CNN Newsource
By Kyle Feldscher, CNN
(CNN) — Professional wrestler Terry Bollea, better known as Hulk Hogan, died on Thursday at the age of 71, according to World Wrestling Entertainment.
Bollea is widely recognized as the biggest wrestling star of all time and helped WWE become the behemoth that it is today. In the 1980s and 1990s, Bollea’s larger-than-life personality – in and out of the ring – made him a household name and a crossover mainstream star, starring in movies and recognized around the world.
“WWE is saddened to learn WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan has passed away. One of pop culture’s most recognizable figures, Hogan helped WWE achieve global recognition in the 1980s,” the company said in a post on X. “WWE extends its condolences to Hogan’s family, friends, and fans.”
The city of Clearwater, Florida, said in a statement that police and fire personnel were dispatched to Bollea’s home after a report of an individual in cardiac arrest. Bollea was treated by fire and rescue crews when they arrived and was transported to Morton Plant Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. TMZ was first to report the news.
Police said in a news conference that there were no signs of suspicious activity in his death and an investigation is ongoing.
With his boasts of possessing “24-inch pythons” for arms and his reminders to “say your prayers and eat your vitamins,” Bollea was instrumental in wrestling’s 1980s “golden era.” Bollea’s popularity and his rivalries with “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, André Rene Roussimoff – known as André the Giant, “Macho Man” Randy Savage and scores of others made professional wrestling a multi-billion-dollar industry in the 1980s and early 1990s.
His decision to leave the then-World Wrestling Federation for World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in the mid-1990s sent shockwaves around the wrestling world. His “heel turn” – the wrestling term for a hero turning into a villain – in 1996 and his run as “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan is one of the most memorable periods of wrestling history and helped WCW usurp Bollea’s former company in television ratings for 83 weeks – the last time WWE trailed another wrestling company in the traditional measure of popularity.
His time in WCW would eventually turn sour as Bollea took part in the “Finger Poke of Doom,” a moment that exposed professional wrestling’s predetermined nature to a level that had not been seen before. That incident – in which wrestler Kevin Nash flopped on his back after being poked by Bollea, allowing the evil Hollywood Hogan to once again become the WCW champion – sent the company into a period of crisis that turned off fans so much that WWE was able to eventually buy its competition for a relative pittance.
Bollea eventually returned to WWE as a full-time performer in the early 2000s, having a celebrated match with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson at WrestleMania X8 in which two of wrestling’s biggest-ever stars created a cauldron of noise at Toronto’s Rogers Centre, then known as the SkyDome.
“The Hulkster” would spend a few more years with WWE before moving over to its competition once again by signing with Total Nonstop Action (TNA) wrestling in 2010. His time with TNA would not be nearly as celebrated as Bollea and other older wrestling stars would be featured on the company’s programming to the detriment of younger talent that became disillusioned with the company and its leadership. He eventually left TNA after three years, not having achieved the same kind of success as he had in his early WCW run when he challenged WWE’s supremacy.
The WWE Hall of Famer would return to the company once more until he was caught on tape making racial slurs in a video that surfaced in 2015, a moment that tarnished his legacy among scores of wrestling fans and wrestlers. At the time, WWE ended its contract and removed many mentions of him from its website.
Bollea would apologize for his comments, which were recorded in an “unauthorized sex tape,” according to the Enquirer, and included the n-word in reference to the dating life of his daughter, Brooke.
“Eight years ago, I used offensive language during a conversation,” Bollea said in a statement at the time. “It was unacceptable for me to have used that offensive language; there is no excuse for it; and I apologize for having done it.”
That sex tape was instrumental in the destruction of Gawker, an acerbic website that frequently took on pop culture and governmental figures in the 2000s and early 2010s. The website published the tape on its site, leading to a prolonged lawsuit over the outlet’s invasion of Bollea’s privacy. The $115 million judgment bankrupted the website and became a pivotal moment in media law.
While Bollea reportedly apologized to the WWE locker room for using slurs, many wrestlers never forgave him. His reception at future appearances in the company – he returned in an on-air capacity in 2019 and would make sporadic appearances until his death – received mix reactions and he was sometimes outright booed by the crowds.
Bollea’s death comes a little more than a month before the first event by his new wrestling company, Real American Freestyle. That company seeks to provide a bigger platform for traditional wrestling – the kind one would see in the Olympics rather than WWE’s version – and was set to host its initial event on August 30.
“We lost our commissioner. We lost a friend. And the sport of wrestling lost one of its greatest champions, not just in the ring, but in spirit,” said Chad Bronstein, CEO and co-founder of Real American Freestyle.
