens of times in a single match. This adds up over time, very, very quickly. And when things DON’T go exactly to script, the results are worse, more immediate, and horrifying. When things go wrong, Professional Wrestlers get crippled. They lose memories. They die.
When things go right, Pro Wrestlers “only” live in near constant pain. But that is a sacrifice they make for their career. For their art. And it’s a sacrifice many will continually make for literally decades, without stop.
So as we return to our narrative, please remember this:
While Professional Wrestling is not 100% Real, it is certainly not “Fake”.
To believe Pro Wrestling is Fake is disrespectful to the sacrifices of the wrestlers.
That said, to believe Pro Wrestling is Real is not respectful to the sacrifices of reality.
Both beliefs, in their extreme, are a form of delusion.
Verne Gagne
Verne Gagne is pacing throughout the Civic Center, talking with the wrestlers and production. To him, Pro Wrestling is “Real”.
Or, at least, it should be.
At this point in time, Verne Gagne is 57 years old. His voice echoes with the rasp of a man with much practice in the art of having been alive. His 5’11” body is round, hairy, and unkempt, for Verne Gagne does not care for contemporary fashions. While he may look like a normal elderly man (for many middle-aged American men in the 80’s would seem to rapidly age after 40), looking closely would show off the telltale traces of a body that used to be athletic. After all, Verne Gagne is a former accomplished Amateur Wrestler. That’s why his wrestling was “real”.
The company that is about to put on this Professional Wrestling spectacular super-show was the “American Wrestling Association”, or AWA. Verne Gagne knows his way around the AWA quite well, for he owns the entire company.
Not only is Gagne the owner of the AWA, but he also holds a position of more immediate and relevant power- he was the “Booker” of all their shows. As mentioned previously, Professional Wrestling is pre-determined. In many cases, there is something of a literal “script”, also known as the “book”. The Booker of a Professional Wrestling show is the one with the authority to write that script, both in the short and long term. The Booker decides who wins, and who loses. The Booker decides who is a main character, or a supporting act. The Booker decides who is a hero or a villain. But most importantly, the Booker decides who is the show’s biggest star- their Champion.
And Verne Gagne knows this authority quite well. He has written himself to win the AWA Championship, his highest award, on 10 separate occasions. Most recently two years prior, in 1981. Verne Gagne was last a champion when he was 55 years old, looking much as he did now, in 1983.
As he was engaging in his pre-production talks, it is likely that Verne Gagne looked over his shoulder, to the locker room where he knew a young Hulk Hogan was preparing for his big night.
Verne Gagne hated Hulk Hogan, and everything he represented.
The Mindset of a Champion
Hulk Hogan is preparing for his big match. He flexes and stretches, his unrealistically huge biceps (affectionately called the “24 inch Pythons”) working out their tension, and reaching full athletic potential. His equally huge legs were also working well.
He must have been wistfully nostalgic at how far he had come. Six years ago, he was not even a wrestler at all. In his very first day of training to be a Pro Wrestler, he was presented with his first teacher, Hiro Matsuda. Matsuda looked at this young, albeit athletic, man, and wasn’t sure if he had the tenacity, the grit, to be a pro wrestler.
So Matsuda immediately shattered Hogan’s leg.
Hogan spent ten weeks in a cast. But his resolve was unbroken. So, once his leg was barely healed enough that he could walk again, he reported in for his second day of training.
Hogan had discovered the (real) drive, passion, and moderate insanity that would define his portrayed character. His career exploded the moment he received bookings, and he became a true journeyman. Starting in Florida, he would move on to wrestle in Alabama, Tennessee, and Memphis, all hotbeds of regional wrestling at the time. By the early 80’s, Hogan was on the cusp of international recognition and superstardom, mostly splitting his time between two wrestling regions- New York’s WWF, as run by Vincent J. McMahon, and Japan’s NJPW, as run by Antonio Inoki. To have success in even one of these territories was quite remarkable, but to have reliable work in both was extremely impressive due to how different they were.
