Terry Bollea (better known to the World as “Hulk Hogan”) was fired on Friday by the WWE. No, fired isn’t the right word. He was Chris Beniot’ed (or Crispin Wah’ed) by the WWE. For those of you not familiar with that term, Chris Beniot was a wrestler who had won titles around the world, but made his biggest name as a member of WCW and WWE. In 2007, Chris and his family were found dead in their GA home. Initially the WWE paid tribute to Chris the night after his death… Until the truth came out that Chris had murdered his wife and son before committing suicide. The WWE then scrubbed Chris’ name from all WWE/WCW videos and web pages. It is hard to find his name anywhere among the WWE history archives today. Now, the biggest superstar name ever in WWE and Wrestling history has been given the same treatment, as not only WWE, but also rival wrestling organization, TNA, has erased all traces of “The Immortal One”.
The reason? Racist statements made by Hogan on a sex tape he made with the wife of his then-best friend back in 2007. Basically, he used the n-word… in a derogatory fashion concerning someone who was dating his daughter… while he was screwing another man’s wife. This tape, BTW, is the subject of a $100 million lawsuit Hogan has filed against the Internet news/tabloid blog site, Gawker. (Side note: can we root for both sides in that lawsuit to lose?) The racist portion of the sex tape recently came to light via The National Enquirer.
Should Hogan be scrubbed from Wrestling history for these statements? No. But is this just an isolated incident from Hogan? Hardly. Because while we used to worship the man who preached about “Prayers, Vitamins, and Training… Brother”, the Hogan that was off-camera was anything but. He was clearly on Steroids during the heyday of the 1980s when Wrestling moved from Regional Territories to National and Global Prominence, thanks to the WWE. If Vince had not been the target of the feds in the early 1990s, Hogan would have likely been thrown in jail for his steroid use.
Instead, Hogan left the WWE for then-rival promotion WCW. Ted Turner was all happy to use Hogan to challenge Vince for Wrestling Dominance, and allowed WCW to give Hogan “Creative Control” in several Wrestling matches. Yes, the infamous “Fingerpoke of Doom” match in January, 1999 is the most obvious, but there were other matches in the dying days of WCW where Hogan had some type of control in outcomes of World Heavyweight Title Matches. Hogan also held back potential up and coming wrestler, preferring to “burying” rising stars, all at the cost of maintaining his legacy.
After his Wrestling career was over, Hogan tried to use his star power as a GM at TNA Wrestling to try and go toe-to-toe with the WWE, but that experiment failed horribly after 4 years. Among the bad decisions, Hogan controversially fired an up and coming TNA African-American Wrestler named Jay Lethal, who currently just happens to be the World Champion for another Wrestling Promotion, Ring of Honor. Lethal has proven that Hogan screwed up regarding Lethal’s talent and may have unwittingly exposed Hogan’s own racist attitude long before the sex tape’s rants were made public.
Hogan’s private life isn’t much better. Hogan’s wife divorced him for a younger man, and his children are either struggling with either law issues or trying to establish a musical career. The reason Hogan returned to wrestling long after he couldn’t wrestle has more to do with financial issues than with Wrestling prowess.
There are other examples of Hogan not living up to the Hulkamania lifestyle he set back in the 1980’s. Needless to say, given the perception as either the ultimate Good Guy in yellow or the spray-painting, backstabbing leader known as Hollywood Hogan of the nWo, Hogan’s real life is persona is more Hollywood than Hulkamaniac.
Eventually, Hogan will likely quietly return to the WWE at some point in the future. Triggering the scrubbing of Hulk’s accomplishments in WCW/WWE comes off as Vince being petty. And WWE does not have the best track record with African-American Wrestler stereotypes themselves (Junkyard Dog or Kamala, anyone?). As for TNA Wrestling, they’ll be lucky to see the end of the year as a functioning entity. Scrubbing Hogan from their records is more like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg.
Hogan doesn’t deserve the elimination of his name from Wrestling history. But he is also not the Ultimate Good Guy Wrestler we knew and loved from the 1980s (just like Bill Cosby is not who we thought he was). He is just a shell of a person in real-life of what he portrayed on Camera back in the 1980s.
To steal a line from Hulk himself: What’cha gonna do?
