Without Hulk Hogan, professional wrestling would not look anything like it does today. He was one of the central figures responsible for taking wrestling from a regional attraction into a mass-media spectacle, turning the WWF into a national phenomenon during the 1980s and helping establish the template for the modern wrestling superstar. “Hulkamania” was a cultural phenomenon, a character, a brand, and a mythology. Publicly, Hogan lived as Hulk Hogan, and along the way, the distinction between the man and the myth became difficult to separate.

Wrestling has always been built around exaggeration. Professional wrestlers are expected to invent larger-than-life characters, manufacture rivalries, sell impossible feats, and transform physical performances into stories about good and evil. Repeatedly, Hogan’s interviews, autobiographies, podcasts, television appearances, and anecdotes present a version of reality in which Hogan occupies the center of extraordinary events. Demonstrably, the stories are implausible, contain a kernel of truth buried beneath exaggeration, cannot be verified, and collectively reveal a tendency to lie in the mechanics of self-mythologization.

As an isolated piece of evidence, the usual way fans discuss “Hulk Hogan lies” is to treat each story as separate. Supposedly, Elvis Presley was a Hulkamaniac, Hogan almost became the bassist for Metallica, Buster Douglas allegedly did not want to get into the ring with him, Andre the Giant weighed 600 pounds when Hogan slammed him, The Undertaker broke Hogan’s neck with a Tombstone Piledriver, Hogan wrestled more than 400 days in a year, and so on. He has even told stories involving people who were already dead.

Viewed individually and collectively, the anecdotes are ridiculous and form a folklore of exaggerations that all point toward the same protagonist: Hogan the extraordinary man.

In the theory of performance, Erving Goffman’s concept of social life as a kind of dramaturgy provides a useful way of understanding Hogan’s public identity, presenting himself differently depending on the social situation, constructing what Goffman calls a “front” through appearance, manner, setting, and behavior. Unusually, performing a character was his profession, and his job required him to maintain a recognizable persona. The Hulk Hogan who entered the arena was a performance, but so was the Hogan who appeared on television, told stories about his career, and described his encounters with celebrities.

The problem, or maybe the achievement, is that Hogan’s performance did not stop when the wrestling match ended. Ostensibly, the character became portable, and the bandana, moustache, muscles, catchphrases, heroic morality, patriotic rhetoric, and stories of impossible physical endurance all travelled with him into non-fictional spaces. Therefore, Hogan occupied a strange position between celebrity and fictional character. He was Terry Bollea, a real human being, but the public was purchasing Hulk Hogan. The more successful the character became, the greater the incentive to keep performing him.

Consider the story about Elvis Presley. Hogan has been associated with the claim that Elvis was a fan of his, despite the basic chronological problem of how Presley died in 1977, while Hogan’s WWF-era Hulkamania exploded several years later, following his 1984 victory over the Iron Sheik. Certainly, Elvis was known to be interested in professional wrestling, so the general idea that Presley might have enjoyed wrestling is not absurd.

The problem is the transformation of a plausible cultural connection into a story, placing Hogan in it. Slightly, the myth requires reality to be rearranged so Hogan occupies the most flattering position in it.

In another story, Hogan has said that he played bass and attempted to connect with Metallica, at different times describing himself as “having sent an audition tape” and, in another version, recalling how Lars Ulrich asked whether he wanted to play bass for the band. Members of Metallica have not corroborated the latter story, and James Hetfield has reacted with confusion when asked whether Hogan ever auditioned. According to contemporary accounts, Hogan repeated versions of the story over the years despite the band’s lack of recollection.

Theoretically, suppose he did. Even then, the story changes meaning depending on how it is narrated. “I once sent an audition tape to Metallica and never heard back” is a story about an unsuccessful attempt, and “Lars Ulrich wanted me to play bass for Metallica” is a story about proximity to greatness. The second version places Hogan closer to another cultural institution, as the logic of performance and the event is staged again through language. Each retelling gives the performer another opportunity to adjust the lighting.

In the third story, Douglas famously defeated Tyson in 1990 in one of boxing’s biggest upsets, and Douglas later appeared as a guest referee for a Hogan match. Subsequently, Hogan has told stories about the possibility of facing Tyson and has described Tyson as “a man who would have been reluctant to engage him physically.” Whatever conversations occurred backstage, the anecdote transforms Hogan from a professional wrestler into a figure who occupied the same competitive universe as one of boxing’s most intimidating champions. It is another example of Hogan’s tendency to place himself at the intersection of major events.