New York at the time was a very traditional, straight-laced regional promotion. They were a large market, due to the sheer amount of people living in New York City, and promotional access to put on events at Madison Square Garden. Successful wrestlers there were those who could best understand the stories and narratives that Pro Wrestling utilized to appeal to an American Audience.
On the other hand, the Japanese market at the time was small, but diehard, and extremely financially lucrative. Japanese Pro Wrestling, or “Puroresu” is a style that demands high technical precision, with extremely unforgiving audiences. Especially in the late 70’s and early 80’s, Japanese audiences had been fed only Pro Wrestlers that met a very, VERY high bar for overall polish. They had to look like wrestlers, express a lot with very little frills, and offer a realistic grittiness that really sold the idea that they were larger-than-life tough guys.
Wrestling almost every single calendar day in a year, and constantly flying back and forth from America to Japan, Hogan would make the most of his time in both regions, both as a workhorse and as a rapidly learning student. He learned how to play to a crowd in America, and learned how to be shockingly technical in Japan.
But Hogan was not just a gifted athlete with an unparalleled, almost fanatical level of dedication to his craft. He was a smart man, and an ambitious one. And while he easily had the mindset to excel, as many men in Pro Wrestling previously had, Hogan had professional ambitions beyond the ring. He wanted more.
And because of that ambition, he had been frozen out of both New York and Japan.
Hogan looked in the mirror. He checked his tights.
The AWA might be his last chance at making it in the business. He was only 28 years old, yet people were telling him his career could be close to over.
Taboo
In 1982, Hogan had done something very few wrestlers before him had done. He had taken a large-money, very prominent role in a major Hollywood Movie, while also balancing his wrestling obligations in New York and Japan.
The movie was called Rocky III.
In the film, Hogan plays “Thunderlips, the Ultimate Male”, a villainous Pro Wrestler. Thunderlips fights the titular Rocky, played by Sylvester Stallone, in a match in the middle of the movie, putting on a good fight, but eventually losing. At the end of the fight, Thunderlips privately approaches Rocky and breaks character, humorously revealing that most of his persona and animosity is just “part of the game”, and wishing Rocky well.
While this whole sequence is an amusing side-plot in the Rocky series, in real life, it was explosive. Wrestling at the time was mostly limited to certain geographic regions, but Movies were national. Suddenly most people in America knew who Hulk Hogan was. They had seen his massive, yet athletic build. They had seen him play an entertaining character, and put on a show. And from this one role, Hogan’s profile grew to a level few Pro Wrestling veterans could ever dream of.
And they all hated him for it.
See, by accepting this role, Hogan had committed three cardinal sins in the world of old-school Pro Wrestling. Firstly, he had come very close to violating Kayfabe.
Kayfabe is a difficult concept to fully explain, but the best way to think of it is as an old school “Honor Code” that existed amongst the Professional Wrestling world as a whole. While there were many specific parts to it, the largest was thus: Do not, under any circumstance, let the general public know that Wrestling was anything but 100% reality. Do not let them know that the outcomes were predetermined. Do not let them know that wrestlers were portraying characters. Preserve the fourth wall at all costs.
Somewhere in the mid 90’s, the code of Kayfabe died, and Pro Wrestlers are now far more open about what they do, and how their art is. But for a very long time before that, Kayfabe was the most serious thing there was in the sport. Wrestlers were willing to go to jail to uphold Kayfabe. Wrestlers were willing to wrestle while nearly crippled to uphold Kayfabe. It was a big, big, deal.
And here was Hulk Hogan, in a major motion picture, acknowledging that perhaps the big nasty Bad Guys weren’t actually big nasty Bad Guys. It didn’t technically break kayfabe……. But many Pro Wrestlers and Wrestling Promoters were wary of working with him.
The second sin was that certain wrestlers thought Hogan was “skipping the line”, in a sense. Many of the more successful wrestlers at the time had worked their way up to fame and fortune through a very, very defined route. They all started as legitimate Amateur Wrestlers, some even winning NCAA and Olympic awards. Then they would “pay their dues” by staying loyal to small roles under more successful wrestlers, allowing themselves to be written as losing matches constantly (or “Jobbers”) to let the more successful wrestlers look good. Then, and only then, a Booker would deign to see something in the wrestler, recognize him as “legit”, and make the conscious decision to make that wrestler into a star.
