Original subtitles

Okay, news room.

Lucas, Vose is calling me.

Let's go. Where we going?

We know?

- Hulk died. - Oh, [bleep].

[bleep].

[bleep].

Can I ask you something? Have you heard anything about Hulk?

No.

Is there any way I can talk to him? It's really important.

- He died this morning. - Huh?

Hulk died this morning. Can you confirm cardiac arrest?

He's just-- he's been having health problems, he stopped breathing.

Okay, come to my-- come to my desk.

- Lucas has a post. - Can I post this?

Lucas, we're gonna do a paragraph.

I got 135 words.

He's got a hundred-- Harvey, listen to me, he's got 135 words.

- He can post it now. - Post it.

It's up.

He was a pioneer.

There was no one like him.

He's got him!

History made at Madison Square Garden!

Hulk was in a class of his own.

Look at this. He slammed him!

He embodied professional wrestling.

The first superstar to transcend our sport.

There is no Mount Rushmore, there's Hogan.

He had some big missteps in his life.

Oh, it hurt.

It hurt.

Let me tell you something, brother.

A few months before he died,

he made his final appearance and he was booed.

I was angry. He deserved much more.

They're going nuts.

Here comes the Hulk.

The Hulkster needs to hear it.

Hogan, Hogan, Hogan, Hogan, Hogan...

Let me tell you right now, Dan, that would hurt him.

I've never seen Hogan...

I'm carrying the red, white, and blue, brother.

I'm proud of America. I stand for this country.

Dropping a big leg.

Over for the cover. It's over.

The world's heavyweight champion, Hulk Hogan,

has proven to everyone what he's made of.

What can I say?

I never thought it could be done, Gorilla Monsoon.

You knew Hulk Hogan

probably better than just about anybody.

What went through your head when you heard that he had died?

Shock.

You just don't think about someone,

a family member or someone that close to you.

You don't think about them passing away.

And Hulkamania will live forever.

Terry had kicked out, so to speak, of so many surgeries.

I think he had, like, 20 surgeries on his back,

plus others on his knees and hip or something.

And he, you know, he overcame all of that.

It was a tremendous shock.

It was a blow to my heart.

We had some inklings of health issues throughout the years,

but nothing can prepare you for news like that.

Nothing. It was debilitating, you know.

Please help us honor him now...

as we give a ten-bell salute to Terry Bollea...

the one and the only,

the immortal... Hulk Hogan.

I really miss him.

I mean, if I dwell on it, Harvey,

I can get really, really sad, really sad.

I was devastated. I had to pull the car over when I heard it.

He was having some pretty big health struggles

the last few months of his life.

What kind of a toll did that take on him?

Well, it took a big toll. It was hard for him to get going.

You know, he had a cane he'd walk on,

and when we got in front of the public,

he'd put his hand on my shoulder,

or we could walk him out to do the autographs.

But he was a trooper.

He wouldn't let anybody know

that he was really not feeling that well.

And it's just devastating, you know, for this to happen.

But we tried to camouflage it as much as possible.

One of the things that struck me,

he died of a very ordinary thing, a heart attack.

It kind of puts in rack focus

that this wasn't this incredible hero

or larger-than-life character.

This was a man.

He threw himself into his profession

with such reckless abandon.

Sheik going for a slam, gets him up now, back breaker.

Can you imagine this?

...grabbing the leg of the Hulkster.

He sacrificed for his audience,

and that means he defied his health.

He went against logic.

He knew he was abusing his body, beating up.

I know, because I saw him through all the operations.

And I saw the limbs and the hips and the elbows.

It was not just the heart.

It was the accumulation

of everything that just wore him down.

Wrestling legend Hulk Hogan has sadly passed away at the age of 71.

Hulk Hogan wasn't just a wrestler. He was the wrestler.

Hulk made us feel strong when we were just small.

He made us believe that the good guy still could win.

Harvey, I'm really touched by all the people

who are coming out with fond memories

and recollections of Hulk.

But I have to tell you,

I'm really disappointed in that small percentage of people

who feel like it's okay to lash out at someone and their loved ones.

This wasn't just a man with old school values.

This was a racist.