“Hulk Hogan believed wrestling was more than just entertainment. He saw it as a brotherhood, a proving ground and a platform for greatness. That’s what Real American Freestyle was built to be, a new stage for the toughest, most passionate athletes on Earth. And Hulk was at the center of it,” Bronstein stated.
Bringing pro wrestling to the mainstream
Professional wrestling, and indeed the world of entertainment, had never really seen anything like Hulk Hogan in the early 1980s.
At the time, professional wrestling was a segmented, regional business. Each company had its own territory, and performers would move between organizations as their characters grew stale with the crowd. Professional wrestlers were big, barrel-chested performers who didn’t move all that much, wore black or other similarly drab colored trunks and often looked like the very crowds assembled in front of them.
Bollea was anything but drab. A tall, muscular blonde who appeared to be carved out of granite, Bollea would strut to the ring with his wild hand gestures and over-the-top personality oozing out of every pore. Clad in his trademark yellow-and-red shirt, ripping it off when he entered the ring, Bollea quickly became a crowd favorite. He made his name in the American Wrestling Alliance, based in Minnesota, and got on Hollywood’s radar with his memorable cameo in “Rocky III,” but it was his move to the then-WWF that helped turn him into “The Immortal Hulk Hogan.”
The gregarious wrestler became the company’s biggest-ever star and his collaboration with Vince McMahon, engulfed in his own scandals as of late and cast off from the company, Bollea turned into a phenomenon. He made professional wrestling a big-time business. Bollea became McMahon’s star, the center of the company from the early 1980s until he departed for WCW in the mid-1990s. Crowned champion for the first time in January 1984, Bollea would frequently be WWE’s leading man.
While he often ruffled feathers backstage by protecting his image and character, he was received with adoration from fans around the world for years. His partnership with Mr. T at the first WrestleMania changed WWE’s fortunes forever, his body slam of André The Giant at WrestleMania III that became one of the most iconic moments in wrestling history, his handshake with Savage to form the Mega Powers, losing the title in a bizarre moment involving an evil twin referee – but Bollea more than fulfilled his promise to let “Hulkamania run wild” over the wrestling world.
The legions of “Hulkamaniacs” that followed their favorite star led to him becoming one of wrestling’s most successful crossover stars.
Bollea’s animated series “Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling” debuted in 1985 during CBS’s Saturday Morning lineup, further cementing Hulk Hogan as a household name to people of all ages. The series ran for two seasons and featured “Everybody Loves Raymond” star Brad Garrett voicing the titular role of Hogan.
The series featured popular WWF stars of the time, as well as James Avery, Lewis Arquette, Jodi Carlisle, Ron Feinberg and Pat Fraley, among others, as voice actors for each of the characters.
Since his early wrestling days, Bollea was immortalized in what have now become collectible action figures, some more rare than others. The figures, depicting the wrestling champ in his signature yellow and red uniform, have taken many forms over the years. Toymakers Hasbro and Mattel have released over time various iterations of the Hogan action figure.
Moving to the competition
Eventually, Bollea’s run in WWE petered out as his “Real American,” the unconquerable good guy character, grew stale with the audience after so many years. He’d eventually make the jump to WCW, joining up with the promotion owned by Ted Turner – CNN’s founder – to try and knock the WWE off its pedestal as wrestling’s biggest company.
But Bollea’s time with WWE was still under scrutiny even as he worked with the competition. In the 1994 trial in which McMahon was accused of providing steroids for his wrestlers, Bollea admitted to taking the supplements during his stint in the WWE but said he was never ordered to do so by McMahon or company leadership.
A noticeably smaller Bollea continued his same character in WCW for a number of years before that act also grew old with the fans of his new company. In the summer of 1996, he did the unthinkable – joining up with villains Nash and Scott Hall to form the New World Order, trashing wrestling fans, WWE and anyone else he could think of during one of professional wrestling’s most famous promos.
The next several years of WCW’s programming were dominated by the NWO, Bollea and the cast of WCW stars attempting to save the company from his nefarious control. The storyline, along with the role of savior played by wrestler Sting, helped fuel the company to its hottest period. WCW’s run helped fuel a shift in how McMahon ran his own company, transitioning to a more extreme and raunchier version of his own programming, which became known as “The Attitude Era.” The battle between WCW and WWE brought pro wrestling to its most popular moment in history, as both companies went head-to-head in a period that became known as the “Monday Night Wars.”
After the so-called Fingerpoke of Doom incident, WCW’s popularity – and Bollea’s along with it – cratered. The company descended into a form of professional wrestling madness as storylines no longer made sense, with the curtain frequently pulled back to expose pro wrestling in a way that was heresy to many longtime fans. Money was spent so haphazardly that WCW went from the most popular company in the industry to insolvent in a little more than two years.
