How Good Was Hulk Hogan Actually?

There's a serious argument to be made that without Hulk, wrestling as we know it would not exist. Vince McMahon took the WWE national, betraying the gentlemen’s agreements of the territories, but he needed a superstar to turn it into the global juggernaut that it became. It’s an accepted fact that Hogan was the secret sauce that took pro wrestling into the mainstream and kept it there.

To give Hulkster himself some credit in this equation, he had a vision to make himself something larger than his contemporaries, and he stuck to that vision. Verne Gagne fired Hogan from the AWA when he insisted on taking the role of Thunder Lips in Rocky III. Playing a heel wrestler in a charity fight with Rocky, Hogan knew this would shoot him further into the public consciousness, but he had to defy wrestling’s unwritten rules about breaking kayfabe to do it.

Hulk's projects outside of wrestling in later years were laughably bad and failed to capitalise on his wrestling fame. From movies like Suburban Commando and Mr. Nanny to his TV dud, Thunder In Paradise and the Hogan Knows Best reality show, The Hulkster could never translate his all-conquering dominance in the ring into any other area of pop culture.

The Rock conquered Hollywood to become the most culturally significant star to ever branch out from the biz, but Hogan became a global pop culture icon exclusively due to his work in the ring. Even his rubbish movies and TV shows couldn’t dilute his place in pop culture or his importance to the wrestling business.

9/10