So, no. I'm not mourning the death of Hulk Hogan.

Hulk Hogan is dead.

And I better not see no Black people on here mourning him, okay?

It's not unique to Hulk. I think it's part of our culture now.

I don't think we realize, but I say we collectively,

everybody who's on social media,

realize that what they write hurts.

It's weighing me down, it hurts me,

so I can only imagine how it makes his family feel.

Nobody's perfect by any stretch of the imagination.

But the positive traits that I learned from Terry

will live with me forever.

There is not a human being on the planet

that's made a bigger indentation

in their chosen profession

than Terry Bollea did as Hulk Hogan.

Hogan drops the leg on the chest!

Two, make it three! Will you look at that?

Hulk, now. Whips him to the ropes.

He's got it.

One, two, three.

There are a lot of guys in wrestling

who are big and muscular and charismatic,

yet Hulk stood out above them.

- Why? - He's just one of a kind.

I knew what America wanted.

There he is!

The heavyweight champion of the world!

Someone with charisma.

Someone who was larger than life.

And there was no one who fit that bill

any more than Terry Bollea.

He dropped another big elbow on him.

He's going for the cover. Got the leg up.

One, two. He's got him!

Because of his ability to compete,

because of his extraordinary charisma

and his knowledge and his work ethic,

it worked big time.

His voice, his size, his gestures,

he just was entertainment.

The greatest professional athlete in the world today.

Look at this!

We called Andre the Boss.

After the pin, one, two, three,

Hogan said, "Thanks, Boss."

And...

And Andre said, "No, no, you're the boss."

Listen to the elation!

He's never looked better. Hulk Hogan victorious!

Nobody put more asses in seats than Hulk Hogan.

Hulk was a larger-than-life personality.

Listen to this roar, Jesse!

Oh, I hear it, McMahon

People just loved him and gravitated towards him.

It is deafening in here.

He's the reason why we're all here tonight.

I mean, man, say your prayers,

take your vitamins, you know what I mean?

When Hogan was in the ring,

he brought so much energy and so much charisma.

Hulk Hogan was the Babe Ruth.

He transcended the industry.

I hosted WrestleMania and introduced Hulk Hogan.

We were walking through what we were going to do.

He's like, "All right, I'm going to hit this flex,

then this pose, and then this pose."

But then as soon as we got out there,

he was hitting completely different poses.

And I was like, "Oh, he's in the moment."

What I see out here

are 80,000 screaming Hulkamaniacs.

Hogan came along in the perfect time.

He was tailor-made for wrestling.

I was wrestling as Terry Boulder

through some local stuff in Alabama and Georgia.

That is it.

They had a guy named Lou Ferrigno on a talk show

because The Incredible Hulk just came out.

And I was on the same show with the same host.

And she's, "Oh, my gosh, you're bigger than the Hulk is."

So I went back to the dressing room.

The promoter goes, "Your new name is Terry 'The Hulk' Boulder."

And then Vince McMahon Sr. called me. He brought me to New York.

He says, "Your new name is going to be Hulk Hogan."

Making his first appearance,

ladies and gentlemen, Hulk Hogan.

He was the face of wrestling

when wrestling changed.

Hulk Hogan, he drops a big leg on him.

He's now going for the cover. Got the leg up.

One, two. He's got him!

Probably the most pivotal year

in the history of wrestling is 1984.

He was the face. He was the star.

And the fans on their feet.

Hulkamania is here.

Vince McMahon did a great, great job with it,

you know, as far as marketing those first couple of years.

Wrestlers didn't get a lot of mainstream stuff.

And by linking him with Mr. T and with Cyndi Lauper,

who were really pop culture megastars at the time, he took off.

Hulk Hogan and Mr. T start to track.

The dream team, man. The dream team.

Hulk realized through his travels

that it was the connection with the audience

that was most important, more important than the moves.

And he's giving these fans exactly what they want.

His voice, his size, his gestures,

he just was entertainment.

What a show-off. What a show-off.

You went to see him cupping his ear.

You went to see him tearing the T-shirt.

You went to see the bad guys pound on him and pound on him

and getting up, no impact at all,

pointing the finger at him.

They knew the entire match before it started,

but they just wanted to enjoy that match and see it live.

