- Oh, no. - Hollywood Hogan
made me act vicious, he was arrogant.
I was the most evil grease ball
that ever showed up in the wrestling business.
The character Hulk Hogan
used to be the ultimate tan, all-American hero.
Totally two different animals.
So it was just that complete 180 transition
to being the most evil villain.
Yes, you can say the ultimate bad guy.
[dramatic music]
* *
[crowd booing]
- The dirtiest player in the game,
Hollywood Hulk Hogan,
will prove you gotta take what you want.
- Hollywood Hulk Hogan was the most diabolical villain
in sports entertainment history.
But Hogan's inglorious brand of evil
derived from rather innocent beginnings.
[National Anthem playing on electric guitar]
- It's the '80s. Simpler times.
* *
Hulk Hogan is the larger-than-life
personification of everything you want in a hero.
Be good, say your prayers, eat your vitamins,
and you too could be like Hulk Hogan someday.
[bell ringing]
- This is the main event!
- Hulk Hogan was larger than life.
Big, 300 and some odd pounds,
built like a brick [bleep]house.
and had an ungodly amount of charisma.
- Hulk Hogan! [crowd cheering]
[bell ringing]
- The 1980s were a wonderful era
for real-life superheroes.
- Hulk now has the Sheik's robe,
and he clotheslined him with it!
- We were looking for heroes
that were really idealized versions of ourselves.
And Hulk Hogan was one of those.
- One, two! He's got Iron Sheik!
Hulkamania is here.
- In early '80s, I started Hulkamania.
I had a lot to do with it, but so did the promotion.
I'm in training and I'm saying my prayers
and eating my vitamins.
And everywhere where I go, man,
the people are training in the parking lots,
closing in the gym.
Hulkamania is running wild all over the world.
- Hulkamania was a phenomenon that grabbed hold of
not just the wrestling world, but the entire world.
- It just blew him up huge.
I mean, this guy couldn't go anywhere and not be recognized.
- All of a sudden you started seeing Hulk more and more
on different shows.
Johnny Carson.
- Professional wrestling kinda turns me
into a stark raving maniac.
- Jay Leno.
- We came to "Saturday Night Live"
for one reason, brother.
'Cause this is the best darn show in the whole wild world.
- "Hulk," I said, "Hulk, you can't go wrong
with the red and yellow." He goes, "Why?"
"McDonald's! McDonald's is red and yellow
and they're all over America."
- They were putting me on the cover of "Sports Illustrated,"
all the major magazines,
you know, I was doing commercials for Right Guard.
And there was this crazy momentum.
- There he is, the greatest professional athlete
in the world today, Hulk Hogan.
- Hulk Hogan came into my life
when I was very impressionable in my formative years.
I loved everything about him.
He was big. He was tall. He was tan.
He had 24-inch pythons.
The way he talked. The way he ripped his shirt.
When he was Thunderlips in "Rocky III."
We gotta remember we were in the middle of a Cold War.
There was a lot of propaganda as far as, you know,
the Russians or whatever the case may be.
- We got Nikolai Volkoff
singing the Soviet National Anthem.
It was not necessarily a time for nuanced storytelling.
- I can't stand to see our enemy's flag in the ring.
- Mr. All-American versus the rest of the world.
Throw in the American flag? You got a hero.
- Hulk Hogan with Old Glory flying high above.
- Coming out of the '80s,
the '90s is defined by grunge...
and gangster rap.
Counterculture was everything in the '90s.
- When the '90s came along, everything changed, you know.
It was about being more the bad guy,
the more in your face, the more, "Yeah. Who said so?
"Well, try to knock this chip off my shoulder
and I'll show you what's gonna happen, buddy."
- It was the same red and yellow for a long time.
Very successful long time I might add,
but there was a point
where the audience started looking at Hulk
and going, "Okay, what's new?"
- All of a sudden, I felt things changing.
But I could feel the momentum. It wasn't as powerful.
I'd come out and my music would hit,
it wasn't the same.
I'd drop the leg, do the posedown.
It wasn't the same.
- We could notice each night,
we were getting a few more boos.
Each night, I'd go and check the sales
on our merchandise, you know.