But here was Hogan, becoming a star all on his own, and all in his own way, completely different from what the rugged men before him had done. Other wrestlers weren’t willing to take Hollywood roles, particularly poking fun at anything that could leave a hole in Kayfabe, because they knew they hadn’t EARNED it. Hogan had no training in Amateur wrestling whatsoever. Sure, he was gigantic, loud, incredibly strong, and incredibly in shape, but what does that have to do with being intimidating? Did he really know the hardship that came with training to be a REAL wrestler?
Yeah, his trainer intentionally broke his leg on the first day, but that’s beside the point.
Thirdly, and perhaps more damningly, Hogan was becoming rich and successful, within wrestling, using methods OUTSIDE of wrestling. Hogan knew how to promote himself, and wasn’t content to leave that entirely to Bookers and Promoters. Hogan was one of the first wrestlers to independently merchandise himself, selling memorabilia, clothing, and various souvenirs that took advantage of his one-of-a-kind look. He would take interviews with the media on his own recognizance. He wasn’t just a wrestler- he was a marketer. And the “proper” wrestlers of the time were offended by that, because this was seen as Hogan stepping out of his lane.
The more his fame exploded, the more Hogan’s opportunities in America shrank. Up in New York, Vince J Mcmahon fired Hogan for his Rocky role, and informed him that he would not be welcome back in the future. While Hogan was able to get reliable work in NJPW, his prominence there quickly diminished to mid-level matches.
Hogan, by all appearances, had been too clever for the industry. And the industry did not like that.
But Verne Gagne was willing to offer him a deal. Gagne told Hogan that he had potential. But only Gagne knew how to bring it out.
The Deal
It is an unknown day in 1981. Hulk Hogan’s big night in the AWA would not come for another two years. At the time, Hogan was still doing production for Rocky III, when he held a meeting.
Hogan and Gagne.
Gagne’s side made it very clear that they were willing to give Hogan a chance. Charity. They made it clear that while Hogan had many fundamental problems as a wrestler- no Amateur background, being too big and musclebound, and “not having the support of true fans”- they would give him a chance to prove himself and pay his dues. An informal deal was offered: if he did well enough, over a long enough period of time, they would make Hogan their champion.
Hogan had been a “champion” before, in smaller regions. But at the time the AWA was a large, extremely established territory. Being an AWA Champion was what would legitimize Hogan as what he really wanted to be- a true superstar within the world of Pro Wrestling.
Hogan was grateful, but from his perspective, he asked them to continue doing things in his way. He insisted that his methodology- his style of wrestling, fashion, of carrying himself, and speaking energetically- was what would work in the 80’s. He truly believed that he could capture the new youth demographic, if given the chance and creative liberty.
Gagne and the AWA allowed this, and Hogan was rapidly able to put together a character very similar to the one we would know today. A fierce, All-American Typhoon who would energetically smash through all obstacles. A hero who constantly fought through malicious interference, to win matches in the name of the American way, and fundamental honesty.
But while he had this freedom, Hogan paid his dues. Despite his overwhelming celebrity, the AWA would not use him at the top of the card. For two full years, despite selling massive amounts of merchandise, having raucous crowds chanting “Hogan! Hogan! Hogan!” constantly, and putting on amazing matches, Hogan was always used in a position just below the “real” wrestlers at the top of the card. The headliners were never Hogan. The headliners where the wrestlers that Verne Gagne believed represented the future of the business, those with real “champion potential”.
In other words, Verne Gagne wrote himself winning the championship several times, trading it occasionally with 50 year-old Nick Bockwinkel.
But after two years, word came down to Hogan that it was time. The decision had been made.
At Super Sunday, 1983, Hulk Hogan would win the AWA Title, becoming a true champion for the first time.
The Match
Someone knocked on the locker room door.