An awesome figure,

that 7'5" frame of Andre the Giant.

I've been a wrestling fan for many decades.

And if I had to pick one moment

that may be the biggest single moment,

it had to be, for me, WrestleMania III.

The irresistible force meeting the immovable object.

Look at the size of the giant.

It wasn't just a match. It was one of those iconic moments.

The Hulk going underneath that.

He took down the big guy!

This moment etched

wrestling and the WWF/WWE

in history that we were not going anywhere.

This was a huge gamble. We didn't know if we would pull it off.

94,000 people.

We're seeing what this guy is really made of.

I'm a guy who believes in moments over matches.

And the moment that people took with them from WrestleMania III

was Hulk Hogan slamming Andre the Giant.

The greatest professional athlete in the world today.

Look at this.

He slammed that guy.

I don't believe it. I don't believe it.

Hulk Hogan, a big leg.

We called Andre the Boss.

After the pin, one, two, three, Hogan said, "Thanks, Boss."

And, uh...

And, uh...

...Andre said, "No, now, you're the boss."

The world's heavyweight champion, Hulk Hogan

has proven to everyone what he's made of.

That moment changed my whole career

because Hulk Hogan was off and running.

Hulkamania was off running, but that put me on a rocket ship.

It was a moment that kind of registered on a seismograph.

It was so big.

It gave Terry Bollea, Hulk Hogan, the ability

to walk down the street in New York and have a 90-year-old woman

who's never seen wrestling in her entire life

look up and go, "You're Hulk Hogan."

Because he was the king of pop culture.

Those punches have no effect

on the Heavyweight Champion of the world.

Drop down now. Look out.

Boy, he went down that time.

He got him. He got him.

Hulk Hogan arrives.

- What is he doing? - Oh, my God.

- Is he the third man? - He's the third man.

What the hell is going on here?

Hulk Hogan has betrayed WCW.

Talk about the risk that he took

when he turned from the ultimate good guy to bad guy in '96.

I never saw that coming.

A career of a lifetime.

Right down the drain, kid.

I believe that he realized

that the potential reward of giving people

an entirely new Hulk Hogan was going to be good for him.

Mean Gene, the first thing you need to do is to tell these people

to shut up if you want to hear what I got to say.

He dressed differently, came out with different music,

had different colors.

I thought I'd be the ultimate bad guy, which I was.

I became Hollywood Hogan, that bad guy,

in the back with a black beard.

But the people cheered me.

People were cheering me out of the building.

It was amazing. The lines had gotten blurred.

So, I became bigger than ever again.

As far as I'm concerned, all this crap in the ring

represents these fans out here.

It's a risk. You go like, you know, look at all the merchandise.

Will people stop buying the merchandise?

Well, actually, you know, they end up selling more merchandise.

A match for the ages!

The Rock and Hogan at WrestleMania one-on-one!

When he came back to the WWE,

you almost immediately paired him with The Rock.

How do you feel about headlining

one more WrestleMania with The Rock?

Yes.

You always want to do what the fans want.

They had these two iconic figures,

and to see them clash,

um, just the anticipation of it alone, was like,

"Wow, what is going to happen?"

Hollywood Hulk Hogan!

And it was funny because going into the match, you know,

the Hulkster was, quote, what we call the heel, the bad guy,

and Rock was the baby face.

And the moment Terry walked down and got in the ring,

you could feel this feeling you haven't felt before.

It was different.

There's a lot of Hollywood Hulk Hogan fans

here in Sky Dome tonight.

They're really cheering for Hogan, but in a way that was different.

And when they got in the ring,

you know, and said face-to-face, they both felt it.

This is a WrestleMania moment.

March 17, 2002.

You can set that date on your calendar.

I did everything I could to be a bad guy.

After I do all these horrible things,

the place is cheering me out of the building.

I'm passing the torch, giving him the rub,

everything I can to help him be the greatest wrestler ever.

Many of the crowd chanting for Rock.

Quite frankly, many of the crowd chanting for Hogan.

It was like, wow, this is unbelievable.

And it's very different. What are we going to do?

As far as his opponent is concerned.

Tell you what, King. Look at the power.

