Latest / The Right Time with Bomani Jones / Corey Erdman on The Night Hulk Hogan Shocked the World and Joined the NWO | 07.02

Transcript

Corey Erdman on The Night Hulk Hogan Shocked the World and Joined the NWO | 07.02 · The Right Time with Bomani Jones

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Wave.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time. A wave original.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: My name is Beaumont Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like,
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: a hater. It is Time Machine Tuesday. This time we're
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: going to talk about something sports-ish.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying? The moment that Hulk Hogan shocked.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: The world and betrayed all of our childhoods and was
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: the third man and joined the NWO. But with us,
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: we have boxing commentator, but he also sometimes talk about
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: fake fighting.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: Also, former producer of a little show called The Morning Jones,
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: Corey Erdman. What's going on?
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  Speaker 1: I told you this off the air, but I never
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: thought the day would come when you would call me
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: at 9 a.m.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: To talk about wrestling, but I am here. Let's go.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Like, imagine me when I first got it was working
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: for was that hardcore sports radio to realize that I
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: was coming to a place where people took wrestling like
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: for real serious.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: I didn't get it.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Like the TV station was the score, the score, read
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: the network and the score had the NBA contract in Canada.
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: It was like, hell yeah. They told me about that.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: They also had the wrestling TV contract, which nobody told
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: me about.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: And then one night I've just scanned it through on Sirius.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: And I listen and I hear Corey talking about wrestling
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  Speaker 2: like it's for real.
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  Speaker 3: Like there was a seriousness to the tone.
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  Speaker 2: I was like, shit, there's a world of discussing wrestling
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: that I simply did not know existed.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: And listen, you know, what's funny, Bo, is basically when
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: you asked me to do this. As you know, I'm
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: not really on social media like that, but I keep
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Facebook for old photos and whatnot and mainly to buy
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: furniture on Facebook Marketplace. But my memories served me a date,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: which was that last Thursday was my 16th anniversary of
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: my debut on national television, which was on right after
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: wrestling on the score where we talked about wrestling to
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: your point as if it was real. Because at that point,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the rules were dictated by WWE and the score had
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: WWE rights and they didn't allow you to talk about
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: it as if it.
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Were a television program.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: So you went to go on there and say like, boy,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know how Rey Mysterio is going to overpower
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the big show. There is a 450 pound weight differential here.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: We had to do that on television. So I'm glad
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: that I have moved on to talking about real fighting
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: on television like that.
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  Speaker 3: What's the word? Kayfabe? Kayfabe, yeah. That's the word? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kayfabe,
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: like you just gotta, we're all the way in on this.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: But I will say for people who feel like, I
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: don't treat wrestling with the respect it deserves.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: And it's not the wrestling. It's you guys.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: But the thing I do find interesting is I do
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: enjoy watching people like who.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: Really are into this to discuss it.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Like the the the economy that is around discussing wrestling
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: now is I find it to be very, very interesting
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: because there's people evaluating the plot, which and I'm not
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: saying this is a judgment.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: It's almost like soap opera fans.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Because you can say whatever you want in real time
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: and actually get some results from the home office because
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: you guys are the ones that decide what goes and
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: does not go. So there's that, but there's also once
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: you have an understanding of the business and the people
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: that are involved in this, there's a million different things.
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: And that's part of, to me, why this Hogan thing.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Is so interesting, especially with all the things that happened
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: long after this and, of course, with Hogan passing. But
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: the building and legend of Hulkamania which it was, and
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  Speaker 2: he was not Hulkamania in 1996 because they did not
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  Speaker 2: own those trademarks.
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  Speaker 3: We will talk about that also as we get into this.
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  Speaker 2: But when I, you know, I am older than you,
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: but when I first was aware that wrestling existed, Hulkamania
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: was already a thing. Like, it's wild to me to
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  Speaker 2: consider that there was a world where it wasn't a thing,
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  Speaker 2: especially considering he wasn't very good at wrestling, but somehow
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  Speaker 2: managed to get himself all the way to the top
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  Speaker 2: of this.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Like, I... I don't know if I've said this on
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  Speaker 1: air before. I probably said it back in the morning
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  Speaker 1: Jones days, but I think until I was 11 years old,
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  Speaker 1: I didn't eat a piece of candy because Hulk Hogan said,
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  Speaker 1: you shouldn't do that. You should take your, you should
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  Speaker 1: take your vitamins and say your prayers and lift the like,
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  Speaker 1: you know, blue plastic weights that he sold.
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  Speaker 3: Like I was all the way in on Hulkamania at
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: that point. And you're right.
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  Speaker 1: Like, Hulk Hogan as a professional wrestler, especially compared to
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: what we see on television right now, was not, you know,
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  Speaker 1: particularly like majestic in the ring. He's not like a
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  Speaker 1: poetry in motion type athlete that you'd be your jaw
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  Speaker 1: would drop watching.
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  Speaker 3: Him in the ring.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: But for the 80s, like the kind of like big
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  Speaker 1: hulking kind of clumsy wrestling that we knew. he was
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  Speaker 1: pretty much on par with everybody. Like Hulk Hogan was just,
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  Speaker 1: it was just a cult of personality, which we'll get into,
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  Speaker 1: but he was, he seemed to jump through the screen
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  Speaker 1: in a way that a professional wrestler hadn't before.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And wrestling was so much smaller.
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  Speaker 2: Like there is obviously a pre Hulkamania post Hulkamania. Is
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: it fair to say like pre WrestleMania one or even
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: WrestleMania three post WrestleMania three, but he feels like the
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  Speaker 2: fulcrum for all of these things in terms of, professional
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  Speaker 2: wrestling not simply being regional like it was regional pockets
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  Speaker 2: at this point obviously the arrival of Vince McMahon also
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  Speaker 2: comes in on this but like the idea that they
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  Speaker 2: could turn Hogan into this guy from California when you
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: look back on it you're like no this is Tampa
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: like this is.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: Obviously a big old dude from Tampa yeah.
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  Speaker 1: No he is the fulcrum and and and I think
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: that what we'll get into later you know the formation
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: of the NWO he's again the fulcrum in terms of
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: excuse me, like a tonal shift of professional wrestling. So
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: it kind of, he dictates basically what wrestling looks like
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: and the seriousness of it. And again, the tone of it,
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  Speaker 1: it goes from Hulkamania to basically pre-NWO and post-NWO. And
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  Speaker 1: so that's like, you know, a 20, near 30 year
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  Speaker 1: run of Hogan being kind of the main character of
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  Speaker 1: wrestling and the industry kind of following Hogan his path
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  Speaker 1: and the tone that he is setting.
