The Two Faces of an Icon: Wrestling with Hulk Hogan and Terry Bollea’s Legacy
One of my very first memories is standing in our living room in Michigan, striking the famous Hulk Hogan pose, soaking in the laughter and cheers from my parents. Any wrestling fan knows it: one arm flexed and pointing to the side, then a quick turn to show off both biceps, before facing the audience again to repeatedly flex your chest and arms. Maybe a few hand rotations before cupping your ear to “hear” the roaring crowd.
For my toddler self, the crowd was just Mom and Dad, amused by their little kid trying to imitate this giant of a wrestler. But for Terry Bollea, the man behind the persona, his crowd was millions of children like me. We genuinely believed he was the ultimate good guy, the hero who would always save the day. He taught us to “train, say our prayers, eat our vitamins, be true to yourself, true to your country and be a real American.”
When you’re only three or four years old, that message is as pure as it gets. Hulk Hogan wasn’t just a wrestler to us young fans in the early 90s; he was a role model, a true hero.
That’s precisely why his shift to becoming a villain in the mid-90s hit so hard. Hulk Hogan, the Hulk Hogan, as a bad guy? I’d stopped watching wrestling around that time, but when I picked it back up at age ten, I couldn’t wrap my head around it. I hated him, even though I was completely entertained. How dare the man I idolized as a little kid turn evil?!
A few years later, when he returned to his original home in WWE and once again became the hero we always believed in, it felt incredibly right. It was like Darth Vader finally striking down the Emperor in “Return of the Jedi.” We knew the good was still in him – that classic red-and-yellow good, the hero we wanted to cheer for just like when we were kids. Deep down, every wrestling fan of a certain age felt an almost primal urge to love and cheer for “the Hulkster.”
Whether Bollea liked it or not, he carried that weight on his shoulders: the innocence of millions upon millions of little “Hulkamaniacs'” childhoods. Hulk Hogan was superhuman, flawless – as WWE often proclaimed, he was “the Immortal Hulk Hogan.”
Terry Bollea, the man, was anything but. One of the most heartbreaking parts of growing up is realizing that your seemingly perfect role models are just as human and flawed as everyone else – sometimes even more so in the wild world of professional wrestling.
At some point, every kid discovers that the wrestling they’re watching isn’t entirely “real.” It’s brilliant theater, an intense soap opera that never truly ends. But it’s also predetermined. The performers in the ring are working together, not against each other. That’s usually the first hard lesson because, as a child, you believe in it so intensely.
The next realization is that the characters you see on TV are just that: characters. The men and women who embody those characters aren’t always who you hoped they’d be. The duality of the larger-than-life hero and the complex human behind him is a powerful, enduring part of Hulk Hogan’s lasting legacy.
