The Real Problem With Netflix's Hulk Hogan Movie

If those stories are indeed designed to furnish his character and don't have any bearing on reality, then that's all well and good. Hulk Hogan might have been a thrash metal legend. He might have been a UFC fighter. Hell, Elvis might even have been his biggest fan despite his career not actually crossing over with the time he was actually alive. But Terry Bollea didn't and wasn't any of those things. If Bollea is the one turning up to be consultant on the Netflix movie, then maybe we have nothing to be concerned about.

But wouldn't it be far more fitting for the story of Hulkamania to be told by its star? Wouldn't it absolutely fit everything we know about the history of Hulk Hogan for him to be the storyteller here?

And yes, of course Netflix will have someone involved on fact-checking, but the story of Hulkamania isn't the same as the story of WrestleMania. One is a tangible, plottable line through history. Vince McMahon put the first one on in 1985, it took off thanks to some ingenious creative decisions - like bringing in celebrities - and it's now the tentpole wrestling event on the calendar. There is a very firm account in there to be found of what happened when, how and why.

Hulkamania, on the other hand was a construct to sell a character. It was presented as an organic response to a superstar, when in reality it was a marketing ploy designed to whip up hype. Hogan might have had promise and had made some waves in AWA (and in Rocky III), but there was no mania attached to him. Not until WWE and he said there was. In reality, he was pushed into the main event picture even despite the likes of Bob Backlund complaining about him not paying dues. His rise, though, was accepted because he was surfing the crest of a wave of Hulkamania.

There's a lot of nuance in that story and a look at how Vince McMahon basically conned fans into believing the idea of superstardom by sheer insistence alone would be a great movie, but that's not likely to be what this is. This, rather more strangely, might well be Hulk Hogan's own account of what happened. If that ignores or manipulates the truth, it will be a shame, because the story of how perfectly WWE played into the audience's expectations of something historic by giving themselves that would then become historic is a hell of a thing.

Then again, so's the picture of an axe-wielding, UFC-fighting, big-dick-swinging real American, brother!

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