The power of those pythons!

When you see something like that happening,

it's like, wow, this is so unique.

Wait a minute! Is he gonna hulk up, JR?

He is! I cannot believe it.

Oh, my God. What you gonna do, Rock?

It was a defining moment in both their careers.

Rock, the People's Elbow, on Hogan...

Wins it!

It was something extraordinary to watch.

You came right out of your seat. It was so magical.

He was a pioneer. There was no one like him.

When I first saw him, I said,

"There's certain people that have a light.

There's a glow. They just have it."

The Rock would not have that diving board to jump off of

by any stretch of the imagination

to become the successful Hollywood superstar that he has become

without Hogan busting the door down.

I'm coming after you, Balboa.

- Let's call it off. - Come on, it's for charity.

What was he like behind the scenes

when you were filming Rocky?

He was so...

I mean, I can get moody.

He never got moody.

He was always self-deprecating, loud, welcoming.

When I first saw him, I said,

"There's certain people, Harvey, that have a light.

There's a glow. They just have it."

The ultimate male versus the ultimate meatball.

That scene in Rocky I and Rocky II.

I had already wrestled under the name Hulk Hogan

from, like, '78 till '80 with Vince McMahon Sr. and the old WWF.

And then when I went off to do the movie, I got fired.

Vince McMahon Sr. fired me because I went to do the movie.

Because back in the day, the barbaric thinking was

wrestlers don't do movies, they don't do commercials or TV appearances.

The one, the only, Thunderlips!

When he was playing the character of Thunderlips,

he hadn't quite got his act together.

He hadn't gotten his voice, his presentation.

So what you're seeing there is the really young Hulk Hogan

at the very inception of his career as an actor

and, of course, a superstar in wrestling.

After the match, how about we get a Polaroid together?

And then when we started to wrestle, because we had to do

a couple weeks of him basically throwing me around.

I don't think I was ever injured,

which is amazing because people say,

"Oh, wrestling's not real."

Gravity is real.

You have a guy 300 pounds landing on you,

but he's breaking the fall,

so he's actually hurting himself to protect you.

And that's what a lot of people don't see and realize

he was so incredibly concerned about my welfare

and not his own.

How important was Rocky III for your industry and for him?

I think it was incredible for pro wrestling.

It was really impressive for him.

I think that movie made, like, $160 million.

There was nobody that didn't see Rocky.

I don't know anybody that, I mean,

do you know anybody that didn't see Rocky?

Absolutely no one.

Good match.

Hey, why'd you get so crazy on me out there?

That's the name of the game.

He set the pace, and he showed people

the opportunity that they could have.

And that was part of Terry Bollea.

He was more like, "Hey, guys, let me show you how it's done."

54,000 Hulkamaniacs...

Oh!

thundering!

We did Thunder in Paradise, the TV show that we did.

Of course, the movies, Mr. Nanny and Suburban Commando,

and it just opened the door for a lot of people to start going,

"You know, these wrestlers are pretty successful."

MTV, you know, was a big thing.

He got on Saturday Night Live, got on the cover of Sports Illustrated.

All those things that today might not mean a lot,

but back then in 1984, they were great building blocks

because wrestlers never got those opportunities before him.

The Saturday morning cartoon, man, Rock 'n' Wrestling

every kid that I knew, watch the cartoon.

How much credit does he get for opening the door to people

like John Cena, like The Rock, like you?

People who are able to turn your profession

into something even bigger.

The Rock would not have that diving board

to jump off of by any stretch of imagination

to become the successful Hollywood superstar that he has become

without Hogan busting the door down.

He was Captain America.

You know, he was the eternal good guy.

I look at you, and you're a movie star, you're a writer,

you're a television star, you've done multiple things successfully,

and there are very few people, I think,

who do that, and he did as well.

It's really special because at first you wonder,

"Oh, can I really do this?"

And you have to be willing to not care if you fail.

♪ I am a real American ♪

He was basically fearless in that way.

He wasn't just a wrestler, he was gonna become a symbol

for all the world of WWE and wrestling.

He was gonna become an icon, a role model for young children.

He just knew he was destined for bigger things,

and he had the guts

and the fortitude to go after that,

and he changed that world forever.