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  Speaker 2: Well, how would you describe what was different from his
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: first arrival? Because if I'm not mistaken, there was the
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Iron Sheik, but the guy that was really the champ
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: before that was Bob Backlund. And I don't have any
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: contemporaneous recollection of Bob Backlund, but I remember when he
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: came back and I couldn't figure out why this dude
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  Speaker 2: was in wrestling. He just came out with a towel
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  Speaker 2: around his neck and seemed like the most boring person
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  Speaker 2: in the world, right? Like what wrestling had become in
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: the mid 80s? was so much different. To this day,
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  Speaker 2: I cannot conceptualize how they were like, this is going
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  Speaker 2: to be the guy.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: At that point, those types of wrestlers, you think like
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: even Bruno Sammartino, who was obviously a gargantuan star, as
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: a wrestler, you know, he's a big hulking guy in
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  Speaker 1: blue trunks, who's kind of the hero of the people.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Bob Backlund, was an excellent amateur wrestler, a fantastic athlete,
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  Speaker 1: but kind of void of that bombast as well. And
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  Speaker 1: you could see like the reference points for Hulk Hogan
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  Speaker 1: are based, they're superstar Billy Graham and they're Dusty Rhodes.
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  Speaker 1: So those people were starting to break through regionally and
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  Speaker 1: you're starting to see that type of character, you know,
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  Speaker 1: the big, like the screaming wrestler who's coming through your
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  Speaker 1: TV that just becomes the basic and baseline moving forward. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: Hogan basically puts those two things together. And when he
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  Speaker 1: comes into WWF at that point, everything really does hinge
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  Speaker 1: on him being that star and it, and it does work. Uh,
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: but yeah, it had to be at that point, Hogan
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  Speaker 1: moves aside those just sort of clean cut baby face.
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  Speaker 1: I'm a good wrestler. And that's the reason why I
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: am the champion and it necessitates your top character to
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  Speaker 1: also being a big character who can then sell merchandise
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: because the economy of wrestling changes overnight as well with
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  Speaker 1: merchandising and with television.
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  Speaker 3: And he was a monster on the mic, right?
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  Speaker 2: And to me, a monster on a mic in a
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  Speaker 2: way that's a bit different than Rhodes or even Ric Flair.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: I think the most interesting thing about Ric Flair on
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  Speaker 2: the mic to this day is the moment that you realize,
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  Speaker 2: wait a minute, he's.
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  Speaker 3: Actually like this.
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  Speaker 2: Like, this is not really something that he has created. Like,
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  Speaker 2: these are things that he's probably telling people in real
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  Speaker 2: life when he gets a hold of it. Hogan had
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  Speaker 2: created a very, very interesting character that I would not
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: assume is the character that he was in real life. Like,
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Ric Flair showing up in the suits, in the shades,
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: and everything else.
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  Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, no, no, no. This isn't a costume budget.
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  Speaker 3: This is what he does all the time.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Flair and Rhodes, they're good on the mic
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: in the way that when you go back and you
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: watch their promos now, they're funny and they're kind of clever.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: When you go back and watch Hogan promos, you're sort
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: of laughing at the absurdity. Much of it doesn't make
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: a whole ton of sense, but the delivery of it
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: and at that time of big superheroes and action movies
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  Speaker 1: and whatnot, he looked like one that was... having a
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: movie scene in real time, you know, when you tuned in,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: it was like you were watching a superhero, especially because
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: wrestling wasn't discussed as it was right now. There was
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: a full shroud of secrecy. Like you might've understood that
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: obviously this is a performance, but you didn't know anything
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes. So when you were seeing Hogan in
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: the eighties, it was like watching a live Rambo movie.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: He's beating the bad guys on your television, but it's
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: happening in real time. Like it was the perfect character
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: for the perfect moment.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's the thing about by the time you
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: get to WrestleMania 1, we haven't talked about the important...
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: characteristic of the character which is heavy dollops of jingoism
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: right like it's him and the Iron Sheik like it
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: is at a point and I think that You almost
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: got to take it for granted, especially if you're my
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: age and came over wrestling at that point. But there's
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: a book I read called Brand NFL. It's a really
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: interesting book for people to check out. And one point
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: that they make about it was the NFL figured out
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: that when they took their product and then they wedded
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: it to the red, white, and blue, that's when everything
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: took off is when they managed to associate it with Americana,
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: which is something obviously the NBA, for example, has struggled with.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: And I would say that baseball has. has kind of
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: lost its attachment to for a number of reasons. But
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: the NFL, there's always going to be that big old
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: giant flag before the games and everything else and flyovers
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: and all that stuff because they figured out that's a
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: winning combination. And the NHL being the exception for an
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: obvious reason, there's a reason all the logos are red, white,
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: and blue. Of all of the sports Hogan gave them
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: like I don't like you tell me I don't have
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: a recollection of there being a superstar prior to Hogan
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: that they really had wedded toward being like the American
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: hero even Dusty Rhodes the American dream felt a little
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: cheeky right Hogan really did seem like I'm out here
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: fighting for the whole country especially when you put them
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: up against somebody like the Irish she and then the
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: Russians later.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: Exactly, yeah.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: The only guy I can think of is Sergeant Slaughter,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: but that's more like on the nose, like I am
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: an American soldier, even.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: Though he wasn't, by the way. Sergeant Slaughter's just a
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: big long tail of stolen valor.
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: Just a guy.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: Just a guy, you know?
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, Hogan, basically from beating the Iron
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Sheik all the way until he beats Sergeant Slaughter, like
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Iraqi sympathizer Sergeant Slaughter.
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: When he teams with the Iron Sheik. Who is no
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: longer the Iron Sheik. That's right. He has now moved
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: from Iran to Iraq. That's right. And has become Colonel Mustafa.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: That's right. Yeah.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Basically, the audience doesn't tire of that story for that
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: whole period of time. It's just a series of foes
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: from different nationalities or just big giants for him to slay.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: Or the combination of the two, which is Andre the Giant. Correct.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: We don't really think about it because I guess, yeah,
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: he's from France or whatever, but he's still a big
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: giant outsider.
