Hulk Hogan’s Lying To Himself Again

Hulk Hogan has a bad habit of deluding himself into thinking that he has one more run on top of the wrestling business left in his career, despite the fact that he hasn’t competed in nine years and his body can’t handle the bumps. Maybe his fantasy talk is all in good fun, but considering Hogan’s reputation for always putting himself over at every possible turn, you just never know with this guy.

First, here’s a tweet where Hogan talks about everyone else being psyched for one more run when they saw him at the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony that was taped this week: Notice that he says everyone else is excited about the idea of one more run for the Hulkster, because on some level he understands that he sounds delusional when he attributes the idea to himself. No way, brother, it’s everyone else who wants to see it, so he’s just riding that wave of popular demand.

Next up is his interview on Corey Graves’ After the Bell podcast. Hogan once again pretends that he’s all about putting everyone else over. He uses the feud that never happened with Stone Cold Steve Austin circa 2002 as a hypothetical example: “My whole goal was to have that run with The Rock, and then I wanted to focus on Stone Cold. Because as a heel, I could have put him over everywhere, if they would have put the belt back on me. He could have chased me. And like Stone Cold says, if there is money to be made, let’s make it brother. And that was my goal, was to get him in that Hulk Hogan zone…”

Right away, loud alarm bells go off when Hogan’s selfless plan for putting Austin over immediately involves Hulkamania winning the top championship in the promotion again. Upon the lightest scrutiny, there’s zero evidence in Hogan’s career of him ever putting someone over “everywhere,” so he doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt on that claim either. Finally, I don’t know what the hell the “Hulk Hogan zone” is, but I can’t imagine that too many people want to find themselves submerged in that mysterious quagmire. Gross.

Later on, after talking about how Mr. America could have been the biggest thing in wrestling if only Vince McMahon saw things his way in 2003, Hogan teased that he might insert himself into a championship match while hosting WrestleMania 37: “Hey I just might come out as Hollywood with one of my nWo belts here, and we might have a third title match. I’ll get in a three way, take on the winners of the first two title matches.”

Hell no to all of that. I saw what this man did to Bret Hart and Yokozuna at WrestleMania 9, and it’s one of those stains that is seared on my brain forever. Please don’t even tease anything like that ever happening again, because Vince McMahon might actually take the idea seriously. Some folks reading this might think I’m being too hard on the legendary Hogan over harmless banter. Perhaps that’s the case, but can you really blame me after I hear him tell Graves the following?

“…that’s always been in my blood, the wrestling business. I’ll wake up at night thinking of finishes in a cold sweat, even now. It’s just crazy…” Yes, it’s crazy. It doesn’t sound healthy at all, particularly because he’s rarely been involved in match finishes during the last decade. Yet this guy is still waking up in cold sweats on occasion, scheming for ways to put himself over and become the WWE champion. Because let’s be real here, there’s no way Hogan is losing sleep over match finishes for any other wrestlers besides himself and whichever poor sap he’s pinning in his mind.