Perhaps the Andre the Giant stories are the most famous example of Hogan’s mythology. WrestleMania III provided him with a genuine legendary moment, in which WWE describes Andre as a 7-foot-4, 500-plus-pound opponent and presents Hogan’s slam as one of the defining images in wrestling history. Although the audience regarded it as extraordinary, later versions of the story became grandiose, including claims that Andre weighed 600 pounds and that Hogan suffered catastrophic damage from performing the slam.

Following the structure of heroic mythology, the hero must overcome an opponent who is difficult and superhuman. The greater the monster, the greater the hero. Consequently, Andre becomes larger with every retelling, while Hogan’s achievement becomes correspondingly more miraculous. In other versions of the story, Hogan has suggested that the slam caused enormous damage to Andre and connected it to his death years later. Andre actually died in 1993, approximately six years after WrestleMania III, from congestive heart failure. The chronological distance alone destroys the literal version of the story, but mythology has never been interested in chronology.

In truth, the first man to slam Andre was also not Hogan. Andre had been slammed by other wrestlers before WrestleMania III, including Stan Hansen and others, yet WrestleMania III became the definitive version because the spectacle transformed an old wrestling feat into an unforgettable television image. Effectively, Hogan’s later storytelling performs the same operation again, taking an already legendary event and enlarging it until the event becomes inseparable from the hero’s mythology. Reality and storytelling supply the photograph and the epic.

At Survivor Series 1991, The Undertaker defeated Hogan for the WWF Championship with a Tombstone Piledriver onto a steel chair. WWE’s account records the finish, including Ric Flair’s involvement and Undertaker’s victory. Subsequently, Hogan described the incident as “having severely injured his neck.” Later, The Undertaker gave a very different account, explaining how he had been concerned about protecting Hogan and believed he had executed the move safely. According to ESPN, Hogan reacted as though the move had hurt him, and such doubts emerged backstage about what had happened.

Regardless of whether there is a complication here, the incident should not be rewritten as “Hogan completely faked an injury.” Hogan did experience some form of neck problem and was taken to the hospital, while later accounts questioned the extent and exact cause of the injury. Therefore, the more interesting point is how the event entered his mythology. A wrestling performance designed to make the Undertaker look dangerous became, in Hogan’s later telling, another chapter in the story of Hogan surviving the extraordinary.

In the narrative identity approach, a human being does not remember a life as an inventory of disconnected facts. We organize experiences into stories, such as the events, beginnings, other crises, and other moments of triumph. According to the same grammar, Hogan encounters an unusually powerful opponent, experiences an impossible obstacle, survives it through extraordinary toughness, and emerges as the central figure in the story. The specific details may change, but the underlying narrative is stable.

In his 2009 autobiography, My Life Outside the Ring, Hogan explained the claim through international travel and crossing the International Date Line, arguing of how his years could effectively contain more than 365 days. Taken literally or narratively, the statement is impossible and communicates how Hogan’s workload was so immense that ordinary measures of time failed to contain it. Almost, the absurdity is the point, and the hero has exceeded the limitations of the calendar.

Another example is Hogan’s claim about “marking out” for Kevin Owens. At the time, Owens was already an established independent wrestler before entering WWE, meaning Hogan’s version can sound as though he discovered or validated a wrestler who possessed credibility. Again, the story places Hogan in the position of gatekeeper. The younger generation’s meaning through its relationship to Hogan, even admiration, is another mechanism through which the Hulk Hogan narrative is at the center of history.

At WrestleMania XVIII, the match against The Rock became one of the defining performances of Hogan’s later career, and Hogan has told versions of a story in which he suffered broken ribs around that period. In one account, he associated the injury with The Rock’s People’s Elbow, and in another, the injury was attributed to an earlier match with Rikishi. Discussing the discrepancy, Hogan later described being injured during a house show with Rikishi after failing to brace while waving to his children.

In 1991, appearing on The Arsenio Hall Show, Hogan stated how he was not a steroid abuser and did not use steroids. Three years later, while testifying under legal immunity during the federal case involving Vince McMahon, Hogan acknowledged using anabolic steroids beginning in 1976. Records of his testimony document the admission, more consequential than the Metallica or Elvis stories. In addition, the construction of the heroic body could involve protecting the story behind it.