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, exactly, yeah.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: They don't lean on that that heavily with the giant,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: but it's, yeah, it's understood that this is a monster
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: that isn't from here. And like Kamala, for example, is another.
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: Example of that. Right. It's like we've made more explicit terms. Yes.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: No, this is like now that I think about it,
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Hogan was the original ice.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: I think I think the story of America could pretty
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: closely just track with the story of Hulk Hogan.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like he was out here roughing up foreigners, and
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: sometimes they weren't even foreigners.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: Sometimes they was really from here. They're like, yo, I'm
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: trying to explain this to you. No, no, no, no, no.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: Hogan's bringing it to them all. Like, look, Hogan, it
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: felt to me when I was a kid.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: I remember when he lost the championship to Andre the
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Giant on Saturday night's main event, and then Andre the
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Giant gave it to the most American character of all time,
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: the million-dollar man, Ted DiBiase.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: But it felt like he was like FDR. It felt
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: like he had been the champion my whole life. And
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: in fact, I think for all intents and purposes, he
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: had been. Like you never even got, it was a
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: special occasion if you got to watch him wrestle.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: You had to stay up for Saturday night's main event.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: Or whatever because they wasn't putting Hogan on no all-American wrestling.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: You were going to have to get your mama to
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: pay $ 10 to see him on pay-per-view. Like they gave
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: a scarcity to him that after that did not exist
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: with the champs.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's something that current WWE is trying to
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: kind of bring back, and I don't know, people aren't
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: really taking to it particularly fondly, I don't think. But yeah,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: there was, if you wanted to see Hogan wrestle, it
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: was either on Saturday night's main event, so it's on
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: cable television so they can get a monster rating. They're making,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: if they were going to put Hogan in front of you,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: they were going to make money off of it. If
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: you were to see him on Superstar's, It was going
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: to be him cutting a promo. You're going to see
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: highlights of things that happened with him. But if you're
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: watching him live, you had to pay and see him
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: physically in person or on pay-per-view when those started coming around.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Or yeah, you're going to have to stay up very
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: late on Saturday night. They were going to get something
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: out of you seeing Hulk Hogan.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like it was not just a special occasion.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: He come into the ring.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: It take him 15 minutes to basically get in there.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: You're getting two verses and a bridge of real America.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Which, by the way, has an incredible Pavlovian response to
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: this day. Like, something important is about to happen when
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Rick Derringer comes on the system because, again, this is
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: not something that you got every day.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: No, and the Hogan entrance, too, you got to remember,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: you know, I'll take it over to the boxing world
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: at that time because they're running in parallel, especially at
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: that point in terms of pop culture. Like, big bombastic
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: ring entrances weren't really a thing at that time. Like,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: the the first major boxer who started to really use
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: ring entrance music at that point was larry holmes he
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: came out to to ain't no stopping us now by
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: oh wow of all songs.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: Like yeah yeah right that was that.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Song is way too happy like i understand the point
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: and the sentiment of it but that's a little peppy
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: for of all people larry holmes.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: But Larry Holmes, like go and listen to Larry Holmes's music.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Like Larry Holmes likes a little bit of cheesiness in
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: his music.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: I forgot that Larry Holmes made music.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: But yeah, at that point, like we weren't, you would
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: see boxers have entrances and whatnot, but not everyone was
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: using ring entrance music. So when Hogan is doing it,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: of course, a couple people had done this before, but
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: It was that big, like we're following our hero into
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: the ring that is so central to the presentation of
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: wrestling now. That was brand new for a lot of people.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: And when it's the guy that you're obsessed with and
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: you've got his action figure, you're sitting there like that,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: everything timed out perfectly for how he was presented.
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: And made for television, right? Like this is the beginning
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: of the day. I had no concept of it in
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: real time. that when I was showing up to that party,
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: that party was really just becoming a big thing, right?
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Like to me, it's like, this is what it has
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: always been, but this is the real arrival. And of course,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: they got more in touch with it in the early
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: to mid 90s with just the understanding that what they
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: were producing was a television show. But Hogan was ahead
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: of the game in getting that I am the star
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: of this television show.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and Hogan always seemed to approach this as a
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: television show too, right? Like people always talk about, especially
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: when he got into the WCW, like the clauses he
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: would have in his contract about, you know, like getting
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: paid for his contract was obviously better than other wrestlers.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: But when you look at the things that he was getting,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: you know, he would get an upfront fee to appear
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: on a pay-per-view and he would get a percentage of
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: those pay-per-view sales. That's just a normal television contract. You know,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: like you get residuals and you get paid to show
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: up to work. Like the weirdness is in what the
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: other wrestling contracts are like. And of course, the irony
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: is that Hogan was the man who stopped a union
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: from forming in the WWF in the 80s. But, you know,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: the contract that he had should have been the type
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: of contract that everyone had.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Let me tell you a subtle thing about Hogan, too,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: in terms of his presentation, which wasn't always the case.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: And when they really leaned in, like the Hulkamania character
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: came around, It's the red and yellow color thing. It's
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: something that I never thought about until I went to...
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Have you been to the Neon Museum in Vegas?
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: Yes, yes. Yeah, one of my favorite spots there, yeah.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so for people who have not been there, it
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: tells the story of Las Vegas through old neon signs, right?
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: And one point they made there that I had never
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: thought about was that those colors, red and yellow, are like...
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: I forget what the adjective is, but it's basically like
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: bootleg neon, right? Like it makes things pop in that
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: same way. And if you stop and think about it,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: all the fast food places have red and yellow signs. McDonald's,
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Burger King, Wendy's, In-N-Out. Go up and down your fast
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: food places when you think of. And now just think
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: about places that you go and you see it. It's
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: because those colors together pop like it's neon lights.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: Like that's a big part of the Hogan thing is
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: they put him in those colors. And I don't know
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: if they thought about it in that way, but that's
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: a very particular pairing of colors that made him kind
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: of stand out because otherwise it's kind of like, yo,
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: why is this guy wearing this set of things? But
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: when you really just stop and think about the world
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: and as you live in it, oh, no, that is
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: a sign of say, hey, look at this.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and to this day, if you see red and yellow,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: I think you'd think of Hulk Hogan at that point.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: Yes. Or McDonald's, right? And that's a pretty good competitor.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: If it's him or McDonald's. Right. Like, that's the level
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: of ubiquity that we're talking about. But, you know, it's funny.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: After he gave up that title to Andre the Giant,
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: and then, like, basically, to the end of his time
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: in WWE, he's still a big deal. But they're moving on, right? Like,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: they have your little macho man run. You go into
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: the Ultimate Warrior, you combine Hogan with the Ultimate Warrior,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: the Hogan and tried it with Macho, too.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Nobody's team player. But hey, OK, we're going to go
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: ahead and we'll make this happen.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: But kind of, you know, gradually as it went, it
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: was kind of time for something else.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: Like these guys wrestle forever, certainly.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: But he couldn't be what he was in the WWE,
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: but with still WWF at that point.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: But for so long.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he was also getting kind of tantalized by
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: movie and TV interests and, you know, turned out to
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: be not as good an actor as maybe he thought.