And I could see where it was starting to dip a little bit.
- This Hulk Hogan thing got so big
and it was so powerful.
But there were certain times
where, you know, when I kind of felt
Hulkamania might not be going in the right direction.
I thought there might be a time for a change.
- [yells] - Going up?
- For the next few years,
Hulk focused on his Hollywood ambitions.
- So is he a Box Office champ?
Well, not yet.
- I'm getting better.
The transition is a tough one.
- By 1994, it became clear.
Hulkamania was not running wild in Hollywood.
- I kinda, like, was really on shaky ground for a while.
I wasn't making any money.
And when I left the WWE,
Vince thought my run was over.
You know, so I was just kinda like, stumbling along
on a hope and a prayer.
I was so lucky that WCW
had a sound stage right next to "Thunder in Paradise."
And Eric Bischoff approached me with Ric Flair and said,
"Hey, we'd like you to put lightning in a bottle again."
I said, "Brother, I'm in."
- Eric Bischoff was a chief executive
tasked with leading WCW, a wrestling promotion
with the objective to overtake WWE
as the industry standard.
Bischoff's first plan of action
was to entice former WWE superstars into the fold
to jumpstart the company.
[intense music]
And there was still no bigger name out there...
[cheers and applause]
Than Hulk Hogan.
- WCW was at a point in time
where we were positioning for growth.
Hulk Hogan was still a bankable star
in the eyes of advertisers.
Knowing that Hulk was no longer with WWE,
it became apparent to me that being able to sign Hulk
and get him to come to WCW would create an awareness
that no amount of advertising or marketing
probably could have achieved.
- I never, ever in my life
thought that I would run against Vince McMahon.
But you know, I talked to Eric Bischoff.
And he said, "What's it gonna take to light this company up?"
I said, "Well, I need to come back as Hulk Hogan for a while
"and get the feel of things,
and then we can figure it out really quick."
- Hulk Hogan, five times--
- The initial reaction when Hulk left WWE
and went to WCW was
going to a smaller organization at the time
would help that organization, definitely,
but wasn't anything that said,
"Oh, well this is gonna make a difference.
Not with the same thing that he had been doing here."
- We're gonna find out
who the most powerful man in the WCW is because--
- You know, when we first brought Hulk Hogan in,
it was a big damn deal.
It made a lot of news.
It served its purpose.
But after about a year and a half,
the audience viewed Hulk Hogan differently.
I knew that, going head-to-head with the WWE,
we had to be different and had to be a lot edgier.
So it was Hulk Hogan joining the dark side.
- Oh, what is this? Come on!
* *
- So I flew myself down to Clearwater
and had a conversation with Hulk.
"What do you think about turning heel?
Going from good to the bad guy?"
- Eric came up with this idea and, you know,
I knew I needed to do something, but I wasn't sold.
- I think Hulk knew that the red and yellow Hulk Hogan
was still generating a lot of revenue
and would be turning his back on the fans.
And I just don't think he was interested
in taking the risk associated with turning heel.
Because Hulk had made it clear to me
he had no interest in turning heel at all,
so I had to have a plan B.
* *
- WCW president Eric Bischoff hatched a real life plot
to put WWE out of business.
- Scott and I had taken on the perception
of two of the WWE's top guys
doing basically, a hostile takeover
of another corporation,
so we were always perceived as the WWE.
- Get security out here and get them outta here.
- The perception was implied
that they were being sent from us at the WWE
and it was an invasion of WWE talent going to WCW.
[tires squealing] - See you, buddy!
Whoo!
- Scott Hall and Kevin Nash,
they killed everyone.
- Stop take, get security.
- They didn't have anything to lose
and they were willing to take risks.
- Oh, my God. - Hey, get him outta here.
- We picked up a lot of momentum right off the bat.
Certainly got people's attention,
but I needed to make as big a splash as I could,
so we built an entire storyline around a third man.
What made it tricky for me is
I had to find a third man in that story.
- Bischoff wanted the promise of a mysterious third man,
the baddest of the bad guys,
a true heel of a human being.
But who could possibly fill those boots?
- Everyone wanted that spot.
These two guys had lit up the world.