There'll never be another guy like him.

Hulk was in a class of his own.

I remember when Hulk and I would have to do the Make-A-Wishes,

show you what a big softie he was.

We'd go out with the Make-A-Wishes when they set him up.

Holy moly, macaroni, unbelievable.

He'd get on his hands and knees with the little guys or girls,

and then when we'd go in the back, he'd cry like a baby back there,

and it just tore him apart.

What was he like behind closed doors?

My friend, my best friend, really down-to-earth, you know?

Came from Augusta, Georgia, you know, the old South.

I came from Memphis, Tennessee, you know,

we're all Southern boys, so we really got along great,

and it was just something special.

Well, he was a part of my life, a big part of my life.

We were brothers to a certain extent.

Every now and then, we'd get into a little verbal scrap or something,

but it always turned out for the best.

We were just so close

and enjoyed each other's company so much.

He was a family man. He was a father. He was a husband.

He liked to go in the water.

He liked to go to the bars and hang out.

He liked to be there with the people.

He was a people person.

Next to Mickey Mouse, Hogan is the most requested celebrity

- by Make-A-Wish children. - Take it easy.

I remember when Hulk and I would have to do the Make-A-Wishes,

show you what a big softie he was.

We'd go out with the Make-A-Wishes when they set them up,

and he'd get on his hands and knees

with the little guys or girls, and he'd rub their arms and go,

"You know, I've got to fight that big old bad guy tonight,

and I need some energy."

"You know, I need some of your strength."

He would do that, and then when we'd go in the back,

he'd cry like a baby back there, because he'd say,

"You know, Jimmy, when we come back a year from now,

"they might not even be here anymore," and it just tore him apart.

Let me see how strong that was.

Holy moly macaroni. Unbelievable, dude.

I got two.

When I think of Terry, I just think of the guy

that was the first man to show up at the hospital

for my dad when he got sick.

Can I tell you a story about Hulk and I and the issue we had?

He said something on a national Canadian sports show.

You know, I went ahead while Mick Foley

was sleeping and eating cheeseburgers and M&Ms.

I was in the gym working out.

I worked out two hours a day. I've been doing it for 30 years.

And it did sting, because he's Hulk Hogan.

Like, you want to earn the approval and acceptance

of the people who paved the way for you,

but the truth is, over the course of years,

I considered it water under the bridge.

But Hulk went out of his way,

and he made sure he said it on camera.

I want to apologize, because that was

one of the worst things, and it's not true.

- Ah, thanks, Hulk. - It was just me being stupid. I mean, really ignorant.

And that may have been the last interaction I had with him.

- Yes, sir. - We love you, Hulk.

The last time I spoke with him,

my daughters were walking past some area

where, for some reason, he's in a booth.

And he calls them over,

even though he has people coming around him.

He goes, "Oh, wait a minute. Those are the Stallone Girls.

Get over here. Get over."

And I just happened to call at that time.

And my daughter goes, "Oh, my God. Do you know who I'm with?"

And then, "Oh, my God.

"Hey, brother. My pride, my beautiful sisters"

So he never lost a beat is what I'm saying.

Even though I know he was in dire pain,

he still had time for my daughters.

The older you get, the more you realize

that you're not invincible.

And when your friends start dying off,

then you realize it even more.

And Terry, to me, was not only a friend,

but he was like an older brother.

So for that, I'm forever grateful.

He had some big missteps in his life,

notably the sex tape with some racist comments.

It was unforgivable.

And I was like, aghast. what happened?

And when those things occurred, that's not like him.

What in God's name is going on?

Hulk Hogan got a smackdown

from World Wrestling Entertainment

firing the WWE star after he was heard

repeating the N-word in a racist rant.

You can't talk about somebody's life

by just looking at it in a one-dimensional way.

And he was an amazingly successful guy.

But there were conflicts.

I didn't find out about him having the sex tape

until it became national news.

It's hard to believe that I was actually married

to this man that I had children with,

that I lived with him, and I had to look at him.

And he's doing this kind of stuff behind my back?

I gave him everything that I had.

His son behind bars for a car crash.

A friend brain damaged as a result for life.