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: He was, right?
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: But he was chasing that money. And as he stepped away,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: other people started stepping into the forefront. You know, guys like,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: guys like Bret Hart would appear and people would say, oh,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: like this, I haven't seen wrestling quite like this before.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: I like this a little bit better.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: And gradually, you know, the industry and the fandom of WWF,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: I think their tastes start to change a little bit.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: People get a little bit older and they gravitate towards
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: other characters.
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: Well, also, I think we can't lose sight of this part.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: Once the steroid thing got into the public consciousness, we
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: saw from both federations a move towards smaller, more athletic wrestlers. Like,
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: that's the thing about Hart, the excellence of execution in
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: all of those things, right? Like, it was, okay, we
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: need to go about this toward a different paradigm. Hell,
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: you see, this is when Ric Flair... Turns up in
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: the WWE, Ric Flair wasn't a small wrestler necessarily, but
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: it was still, it was an emphasis on a different style.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Because also Hogan, who suddenly went from being like 305
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: to 270.
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: Huh?
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: You look at like WrestleMania 9 Hogan, and he looks
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: a whole lot different, you know?
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: He looked like that year that Jason Giambi came back.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: It was like, oh, no, I just cleaned up my
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: diet a little bit. Yeah, exactly.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: It looked like Hulk answered those Ozempic ads and came
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: back a couple months later.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: But the time was gone.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: And also, you know, Ted Turner did not care about
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: wrestling nearly the way that Vince McMahon did, obviously, because
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Ted Turner had a lot more stuff going on.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: But Ted Turner wasn't in the business of losing.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: And the idea of them getting Hulk Hogan to come
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: to the WCW was giant.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, it was massive. And it was getting a mainstream star.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: And also, a lot of WCW at that point is
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: filmed in Orlando, and you're around Disney. And so you
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: see Hulk Hogan again, who for a lot of people
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: of a certain age was no different from cartoon characters,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: from superheroes. And then suddenly he's there in real life
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: and they have this parade and he's going through Disney.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: It was Disney or Universal Studios, I forget. But he's
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: around that universe. It felt, it gave them a fighting
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: chance in a war That clearly only Ted Turner cared
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: about that at that point, because I think the rest
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: of the company would have been cool just running basically
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: a regional television wrestling television show and staying doing what
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: they wanted. But Ted had bigger ambitions and Hogan was
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: the key to doing something bigger than what they were doing.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: And again, and I think this is important, it was
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: a much smaller Hogan. Like the Hogan of that era,
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: it didn't look like he should be ripping his shirt off, right?
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Like he just wasn't that big of a guy.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: And to me, and I mentioned.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: This a little bit earlier, because they didn't own any
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: of the trademarks and Vince obviously wasn't going to give
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: them the stuff from before, it all felt bootleg. Like
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: it looked like imitation Hulk Hogan stuff, like the shirt
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: with Hulkster across the front, right? Him being so much
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: smaller than he had been before. It looked, this was
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: not what we grew up with. And we could obviously
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: tell that it wasn't. And I can't remember how much
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: of that plays into the decision that they ultimately made
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: that they had to basically shift this whole brand.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: I think that had to play into it because for me,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: like going back to that parade when he's going through,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: he's walking through Disney. Like to me, I do remember
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a feeling of like this, like
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: we're almost bringing a mascot of a character in right now.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: And to your point, it did feel boot. Like you
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: have Hulkster on the shirt, you have a new song
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: that Jimmy Hart had to make, you know, American made.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: So it's not, it's not his old theme song. Everything
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: about it feels a little bit different. The sets are,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: kind of look like cardboard sometimes. Like it feels like
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: a legacy act at that point. And something like it,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: if they didn't switch it when they did everything, you know,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: he probably just kind of gradually falls down the card
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: and becomes again, just sort of this old guy who's
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: hanging on, but they were able to revive it. And
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I think one of the things that really worked about
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: turning him heel, we'll get into this in a sec
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: is it, they talk about it reviving Hulk Hogan. And
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: I think one of the things that did is yes,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: he turned on a lot of his supporters. So those
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: people booed him and it made him a successful heel character.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: But the other thing is it gave people, especially in
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: that point, a thing that you like to do as
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: a wrestling fan was cheer for the bad guys so
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: that you could stick it to those people. So some
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: people were cheering for Hogan because like you're laughing at
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the people who are upset about him turning bad. And
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: you get to cheer for the version of bad Hulk
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Hogan as well. And then those people bought his merchandise.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: So it was a genius move at the time that
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: it happened.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: It was such an ambitious thing.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: And to build up like this change that we're talking about,
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: it was a dude they used to call Diesel and
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: a dude they used to call Razor Ramon. who left,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: and also this is, WWF was kind of falling off.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: At this point too.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: Like everything was, everything just felt a little weird for
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: this whole industry and trying to figure out where it
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: was that they were going. But they leave and they
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: just start turning up at WCW events with no names left.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: No thing.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: They weren't even out there really wrestling at first.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: They just called themselves the Outsiders.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: And if you paid any attention to wrestling, you knew
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: what they were dudes that used to be in the WWF.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: But there was this, I don't really know what's going
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: on here, right? Like it was like a much better
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: version of the Doom gimmick. And for those of you
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: who don't know, it was a tag team called Doom.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: They had two black dudes in mass. But the problem
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: was the whole company only had three black dudes. So
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: everybody knew exactly who they were and what was going on.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: But with this, it was just like, so I don't
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: understand what's going on.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: What are we doing?
