Hulk Hogan Real American

So, I have been a wrestling fan my entire life. I had the collector cups when I was a kid, I grew up watching Sting stand up to the nWo, and I have watched all the way up until the current TKO and Saudi Arabia era. I still check the dirt sheets every week despite only watching a PPV here or there. Wrestling is dumb. I know this. Wrestling is scripted. I know this. But these athletes are truly insanely gifted, and no amount of writing can take that away. Wrestling is always at its best when it channels its inner soap opera. Hogan versus Sting, Piper versus Mr. T, Raven versus Dreamer, Foley versus literally anybody. That absolute spectacle is exactly why Hulk Hogan became the massive phenomenon he was.

On the flip side, wrestling has a very dark underbelly. You only have to watch a single episode of Dark Side of the Ring to see the politicking and the rumored sleaze. Hogan played that backstage political game better than almost anyone in history. You have to keep in mind that this documentary was put out with the blessing of Netflix (who recently acquired the rights to stream WWE Raw), the WWE itself, and the majority of Hulk Hogan's family. So, it is going to be biased. Hogan spent sixty years in the business as a pure carny, protecting kayfabe until the very end. The documentary whitewashes things, but it also humanizes him. In the opening, we hear Hogan giggle. It is honestly the first time in forty years I have ever heard a legitimate, unscripted laugh come out of the man. It is followed by a scene where he confesses his son Nick has to open water bottles for him because his hands are so wrecked. It is sad, and it is deeply humanizing. It is difficult to separate your emotions from the horrible things he has done and said in real life when you are watching your broken childhood idol on screen. This was our supposedly flawless superhero back in the day.

Despite the documentary's claim, saying he is the greatest wrestler of all time is simply wrong. Technical wrestling wise, he does not rank in the top one hundred. He is like a heavyweight boxer who lacks footwork but has pure, undeniable knockout power. Entertainment wise, however, he is easily top five, probably number one. Guys like The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker, and John Cena simply would not be here without him. He earns the title of most entertaining by pure paradox.

Episode two covers the rise of Hulkamania. It shows the convergence of an actual idol people could look up to instead of just a guy playing a part. Touching stories of the loss of his brother and his dedication to granting wishes humanize Hogan even more. We get to watch him open up on camera with legitimate emotion instead of the rehearsed performance we have seen so many times before. We leave the episode at the absolute pinnacle of Hulkamania, right before the steroid scandal hit and before he jumped ship to rival promotion WCW.

Episode three covers that infamous steroid scandal, the fall of Hulkamania, and the jump to WCW. The documentary glosses over how much luster the character lost during this time. It makes it seem like Hogan's popularity barely missed a step, when in fact, the crowds had genuinely begun to turn on him. But the sheer genius of it all was his pivot to the nWo at Bash at the Beach. People could not believe it. Fans were literally crying in the crowd. But it was true. Hogan had abandoned everything he stood for, ushering in the biggest wrestling boom in television history.

The final episode glosses over a lot of Hulk's personal tribulations, a lot of his genuinely bad choices, and the massive falling out with his family. Then, before you know it, Hulk is dead and the story is left feeling unfinished. Jesse Ventura might have the most poignant line in the entire documentary. He says that Hulk dying made him feel truly mortal, because the Immortal One was finally gone.

The man who preached to take your vitamins and insisted you say your prayers would easily bury his best friends if it got him ahead in the locker room. And he did, constantly. Did what it meant to be a "Real American" change so much over the decades? Did it go from saying your prayers to fearing those who are different, betraying your family, and prostrating yourself for your next grift alongside some orange false idol? He had a massive falling out with his daughter Brooke, who did not participate in this project. The documentary completely buries her. They do not even mention her in a derogatory way, she basically just does not exist to them outside vhs tape flashbacks.

Brooke has since let her feelings on the documentary be known, and she actually paints him in the most perfect, realistic light. She described a flawed man with skeletons in his closet, a man who was deeply insecure and had the wrong people in his ear in his later years. But she still stood by her father for better or worse, and she still loved him. We all loved him in the 80s and 90s. That is exactly why it hurt so much when he made his real life heel turn. His 1996 heel turn on Macho Man and Sting hurt, but not in this same way. His real life choices made him his own worst enemy. He betrayed the Hulkamaniacs. Maybe Bobby "The Brain" Heenan was right about him this whole time