I'm talking about number one spot on cable television.
- We wanna know who your three guys are.
- And then he cut that promo about "Bring your best three,
we're bringing our best three."
- The big man and the medium size man
and our surprise buddy--
- "And next week, I'm bringing the big man in."
The really crazy part is
no one knew
who the third guy was
because there wasn't one yet.
- I remember the day that I got a call from Hulk.
And he said, "Hey, man, I'd like to talk to you
"about what's going on.
Can you make it out to LA?" So I did.
I think I got to Hulk's trailer around midnight.
After we had a beer or two and lit up a Cuban cigar,
Hulk said to me, "So...
Who's gonna be the third man?"
And I didn't wanna tell him.
I already had Sting lined up.
- I said, "You can't ask Sting."
I needed major, major change,
really, really bad.
I was starting to get to the point
where I was second-guessing everything about myself.
Was the Hulkamania ride a fluke?
Was the reason Hulkamania got so big,
was it just Vince McMahon's promotion?
When this whole three guys thing came along
and I decided to jump on it,
I needed it more than life itself, at that point.
I didn't want Sting to get it.
And I wanted to prove to people that I knew this business.
And not only could I be the greatest good guy ever.
I knew this business well enough
that I could be the greatest bad guy ever.
So I said, "I'm in. I'm in. Let's do it."
- I was like, "Wow. Didn't see that one coming."
[dramatic music]
Boy, have I got butteries.
Luger's here. Sting's here. Savage is here.
I only see two of them.
- We were told there would be three of these interlopers.
And as you can see, there are only two.
- There's just two of them.
They're fighting three guys.
Savage and Luger and Sting.
- Where is he?
It's your partner telling me
that your third man is in the building?
- Oh, he's here all right, Gene.
- What made it tricky for me is
I wasn't 100% convinced
that Hulk was actually going to see it through.
- Up until 4:00 o'clock,
Hulk wasn't sure he was gonna do it, you know.
It was--it was not a go.
And the backup plan was gonna be Sting turning.
- I think everybody under their breath
said a little bit of prayer because we knew
we're taking the biggest name in the history of this business
and switching him to a bad guy.
- We couldn't afford any mistakes.
Keeping it a secret was my top priority.
I pulled him over into this big janitorial closet,
and we started going through that promo
just beginning to middle and end.
It was the most exciting, most stressful,
probably two hours of my professional life.
Once Hulk walked through that curtain,
it was what it was going to be,
and there was nothing I or anybody else
could do about it. All bets were off.
- Hulk Hogan is in the building!
- You're damn right he is! - Go get 'em, Hulk!
- Hulk comes out. Here he comes!
America, red and yellow, blah, blah, blah.
People are there. They're there. They're there.
- Yes. Finally, the Hulkster to the rescue.
- And I'm--I'm in on it.
I know he's gonna turn.
And all I'm thinking in my mind is, "Oh, man.
"Five minutes from now, man,
I'm going to get the photo op of a lifetime."
Like, I'm in the ring with Hulk Hogan.
- I go to the ring and Bobby Eaton goes,
"But whose side is he on?"
- But whose side is he on?
- What are you talking about, Bobby?
What side is he on?
There's only one side for him to be on.
- Literally, it was hard for me to breathe.
I was so excited.
- Kevin and Scott cleared out of the ring
like they were afraid of me first.
- Get it, Hogan!
Go get it, baby!
Hulk, Hulk, Hulk!
- Oh, my God! Is he the third man?
- He's the third man!
- I went in and dropped the leg on Mach.
- What has he done?
- Hulk Hogan has betrayed WCW!
[crowd booing]
- They were in shock.
- You just sold your soul to the devil.
- I mean, you could feel the air come out of the arena.
No one knew how to react.
- Hogan drops the leg and stands there in the ring
being interviewed by a disgusted Mean Gene Okerlund.
- Mean Gene, the first thing you need to do
is to tell these people to shut up
if you wanna hear what I gotta say.
Well, I told everybody I was done
and all you fans out there,
you're just like the trash in this ring.
When I said that, man, they were throwing bottles,
they were throwing anything they could get their hands on.