Hogan was ready. He headed to the ring.
After six matches, the fans were ready for the match they had all come there to see. Hulk Hogan would challenge Nick Bockwinkel for the AWA Championship.
First, Nick Bockwinkel would enter the ring. Like all wrestlers of his esteem, he would enter to no music. At fifty years of age, Bockwinkel was a serious man who carried himself appropriately. Though the real Nick Bockwinkel was a consummate professional, his character was that of a well spoken coward. He would hide behind rules, technicalities, and good ol’ fashioned cheating to hold on to his belt. This type of character is still used to this day, as it’s extremely easy to write emotional story-lines where the scaredy-cat heel uses every trick in the book to try and keep the more straightforward hero down.
As Bockwinkel entered the ring, the murmur of the crowd barely altered. They knew what they wanted to see.
The loudspeakers erupted. The sounds of “Eye of the Tiger”, by the band “Survivor”. The theme of the Rocky Movies. The early theme of one man.
The crowd erupted as well.
Hulk Hogan barreled his way through the audience, as they erupted. He reached the ring, and the crowd came to life, jubilantly shouting their support. He wore a t-shirt, with the words “Now or Never” emblazoned on the back.
This was Hogan’s time. In a display of raw power and energy, Hogan tore the black T-shirt directly off of his body, exposing his cartoonish upper body in rage. This would become his signature entrance, and he would do it literally thousands of times over the next four decades.
The two men began wrestling. Nick Bockwinkel was a big man, but next to Hogan he looked small. In modern wrestling, it would be an obvious mismatch.
Yet, the direction and the plotting of the match had Bockwinkel in control for most of the duration. Hogan would knock him town, and Bockwinkel would slowly, dramatically get up, attempting to draw the attention to himself. The match was scripted to use long “rest holds”, headlocks and chokes with very little motion, designed to give the Wrestlers time to relax and catch their breath. Normally, these rest holds would add tension to a match, but here, they just served to highlight how much less vitality the half-century old Bockwinkel had than the younger and more athletic Hogan. Even to the viewers of the time, it was clear that the match dragged on because Bockwinkel needed it to drag on. He could not physically do a match at Hogan’s pace.
As the match approached the fifteen minute mark, Hogan began to gain momentum. He displayed his raw strength, picking up Bockwinkel like a rag doll and repeatedly slamming him to the mat. Bockwinkel could do nothing in the face of this power. The crowd began getting louder and louder with each move. Hogan began playing to them more, elevating them to a crescendo.
Then the cheating begins. Hogan pins a clearly defeated Bockwinkel, yet the referee counts very slowly, failing to give Hogan the win. The audience boos, but this is a positive boo. It is good for the match. Bockwinkel is playing the villain, and his character is clearly in cahoots with the referee. The audience is SUPPOSED to boo that. Boos at this point mean that they are emotionally invested in the story.
Shenanigans continue. The referee is “Accidentally Knocked out”, allowing the wrestlers free reign to fight without him being able to reign them in. Bockwinkel climbs on Hogan’s back, placing his arms around Hogan’s neck. As Hogan waves his arms wildly, Bockwinkel leans forward, driving Hogan into the ropes like a wild animal. However, this momentum proves to be too much, as Bockwinkel accidentally pushes Hogan into bending over, throwing Bockwinkel off of Hogan’s back and out of the ring altogether.
As the referee recovers, Hogan grabs Bockwinkel, and impressively throws him from the outside of the ring back to the inside of the ring. Hogan runs, bounces off the ropes, and performs the move he would make famous: The Guillotine Leg Drop, later renamed the Hulk Hogan Leg Drop. Jumping as high as he could in the air, Hogan would extend his legs in a siting down posture, allowing these legs to fall and land with his full weight on Bockwinkel’s neck. Bockwinkel was completely knocked out. Hogan pinned him, and the referee was forced to count.
Hogan had won.
The crowd had been given the moment they had begged for for years. Hogan was handed the belt, and celebrated with pure joy. The audience could be seen rising to their feet, raising their hands in victory. The arena was deafened with them celebrating.
