Jimmy Hart has shared the behind-the-scenes story of Hulk Hogan’s controversial WWE Raw Netflix debut appearance in January 2025, telling Cody Rhodes on the latest episode of What Do You Wanna Talk About? that he repeatedly warned Hogan the California crowd was going to push back on the appearance and that Hogan acknowledged after the segment he had known going in that the reaction could go wrong.
Hogan’s WWE Raw Netflix debut appearance came on January 6, 2025 from the Intuit Dome in Los Angeles. The segment was also intended as a promotional moment for Hogan’s Real American Beer brand and was Hogan’s first WWE TV appearance of the Netflix era. The Los Angeles audience booed Hogan loudly throughout the segment in response to his outspoken political support for Donald Trump leading up to the show, with the visible negative reaction becoming one of the lead conversation points of the night.
Hart walked Rhodes through the day-of conversation he had with Hogan ahead of the segment.
“I said, ‘you know where we’re going? We’re going to California.’ And like I said before, I’m not a Democrat or Republican. I’m jabroni. But here’s the deal. I said, ‘I don’t like this.’ ‘Jimmy, don’t worry about it.’ I went, ‘Okay.’ We get out of the van there, nice town car puts us there. Some fans go ‘Hulk, we loved you, but you love them. We don’t like you anymore.’ You know. I said ‘Hulk, I don’t feel good about this.’ ‘Jimmy, don’t worry about it.’ We go in the back. You know what I’m worrying about it.”
Hogan checked in with Hart one more time before they went out for the segment.
“So we’re in the back and Hulk, he goes ‘Jimmy Hart, what do you think?’ He’d always ask before we do something. And I just said, ‘no, everything’s good, you know, everything’s okay.’ So, we went out and did the little thing with, rehearse where we were going to stand and help coming out, do his little deal. And I’m waving the flag.”
The post-segment debrief is where Hogan admitted he had been aware of the risk going in.
“So we finish it, then we go in the back. And of course, then Hulk comes up going ‘hey, the radio was good on that segment we did.’ And I said, ‘well, I guess they should be because with all the commotion that happened on it, I guess we should have.’ And I said ‘but you kept telling me, don’t worry about it. Well, I was worried about it.’ And he goes, ‘Jimmy, look, sometimes you got to do what you got to do.’ And he said ‘I’ve made my bed and I’ve got to lie in it. That’s who I wanted to vote for. That’s what I wanted to do.’ He said ‘I knew in my heart going in there might be a catchy thing.’ But he knew it, you know.”
Vince McMahon was upset over the Hogan Raw Netflix debut presentation and reaction following Hogan’s passing in 2025. The McMahon told TMZ that he thought Hogan’s WWE-side legacy could have been handled more carefully on the Netflix debut night, with the political baggage carrying more weight in the live audience than the legacy positioning called for.
Hogan died in July 2025 at age 71. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as a singles wrestler in 2005 and as part of the nWo in 2020. His final WWE television appearance was the January 2025 Netflix debut segment that Hart now confirms Hogan went into with full awareness of how the crowd was likely to respond.
Hart and Hogan had been close friends and on-screen partners since the early 1990s, with Hart managing Hogan and Brutus Beefcake’s MegaManiacs tag team during Hogan’s WWE return in 1993 and continuing the on-screen association through Hogan’s WCW Hulkamania run and the Hollywood Hogan years.
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