- Look at the ring.
Look at all this crap in this ring.
- As far as I'm concerned,
all this crap in the ring
represents these fans out here.
You fans can stick it, brother.
- Trash is raining down from the crowd.
You knew you were seeing something
you never thought you would see.
Hulk Hogan was evil.
He had become the ultimate villain.
- You can call this
the New World Order of wrestling, brother.
- And he ushers in
an entirely new era of professional wrestling.
- And that was the birth of the nWo.
* *
- Hulk Hogan, for you to join up
with the likes of these two men
absolutely makes me sick to my stomach.
- The way it is now, brother,
not only are we gonna take over the whole wrestling business
with Hulk Hogan and the new blood, the monsters with me,
we will destroy everything in our path, Mean Gene.
It got so much heat.
Me, Kevin, and Scott got to the back and went, "Holy [bleep]."
- It was the craziest thing I've ever seen in my life.
They had to call extra police in
from the Daytona Police Department, came out there
because there was a riot that took place.
I mean, all the news medias picked up on it everywhere.
- The next day,
Turner Broadcasting was flooded
with emails and phone calls
of really pissed-off people,
mainly 'cause of the kids.
'Cause Hulk was,
"Say your prayer, eat your vitamins."
And now you're heel? Ooh, man.
People were-- bleep, bleep, bleep--pissed.
- People lost their minds, dude.
I mean, kids were burning
their Hulk Hogan wrestling huggers in effigy.
I mean it was insane.
That's how beloved that man was.
[crowd chanting] Hogan sucks! Hogan sucks!
- That was devastating.
Little kids were crying. Grown men were pissed.
It was genuine betrayal.
And the hate that surely follows.
- Hollywood Hogan embraced his dark side
with greater ease than anyone expected.
It was clear he was in this for the long haul.
- Wearing black
instead of his customary and traditional
yellow and red,
Mr. Hollywood Hulk Hogan!
- The biggest on-camera change for Hulk Hogan
going from good guy to bad guy was wardrobe.
The red and yellow. Those were his colors.
Then going to the black and the bandana being black.
- He's turned his back on it all.
- What I liked the most about it
as opposed to just the wardrobe, it was in the beard.
It visually made his heel turn more dramatic.
- At the time, it wasn't gray. It was still kinda blonde.
I grew the beard in,
and I got Just For Men,
and I dyed it shoe polish black,
as evil, as Snidely Whiplash as I could get it.
And that was the look.
It made people so mad that they knew I dyed my beard
or I put makeup on it or whatever they thought.
- Listen to the fans!
- It put that extra icing on the top
to make people hate me even more.
And then nobody airbrushed their boots, you know.
So I was putting "Hollywood"
and lightning bolts on the boots.
And so that was like tweaking
the character and getting it right.
But it made me act a certain way too.
- You know, there wasn't a bigger boogieman
than Hollywood Hulk Hogan.
- Hollywood Hulk Hogan,
he'd give the cheap shots behind the referee's back,
you know, scrape the back.
He would get on his hands and knees and beg,
"Oh, please, don't hit me, please,"
where the people wanted to see that happen, you know?
And so it was just a whole different persona
than he was from Hulk Hogan.
- Hulk Hogan is the man that you voted for
for The Most Hated Wrestler of the Year.
Hulkster, wait a minute. I've known you, like, forever.
I mean, you were the most popular guy in the world
and now The Most Hated Wrestler of the Year?
- Well, brother, times change and so do people, man.
- The scourge of the wrestling world!
- Not only was the heat so pure, but all the--
I don't wanna say purist wrestling fans,
but the dicks like me,
we all loved it. We were like, "Oh,
if he can do that, anything's possible."
- I just wanted to set the tone
for what really would make the nWo take off.
- * Let's get the-- get get get the money *
* *
- And man, we rode it hard and we rode it long.
The nWo is the only way to go.
- Asking Hogan to turn his back on the ideals
that made him the icon of a generation
was a big ask to say the least.
He knew there was no turning back.
- * Let's get the-- get get get the money *
* *
- The new World Heavyweight Champions, the nWo!
- The fans picked up on the nWo Hulk Hogan.
