Hulk Hogan has accomplished many incredible things in professional wrestling. He was the WWF Champion when Vince McMahon took the company national and became arguably the biggest box office attraction this sport has ever seen. At his peak, he became one of the most recognizable people in the world. Most would argue that there wouldn’t have been a boom period in the 80s without Hogan, and WCW would never have been able to compete with WWE if Hogan wasn’t on board with the NWO angle. With everything he has achieved, for some reason, Hulk Hogan has made up some of the most incredulous stories regarding himself and his career. Perhaps, Hogan’s memory is fuzzy and he misremembers certain things but many of the stories seem too far-fetched. It would be hard to imagine that Hogan believes some of them. Here are the top 25 most outlandish statements he’s made through the years.
#25. Hogan said he partied with John Belushi after WrestleMania 2.
Unless John Belushi was dug up from the grave and was the inspiration for the character in the movie Weekend at Bernie’s, there is no way this took place as WrestleMania was in 1986 and Belushi died in 1982. Hogan was becoming a big babyface in the AWA but he was not known by most of the country until he appeared in Rocky III. That movie was released in theaters a few months after Belushi’s passing so Belushi would have been unlikely to have been aware of who Hogan was.
#24. Hogan claims entrance theme music was his idea when he came to the ring with the song “Eye of the Tiger” in 1982.
This is clearly not true as Gorgeous George came out to “Pomp and Circumstance” in the 1940’s and entrance music became a part of wrestling in a lot of territories by the late 70s. Also, legendary women’s wrestler Mildred Burke used entrance music during her heyday and The Fabulous Freebirds came out to “Badstreet USA” before Hogan’s “Eye of the Tiger.” Hogan was one of the early wrestlers to use entrance music but definitely not the first.
#23. Hogan claims The Rolling Stones and Lars Ulrich of Metallica both wanted him as their bass player
While Hogan did play the bass guitar in a local band before getting into wrestling, he was nowhere near the level needed to play with either Metallica or The Rolling Stones. Ulrich told Howard Stern that he is not a big wrestling fan and he never spoke with Hogan. He said, “I don’t know Hulk Hogan, I don’t know enough about him… I’m not a huge wrestling fan… I certainly have no recollection of doing anything with Hulk Hogan.”
If Paul Heyman could have paid Hogan and Metallica to perform the live version of Enter Sandman for Sandman’s matches at the ECW Arena shows in the 90s, no doubt they would still be in business today.
#22. Hulk Rules, an album released by Hulk Hogan and The Boot Band, includes a track titled “Hulkster in Heaven.” According to Hogan, he met a very sick Make-A-Wish kid in England and got him a ticket to SummerSlam at Wembley Stadium to watch him wrestle in the main event.
While Hogan should be commended for the tremendous amount of Make-A-Wishes he has done in his lifetime, The Hogan fact checker has revealed that this story can’t be true as he was not in the main event at Wembley Stadium. In fact, he wasn’t on the card. When SummerSlam 92 occurred, Hogan was not an active wrestler in the company. Hogan left WWE after WrestleMania 8 and did not appear on WWE TV until February 1993 on Monday Night Raw.
#21. Hogan claims he is the wrestler responsible for the WWF first selling merchandise and he had to talk Vince McMahon into doing it.
While not the merchandise machine they are today, WWF sold some merchandise and magazines dating back to at least 1978. To his credit, Hogan did not photoshop himself onto the covers of WWF’s magazines in 1978 to prove this is true. To Hogan’s credit, the 80’s boom period did lead to an explosion of WWF t-shirt sales and the company began pushing action figures, video games, wrestling buddies, ice cream bars, and other products that were marketed towards kids.
#20. Hogan claimed he once wrestled 400 days in one year.
Apparently, this was made possible because he traveled so frequently between the United States and Japan that the international timeline made this possible.
Hmmm…let me see. Back then, wrestlers wrestled about 300 days a year. If you gained a day every time you went to Japan and if you wrestled twice on Sundays… Okay nevermind. We’re not even going to entertain this preposterous nonsense. Keep in mind that during his peak, Hogan only wrestled a handful of times in Japan during his career. However, there is no doubt that he and most of the wrestlers in the 80s and 90s wrestled a brutal schedule.
#19. Hogan claims that he was offered a role in the movie “The Wrestler.”
Hogan says that director Darren Aronofsky offered him the lead role three times but he turned it down because he said he didn’t deserve it. Aronofsky denies that Hogan was ever considered for the role
The lead role went to Mickey Rourke. While Rourke did win a Golden Globe for his performance as Randy “The Ram” Robinson, he failed to win the Academy Award that year, losing to Sean Penn for his role in the movie, Milk. One can only wonder if Hogan would have been able to take home the Oscar if given the opportunity.
#18. While Hogan did star in Mr. Nanny and Santa with Muscles, he claimed in his autobiography that he rewrote both scripts entirely only to have his writing credits stolen from him by the writer’s guild.
Very confusing why Hogan would want to take credit for writing this script considering others would be omitting these from their resumes. Hogan wasn’t a full-time writer and the Screen Writers Guild of America did not credit him as a writer for the movie.