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: And then finally, as it builds and builds, they announced
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: they got a third guy.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: Right. The third man. This is what they call it.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: And they out here and they're wrestling at the pay-per-view
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: bash at the beach.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: Okay? Which, man, you go back and look at that.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: That is a low-budget-looking production for them to have the
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: audacity to charge people money to watch that shit. And
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: so they're in this match. Bobby Heenan is on the call.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: Is he on the call with Jim Ross? I can't
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: remember who the other guy was. He's going to go
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: with Tony Schiavone at that point.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Tony Schiavone, right? And they're on the call.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: Keeping in mind, Bobby Heenan apparently hates Hulk Hogan in
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: real life also, or he did a very good job
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: of pretending. And so we've been waiting to find out
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: who the third man is. They're in the ring cheating,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: and Hogan starts walking out. And people think Hogan's coming
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: to save the day. Bobby Heenan, of course, says he's
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: the third man. And I can't imagine what it was
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: like in the production truck when they heard that. But
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: it was such a preposterous notion that even with him
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: saying that this is what was going to happen, it
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: didn't feel like that was what was going to happen.
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: And then suddenly these two guys who come from WWF
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: and they're now wrestling in WCW, Hogan comes in there and.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: You realize, oh, he's one of them.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: And he hits the dudes with the leg drop and
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: all of that stuff, and he grabs the mic.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: He also fucks up. Because he called it, what, the
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: New World Organization? Like, he blew his line.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he kind of fumbles it. He's the New World
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: Order of Wrestling, brother.
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, he blew it, but he was auto.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: He hit it. He was just like, yo.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Like, it was as good a shoot as he had
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: done since he had gotten back there. And those shots
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: of the crowd, people throwing shit in the ring. Like...
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: It's the epitome of it's still real to me. And
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: even if it wasn't real to you, it is amazing
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: to me that anything could.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: Ever be as shocking as that fake shit was.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. I remember watching. I remember where I was.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: I remember sitting in the basement on the floor, watching
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: it on the tube TV as it happened. I don't
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: really remember what I felt.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: I think.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: I was certainly shocked. I can't remember whether I was upset.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: I think I was old enough at that point that
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: I didn't feel betrayed by Hulk Hogan. I think I'd
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: eaten a piece of candy by that.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: Point.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: But yeah, everything that they were doing at that point,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: remember the way that we interact with wrestling right now,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: everything is out in the open. That economy of wrestling
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: discussion that you talked about, it really is fascinating because
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: wrestling fans have an insatiable appetite for more and more
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: information and they will go back and listen to interviews
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: about the same stuff over and over and over case
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: in point, the episode that you're going to watch right
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: now about a show from 1996, people are still into it.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: But at that point, really there were, I guess 96
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: would have been like early internet. There were probably a
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: couple websites. If you subscribe to the wrestling observer, like
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: the physical newsletter that got mailed to your house, you
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: might have some concept of what was going on behind
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: the scenes and Other than that, it was periodicals that
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: were published by Bill Apter. They were magazines that were
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: still basically in kayfabe. They would sometimes refer to wrestlers'
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: real names. There would be references to things that were
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: going on behind the scenes, but ultimately it suggested that
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: wrestling was a legitimate sporting contest. So even people who
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: understood what wrestling was still had no way of predicting
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: what was going on. There was no precedent for this. Like,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: The NWO storyline was influenced by a very similar storyline
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: in Japan, in New Japan Pro Wrestling. But people seeing
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: this thought, are these guys actually invading the television show?
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Has Vince McMahon sent Diesel and Razor Ramon to take
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: over WCW? Is Hulk Hogan tired of WCW? and and
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: going back to vince to take over this company like
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: people did not have a concept of what was going
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: on uh and it's at this point you couldn't really
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: do a storyline like that we just know too much
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: they try to every once in a while but we
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: we demand too much as well. So even if you
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: could trick us now, two weeks later, there'll be an
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: interview online with someone explaining what's going on. But that
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: shroud of secrecy allowed wrestling to be something very special
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: at that time.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Coming up next, we're going to talk about what happened
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: after that and, you know, how Hulk Hogan squandered every
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: bit of goodwill the sorry ass ever had.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: Rest in peace.
• 30:21
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• 31:25
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• 31:42
  Speaker 2: We are back with Corey Ertman talking about the day
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: that Hulk Hogan went to the NWO. And I'll tell you,
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: I was 15 when that happened and didn't even watch
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: wrestling like that.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: And it was still riveting. I can't believe this is.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Like it was a it was like the sort of
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: if school was in.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: Right. You go to school and you're like, dude.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: Can you believe this? Like, can you believe this happened?
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: And from there, I think it helped. We were talking
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: about the change. It got them out of the red
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: and yellow, right? Because how do you rebrand Hulk Hogan?
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: You can't.
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: The only way that you can rebrand Hulk Hogan is
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: to destroy Hulk Hogan, right? Gets him into completely different clothes,
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: changes the whole look, all of it. Bischoff and all
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: those guys at WCW, I really do think they deserve
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: a great deal of credit because they did the impossible
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: and they figured out how to make Hulk Hogan new.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the things that were probably holding Hulk down
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: at that point, you know, like the really cheesy delivery
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: and whatnot, there were elements of that that actually made
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: him a better heel. Like his presentation, a lot of
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: people found Hollywood Hogan really cool, right? He sold a
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: ton of merchandise. There were a lot of people who
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: were very into it. But again, going back to the
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: two ways that that character worked, then, you know, the
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: really cheesiness, like the over-the-top selling as a heel and whatnot, like,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: he was able to lean into that in a way
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: that worked as a bad guy that by 1997, as
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: a good guy, just didn't fly with that audience.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: And it also became almost kind of like NWA, right?
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: Like wearing the black gear, like it is the, it was, there's.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: An anti-hero element to there.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: And by and large, I didn't, and you come here
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: if I'm wrong here, I never felt like wrestling heels
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: really truly gave you anti-hero. Like you might root for
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: them to troll or to like, to be spiteful or,
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: you know, but, I think Steve Austin became a fantastic
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: antihero after a point.
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: But up until that, you didn't really have it.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: And also, I think people were like, yo, we cheer
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: for Hulk Hogan.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: That's what we do. We're not ready to stop yet. Right.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So two things. So you mentioned N.W.A. Like Kevin
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Nash has explicitly said that N.W.A. and West Coast hip
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: hop in general was basically the influence for. how they
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: presented things. And Hulk, obviously, as we'll get into later,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: didn't know anything.
