Hulk Hogan spent over a decade as wrestling’s biggest babyface, first in WWE, then in WCW before his monumental heel turn to lead the New World Order. After that iconic heel run, he vacillated between face and heel roles in WCW, WWE, and Impact Wrestling as he rediscovered his red and yellow roots more than once only to succumb to villainy, then loop back around.
However, based on some of the things Hogan said in character when he was superficially playing a hero, there’s a reasonable case to be made that The Hulkster was actually a bad guy all along.
10 Hulk Hogan Suggested God Himself Made His Arms
In a memorable line that became quite quotable, Hulk Hogan once proclaimed in a promo that “God created the Heavens, he created the earth! He created all the Hulkamaniacs! Then, he created a set of 24-inch pythons, brother!”
The claim speaks to Hogan’s penchant for hyperbole, but also could be read as flat-out arrogance to claim God had taken a personal interest in creating his fans, let alone his arms—muscular as they may have been. That sounds an awful lot like a self-absorbed heel.
9 Hulk Hogan Referred To Yokozuna By A Racial Slur
At WrestleMania 9, Hulk Hogan planted the seeds for the end of the night in a promo, announcing that he wanted a WWE Championship shot against whoever won the main event confrontation between Bret Hart and Yokozuna. That challenge, in and of itself, was a little heelish because Hogan had only just returned and not won a single match.
What was really heelish, though, was his choice to call Yokozuna a “J*p”—an offensive term for a Japanese person. It was problematic, not to mention inaccurate given Hogan would have only needed to have listened to WWE commentary to learn about Yokozuna that the big man wasn’t actually Japanese, only representing Japanese culture.
8 Hulk Hogan Either Exaggerates His Love Or Diminishes Miss Elizabeth’s
When Hulk Hogan was teaming with Randy Savage as The Mega Powers, he took to the mic at one point to say, “There’s another love that you don’t understand about. That’s the love I have for the Macho Man. It’s just as strong as Elizabeth’s.”
To be fair, Hogan seemed like he was trying to express how he saw Savage as a brother and loved him like family. Still, taken more at face value—particularly given the jealous streak that was well established in The Macho Man—the line could be interpreted as hyperbolic about his own love, or, more insidiously, as a subtle suggestion Miss Elizabeth didn’t actually love Savage. Either way, the quote offered one step toward explaining the Hulkster vs. Macho Man rivalry.
7 Hulk Hogan Made Fun Of Andre The Giant’s Accent
Hulk Hogan often played the American patriot, but sometimes sounded like a jerk in the process. In one of the forgotten moments of Hogan's feud with Andre the Giant, they engaged in a contract signing for WrestleMania 3. The scene included The Hulkster’s oft-quoted line, “Sign if you’re going to sign!”
Fans tend to forget another part of the exchange in which Andre told his side of the story, and Hogan cut him off saying, “Speak to me in English when you talk to me!” Andre was, indeed, speaking English with his deep voice and French accent—probably far better than Hogan could have spoken French.
6 Hulk Hogan Said He Would Die World Champion
In the heat of one promo, Hulk Hogan proclaimed, "I promised each and every Hulkamaniac when I went to that great battlefield in the sky I would bring the [WWE] title with me."
While Hulkster’s commitment to his fans may have been admirable, if we take his comments more literally, it suggests that he intended to die world champion. That’s not only unrealistic, but arrogant to assume he’d successfully defend the title for a lifetime, and that his fans would want for him to.
5 Hulk Hogan Went Off The Rails In His WrestleMania 4 Promo
As Hulk Hogan prepared to battle Andre the Giant in the tournament to crown a new WWE Champion at WrestleMania 4, he cut one of his most bizarre promos of all time. It included The Hulkster suggesting, “As Andre the Giant falls into the ocean … so will Donald Trump and all the other Hulkamaniacs.” He went on to tell an apocalyptic narrative about how his own strength would cause a natural disaster.
Whether fans love or hate Donald Trump, surely no one would be satisfied with the suggestion he and his family would narrowly escape death in this scenario, only for Hogan to be responsible for saving them when they climbed on “the largest back in the world” for Hogan to swim them to safety.
4 Hulk Hogan Disrespected Andre The Giant After His Passing
In the build to Halloween Havoc 1995, emanating from the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, WCW portrayed the debuting Giant—Paul Wight—to be Andre the Giant’s son. Hulk Hogan would understandably feel animosity toward the young foe for more than once attacking him. Nonetheless, Hogan crossed a line in one promo, declaring, “In Detroit, brother, you’ll be laid to rest right next to your father, right where I beat him.”
It was a slightly inaccurate reference to WrestleMania 3, when Hogan beat Andre in the Pontiac Silverdome, a good 30 miles from Detroit. More importantly, invoking Andre in that fashion felt disrespectful and like he was going too far in bringing up a dead relative, if fans were to accept Andre as The Giant’s father in the storyline.
3 Hulk Hogan Called TNA’s Signature Ring A Playpen
When the Hulk Hogan era of TNA started, one of the first major moves was to transition from the six-sided ring to a more traditional squared circle. Whether this change was the right call is up for legitimate debate.
Regardless, babyface Hogan was unnecessarily callous toward the history of the company to date, its performers, and perhaps most importantly its fans when he dismissed the old set up. Hogan all but taunted the crowd, proclaiming, “No more playpen ring. This is where professional wrestling was meant to be.”
It was a poor start to what many consider a ridiculous era of TNA programming.
2 Hulk Hogan Was Unnecessarily Profane In Rejecting Ted DiBiase’s Offer To Buy The WWE Championship
In a key storyline of 1988, The Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase offered to buy the WWE Championship from Hulk Hogan. It’s to be expected that a character as seemingly principled as Hogan would reject the offer and even be upset by it.
But in an era defined by family friendly storytelling—in contrast to the Attitude Era when profanity was en vogue—Hogan stepped over the line in screaming "Hell no!" The choice of language provided an awkward moment for the parents of young Hulkamaniacs.
1 Hulk Hogan Gets The Stadium Wrong At WrestleMania 30
At WrestleMania 30, Hulk Hogan infamously opened the show with a promo that included the blunder of saying, “Fast forward 30 years later to WrestleMania in The Silverdome." The Hulkster was standing in the center of the Superdome at the time and got enough feedback from the crowd to realize his mistake and correct himself, after which Steve Austin and The Rock gently ribbed him about the gaff on the mic.
It was an honest mistake that Hogan later explained away by saying he’d been doing so many interviews talking about his unforgettable match at WrestleMania 3—which did occur in the Pontiac Silverdome—that he got mixed up. However, in the world of professional wrestling, where pandering to the hometown crowd is a way of life, one could interpret such a noticeable misnaming as babyface Hogan actually returning to his heelish ways one last time to disappoint the fans.