Eventually, McMahon got his ultimate triumph by buying WCW and incorporating it into his own show. That led to a moment that didn’t seem possible not long before – Bollea returning to WWE after years of trying to run his old company out of business.
Soon, that was all water under the bridge. The mega showdown with The Rock, another run with the WWE championship and induction into the company’s Hall of Fame in 2005 made Bollea once again synonymous with wrestling’s most successful company. Even when he left for his stint in TNA, Bollea was thought of warmly in the halls of Stamford, Connecticut, where WWE was based.
In 2005, the wrestler took a page out of rocker Ozzy Osbourne’s book when he and his family starred in the VH1 reality series “Hogan Knows Best.” The series featured him, his then-wife Linda, their children Nick and Brooke and Hogan’s longtime friend and former wrestler, Brian Knobbs. It lasted two seasons and had a spin-off, “Brooke Knows Best,” starring his daughter, which also ran for two seasons.
Controversy and ostracization
Bollea’s ability to stay in the spotlight took a different turn in the middle part of the 2010s.
The exposure of his racist rant disappointed millions of his fans and forever changed how they saw a man whose theme song once boasted, “I am a real American, fight for the rights of every man.” Bollea’s public image never totally recovered.
The protracted Gawker lawsuit also put more of Bollea’s life on display. It was revealed later that billionaire Peter Thiel backed Bollea’s invasion of privacy lawsuit in an attempt at revenge against the company because it had outed him as gay.
The racist rant led to Bollea being fired from WWE and forced him away from the company for years, returning eventually after speaking to the company’s talent and making an apology. Talent at the time said the apology was lacking, leading to many of the company’s top stars to keep Hogan at arm’s length for the rest of his days.
“What I don’t support was the apology that was given in regards to the words and the actions that he exhibited years ago,” said Thaddeus Bullard, who goes by the name Titus O’Neill in the WWE, in a 2019 appearance on the “Busted Open Radio” podcast.
“To me, when you have true remorse for being sorry about doing something, it’s pretty simple. You don’t have to be prepped to say certain things and you definitely don’t want to make excuses. I just feel like the inconsistencies to the time that it came out to last week were so across the board were just like – sitting there, it was uncomfortable for me. I want to give the character, Hulk Hogan, a chance and the man, Terry Bollea, a chance to redeem himself. … He truly let a lot of folks down, both White, Black and everything in between.”
His appearances in later years in WWE were marked by boos, including his last one in January.
Months after that appearance, WWE star Colby Lopez, better known as Seth Rollins, said in an interview on the “Outta Pocket with RG3” podcast that he spoke for many wrestling fans who had grown up as fans of Bollea’s but whose image of him was fundamentally changed.
“He’s someone who’s I think a victim of his own ego a little bit and he doesn’t understand how what he does affects people around him,” Lopez said.
“If you are not a good person and it’s in your moral ethic not to treat someone with the same respect regardless of what they do, where they come from or the color of their skin, I got no time for you,” he added.
Sidling up to Trump – and one last famous tearing of the shirt
Perhaps Bollea’s last big public showing was a surprise appearance in prime time on the final night of last year’s Republican National Convention, ripping off his shirt to expose a red Trump-Vance tank top underneath.
In a speech, Bollea called Trump his “hero” and said he would bring “America back together, one real American at a time.”
He had said in interviews that seeing Trump’s response to his assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, had changed his thinking about wading into that year’s election.
“As an entertainer, I try to stay out of politics,” said the wrestler. “But after everything that’s happened to our country over the past four years, and everything that happened last weekend, I can no longer stay silent.”
Trump has long ties to the WWE, having participated in several events and been inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013.
The organization’s former chief executive, Linda McMahon, is now serving as the Secretary of Education.
Trump mourned the loss of his “great friend.”
“We lost a great friend today, the ‘Hulkster,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Hulk Hogan was MAGA all the way — Strong, tough, smart, but with the biggest heart.”
While Hogan endorsed Barack Obama in 2008, his allegiance shifted to Republicans in recent years.
In his post, Trump referred to the famed speech at the RNC.
“He gave an absolutely electric speech at the Republican National Convention, that was one of the highlights of the entire week,” Trump wrote. “He entertained fans from all over the World, and the cultural impact he had was massive. To his wife, Sky, and family, we give our warmest best wishes and love. Hulk Hogan will be greatly missed!”
Vice President JD Vance remembered Bollea as a “great American icon.”
“One of the first people I ever truly admired as a kid,” Vance wrote on X. “The last time I saw him we promised we’d get beers together next time we saw each other. The next time will have to be on the other side, my friend! Rest in peace.”
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
CNN’s Lisa France, Alli Rosenbloom and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.
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