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: About that world.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: So, but Big Sexy from Detroit definitely did. And so
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: he brought that aesthetic, you know, he had like the
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: red bandana worn backwards like Tupac. And, you know, there were,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: so that the imagery was definitely taken from that. But yeah,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: I think when it came to anti-heroes, you might've cheered
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: for a bad guy because you found them cool before,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't this explicit.
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: And you're right.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Like Austin was kind of bubbling at that point, but
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: wasn't a thing that's post NWO. And the other thing
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: that's post NWO, is over on the other side, Vince
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: McMahon had started, you know, having little tiffs with characters,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: but was still presented as just sort of like a
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: virtuous commentator, even though they'd kind of let it slip
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: that he ran the company as well. But Vince as
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: the overbearing heel boss, that comes post Eric Bischoff too.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: And those two things, the cool anti-hero and the battle
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: against the establishment, essentially become the pillars of wrestling storylines
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: for like the next 30 years. It all comes after this.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: And it's all basically because of this night.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: It made WWF step their game all the way up
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: that whole area, the Monday night wars.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: Attitude era, everything there.
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: It is, it is like people who extol the virtues
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: of capitalism. This is what people wanted, right? By our
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: sharpest iron, right? Competition makes everybody better. And that's what
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: you had.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: Nothing beats to me though.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: When the WWF was still showing Monday Night Raw on
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: tape and Bischoff would get on TV and read off
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: all the results and.
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: Be like, all right, don't need you to watch that.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: Here's everything that happened over there. Like, I'm surprised nobody
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: pulled up on him behind that. Yeah, I mean, they
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: kind of made.
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: A storyline about that as if like D-Generation X is
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: on like a tank.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: Trying to evade Nitro, right? But yeah. But Bischoff could fight.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: That's the problem.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: You couldn't pull up on Bischoff because he was like
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: a legit kickboxer.
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: Really? Eric Bischoff could beat your ass. No idea. Yeah, yeah.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: I think we.
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Remember Eric Bischoff a little bit differently. You go back
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: and look at Eric Bischoff. He can fight and he's
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: a good looking dude. Eric Bischoff had everything going and
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: he was a slick talker.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that was the thing about Bischoff.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: Like, before Bischoff took charge, he did seem to be
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: in many ways overqualified to be on wrestling TV.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was just a natural speaking talent. Yeah.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Now, how long was it before they started bringing Hogan back, like,
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: into the fold?
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: Because before I do that, I just want to get.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: I feel like I haven't done a good enough job
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: of selling the magnitude of the moment and the shock
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: of everything. Is there anything that's ever been a parallel
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: in wrestling to... what it was in that moment for
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: that to happen.
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: I can't think of one.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: They tried to recreate it two years ago or something
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: with John Cena turning heel.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: But that's obviously still derivative of NWO. They are immediately
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: referencing Hogan turning at that point. I don't think that
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: anything was ever that shocking. There were betrayals in wrestling before,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: but again, all these different elements... of peeling the curtain
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: back and suggesting that something that was off script was
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: happening that they're, they're playing with elements that they couldn't
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: have played with before. It was, it was entirely new.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And like you talking before about how Hogan has
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: started to feel like a legacy act when he first
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: got to do WCW after this had kind of run
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: its course and he goes back to being Hulk Hogan again.
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: And I just can't remember how long it had been.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: I know that by the time you get to like,
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Oh one Oh two, he's back in WWE. And, you know,
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: he's at that space. But then to me, you correct
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: me if I'm wrong, I really feel like it went
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: Legacy Act then, right? Like the Jimi Hendrix intro coming,
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: like he's now a classic rock guy. He has taken
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: the boa and stuff that he used to wear that
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: was in black, but now it's back in the red
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: and yellow and everything else.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: And, you know, they let him get a win every
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: now and then.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: Because, man, you want to, the idea of kayfabe that
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: we really thought that, you know, after a while he's
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: really tired and then people punch him and he just
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: starts shaking his head.
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: That's all. He just taps into some reservoir of invincibility.
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: He got a Mario star. And the next thing you know,
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: he's winning. We really were believing in buying that.
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: It became so much more implausible by the end where
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: you're like, oh, yeah, I remember when he used to.
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's cool. Really? Yeah. Well, yeah.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: And it was very legacy acty at that point because
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: no one else does that. Because if anyone else did that,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: you know, people would be like, well, that's not believable whatsoever.
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: Come up with a better story.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: So yeah, he is very, but again, like even when
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: he comes back, he has that match with the rock
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: where at least for one night, like Hulkamania is all
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: the way back in the sky dome at that point.
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: But again, that was still rooted in nostalgia. That was
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: people in Toronto showing up and being like, no, you know,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: we're gonna we're reliving hulkamania again for one night we're gonna.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Do and that was really nice on a rock to
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: go along with that right my pride would not have
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: allowed me even in a even in rasslin there's no
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: way i'm gonna let you think this old man like
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: beat me here like i felt like when rick flair
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: came back as an old man there was never a
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: moment where it didn't feel like there was an old
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: man and they were treating him like he was an
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: old man hogan it was just like i do this
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: one time for the people i don't feel like flair
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: ever got that respect in his old man face.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: Dude they treated flair like an old man from like
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: 95 in wcw like for the next 20 years or
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: whenever he retired did he ever really retire i i
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: mean technically he's retired but he always talks about coming back.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Dude, I have a phone number in my phone that
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: I have under Nature Boy Ric Flair. He was on
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: a show I did once. He gave me his phone number.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: I called him once. I can't remember why. He was
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: in the middle of some meeting. Like, I think that's
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: when he was pitching mortgages. And for those who don't know,
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: Ric Flair has tried to sell everything. But it was
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: the figure. There was something like the figure four plan
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: or something that was associated.
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: But I call him and he's like in a meeting.
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: He's like, hey, hey, what's going on, man? Yeah, yeah,
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: I'm at the speed, man. Let me give you a
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: call back a little bit later.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: All right, cool.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: First of all, why would Ric Flair give me his
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: phone number? That was the thing about it. Why would
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: I call Ric Flair? Like there's a whole series of
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: things that ran together.