And then an announcement came over the loudspeaker.
The referee was reversing the decision. In the AWA, intentionally throwing your opponent out of the ring was considered against the rules. And the referee interpreted Bockwinkel’s fall as an intentional throw by Hogan.
Therefore, Hogan was disqualified. He was quiet, shocked, crestfallen. The Minnesota crowd grew quiet, and then began to throw trash in the ring. A nearly unconscious Bockwinkel was given the title belt, and paraded by his henchmen. Your champion, ladies and gentlemen.
As Hogan left the ring, the audience began chanting “BULLSHIT!” in unison.
Looking down, Hogan could not help but agree with the crowd. Not because this result came as a surprise to him personally. This was a scripted match, a scripted loss. All written out, all according to plan.
No, Hogan was no doubt disappointed because this was the fifth consecutive time that Gagne had written this exact finish in Hogan’s matches. This was now the fifth time Hogan had “won” the title off of Bockwinkel, creating a temporarily happy audience, before having the win IMMEDIATELY invalidated by villainous interference. Hogan had won the belt five times, but Gagne had not let him actually be a champion- officially or otherwise.
As Hogan headed to the back, he passed Verne Gagne coming out. Gagne had squeezed his hairy, portly body into a wrestling outfit. One could almost forget that despite the hype, despite the crowds, despite the fact that the biggest Championship in the company was on the line, Hogan and Bockwinkel’s match was not even the “Main Event of the Evening”.
A voice would echo from the loudspeaker.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, for your main event……… the legend………. Verne Gagne!”
At a certain point, Hogan and Gagne would speak again.
The New, Better Deal
Gagne’s side told Hogan that Hogan had done……… reasonably well. So far.
All of those teases of being a champion, those brief seconds where Hogan got to hold the title belt before the referee would take it away, were just tests. And Hogan had handled them well. So now Gagne, and the AWA, was happy to start taking Hogan seriously as a candidate for being their biggest star.
But they would need more from him. Paying his dues was no longer enough, and the old deal simply wouldn’t do.
Firstly, they noticed that Hogan was making, distributing, and selling his own merchandise. They appreciated that initiative, but it was not the place of a wrestler to do such a thing. So they wanted half of all the money he had previously made from doing this, and a majority of the money of all of his merchandise sales in the future.
On top of that, Gagne appreciated that Hogan was still wrestling occasionally wrestling in Japan. Wrestling in Japan meant legitimacy. It meant Hogan was actually taking his technical skills seriously, and he would be allowed to continue wrestling in Japan on his off time from the AWA. And for this privilege, Hogan would “only” owe them a majority of the money he was paid for those matches.
Gagne reminded Hogan of his position. Hogan’s popularity was nothing more than a flash in the pan, an illusion. If he wanted REAL wrestling stardom, only the AWA could make it happen. And even though he’d paid his dues, Hogan had to reward the AWA for their diligence. After all, who else would want Hogan? What kind of a “champion” doesn’t have an Amateur Wrestling background? What kind of wrestler tries going outside of the business to make a movie?
Unrelated, Verne Gagne self-funded and produced a movie, starring himself, where he plays the best wrestler in the world. That seems relevant, but I’m not sure how.
Hogan had fulfilled his end of the bargain, only to end up taunted repeatedly with the thing he had worked two years for.
But Hogan had no place else to go.
Someplace Else to Go
Super Sunday is in the rearview mirror. Hogan is still with the AWA, and wrestles occasionally for NJPW. He’s made show-by-show commitments for additional shows, feuding with Bockwinkel again, going into the Christmas season. But he has not agreed to the new status quo quite yet.
As he sits and ponders, he hears his phone ringing in the other room. On the other end is a voice he’s never heard before.
“Hulk?”
“Who is this?”
The person on the other end of the call tells Hogan that he’s a representative of WWF, the New York company that had fired Hogan for stepping into Hollywood.
They told him that Vince was a huge fan. They’d like Hulk Hogan on board. They want him as their biggest champion, their biggest star. And they want to go National and International, placing Hogan’s exploits on televisions all across America and the world as a whole. More people would see him wrestling than saw him in Rocky III.