It was something the wrestling world had never seen before
and what's even crazier more so than anything,
they liked it and they ate it up.
- I think secretly, we all love the bad guys.
There's always a cool factor to the bad dude.
I think there's something within all of us
that kind of wishes
we could do a little bit of that in real life.
- What are you fans gonna think?
- Hey, what you gonna do? I'm a bad guy.
- Oh, oh, G-Gonzo! Gonzo, help!
- Thistle!
- I think there's a certain authenticity
that rings with people
when they find out that this pure hero is flawed.
And then when they see that they go, "Wow,
I don't have to be perfect."
You can identify with that person that has the flaws.
- They were cool bad guys.
And I think that's what makes the fans go,
"You know, I wish I could dress like him.
"I wish I could go and tell my boss off
like this guy here."
It's being everything
that you wish you could be, but you're not.
- It's a new world order.
There's nothing you can do about it.
You know, the more we would beat people up
and spray paint Ted Turner's equipment outside,
the more evil stuff we did,
the more the fans cheered.
- I think the audience's appetite was changing.
The audience was beginning to dig the anti-hero
a lot more than the hero.
So the whole idea was to be edgier,
more adult-themed,
and to have much more of a reality sensibility.
And it worked.
- It was fascinating because they were showing us things
that we had never seen before.
They were taking us back behind the scenes,
and they were just disrupting.
From a fan's point of view, it was almost like
now there was a virus in wrestling
and you were either cool like Hogan,
or you were, you know, company people.
- Getting the world to get behind it
and want to be a part of it,
it was genius. It really was.
Everybody in the arena had the shirt.
- Wanna make a fashion statement?
- Buy the shirt!
- My grandmother wouldn't allow me to wear
the nWo shirt in my house.
She even ripped down my Hulk Hogan poster.
So when Hulk Hogan was transforming
and the nWo was forming,
I was also turning into a younger adult too.
So I was kind of changing the way I was moving
and the things I liked.
So that whole transition was perfect
from, you know, loving this guy in the yellow and red
to, "Grandma, I need my nWo shirt.
Where's my black and white shirt?"
- Ironically, the villainous Hollywood Hogan
was now attracting the sort of celebrity attention
that Hulk Hogan could only dream about back in '94.
- The nWo thing was so cool
that there were really no boundaries.
- Hang on, you guys. Now, listen--
- I mean, it was insane.
We had a blast.
[moody rock music]
- All of a sudden, our ratings went from like 2.4s
to sixes, sevens, and eights.
I mean, those are NFL numbers.
- We had our own NASCAR nWo car.
- Oh. - Oh!
- Everybody wanted to be a bad guy.
- You proved you are the icon
that everybody in this building has always known you are.
Give it up for the Hulkster. Come on, give it up.
- It totally changed the landscape of the business.
All of a sudden, bad guys became everything.
- Hulk Hogan becoming evil and becoming bad
was the game-changer that allowed WCW
to move ahead in the ratings above us for 83 weeks.
And that was the catalyst that really set WCW into motion,
becoming a very successful promotion.
- Let's destroy the broadcast booth...
- No! No!
- Just like we destroyed the WCW.
- At that time, the world celebrated
power hungry villains
who might just burn the whole world down.
But in a bizarre twist of fate,
the very monster WCW created in order to destroy WWE
turned into an evil they could not forbear.
- In 1996, thanks to Hollywood Hogan,
WCW was dominating WWE in the TV ratings.
But as it's often been said,
the devil's in the details,
or in this case,
the fine print.
- Going back to some of the first--
the initial meetings I had with Hulk about coming to WCW,
he looked me right in the eyes and said, "Brother,
"I don't trust anybody here.
"I don't know you, Eric.
"And I know everybody that works here in this company,
"and I really don't trust them.
"So here's how this is gonna have to work.
Creative control."
[dramatic rock music]
- It means a lot to have creative control
because if somebody else comes in and says,
"I think we need to do this or do that,"
and you can't perform,
it really hurts the money you're making.
So we knew if you do have creative control,
it's like you can do no wrong.
- When Hulk came over to WCW,
for Hulk, creative control meant
that you could call the match that you wanted,
when you wanted it.