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: But yeah, if you called Ric Flair, you pick up
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: the phone. How did, so have you ever met Ric Flair? Yes,
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: I've met Ric Flair.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: So I will say that I interviewed Hulk Hogan one
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: time and this was, we'll get into this.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: This was pre tapes.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: So it was early in my right around, early in
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: my TV career and whatnot, I interviewed Hulk Hogan. And
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: I remember it probably being the only time when I
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: was a little bit nervous going into the interview, not
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: necessarily because of the starstruck nature, because at that point
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: I'd interviewed athletes and you get used to that very quickly.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: But because I didn't know how to interact with him,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: I really only had this image of Hulk Hogan, like
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: the superhero character on my screen. And then I didn't
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: know how I was going to approach this conversation. And
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: so I was nervous going into it. And I remember
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: my first question being like, just so I could break
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: this barrier, how do you differentiate between Hulk Hogan and Terry?
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: And I forget what his answer was, but I needed
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: to do that because I didn't know how to have
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: this conversation. And I imagine, you know, when you meet
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Ric Flair, it's kind of the same thing because he's
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: kind of always Ric Flair.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: He's always Ric Flair. And he's really good at being
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: Ric Flair.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Like Ric Flair in a restaurant, just talking to people
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: like he is very aware that the people are who
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: allow him to stay in the space that he's in.
• 41:52
  Speaker 3: And so he is incredibly charming. He'll take all the
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: pictures with everybody.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: He'll sit and have a drink with you the whole night. Right.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: Like he he knows how he's going to survive. I
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: think it's also it's a little different when you're broke. Right?
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: Like, I gots to keep this money coming in one
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: way or another.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: But you brought it up with the tapes.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: And I was about to say, I'm trying to think
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: of things as shocking as when Hogan went heel and wrestling.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: And the truth is, it's when he went heel in
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: real life when the tapes came out. And you can
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: sit this part out if you want. I'm going to
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: come with the hot take on this. Mm-hmm.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: That shit was hilarious.
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Like, if we just don't have Hogan using the N-word
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: and him simply saying, yeah, my daughter's dating a black dude,
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: but couldn't it be a black dude with some money?
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: Couldn't it be a rapper? Couldn't it be a basketball player?
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: Why can't it just be some regular black dude? There
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: are a lot of black people who have those same
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: exact conversations with their black daughters about the do-nothing black
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: dude that they happen to be dating. At that point
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: in time, like you hear it in his voice. He
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: knows he's saying something hilarious.
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: He's like, great joke.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: Right. And I'm hearing it like not the worst jokes
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: I ever heard. And then the world found out. And
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: it was like, and somebody was putting it about somebody else,
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: or maybe this was about Hogan. It was like finding
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: out that Santa Claus is sleeping with your sister.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: Listen, my main take on this boat, Is, you know,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: obviously a lot of people were disappointed, but then there
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: were a lot of people, maybe less in the moment,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: but as time went on, who have tried to tie
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: themselves and have tied themselves into knots trying to explain this.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: You know, like, oh, he used a racial slur because
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: he heard it on the streets growing up in Tampa,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: you know? Yeah. OK, like you can do that if
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: you want. But how do you explain the line that
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: preceded that on the tapes, Bo, which was Hulk Hogan saying,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: I am a racist?
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: Yes, he does. Yes, he does. How do you explain that?
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: What he's telling you?
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: On top of his long legacy of behind the scenes
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: racism right in the WWF like no no no there's
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: no question here of.
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: Hogan's level of racism.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: Right like like it is known and then he wound
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: up with what Aubrey races in his position fears he
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: wound up with a daughter not nearly as racist as
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: he is If you know what I mean, right? Like
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: it is the, it is the, it's the homophobe who
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: turns up with the gay son. It's like all, all
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: the things that people talk about, but yeah, no, no, no.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: His racism was abundantly clear. There's no way around it.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: And for black people, man, it was tough. It was
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: tough when this whole good thing came down. And I
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: don't know why, like there's a particular anguish that comes
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: as a black person with somehow you think this white
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: man is cool.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: It's like when we found out that Bobby Bound was
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: riding with Trump.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: There was no reason for us to be surprised that
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: Bobby Bowden was riding with Trump.
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: He is the demo. It makes perfect sense, but it was.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: Just kind of like, damn, man, that was really disappointing.
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: And with Hogan, people were really, like, their feelings were
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: hurt because he was presented as something that belonged to everybody.
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: Like, he was the guy.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: And I look back on it, I'm surprised my daddy
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: did not try to warn me immediately about this man.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: But no, a piece of him belonged to everybody. And
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: then suddenly that happened and it was like, damn.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: And it's, I think it's extra disappointing because again, like
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: I keep going back to this idea of like Hulk
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Hogan just being like a real life superhero. And I
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: think it's different if like, say I'm a fan of
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: like the Superman franchise or something and you know, Superman,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: but I guess did happen. Superman turns out to, you know,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: to believe things you don't believe and you get disappointed.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: You can still kind of separate that character. There is
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: no separation between– there's no one else put the Hulk
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: Hogan mask on, for example, right? So you can't– if
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: you want to enjoy going back and watching Hulk Hogan now,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: you always have to grapple with that for the rest
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: of your life. You always have to think about it.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: And that's very uncomfortable. But yeah, I don't– I still
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: cannot believe that people forget that he just said the words,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: I am a racist. Because he went on TV saying, no,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: I'm not a racist. You've seen Tales from the Tour Bus, right? Yes.
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: The Mike Judge.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: And I always think about– like if I'm a defense
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: lawyer and I'm trying to defend Hulk Hogan in this
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: case of am I racist or not. It would be
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: like that scene where Johnny Paycheck's lawyer, Johnny Paycheck's spinning
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: the pistol in the courtroom and you just see him
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: take his notes.
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: That's it. I am a racist is an admission on tape.
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: I don't know what to tell you, brother.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: And he gave like no attempt at any accountability or
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: contrition whatsoever. Like, that tells you everything that you need
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: to know about how wrong people like him truly know
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: that they are. Right? Like, he didn't try to run
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: through it. He didn't just try to say, yeah, so what?
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: But he also couldn't say, yeah, my bad. He had
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: to try to go with, don't believe your lying ears.
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: And even... you know, like this documentary that came out
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: on Netflix, like, you know, he's getting towards the end
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: of his life. You'd think at some point he'd have
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: that moment where he's like, I'm going to, I'm going
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: to come clean.
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: I'm going to apologize.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: And that still doesn't happen in that documentary.
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: No, it still never happens.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: No. And let me tell you, it wrote it all
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: the way till he died, man. Hulk Hogan died and
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: black people treated it when Hulk Hogan died. Like white
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: people treated it when OJ Simpson died.