Well, let's start with the funeral.

So you chose not to go.

And I know you really haven't had contact

with your dad the last two years of his life.

My dad and I have been through a lot of stuff over the years.

If you want to give it a quick Google,

anybody can find out the hurt that has happened to me throughout the years.

He had some big missteps in his life.

Notably, the sex tape talking about

not wanting to have his daughter date Black men.

Hogan is heard on the tape saying...

He had made some racist comments on a call to Nick in jail.

It was unforgivable.

And I was like, aghast. What happened?

And when those things occurred, that's not like him.

What in God's name is going on?

On the sex tape, he actually said he was racist.

He said in his words that he was a racist.

So why would I sit here and try to defend somebody

that tells you who they were?

How did it affect you personally?

- I mean, you knew-- - Oh, it hurt.

It hurt.

Hulk Hogan!

Man, I just grew up watching the dude, man.

I used to love that dude.

I wanted to be like him.

It hurts.

It was probably the worst day of my life

when I said that eight years ago.

It was a glitch. It was a huge mistake.

The worst thing I've ever said.

I told him then, and I told Vince McMahon,

I was like, "Look, if y'all want this to go away,

I know how to fix it.

And we should do a Black college tour

at Morehouse and Prairie View

and hit the circuit and go and talk to them

and be honest with your apology."

And he was like, "Well, I've been advised

not to talk about it no more."

And I said, "I think that's bad advice."

You're clearly disappointed,

not just in what he said,

but in the way he handled it afterward.

Yeah, most definitely.

- Quick photo. - Oh, yeah, sure, man.

I did a show with him in 2017

where we went through his life story,

and he insisted, he said he was not a racist.

I'm not that guy.

I have to be able to look at myself in the mirror every day.

I have to be accountable.

I have to be able to live with myself.

It really slapped me and woke me up,

and it made me realize how powerful words are.

For the people that know me and love me, they know who I am.

They know I'm not a racist.

As soon as it happened, obviously the company

didn't have anything to do with him anymore.

We even took him out of the Hall of Fame.

You just don't do those things.

Everybody that knows me knows I'm not a racist.

Even the WWE knows I'm not a racist.

They had to do what was best for business for their company.

He was devastated. I mean, devastated.

And I'll be honest with you, the whole time we were together,

he's never done racist stuff whatsoever.

So that was just kind of like, "Wow."

And, of course, at that time, Hulk was at a--

not that there's an excuse for it,

Hulk was at a very low part of his life.

You know, Linda was leaving him.

He was getting a divorce.

He had been drinking pretty heavily on that.

And sometimes when things happen

when you're at a low point of your life,

you say stuff that you might not say on anything else.

And let me tell you something, too.

This is why I don't even really believe he said it

until I heard it because I've never heard it before.

Kamala was one of our wrestlers back in the day.

And Kamala one day was sitting in the dressing room with us,

and he just got his check sent to him on the road.

You know, what he made that week, fighting with Hulk.

And Hulk said, "Let me see that check. What did you get?"

He showed him.

And he goes, "Oh, man,

you got to make more than that."

So right away, Hulk picked the phone up and called Vince.

And he said, "Vince, Kamala only got this.

He's working with me every night.

We're selling out houses."

Boy, Vince took care of that right away.

The next week, he got his check,

and he goes, "Woo, it's double what it was.

Thank you, Hulkster."

So that's why it was such a shock to me.

And that's why I was devastated when I heard it.

So you cut ties with him over the racist comments,

but ultimately brought him back.

I knew he wasn't a racist.

I've been with him for so many years.

He wasn't a racist. He said some racist things.

And he should pay for that. And he did.

But in the end, I think that everyone saw

the real Hulk Hogan, Terry Bollea.

And they felt, "Oh, wait a minute.

This guy, he doesn't act like a racist.

He's not a racist."

We all make mistakes. That was a big one.

But he wasn't a racist.

USA! USA! USA!

USA! USA!

Well, let me tell you something, brother.

When they tried to kill the next president

of the United States,

enough was enough.

And I said, "Let Trumpamania run wild, brother.

Let Trumpamania rule again!"

He didn't separate his politics from wrestling.