It was something that opened a can of worms.
I think it rubbed a lot of the guys the wrong way.
- A lot of the wrestlers were upset.
Their egos just got out of control.
They were just really upset.
- We were pissed.
We were all just fighting for your spot.
The nWo has had some good times.
Quite frankly, lately, some bad times.
- For Scott and I,
his creative control was very hard
because the golden one would walk in at 5:15,
on an 8:00 o'clock start and go,
"Brother, that doesn't work for me."
Well, [bleep] you.
You know, like, "Wow, really, man?
"Okay. What does? Do you have an idea?
"You don't even have an idea.
"That just doesn't work for you?
So we'll just-- we'll work around it."
- It got to a point
when the lunatics started running the asylum
and the ship started falling apart.
[cackling]
The numbers started slipping just a little bit.
Instead of Eric taking over control,
you had everybody in the Turner offices
that knew nothing about wrestling,
trying to put their two cents worth in.
- We need to talk.
- Uh--what do we need to talk about?
- Wait a minute, this is the president
of Turner Sports. He's your boss.
- I know. - This is Dr. Harvey Schiller.
This cannot bode well for you.
- Turner basically took WCW away from him.
Eric Bischoff lost control.
So it was like being sabotaged at the highest level.
It just--it just fell apart.
- So, yeah, I mean, in September of '99,
I was relieved of my duties in WCW.
In their infinite wisdom,
WCW brought in Vince Russo--
- Guys, this show really sucks.
- Because Vince Russo was able to convince
certain people in WCW and Turner Broadcasting
that Vince Russo was actually the architect
behind the Attitude Era
and all the success that WWE had.
- Oh, my God, that's Vince Russo.
- Bro, as sure as I'm sitting here,
I walked into a WCW locker room.
And the minute I walked in,
there was a giant target,
bullseye on my back.
- Vince Russo came in
and he said, "I'm gonna fire everybody
that's one day over 40."
And I went, "Okay, how's this gonna work?"
- One of the ways he was able to galvanize himself
with some of this lower card, younger talent
was to badmouth guys like Hulk Hogan.
- Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair can't go on wrestling forever.
You've got to build the undercard.
- And I'm just going, "Oh, my God.
"If you guys buy this, I got a lot of swamp land
here in Florida to sell you."
- Russo's goal is to get rid of Hulk Hogan.
That was going to be his claim to fame.
He was gonna put the nail in Hulk Hogan's career.
- A wrestler's paranoia,
you can't-- you can't change that.
They're gonna believe what they wanna believe.
And they believe
that I was trying to run them outta Dodge,
which was the last thing I was trying to do.
- Vince Russo never butt heads with anybody to their face.
It was always behind your back.
Don't edit that out. I dare you.
- Let's get ready to rumble!
- So when we talk about "Bash at the Beach,"
I had written the show
and Hulk had to give the script approval, okay?
Sent the first one over, Hulk didn't like it.
Sent the second one over, Hulk didn't like it.
- Basically, they want to get the belt off you
and put it on Jarrett.
And I said, "Well, here's the deal, bro.
"I don't get along with this Vince Russo guy.
"Anyway, he's been trying to sabotage me
since the day he walked in here."
- So I write the third script, and basically,
I have Hulk killing everyone in the building,
but not walking out with the title.
- He's here! - It is.
- Vince wanted Hulk to drop the belt to Jeff.
And he said, "Look, let me win the belt tonight
"on the pay-per-view--" which is the money.
"And then Monday night," he said,
"I'll drop it, you know, at Nitro."
Well, he didn't want to do that.
- I then go to Jeff Jarrett and say to Jeff,
"Jeff, F Hogan,
"Lay down in the middle of the ring.
"Let him cover you.
And let him leave with his belt. F him."
- What's Jeff doing? - Hang on a minute.
- What's Jeff doing?
Russo, I think, told Jarrett to lie down.
What's going on?
- Jarrett lays down.
I looked down, and said, "Brother, don't do this."
I said, "Don't screw this business up like this."
You know? And he just laid there.
Is this your deal, Russo? - Wow.
