Why WWE Forgave Hulk Hogan
The arguments against Hulk Hogan's reinstatement are legion.
PWInsider have reported that during last night's meeting with the roster, 'The Hulkster' claimed he was sorry for the hurt he'd caused, the embarrassment he'd brought the company, and of course, what he'd said in the tape. Such apologies are nothing new for Hogan, yet he has rarely demonstrated true remorse.
In a May interview with Buffalo News, Hulk apologised not for using language that some may deem offensive, but because people had been offended by it. This is typical of a man who, in an August 2015 interview with ABC, asked for forgiveness on the grounds that his comments came from biases inherited from his childhood neighbourhood, where, he claimed, the N-word used used liberally. Unsurprisingly, his former neighbours disputed this.
The 2017 Netflix documentary Nobody Speak: Trials Of The Free Press covered the Hogan vs. Gawker Media case extensively. Though obviously skewed in the defendant's favour, it provided substantial evidence suggesting Hulk was happy to let the sex tape go public as a means of boosting his reality TV career, only to panic upon recalling his colourful language. Though painting Hogan as a villain wasn't the film's main thrust, he came off as anything but sympathetic, as he bizarrely argued that Hulk Hogan and Terry Bollea are separate people and therefore shouldn't be held accountable to each other.
But the key point in the Hogan/WWE debate has never been whether or not Terry Bollea had done something awful (nobody would argue he hasn't): it's whether or not this should eclipse his undeniable wrestling legacy.
Hulk Hogan is the most important performer in WWE history. He was the cornerstone of the company's golden era - a transformative, decade-defining, larger-than-life character without whom the company may never have gone national, and the perfect franchise player for the perfect time. As a draw, personality, and showman, his influence is unparalleled.
Hulkamania was a force of nature. The man slammed Andre the Giant. He was WWE Champion for 2,185 days. He found genuine success as a crossover movie star. In 1991, he became the first man to win two consecutive Royal Rumbles, and he'd later jump ship to WCW, igniting the Monday Night Wars as the New World Order's third man. Then, in 2002, he finally came home, the return run yielding the masterpiece in crowd control that was his WrestleMania X8 clash with The Rock.
No other wrestler has as strong a Hall Of Fame résumé, but while some will argue that Hogan should never have been booted in the first place, WWE's decision to keep him at arm's length should be understandable. Why would any organisation want to associate themselves with such controversy, particularly one so focused on appeasing hordes of advertisers through clean, family-friendly, PG content? An insincere 64-year-old dropping N-bombs doesn't exactly fit this mould.
Yet despite all this, the sad truth of it is that Hogan's WWE return was inevitable from the moment he was expelled...
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