WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan appeared on the Full Send podcast to talk wrestling and his wellness line. Hogan is teaming up with Ric Flair and Mike Tyson to launch his own CBD brand.
Hogan talking about his physical condition:
“I’m kind of regrouping and ramping back up. I haven’t really wrestled since I mean, I wrestled The Rock at 18, Vince at 19, was part of 20 and 21 WrestleManias, but since then, I’ve kind of really backed off. I still work with the WWE, gone to Saudi Arabia a couple of times and done stuff with Ric (Flair), but nothing physical because my body shut down on me about 14 or 15 years ago.”
“I ended up having like 25 or 26 surgeries in a row. Ten back surgeries. I went in for one and ended up having ten. I had the knees replaced after this was scoped five times. This was scoped six times. I finally replaced the hips. I got a bullet hole on my shoulder from a couple bad shoulder surgeries. Abdominal surgeries. Couple surgeries in my face because I always would leave with my left and get kicked in the face a bunch of times. I had the orbital socket broken a couple of times.”
Hogan on why he views the business as a shoot:
“Everybody says, ‘Oh, this business is a work.’ Okay, well, if I’m making twice as much money as you and you’re wrestling me, is that a work? That’s a fu**ing shoot brother, and that’s how I looked at it. This business was a shoot. It was the man that made the most money. When I worked for Vince and Bob Backlund was the champion, I wrestled Backlund and Backlund always got paid more than me. I was like, oh, really. So this isn’t a work. So it does matter if you win or lose. It does matter if you’re the champion or not. Everybody goes, it’s a work. Well, it’s really not a work. It’s about the money and the mileage, and for me, you know, if you’re a good guy, usually, until the NWO came along, back in the day if you’re a good guy, your merchandise was two to one over the bad guy’s stuff. That’s not a work to me. That’s a shoot, brother. If I’m making more money than you and I’m wrestling you, my T-shirts are selling twice as much as yours, maybe it’s a work to you, but not to me if my check is double yours. So I always looked at it that way.”
Hogan on launching his own health and wellness line:
“Yeah, man. I got a bunch of buddies that are pounding the pavement, Tyson and Flair who you guys have talked to and with Carmen and Chad, and this whole group of Bandoleros. I kind of was going down that road anyway. I was kind of backing away from what I was doing my whole life. It was just a situation with just the pain in my body and inflammation, I mean, the way my wrists would swell up, and my fingers and my hands. I was being that old school wrestler, you know, and having so many surgeries over so many years. Everything has been cut on basically, and I’m just full of metal. The pain in my body was crazy.”
“What the doctors do is they prescribe your pain pills all the time. So once you start eating the darn things, you know, my thing was I was going in for surgeries every four to six months for the last 10 or 12 years, so I never got a break from all the anesthesia and trying to figure out why my body was shutting down on me. So in order to back away from this fog and this daze I was in after all the surgeries, I started trying to wind down from things. The first thing I did was I got off the pain pills after years of being on them and backed into the Tylenol, Advil, and Aleve situation, which looking at it now, I was abusing that because to get off the pain pills and stuff like that, I would take three or four Tylenols twice a day when you really should only take two a day. I was drinking these 5 hour Energies with it just trying to get that buzz to feel good and keep going, and that was nowhere.”
“So as soon as I quit drinking alcohol, I said, okay, if I can do that, I’m shutting everything else down. I kind of backed away from the Tylenol and the Aleve and the Advil stuff. It got to a point where I really didn’t need any of that stuff anymore. It was either all or none with me, I mean, all in or all the way all out, so I said if I’m gonna clean my act up, I want to get really healthy.”
“At Ric Flair’s birthday party, I met Chad. Ric had been telling me what he was into and how it was making him feel, and he was backing away from whatever sleeping pills or stuff he needed to eat, and he was telling me about the CBD stuff for sleep and for energy and for an overall wellness of inflammation. The moment I started trying the products, they were all natural. It’s almost like a holistic change in my life. Instantly, everything started going down with no alcohol and no pain pills, no Tylenol, so nothing. Instantly my wrist felt better. I mean, within like a week, I could tell a huge change. I could sleep through longer periods of time at night. I was dropping weight, getting in shape really fast because I always trained hard, but the alcohol is extra calories and it kept me bloated and stuff.”
“As soon as I cleaned my act up diet-wise and cleaned up myself nutrition-wise, including myself medically, instead of using these prescription drugs and started using CBD products, it completely backed me out of this, like hamster wheel of not progressing to the point now where at almost 70 years old, I feel like if I didn’t have so many surgeries, I could actually wrestle again. I’m starting to feel that good. My workouts are getting crazy. I’m down in weight. I’m like 265. I’ve weighed like 300 pounds my whole life. I’m down to 265 pounds. I feel great. I’m still strong as hell in the gym, and at 70 years old, it’s not supposed to be that way. If I take my shirt off on the beach, I’m with my girl, and I look as good as most 30 or 35 year old guys standing around because I’ve trained all my life and I’m more defined than I was. I just think once I backed away and the CBD products kicked in, I just felt smoother. I just felt more of a flow. I felt healthier and I don’t have any desire to take two Tylenol or Advil or any of that crap because the CBD kind of naturally took the place of any of those, I guess, go against the grain, bad stuff I was taking. So I’m way in now. I’m all the way in.”
On when he will launch his own CBD line:
“Eight weeks.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit the Full Send podcast with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