#17. Hogan claimed on an episode of “Hogan Knows Best” that the reason why he didn’t get the offer for the George Foreman Grill was because he was out picking up the kids from school.
One can only imagine the millions of dollars Hogan could have earned on this deal if he would have just called somebody to pick them up instead of playing the real-life Mr. Nanny that day.
Hogan has also told another version of the grill story. The other version claimed that his agent called him and presented him with two sponsors. One was a meat maker and the other was the grill. According to Hogan, he opted to go with the meat maker and he told his agent to present the grill offer to Foreman.
#16. Hogan claims to be the first to slam Andre the Giant, Andre weighed 600 pounds when he slammed him, and Andre died a few days after the slam.
While Hogan could probably get away with fooling fans back in the day that he was the first to slam Andre at WrestleMania III, many fans now know and have seen footage of Andre being slammed by Harley Race, Jerry Lawler, Kamala, Antonio Inoki, and others in the days of territory wrestling. Hogan himself slammed Andre when he was a young heel before Hulkamania was born. Andre did not get up to 600 pounds in his lifetime nor did he die a few days after he was slammed by Hogan at WrestleMania III. Andre appeared on WWF TV for the next several years after that event and didn’t die until 1993.
#15. Hogan said he sat next to Kerry Von Erich on a flight to Japan 72 hours before Kerry killed himself.
First Andre, now Kerry Von Erich. Why Hogan wants to incriminate himself by saying he’s been around both before their death is beyond me. To clear Hogan of any wrongdoing in either case, The Hogan Fact Checker shows Kerry died on February 18, 1993. 72 hours prior to this, Hogan was at the WWF TV tapings on February 15th in Long Beach, CA. The next day he was at the TV tapings in San Diego. Kerry was released by the WWF in August of 1992 and during the weeks leading up to his death, he was wrestling shows in Dallas in the Global Wrestling Federation.
#14. Hulk Hogan said that while in WCW, a pay-per-view bout was supposed to take place between himself and Mike Tyson but didn’t take place because Tyson was too scared.
As Gorilla Monsoon would say, highly unlikely. Tyson was still known as the “baddest man on the planet” during this time and he was busy getting a huge payday to be the special outside enforcer at WrestleMania XIV that saw Steve Austin win the WWF Championship from Shawn Michaels. However, there is a small ring of truth to this one. Vince McMahon wanted Tyson to face Hogan at WrestleMania 6. It’s unclear if Tyson was on board with that idea but Tyson was scheduled to be the guest referee on NBC’s The Main Event in 1990 for the match between Hogan and Randy Savage. Those plans changed and Buster Douglas was put in the spot after Douglas knocked out Tyson in Japan. In 1997, WCW tried to get Tyson but the company wasn’t willing to pay his price and Tyson opted to work with the WWF instead.
#13. Hogan said he used to fight PRIDE Fighters in the 70’s.
No need to go to the Hogan Fact Checker on this one. The PRIDE Fighting Championships didn’t have their first event until 1997 in Japan and organized MMA (via the UFC) did not get on pay-per-view until 1993. What do you think the outcome would have been if Hogan fought fighters such as Ken Shamrock, Dan Severn, or Royce Gracie?
Hogan also has claimed that he was asked to join a start-up company known as UFC. He said that he refused to join because, “Guys got beat up while the fight should be stopped.”
Imagine the possible matchups at the time. We could have looked forward to Hogan and Randy Savage defeating the UFC’s version of The Dungeon of Doom consisting of Tank Abbott, Dan Severn, Ken Shamrock, Kimo Leopoldo, Tito Ortiz, Chuck Liddell, Mark Coleman, and Emmanuel Yarborough inside the octagon.
#12. Hogan claims while defending the WWF Championship in Japan, challenger Tatsumi Fujinami shot on him to try to steal the championship.
While Hogan did have a match with Fujinami, no such incident of trying to shoot on Hogan took place. If it did happen, Hogan no doubt could have used his skills he learned from the time he allegedly fought in Pride in the 70s to protect himself. Hogan has also made the claim that Antonio Inoki almost died in 1983 during a match and Hogan brought him back with CPR. Hogan said he had to flee the country to get away from the Yakuza. Hogan was somehow able to return to Japan several times over several years.
#11. Hogan claimed that he wanted to turn heel in 1990 after losing to The Ultimate Warrior but Vince McMahon vetoed the idea.
While it is possible that Hogan wanted to turn heel in 1990, you have to remember that Hogan was still the main merchandise seller and main draw even after Warrior won the title.
In addition to that, Hogan was very reluctant at first to turn heel in 1996. Eric Bischoff said on the “83 Weeks” podcast that Hogan’s manager Peter Young expressed concern about merchandise sales being affected if he turned heel to join the NWO. Bischoff also said that having children at home were the primary issue on why he was hesitant about turning heel. It’s very hard to believe that he was willing to turn heel in 1990 during the tail end of the boom period when he was still making so much money as a good guy.
