The Hogan-Warrior feud: Part II

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By: SmarkCentral

 

Hogan was basically finished with WWE by 2006 and needed something else to occupy his time.  In Hollywood, the reality TV boom was in full swing.  Survivor had set off a craze that is still going strong to this day.   The Osborne’s (Sharon and Ozzy) brought the family angle to the forefront of reality TV and Hogan thought is would be a good idea to jump on board.  However, the Hogan’s were no Osborne’s.  Linda was a giant bitch, Brooke, while a gorgeous aspiring singer had zero talent, and Hogan’s son Nick was just a disobedient wiseass.  The show turned out to be a mild hit and now all the Hogan’s were public figures which put them in the public eye.  As many celebrities and wannabe celebrities know, someone is always watching and unfortunately for Nick, a lot of people were watching in 2007.  In August of 2007, Nick Hogan crashed his car into a tree causing numerous injuries to himself and turned his friend Jon Graziano into a vegetable.  Nick was arrested and in 2008 was convicted of wreckless driving and causing serious bodily injury.  He spent several months in jail during which he would get frequent visits from his family members.  On one particular visit w/his father they were talking about the accident and then Hogan (despite knowing he was being recorded), said that the accident was Graziano’s fault because he had “bad karma”.   Unfortunately for the Hogan’s the jail recording was released and the backlash was justifiably harsh.

 

During the same time as Nick’s trial, Warrior was planning a comeback of his own to see if he could still cut it in the ring.  The match was against Orlando Jordan for an Italian promotion called NWE in Spain.  The match was a disaster, but it was the promotion of Warrior’s return that re-ignited the feud between himself and Hogan.  Leading up to his return, Warrior made severl promotional videos in which his answered fan questions wearing a hoodie and a plastic Ultimate Warrior Halloween mask.  During the final promotion video, Warrior laced into Hogan for his horrible parenting skills and made jokes referring to Nick possibly being raped in jail.

 

This was the last time publicly that Warrior mentioned Hogan’s name.  Everything had seemed to calm down to the point that it seemed Warrior had moved on.  That was until the recent death of Macho Man Randy Savage.  When Randy died, it was like the shot heard round the World.  Even people who don’t pay attention to wrestling today remember who he was and paid tribute to him.  Of course all the wrestlers past and present had their thoughts.  Warrior never one to keep quiet for long, made a very nice tribute video talking about the moments him and Randy shared and what kind of person Randy was.  It was a side of Warrior we don’t usually see.  Then he saw this

and decided it was finally time to truly take Hogan to task.  Warrior was tired of Hogan’s lies and was ready to shoot the bullet to kill Hulkamania.

 

On June 14, Warrior posted this preview video

and things started to become much clearer about what Warrior meant.  When I first saw the video, I was shocked.  Not so much by the accusations of drug usage because Hogan, like a lot of the stars in the 80’s and 90’s, did drugs.  However, the bits about Hogan passing his wife Linda around the locker room were very striking and (even for Hogan) are very hard to believe.   This was just a taste of what was to come.  This past Saturday, Warrior released the rest of his Hogan diatribe starting with part one

 

In these videos, Warrior does not hold back speaking frankly on Hogan’s drug use, family life, childish behavior, his relationship w/Randy, his lack of professionalism, and general lacking as a human being.  A lot of it is well thought out and for the most part accurate.  Say what you will about Hulk Hogan the performer who inspired us as kids and gave us memories to last a lifetime, but Terry Bollea is an asshole.  The man behind the gimmick is a complete asshole.  Not to mention, once you bypass the tough guy image, Hogan is a very fragile human being who has many many character flaws (see: attempting suicide).  There was much truth in what Warrior had to say, but most of it was already known.  By now the curtain on Hogan had already been pulled back pretty far.  The only new information was really the only things that seem too shocking or outlandish to be true (the wife swapping and keeping other wrestlers junkies so Hogan could stay on top).

 

Hogan is of course denying everything.  He hasn’t done coke, he hasn’t pimped out his wife.  Just like he never did steroids and he denied it until he was under oath in 1994.  He was accused of cheating on his wife a few years back and he denied it.  Yet, he did.  As much as I want to defend Hogan, he is a proven liar.  Not that Warrior is the most honest guy either.  His ego is also out of whack and sometimes it makes him do irrational things like sue WWE which makes him seem “crazy”.  I’ll grant that anyone who legally changes their name to “Warrior” is definitely a little out there and Hogan to his credit has been using that to his advantage for probably 20 years now.  “Oh don’t listen to him, he’s crazy” well guess what Hulk?  Crazy or not people are listening.  It can also be very hard to deny what he’s accusing you of if you consider this: Examiner

 

Through all the ups and downs, Hogan has somehow managed to weather the storm in the general public’s eye, but I think most wrestling fans (even ones who loved him as a child) see him as a scum bag and that’s before all this Warrior video controversy came up.  The man has held people back, did steroids, lied about everything, is a horrible parent, a supposedly ex-drug user and now maybe a wife-swapping coke head?  It looks bad for Hogan, for Warrior and worst of all for wrestling.

 

While I might seem entertained by all this, I am not entirely amused.  This all began with Macho Man’s death and frankly Randy’s death should not be used as a battle ground to continue old rivalries.  Hulk and Warrior should be celebrating Randy’s life because he played a huge role in making them the legends they have become.  I mean does it really matter if Hogan and Randy reconnected again?  Randy may have extended an olive branch to Hogan, but that doesn’t mean Randy cared about the guy as a friend.  Randy was a man’s man, a guy who gave everything to his fans and his fellow wrestlers.  It’s too bad that two of the guys who helped him define an era can’t see past their own egos to see what truly matters – that even though Randy is gone, they are still here and should be living their lives instead of wasting time tearing each other down.