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: My God. Ain't that something?
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: Hmm.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: Prayer's down like.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: What's what's there to what's there to like it was
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: you could like in what i would see the way
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: that people handled it you could still feel the pain
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: yeah like i think that there was a legitimate pain
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: that came from hogan doing this like we let you
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: slide for the nwo baby that wasn't that big a
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: thing there was a Hey, obviously these are things of
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: different magnitudes.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: I want to be clear that I'm not saying that
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: they are the same.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: But the anguish and everything else, and it becomes so
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: wild because I think he was the, there's almost an
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: irony to it, right? Because the character was this all-American
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: character and he shed that because once he became Legacy
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: Act Hogan, He's not doing the Hacksaw Jim Duggan stuff, right?
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: Like he's not coming to the ring with the flag anymore.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: Like all of that was dead. And one could argue
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: that he actually made it into an arc where he
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: became what was the new version.
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: Of what that guy would be.
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: Like, if you think about it, the idea of Hulk
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: Hogan carrying the flag would be a MAGA caricature. If
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: you broke that character out now, like that's the way
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: those symbols and things have been appropriated and used. So
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: it's almost in a way without the flag, he came
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: back to being like a modern adaptation of the original Hulkamane.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that's a, that's a really good point. Yeah.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: He kind of fuses the two and it's interesting because
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: even today.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: You talk about how.
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: People like still are, are struggling with this and maybe
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: don't want to let pieces of, of Hogan go at times.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: I think if you went out in the world wearing
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: a Hulkamania shirt, you'd probably get some side eye. People
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: would assume that you're excusing certain things. But you can
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: wear an NWO shirt.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: And no one will really question it.
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: And a part of it is because it's not only
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Hogan in the NWO, but- The NWO doesn't really exist
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: without Hulk Hogan. You can, like, NWO shirts are still
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: kind of trendy streetwear. You can still pull that out,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: and people are not willing to let that go, no
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: matter what.
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you this.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: The last time I recall seeing Hulk Hogan in public
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: was at that Nazi rally, or at least it felt
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: like a Nazi rally. That rally in October or November 2024,
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: at Madison Square Garden. And this was like about nine
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: months or so before he died. But that was the
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: last time. And that was wild. Like, like no matter
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: what you thought about what he said on the tapes,
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: that's the one where he's talking that crazy stuff about
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Kamala Harris and everything. I was like, and it reminded
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: me also of Bobby Bowden where Bobby Bowden put out
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: a statement before the election, I guess it was in 2020.
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: And he was like, um, before I die or whatever
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: year it was that he died, he was like, before
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: I died, I want to just, I'm glad I'll have,
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: I want to live long enough to vote for Donald
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: Trump one time.
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, that's how you want us
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: to remember you. Your call, buddy. Like you just said
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: it right there that that's what you wanted.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: And that's what I always think about Hogan at that,
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: that he knew his time was short by the time
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: that rally came around. And he was up there, by
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: the way, in the red and yellow, right? Even though
• 50:54
  Speaker 2: he was, this felt, now that whole thing felt like.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: The NWO, but no, no, no.
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: Put it in Hulkamania colors, back to my original point
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: about bringing that back to the arc.
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: But that's how he wanted us to remember him on
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: the way out. It wasn't no shame in it at all. No,
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: not at all.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: And in fact, there's a scene in that documentary where
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: they film him walking up to that rally. And he
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: is clearly framing it in his mind as, oh my God,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: I'm coming back to the place where I beat the
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: Iron Sheik. This is a full circle moment. To your point,
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: this is my last act, how I choose to be remembered,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: what I want to lend myself to on the way
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: out is going to be this. He's tying the beginning
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: of Hulkamania and the end of his life together, and
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: they're happening in the same place, both when he becomes
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: a star and as he goes out, his final act.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: He's clearly very cognizant of that. But the other thing
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: in that documentary is he's clearly cognizant, is a very
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: capitalistic mindset of trying to give people excuses to still
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: like the old Hulk Hogan because he keeps saying the words, well,
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: I wasn't very political at that point. He keeps dropping
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: that in at different points during the documentary almost to
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: try and give, still not apologizing for anything, but trying
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: to convince the audience like, no, it's okay. You can
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: still like 90s Hogan, the 80s Hogan. I wasn't bad
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: back then.
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: And easily, like by far, the biggest star of wrestling.
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: Like, At Hulk Hogan impression, just about anybody can do one, right?
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: He's the one, like the biggest wrestlers of the day.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: None of them, you could say that this is in
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: part because of like the elimination of monoculture, but no,
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: not really. Like everybody knows who LeBron James is the
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: same way everybody knew who Michael Jordan was. Not everybody
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: knows who Roman Reigns is or Seth Rollins or like
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: any of those guys. Like it just doesn't carry. And
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: that's not just about the time. That's about the magnitude
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: of hope.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: Yes, he was at that point like the peak of Hulkamania.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's a stretch to say he was
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: one of the 10 most famous people on the planet.
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: You know, and that's and there were other people in
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: combat sports that you could say that about at that point. Like,
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: I think Muhammad Ali was has always been on that list.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: At that point in time, Sugar Ray Leonard was probably
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: on that list as well. And Hulk Hogan, right? And
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: then you could fill in kind of the rest of
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: that list with other people. But that's an astonishing level
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: of fame. And for the rest of his life, primarily
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: because he never really changed his image at any point,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: he was probably one of the most recognizable people on
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: the planet, just visually. He couldn't go anywhere without someone
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: being able to say that's Hulk Hogan. Like, you know,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: I've spent time around Mike Tyson in my life.
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: And I remember.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: Just any time that I'm around him, there's always this
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: wake of people that will follow him whenever he steps
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: outside because you immediately know it's Mike Tyson. And Hulk
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: would have had that same thing all the way until.
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: The day he died.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: And he gave us the greatest heel turn of all time. Hey,
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: Corey Hartman, check him out. Basically, if somebody's boxing, Corey.
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: Is there to check them out. My brother, I greatly
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: appreciate you. We'll see you soon, bub.
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: on The Right Time. We are here for summer hours,
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: so a little less than four days a week. Brian
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: Brumley handles everything behind the scenes.
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: Thank you, sir.
• 54:21
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• 54:27
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• 54:31
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• 54:33
  Speaker 2: of days.
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: Take it easy.