- That's why this company's is the damn shape it's in,
because of bull[bleep] like this.
[match bell rings] - This is wild.
Hulk Hogan is the world champion.
And this sport has never seen anything like this.
- Maybe Russo can explain to the world
what we have seen.
- Look at his face. - Yeah.
We know that face, don't we?
- I've done nothing,
nothing but deal with the bull[bleep]
of the politics behind that curtain.
I came back to the guys behind that curtain
that give a [bleep] about this company.
And let me tell you who doesn't give a [bleep]
about this company.
That goddamn politician Hulk Hogan.
Because Hulk Hogan tonight
wants to play his creative control card.
You will never see that piece of [bleep] again.
[cheering]
- Amen.
- So now you gotta understand with Hulk's ego,
I go back to the office
and I gotta meet with Brad Siegel,
who was the head of TNT.
And Brad says, "Vince, what happened?"
And I laid out the entire scenario
and Brad says to me,
"How did you leave it with Hulk?"
- That was the Vince Russo show.
The whole thing was just so--
just out of the realm of what this business is about.
It was just--it was a disaster.
- Where does Hollywood Hogan's career go from here?
- Where does WCW go from here?
- With the WCW's value at an all-time low,
the powers cut their losses
and sold out to the man they sought to destroy:
Vince McMahon.
- The fate of WCW is in my hands.
- When Hollywood Hulk Hogan
and his band of cutthroats destroy you,
the WCW will be on a silver platter, brother.
And just like the big, bad wolf said...
Better to eat you with.
Uh, wow. [chuckles]
The downfall of WCW.
- I didn't feel any, you know,
ego boost of, "Way to go, Vince..."
You know, "You crushed them.
And now you own them," and all that.
I look at it as business as usual.
You have to grab your competition by the throat,
and you've gotta squeeze the life
out of your competition,
just like I did to WCW.
- On March 26th, 2001,
WWE officially purchased WCW.
Vince McMahon would dismantle the roster
and yank WCW off the air.
A year later, Vince McMahon was looking to squeeze
whatever evil juice was left out of Hogan.
While Hollywood's star was on the wing,
The Rock was on his way into the stratosphere.
It was to be a symbolic passing of the torch
from an icon of an era gone by
to the great one of the Attitude Era.
- Hey, it's The Rock. Come on, guys.
- Hey, wow. It's our people's champ.
- I'm a baller.
- This is my son's favorite wrestler.
- Vince wanted me to wrestle The Rock, you know.
- Hogan, you take that camera.
It's already shined up, turn sideways,
eat your vitamin, say your prayers,
and stick it straight up all your candy asses.
- It's kind of funny because,
you know, I remember him saying,
"Well, Terry, you know, things have changed.
"And, you know, if you're gonna wrestle The Rock,
you better really bring it."
In my mind, I'm thinking, "Brother, if I bring it,
you're gonna be begging me to take it back."
- Hollywood Hulk Hogan!
- The Rock against Hulk Hogan.
Here's the aging Hulk Hogan.
Here's the newcomer, The Rock.
What was gonna happen?
- I mean, I took my daughter to hear the Backstreet Boys
and NSYNC and girls scream so loud it hurt my ears.
It was just that loud.
- There's a lot of fans here in SkyDome
that love this legendary figure,
Hollywood Hulk Hogan.
- Oh, the power of Hogan.
- When Hulk came back, they don't want the nWo Hulk.
They didn't want Hollywood Hulk.
They wanted Hulk.
I think our audience looked at it as
it had been long enough.
He had been black and white
for ten years or whatever it was,
and people were ready now,
what's old is new again.
- I mean, God, how long
did the beginning of that match go on?
Where they were just listening to the crowd
and listening to the deafening Hogan chants.
- Many in the crowd chanting for Hogan.
- Holy cow, man.
It was a worldwide audience telling you that,
"Man, we love him for everything he was.
"We loved him for leaving. We loved him for coming back.
"We love Hulk.
And maybe you're shoving Rock down our throat."
[crowd cheering loudly]
- Heard 'em cheering and I went, "Oh, crap."
You know, and they were cheering
and cheering and cheering.
And The Rock started taking over on me.
