Hulk Hogan – a crossover superstar of professional wrestling’s 1980s golden era – made his biggest foray into the political arena Thursday at the closing night of the Republican National Convention, ripping off his shirt and calling Donald Trump his “hero.”
Appearing onstage to cheers of “USA! USA!,” Hogan recalled the assassination attempt on Trump, saying “enough was enough” as he removed his navy jacket and tore off a Hulk Hogan-themed muscle tank to reveal a red Trump-Vance one underneath.
Comparing Trump and running mate J.D. Vance to himself and “Macho Man” Randy Savage, Hogan said the ticket made up the “greatest tag team of my life.” Trump, who was smiling and applauding throughout, appeared to be loving the unusual speech for a nominating convention.
Hogan’s remarks riffed on the longtime theme song associated with his wrestling performances, “Real American.”
“Real Americans” were going to be called “Trumpites” who would be “running wild for four years” in a second Trump presidency, he told the crowd.
“When I came here tonight, there was so much energy in this room, I thought maybe I was in Madison Square Garden, getting ready to win another world title,” he said. “… But what I found out was, I was in a room full of a real Americans, brother.”
Before his appearance, the muscled and mustachioed brawler turned to social media with a special message for the fans that had nothing to do with the campaign.
“You know something? Real American Beer is taking Missouri by storm, and the Ozarks is no different!” the 70-year-old star roared into the camera on Wednesday, plugging his weekend stops at two waterfront bars to promote his new branded line of canned lager. “Rock-‘n’-roll and Hulk Hogan’s Real American Beer go together!”
In the past, Hogan endorsed Barack Obama and teased that he himself might run for president. But until now, he had not widely publicized his thoughts about the 2024 election.
“As an entertainer,” he told the convention crowd, he had tried to stay out of politics. But he said he could “no longer stay silent” after “everything that’s happened to our country over the past four years, and everything that happened last weekend,” referring to the attack at a Trump campaign rally in Pennsylvania that left the former president with a wounded ear.
He added later in his speech that “we never had it better than the Trump years,” citing inflation, border security and “peace and respect around the world.”
Before the convention, Hogan’s biggest political role came in the court battle that destroyed the popular gossip blog Gawker, which came to stand as something of a proxy battle for a larger culture war.
Trump has a long showbiz connection to professional wrestling, from his early sponsorship of WrestleMania events to his scripted participation in fight storylines – shoving WWE impresario Vince McMahon backward over a table in one routine and allowing “Stone Cold” Steve Austin to fling him to the mat in another. Dana White, the president and chief executive of Ultimate Fighting Championship and another longtime Trump associate, also spoke Thursday.
But other than the occasional shout-out, Hulk Hogan – real name, Terry Bollea – never conspicuously intersected with those storylines, nor with Trump’s political rise.
During his 1980s and ’90s heyday, though, the wrestler at least flirted with political symbolism.
Styling himself as an underdog American hero and paragon of patriotism, Hogan consistently battled caricatured foreign adversaries – the Iron Sheik, Andre the Giant, Killer Khan – who were cast as villains in the fictional wrestling world.
He walked to the ring accompanied by the entrance song “Real American,” often wearing red-white-and-blue bandannas or carrying an American flag.
At other times, his foils were wealthy snobs – a popular target for wrestling’s working-class fans – like the “Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase, who wore a glittery and gold-studded championship belt and tried to “buy” the WWE’s world title away from Hogan.
His popularity foreshadowed the future crossover success of wrestlers-turned-movie stars like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and John Cena. Hogan went mainstream – hosting “Saturday Night Live,” landing on the cover of Wheaties boxes and taking roles in films like “Rocky III” and “Suburban Commando,” where he played a super-galactic hero living in the suburbs.
His similarly charismatic wrestling colleague Jesse Ventura crossed all the way over into real-life American politics, eventually becoming the one-term governor of Minnesota.
But Hogan’s spotlight faded as he continued to put himself up against younger talent and lose.
In 2012, Gawker published a two-minute clip of a leaked sex tape from 2006, showing Hogan in bed with Heather Clem, the wife of his best friend, radio personality Bubba the Love Sponge. Hogan later said that he had his friend’s blessing to have sex with his wife.
But the wrestler sued Gawker in 2013 for invasion of privacy, among other claims, saying he had not given his consent to be recorded.
Despite initial rulings from federal judges that the publication was newsworthy and protected – Gawker argued that Hogan had made his sex life central to his public persona – the lawsuit in 2016 came before a Florida jury, which delivered a $140 million verdict in Hogan’s favor.
A settlement later brought the sum down to $31 million, but Gawker filed for bankruptcy in June 2016. Days before, tech billionaire Peter Thiel went public to acknowledge that he had quietly funded Hogan’s litigation to the tune of $10 million as something of a personal vendetta.
For years, the PayPal founder had carried a grudge against Gawker, after sister site Valleywag had reported on the fact that he was gay – an open secret at the time in venture capital circles.
Valleywag, though, had also provided skeptical coverage of tech companies and their founders – a rising class of powerful business executives such as Thiel, who would go on to endorse Trump’s 2016 campaign and mentor Trump’s 2024 running mate, J.D. Vance. And so the case took on added dimensions as a skirmish in a larger backlash by conservatives against media outlets they deemed hostile.
The case took its toll on Hogan. Audio recordings revealed during the litigation captured him uttering racist insults, which prompted WWE to terminate his contract.
But just three years later, in 2018, he was welcomed back into the WWE universe and reinstated into the WWE Hall of Fame. Since then he has shown up on occasional television shows and major events. His career was highlighted by WWE in January of this year in a 40th anniversary special video.
Hogan’s political views have shifted as quickly as a wrestling gimmick. He endorsed Barack Obama ahead of the 2008 election, but changed his tune for 2012 – which might have been related to Obama using Hogan’s “Real American” song as a gag riffing on the conspiracy theories about the former president’s birthplace, an early Trump talking point.
In 2015, Hogan made the case that he should be Trump’s running mate. But just as recently as a few weeks ago he suggested he’d run for president himself.
“We need somebody in there that’s got some common sense,” he told Fox News in June.
In an October 2020 Instagram post, he gave perhaps his strongest endorsement until now.
“All the Hulkmaniacs, make sure you go vote. You know what I’m saying?” he said. “Otherwise I might just have to run for president if we don’t straighten this crap out.”