#10. In late 1991, Hogan had a short feud with The Undertaker and Taker’s Tombstone caused serious injury to his neck.
Hogan defended his WWE Championship against Taker at Survivor Series and lost it because of interference from Ric Flair.
The finish of the match with Hogan taking a Tombstone piledriver from Taker onto a chair that was placed in the ring by Flair. Years later, Hogan stated that the piledriver spot caused him to have neck issues and the spot almost paralyzed him. The only problem with this is that if you watch the footage, Hogan’s head never came close to hitting the chair and Taker protected him so much that Hogan’s head was an inch or two off the mat. Taker believed Hogan’s story for two years before finally seeing a tape of the match.
#9. In 2023, Hogan told a story about a sumo wrestler who was making his pro wrestling debut and that the sumo wrestler refused to put him over.
Hogan claimed that John Tenta (Earthquake) went to the ring and the two men got into a fight. This never happened and there is no one in the wrestling business who has told this before. What Hogan may be remembering is that former sumo star Koji Kitao was not happy about having to put over Tenta and it was very tense when they wrestled each other but there was no actual fight.
#8. Hogan claimed that he and Vince McMahon were offered to buy UFC as partners but they turned it down.
It is true that SEG was in talks to sell to McMahon but it was never reported that Hogan was involved in those talks.
On the Something To Wrestle podcast, Bruce Prichard said that Shane McMahon unsuccessfully tried to convince his father to buy UFC during the days when UFC was mired in controversy. Prichard said that meetings took place with Vince meeting Bob Meyrowitz and Campbell McLaren but he never mentioned Hogan being part of those talks.
#7. Hogan claimed that he noticed early on that Kevin Owens would be a star.
Hogan told Radio Yorkshire in 2015 that he watched Owens when he was in NXT. Hogan said, “Well, I hate to brag about it, but I’m the first one to point the finger at Kevin Owens. I saw him on NXT, like his second match, and saw him just chop and beat and grind and beating his guy down and doing it the old school way and really understanding how to get heat, doing it the old school way and I said, ‘that’s the guy’. I said, ‘that’s the guy. I don’t care if he looks like a wrestler [or] looks like an ice cream salesman. I don’t care. That’s the guy.'”
Hogan may have been a fan of Owens in 2015 but he was far from the first person to see potential in him. There were reporters and fans who saw his work when he wrestled in ROH, PWG, and various other promotions.
#6. Hogan claimed that he batted 714 in the Little League World Series.
This is an unheard of stat and just to show how unheard of it is, the Little League World Series has no record of him ever playing in their World Series.
#5. Hogan claimed to be scouted by both the New York Yankees and the Cincinnati Reds after being a pitching star in high school baseball.
Hogan obviously has this story confused with Randy Savage who legitimately was signed by the Cincinnati Reds minor league system as a catcher before entering professional wrestling. One could only imagine the attendance figures the Reds would have drawn if they could have had The Mega Powers as their starting pitcher and catcher.
#4. Hogan claimed that he broke his ribs during his match against The Rock at WrestleMania 18.
As the story goes, the injury happened when he took a Rock Bottom. However, it was later revealed that he broke his ribs during a live event match against Rikishi. Hogan revealed years later that he was already injured before the match with The Rock at WrestleMania.
#3. Hogan claimed that the NWO was his idea and his NWO would have included The Booty Man and The Nasty Boys.
Many people have discussed the origins of the NWO and we are unaware of anyone who says it was Hogan’s idea. Eric Bischoff has talked about how he came up with the NWO and he was inspired by an invasion angle that was done in New Japan Pro Wrestling. So no, Hogan did not come up with the NWO and in fact, he had to be talked into turning heel and joining the group.
2. Hulk Hogan claimed Elvis Presley was a big fan of his.
While Elvis was a fan of wrestling and a rumored match was going to take place between Elvis and Jerry “The King” Lawler at the Mid-South Coliseum around 1977, Elvis died right as Hogan was breaking into the business, making it impossible for Elvis to be a fan of the Hulkster’s career.
#1. In 1991, Hulk Hogan appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show to claim that he was not a regular steroid user.
Arsenio and the show producers were under the impression that Hogan would come clean about his past steroid use. Hogan showed a photo of himself from when he was a kid to show that he was always bigger than his peers and he didn’t get big and tall from steroid use.
Hogan told Arsenio that he took steroids under a doctor’s care only to treat an injury. That proves to be untrue as he told a federal court in 1994 that he did take steroids when he was in the WWF and that he stopped using them in 1990. Whether or not you believe that Hogan stopped taking steroids is up to you to decide but it’s clear that the story he told Arsenio was a flat-out lie.
Hogan has told a lot of tall tales during his life. We hope that the Hogan Fact Checker has cleared up some of those stories and hopefully, Hogan realizes that he doesn’t need embellishments to put over the massive impact he had on the professional wrestling business. Do you agree with this list or did we miss something? What do you think should have been ranked as number 1? Let us know in the comments of our YouTube channel at this link and please don’t forget to subscribe.