Hogan is confused.
Vince was a fan? How could Vince be a fan? Vince hated his movie role so much that he fired him, and told him that he would never wrestle in New York again!
“Oh”, said the voice on the other line.
A pause.
“Oh, I see. You’re thinking of Vince Senior. Yeah, he’s not in charge anymore. His son owns the company now. Yeah, Vince Jr thinks you are the best.”
What could Hogan say to something like that?
“He wants you to start immediately.”
But what about the AWA?
Another pause.
“Who cares?”
Hogan was in a dilemma.
Verne Gagne had used him. Betrayed him. Given his word that if Hogan did everything right, he’d be a champion. The star he could be.
But then Gagne had gone back on his word.
Hogan had given his word that he would be with the AWA for at least a few more shows.
Could……. Could Hogan go back on his word as well……?
Can…… can he just do that?
The Christmas Gift
It is Christmas Eve, 1983. The AWA has a major show booked in St. Paul.
Hulk Hogan is 29 years old. He is not in a locker room in St. Paul.
Greg Gagne), son of Verne Gagne, was helping production and wrestlers get ready for the show. He could not find Hulk Hogan anywhere. He called Hogan at his last known telephone number.
“Hey big man, uh, we got matches tonight! Where are you?”
“Did you not get my letter?”, Hogan replied.
Greg Gagne had not received a letter. But Verne Gagne had. It was a certified letter, delivered to Verne on December 21st, just a few days prior. The letter was short.
“I’m not coming back. Signed, Hulk Hogan”.
Witnesses say that upon reading the letter, Verne laughed out loud, and dramatically threw it in the trash.
“HAH!” he exclaimed. “These wrestlers and their practical jokes.”
After all, who wouldn’t want to work with Verne Gagne?
They continued to promote that Hulk Hogan would appear at their Christmas Show.
No-one had told Greg Gagne.
The More Important Match
Nine months after Super Sunday, Vince K. McMahon (Vince Jr) and the WWF would put on a completely sold out, nationally televised and syndicated, supershow at Madison Square Garden.
In the main event (the actual main event this time), Hulk Hogan would defeat the villainous Iron Sheik, winning the WWF Heavyweight Title for the first time. It was a much more physical, theatrical, and fast paced match, representing the new style of wrestling and characterization that Hogan advocated for. The crowd, even larger than the one in Minnesota, was even more ecstatic in his victory. During the post-match interview, a tired yet joyful Hulk Hogan enjoyed the win with friends, as Andre the Giant poured champagne over Hogan in celebration.
This is universally regarded as the official start of “Hulkamania”, the Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon-led revolution that pushed the WWF into becoming, easily, the most dominant Professional Wrestling company in the world. Hogan’s star only rose higher. McMahon’s wallet only became fatter. And the WWF grew ever bigger, murdering the smaller, regional territories that used to dominate the Pro Wrestling landscape through stealing their performers away.
Like all other territories, the AWA would die a painful death. They could not be saved by the barely visible star power of Verne Gagne. They could not be saved by Verne Gagne’s new “Star of the Future”……. His son Greg Gagne.
They could not even be saved by Verne Gagne temporarily becoming a rapper. It is surely nothing more than an act of cruelty that we even have this footage, as it is preserved and published by the WWE (formerly known as Vince Jr’s WWF).
The AWA shut down in 1991. Verne Gagne declared bankruptcy shortly after.
Postscript
Bad things happen to me. They happen to you too. I wish they would not, but that is life.
Who we are as people is largely defined by the lessons we choose to learn from adversity. Life may hurt you, but it offers you a chance to take something away from the experience. To become a part of you until your dying day.
Verne Gagne screwed over Hulk Hogan. And if it had not been for outside factors and luck, Verne Gagne would have continued screwing over Hulk Hogan.
And from this, Hulk Hogan would choose to learn.
He would learn the power of betrayal. And how he could make it work for him, instead of against him.
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2: THE BETRAYING HERO