Between myth and moral identity, the 1980s Hulk Hogan represented a particular moral image such as discipline, health, family values, patriotism, courage, and self-control. His body was part of the message. If the body could be explained through hard work and heroic discipline, the mythology remained intact. Around natural superhumanity, it introduced a material explanation into a constructed image. Hence, the denial protected is the symbolic structure surrounding Hulk Hogan.

According to Roland Barthes, myth does not mean an old fairy tale or a fictional story. In Barthes’s sense, myth is a system that takes a complicated historical reality and makes it appear natural. For example, a person is a symbol and a collection of events and meanings. More than Terry Bollea wearing a bandana, “Hulk Hogan” signifies strength, America, masculinity, perseverance, victory, celebrity, and spectacle.

Once understood in such a way, the lies are more interesting as pieces of a symbolic machine. To the same monument, each story adds another brick.

When we examine the story about John Belushi, Hogan has made claims concerning partying and drinking that have been associated with Belushi, though Belushi died in 1982. While discussing the mythology surrounding who drank and partied more, Hogan’s promotional material for his autobiography framed the book around his rise to stardom and relationships with famous figures. The absurdity of such versions of the anecdote is so revealing, in which Hogan places himself alongside another famous American personality.

Other statements may be fabrications and others may be exaggerations, distorted memories, promotional inventions, misunderstandings, or changed stories through decades of retelling. Once repeated often enough, a story becomes associated with the persona. Fans remember what Hulk Hogan said happened, even when its factual basis collapses.

In Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle, social relationships mediated through images. Independently, celebrity culture takes such a process to an extreme because the person’s public image is an object consumed by the person. Of course, professional wrestling is spectacular. His body, entrance, catchphrases, rivalries, victories, and interviews were all components of an image-production system. “Hulk Hogan” was a spectacle capable of selling tickets, merchandise, television programs, autobiographies, movies, and nostalgia.

As a feedback loop, the more famous Hogan became, the more valuable the Hulk Hogan image became. The more valuable the image became, the more incentive there was to preserve it. The more the image was preserved, the more difficult it became to acknowledge anything that contradicted it. Self-reinforcingly, Hogan’s stories told us he was extraordinary.

Hogan tells a story because he is Hulk Hogan. The story is part of Hulk Hogan’s mythology. Then, the mythology provides evidence for why Hogan is capable of having such a story happen to him. His celebrity authenticates his anecdotes, while his anecdotes reinforce his celebrity. Continually, the performance is being used to prove how the character was real.

Perhaps the factual Hulk Hogan and the mythical Hulk Hogan are not identical figures. One is a historical person whose life can be investigated, corrected, contradicted, and reconstructed. The other is a character assembled from photographs, matches, interviews, memories, catchphrases, exaggerations, controversies, and stories. The second figure can survive the destruction of individual claims because myths are resistant to correction.

Ironically, Hogan does not need all of the stories to have been true. Hulkamania, WrestleMania III, his influence, and his matches with Andre, The Rock, Randy Savage, and countless others were already real, yet the mythology continued expanding because spectacle stops at what is sufficient.

The Hulkster’s greatest performance, in such a sense, may never have happened inside a ring. It happened whenever Terry Bollea sat down in front of a camera and began telling the world who Hulk Hogan was.

References

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  • Debord, G. (1994). The Society of the Spectacle (D. Nicholson-Smith, Trans.). Zone Books. (Original work published 1967).
  • Goffman, E. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Doubleday.
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  • McAdams, D. P., & McLean, K. C. (2013). Narrative Identity. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22(3), 233–238.
  • Hogan, H., & Dagostino, M. (2009). My Life Outside the Ring: A Memoir. St. Martin’s Press.
  • Hogan, H., & Dagostino, M. (2002). Hollywood Hulk Hogan. World Wrestling Entertainment Books/Pocket Books.
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  • ESPN. (2020). Undertaker on First WWE Title Win against Hulk Hogan, Memories of Montreal Screwjob. ESPN.
  • Associated Press. (1994). Wrestling Promoter McMahon Acquitted of Steroid Charges. Los Angeles Times.