Hulk Hogan, who helped flip professional wrestling into billion-dollar spectacle, dies at 71

Hulk Hogan, the American sports activities and leisure star who made skilled wrestling a worldwide phenomenon and loudly supported Donald Trump for president, has died on the age of 71, World Wrestling Leisure stated on Thursday (July 24, 2025).

“WWE is saddened to be taught WWE Corridor of Famer Hulk Hogan has handed away. One of popular culture’s most recognizable figures, Hogan helped WWE obtain international recognition within the Eighties,” WWE stated on X. It gave no explanation for demise.

The bleach-blond, mahogany-tanned behemoth turned the face {of professional} wrestling within the Eighties, serving to rework the mock fight from a seedy spectacle into family-friendly leisure price billions of {dollars}.

A key second in that evolution got here on the WrestleMania III extravaganza in 1987, when Hogan hoisted fellow wrestler André the Big earlier than a sold-out Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan for a thunderous physique slam of the Frenchman.

Hogan parlayed his wrestling fame right into a much less profitable profession in Hollywood, starring in movies like “Rocky III” and “Santa With Muscle mass,” however saved returning to the ring so long as his physique would permit.

In 2024, he appeared on the Republican Nationwide Conference to endorse the presidential bid of Trump, who within the Eighties had performed host to Hulk-headlined WrestleManias. Hogan stated he made the choice to help the Republican candidate after seeing his combative, fist-pumping response to an tried assassination on the marketing campaign path.

“Let Trumpamania run wild, brother!” Hogan bellowed to a cheering crowd, ripping off his shirt to disclose a Trump tank high. “Let Trumpamania rule once more!”

Turning into ‘Hulk’

Born Terry Gene Bollea in Augusta, Georgia, on Aug. 11, 1953, the longer term Hulk and his household quickly moved to the Tampa, Florida space. After highschool, he performed bass guitar for space rock bands, however felt a pull to the red-hot wrestling scene in Florida within the Nineteen Seventies.

Most of the particulars of his profession have been showbusiness exaggerations, consultant of the blurred strains between reality and fiction in wrestling.

His first coach reportedly broke Hogan’s leg to dissuade him from coming into the enterprise, however he saved at wrestling, weight coaching, and – he later admitted – anabolic steroids. He gained in notoriety as his biceps changed into what he dubbed the “24-inch pythons.”

The “Hulk” moniker got here from comparisons to the comic-book hero portrayed on TV on the time. He would find yourself paying royalties to Marvel Comics for years. “Hogan” was the invention of promoter Vincent J. McMahon, the proprietor of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), who needed Irish illustration amongst his secure of stars.

His look as wrestler Thunderlips in “Rocky III,” the place he dwarfed main man Sylvester Stallone, rocketed Hogan to the mainstream. Upon a return to the WWF, now managed by McMahon’s son Vincent Okay., he defeated the Iron Sheik in 1984 to say the world championship, a belt he would maintain for 4 years.

Hogan turned a family title, showing on the duvet of journal Sports activities Illustrated and performing alongside popular culture stars like Mr. T. The WWF got here to dominate wrestling, anchored by its annual WrestleMania pay-per-view occasions.

Going through ‘The Rock’

Later, he joined competitor World Championship Wrestling, swapping his trademark yellow tights for black and taking up a persona because the villainous “Hollywood” Hogan, the pinnacle of a gang of rulebreakers referred to as the New World Order. The gimmick reinvigorated his profession.

Hogan finally returned to the WWF, now referred to as WWE, and confronted Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson at WrestleMania in 2002.

“I am in higher form than him,” Hogan instructed Reuters on the time, 5 months shy of his fiftieth birthday. “I am going to stand subsequent to The Rock and pose down with him if he desires to.” The Rock in the end received the match.

Hogan was inducted twice into the WWE Corridor of Fame, and referred to himself because the “Babe Ruth” of wrestling – after the New York Yankees’ famed baseball participant.

However Hogan’s help of Trump in 2024 didn’t go down nicely with all wrestling followers, and he additionally confronted different controversies. Gossip web site Gawker was shuttered after it posted components of a intercourse tape between him and a buddy’s spouse and Hogan sued on privateness grounds, successful a $140 million judgment.

In 2015, he was suspended by the WWE after one other surreptitious recording revealed that Hogan had used a racial slur. He was reinstated in 2018.

He was married 3 times and had two kids, who starred alongside him and first spouse Linda in a 2005-2007 actuality TV present, “Hogan Is aware of Greatest.”

Revealed – July 24, 2025 10:08 pm IST