After largely wrestling in high-profile and big money feuds with celebrities for most of 1998, many believe that Hulk Hogan pulled his creative control card (thanks Vince Russo) and refused to work with rising mid-card WCW talents and other established NWO main eventers. Instead, on the Thanksgiving 1998's episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Hogan announced that he was retiring from pro wrestling and running for President of the United States. Complicit in these shenanigans was WCW President Eric Bischoff who held a press conference with Hogan. Only the most unaware of wrestling fans should've believed Hogan's line of bulls*** about his presidential run as being true. Also in 1998, frequent Hogan nemesis Jesse Ventura was also running for the governorship of the state of Minnesota, and Hogan's false bid was certainly a case of the Hulkster aping some of Ventura's press. Of course, when the payoff to Hogan's presidential bid was a Jaunary 4, 1999 return to WCW Monday Nitro and the finger-poke of doom, it's definitely a case of Hogan saying "f*** you" to the fans.
Besides having been an independent professional wrestling manager for a decade, Marcus Dowling is a Washington, DC-based writer who has contributed to a plethora of online and print magazines and newspapers writing about music and popular culture over the past 15 years.
