The Good, The Bad & The Ugly Of Hulk Hogan's Wrestling Career

4. Thunderlips

Thunderlips Hulk Hogan
MGM/UA

These days, it’s pretty common to see wrestlers parlaying their presence on weekly episodic television into acting roles on popular TV shows or movies.

This month alone, Becky Lynch and MJF will appear in Happy Gilmore 2. John Cena, Batista and The Rock have launched successful Hollywood careers that brought their full-time wrestling appearances to a close. Others, such as Andre the Giant, Jesse “The Body” Ventura, Steve Austin and Kevin Nash have appeared in popular movies through the years.

All of them have Hulk Hogan to thank for that in large part.

Hogan appeared in Rocky III in 1982, standing opposite Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa and playing Thunderlips. Hulk’s decision to appear in the movie led Vince J. McMahon (Vince K’s father) to release him from his contract. The movie blew up, and when Hogan returned to the WWF a couple years later, he was the center of the wrestling universe.

Since then, dozens of wrestlers (Hogan included) have chased the dragon, trying to capture the popularity and notoriety that Hulk’s turn in Rocky III brought him.

Advertisement
In this post: 
Hulk Hogan
 
Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.