He became the star of the RNC.

And this is a very divisive country.

I didn't come here as Hulk Hogan,

but I just had to give you a little taste.

When you saw him on that stage,

all in for Donald Trump, and you heard the crowd roar,

what was your reaction to that?

I saw a man being embraced

by people and eating it up.

Like, "Man, somebody loves me. Somebody still cares about me."

Tonight is about honor.

It is about prestige.

Hulk Hogan.

♪ I am a real American ♪

A couple months before he died,

he had his final entrance into the ring,

and he was booed.

We walked into a-- Oh, my gosh, we walked into a firestorm.

But, boy, California didn't have any bit of it that night.

Well, let me tell you something, brother.

And so the more boos we got,

the more I kept waving that flag.

Was that kind of a body blow to him emotionally?

Yes, just devastating.

I think that hurt him immensely that night.

Because that was his base. Those were his fans.

That was his home.

I'm sure it hurt him to the core.

It really did. I was appalled by it.

For someone who had WWE in their blood,

as you did, I'm just wondering how you reacted to that.

Well, it wasn't set up properly.

I'm sure he was probably despondent after that.

How did you feel when you heard that?

I was angry.

Because, you know,

we've known each other for a lifetime.

Professionally and personally.

And setting up, so to speak, this larger-than-life superhero.

And you don't just let him walk out there.

He deserves something very, very special.

More than anyone.

They owe him.

It was like, "Okay, here comes Hulk Hogan."

I got angry because that's not the way

that I would have done it.

And he deserved much more.

I don't think it's ever fair to judge anybody

on their worst moment.

Now, of course, the words he used were extremely harsh.

Were definitely racist.

I don't think that's indicative of who he was.

And when I measure the good that Hulk did

against the hurt that he caused with that type of language,

he still made a huge impact on so many lives.

So, I'm the guy that's saying, I'm gonna go with the joy

he brought, superseding the pain that he caused.

He is wrestling.

He took it to a whole other level.

His legacy is the father figure of wrestling.

The one thing that he said,

which is that Hulkamania would live forever.

And indeed, it is.

All his legacy is simple, really.

There's never been any entertainer,

anyone in the sports world,

that transcended on a global basis.

People understanding that character,

what that character did for them.

Generation after generation. How you felt about him.

No one has ever been able to do that.

He is wrestling.

He took it to a whole other level.

His legacy is the father figure of wrestling.

To some people out there, his legacy begins and ends

with the...

the unfortunate language he used.

But I think for anyone else looking at it

with a more open mind, he changed the face of wrestling.

He brought it into the mainstream.

He made it acceptable for people

to have larger than life characters.

When the wrestling world gave Hulk the ten-bell salute...

You had such history and such a deep friendship.

You must be having such mixed emotions

that you weren't there to be part of that.

It really struck me that way.

Struck me that way as well.

I'll always love him. I'll never forget him.

And I know he's going to save me a little spot

up in heaven up there.

And you know what, too, Harvey?

I think he's happy now. No more suffering. No more pain.

He doesn't have to walk on the cane anymore.

And then when he gets up there in heaven,

he's going to have his mother and daddy,

Pete and Ruth, sitting on that front row.

You're going to have Roddy Piper there.

You're going to have-- Howard Finkel's going to be doing the announcing.

You've got Randy Savage.

And you've got Andre the Giant.

You've got Rocky Johnson being there.

And Dusty Rhodes.

All the people that he loved are going to be there for him.

And when he goes to the ring, I'm sure he's going to have

an interview with Mean Gene saying,

"You know, Mean Gene, what are you going to do

when Hulk Hogan and all the little Hulkamaniacs run wild on you?"

Would wrestling be what it is today without Hulk Hogan?

Absolutely not.

Hogan was able to show people the template

of what it takes to entertain people.

And regardless of his shortcomings,

it didn't make him less of a wrestler.

It didn't make him less of an entertainer.

It's never going to take away from his greatness.

The one thing that he said in character,

which is that Hulkamania would live forever.

And indeed, it is.

Ladies and gentlemen, Hulk Hogan!

Thunderlips is here.

What kind of secret battle plans me and my little Hulkamaniacs

have in store for you too?