Hogan’s life is effectively and sometimes exhilaratingly laid out earlier than us, from cradle to grave, exhibiting how a pudgy boy from Florida who was fearful of wrestlers grew to become a world famous person and monetary juggernaut. A host of speaking heads – wrestling greats, Hogan’s ex-wives, his son, Nick, even the president of the United States – discuss us by way of the rise and fall (and rise and fall once more) of Hulk Hogan. But it’s the man himself who captivates.
Seventy-one years outdated, pores and skin like biltong, eyes like Droopy Dog, strolling with a cane in his last days but nonetheless pumping iron within the fitness center, Hulk Hogan/Terry Bollea is a determine you’ll be able to’t tear your eyes from. His interviews with Storkel are comical, heartbreaking and charismatic.
It’s no hagiography. It’s made clear that in his early profession, the 6ft 7in “freak” was thought of a awful wrestler, although showman, and there are sufficient former colleagues comfortable to go on document with their dislike of him. Yet nobody denies that Hulk Hogan wasn’t simply the largest star {of professional} wrestling, at one time he was skilled wrestling. Storkel provides us all of the hits of Hulkamania: beating the Iron Sheik in 1984 and scoring a PR victory within the aftermath of the Iran hostage disaster (sure, actually), the seminal first WrestleMania in 1985, bodyslamming Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania III, the cash, the followers, the celebrity.
However, the controversies surrounding Hulk Hogan – each in and out of the ring – are so quite a few that the sequence doesn’t have time for all of them. Perhaps the largest was Hogan’s first fall from grace, when, within the early Nineties, it was revealed he had been taking steroids for his complete profession. This all-American hero’s catchphrase was: “Train hard, say your prayers, eat your vitamins.” Hulk Hogan was a liar. In 2024, Hogan publicly campaigned for Donald Trump, with whom he had been pleasant for the reason that Eighties (Trump Plaza hosted two Wrestlemanias). When Hogan was subsequently booed at Netflix’s WWE launch occasion in Los Angeles, it was all grist to his mill. Trump empathises: “He’s fairly controversial, but that’s OK, I am too. And I don’t think he cares about that – and neither do I.”