Every time he'd punch me, they'd boo him.
[crowd booing]
- I don't think The Rock expected a mixed reaction.
- The Rock was getting booed.
He's had the push of a lifetime,
and here, I come back,
trying to put the WWE out of business
for ten years, trying to destroy the company.
I come back and the people are cheering me and booing him?
- The crowd is solidly behind Hulk.
I don't know if The Rock knows what to think.
- People went crazy over the Hulkster.
Oh, my God. It was unbelie--
and then people loved The Rock too.
But they got the match turned around
where people cheered The Rock, cheered Hulk.
You know, "Let's go, Hulkster. Let's go, Rock."
"Let's go, Hulkster. Let's go, Rock."
- Hulk, Rock.
Two of the greatest of all time.
And they were able to listen,
react,
and make it work.
- People just couldn't take it anymore.
Couldn't wait for Hulk to hulk up
and make that big comeback.
Comeback, comeback.
- Oh, my God. - What you gonna do, Rock?
- Hulk heard an audience, a worldwide audience
telling you that,
"Man, we want our traditional Hulk back.
And we love him."
It was a beautiful moment
because that was an evolution for Hulk.
[match bell ringing]
- You smell what The Rock is cooking.
- It was interesting because it was almost like
it was the first time that Hogan realized
that there could be some ambiguity to his character.
I think it wasn't until that night
'cause he was so over with the audience,
he realized he could have elements of Hollywood
and not be completely bad.
[crowd cheering]
- At the end,
the people really got what they wanted to see:
two of the biggest icons in the world.
And so, you know, it was kinda like a passing of the torch.
[triumphant music]
* *
- It was so intense...
That Vince McMahon goes,
"Where is your red and yellow gear?"
Vince goes, "You need to go get your red and yellow stuff."
My whole character
of Hollywood Hogan was nothing but fun
and being nasty as I want to be
and having a blast doing it.
[sentimental music]
* *
The Hulk Hogan character actually was up here
and it brought me up and made me a better person
all these years.
And I finally understand
what it meant to so many people.
* *
[National Anthem playing on electric guitar]
- Wait just a minute!
Looks like Hulk Hogan's got the red and yellow!
The true colors of the Hulkster!
The bright red, the bright yellow.
Hulk Hogan is back!
That is so cool to see the Hulkster
in the red and yellow.
- Psychoanalyst Carl Jung once said
the inside of every person is a shadow self.
It's where we keep the things we don't like about ourselves.
Pride, ruthless ambition,
tendency to violence.
That's Hollywood Hogan.
As much as we all want to be the hero that was Hulk Hogan,
we all have a little bit of Hollywood Hogan inside of us.
- I think if one were to go back
and try to do a postmortem
on the "evil" Hulk Hogan,
at its core
was the fact that Hulk turned his back
on people who loved him and supported him
as a character.
And in creating a mystery,
getting the audience to ask questions,
blurring the line,
which I will admit now that the, you know,
litigation is far behind us.
You know, creating that feeling
of not being sure what we're seeing
is real or make-believe.
- For Hollywood, every night's a main event.
Every night's a payoff.
And every night's another trip to the bank.
- It was genuine betrayal
and the hate that surely follows.
It was a thing of beauty,
if I do say so myself.
- It's the most cunning that will survive.
- What are we to think of the duplicitous Hulk Hogan?
Is he the icon who inspired a generation of Hulkamaniacs
to say their prayers and eat their vitamins?
A superhero who made it cool to be the good guy?
Or is he the nefarious Hollywood Hogan
who became intoxicated with his own power and fame
to the extent he brought down an entire company?
Either way,
for the most beloved superstar of a generation
to become the most prolific villain of the next
is an amazing feat.
If you really wanna know what evil lurks around you,
take a closer look inside the heart of your heroes.
- I am the master
of the mental game of wrestling.
To maneuver people like puppets,
to financially take what I want,
there's nobody better.
Batter up!
And each and every time I hit an arena,
I made sure I left my mark.
Because I gave wrestling something
that nobody else could've given it.
I gave it life,
and wrestling will live forever because of me.
- The preceding announcement has been paid for
by the New World Order.