RIPPING his tee-shirt from his muscle-bound torso like Superman, Hulk Hogan revealed a bright red vest endorsing Donald Trump underneath.
“Let Trumpamania run wild, brother!” he bellowed in a mash-up of his own catchphrases at last summer’s Republican Convention.
It says much for the controversial Hogan’s popularity that the now leader of the free world had chosen the wrestler to endorse him for President.
Instantly recognisable in trademark bandana and shaggy, blond handlebar moustache, Hogan had long been a larger-than-life icon for middle America.
Without Hogan - - it’s unlikely professional wrestling would be the multibillion-pound behemoth it is today.
His cartoonish charisma and deft ring theatrics helped transform the sport from spit and sawdust blokeish viewing into family entertainment.
Hogan became such a big star that he was able to transcend wrestling and starred in the movie The Rock III with Sylvester Stallone, as well as securing his own reality TV show, Hogan Knows Best.
There was also controversy. In 2012, a sex tape between Hogan and Heather Clem, the estranged wife of the improbably named radio personality Bubba the Love Sponge, appeared online.
During the clip, Bubba is heard telling the couple they can “do their thing” and he will be in his office.
Then, at the end of the tape, Bubba tells his wife: “If we ever need to retire, here is our ticket.”
Showbiz blog Gawker ran a short clip of the video. It hardly chimed with the wholesome image that Higan had cultivated.
Hogan later admitted to radio host Howard Stern that “it was a bad choice and a very low point”.
Three times married Hogan added: “I was with some friends and made a wrong choice. It has devastated me. I have never been this hurt.”
Hogan then sued Bubba, and a settlement was announced. He also sued Gawker and was awarded £85million, which put the gossip site out of business.
Born Terry Gene Bollea in Augusta, Georgia, in 1953, his dad was a construction foreman father and his mum was a dance teacher.
Hogan remembered: “Some of my earliest memories of childhood involve getting bullied by other boys in my neighbourhood. Especially by this one red-haired kid who was meaner than a snake: Roger.
“I remember one day, I was six or seven, and I was out in the yard collecting caterpillars from the trees and putting them into glass jars.
“The next thing I know, Roger has taken all my caterpillars and put ‘em in his jar.
“That was it for me. I got all pissed off. So I stormed over to pick up his jar, and he came up from behind and pushed me down. Smash!
“When Roger saw my finger hanging there and the blood gushing out, he started running home.
“So I bent down and picked up a rock, like David and Goliath, and I threw it so hard and hit him right in the back of his head. Dropped him right there on the pavement. Blood was everywhere.”
Yet, the fight game was his first calling.
A decent baseball pitcher, Hogan began weightlifting as a teenager while living in Tampa, Florida, which helped him develop the massive arms he called his “24-inch pythons”.
At school, he was called a hippy because of his long hair, love of rock music and hatred of American football despite his physique.
Hogan recalled: “I started out playing guitar in junior high school, because I wasn’t a big sports guy.
“I was into music and had long hair. So I started out playing guitar, and as things go, as a music kid, you start playing in bands.
“All of a sudden, I started playing in this kick ass rock n’ roll band, and a couple of wrestlers came in to the show. Before I knew it, there were a bunch of wrestlers at our gigs.
“These were regional wrestlers, so they’d come back to Tampa every night, where we would be playing till 3am.”
Eventually, he plucked up the courage to ask for a ring tryout, pumping iron to develop his massive arms, which he called his “24-inch pythons.”
Hogan’s leg was broken in his first training session by pro-fighter Hiro Matsuda.
It might have ended his career there and then, but ten weeks later, he was back facing Matsuda in training and managed to block the move that had broken his limb.
Hogan began wrestling in the southern US under names such as Terry the Hulk, Boulder and Sterling Golden.
The flag-waving American hero hit the big time with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) playing the muscular, egotistical blond villain.
Also fighting in Japan, it was there he became a sensation and Hulkamania - the wild scenes he generated in packed stadiums - was born.
“Hulkamania,” as the energy he created was called, started running wild in the mid-1980s and pushed professional wrestling into the mainstream. He was a flag-waving American hero with the horseshoe moustache, red and yellow gear
Strutting the stage in his signature red and yellow costume, his rippling physique and preening yet magnetic personality saw him become the world’s most famous wrestler.
His popularity helped lead to the creation of the annual WrestleMania event in 1985, when he teamed up with the A-Team star Mr T.
The pair beat “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff in
Facing everyone from Andre the Giant and Randy Savage to The Rock and even company chairman Vince McMahon, he won a string of WWE championships and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005.
Inevitably, Hollywood came calling. He starred as Thunderlips in the movie Rocky III in 1982 and in other films and TV shows.
However, Hogan was booted out of the WWE in 2015 after a tape surfaced of him making racist remarks, including the use of the n-word.
In a video made public by The National Enquirer, Hogan said: “I guess we’re all a little racist” and used the n-word while referring to his daughter’s love life, repeating the phrase “f***ing n******’ several times”.
After making numerous apologies, he was reinstated into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2018.
He married his first wife, Linda Claridge, in 1983 and had a daughter, Brooke and a son, Nick, together. The family featured on the reality television show Hogan Knows Best.
The show was a hit, but Nick struggled with fame and was involved in a number of high-speed car accidents. The worst came in 2007, when his 22-year-old friend and passenger, John Graziano, was left paralysed.
In his autobiography, Hulk Hogan: My Life Outside the Ring, he revealed how the crash left him suicidal.
He said: “Here I was nearly four months later, consumed by thoughts of John Graziano, who was still barely clinging to life in a hospital bed.
“I took another swig from that bottle of rum. I got angry at the cops and the media and everyone who blamed my son for hurting John. It was an accident, a horrible accident.
“I could feel the life draining out of me. Not from a cut on my body but a wound somewhere deeper.
“It had me curling my index finger on the trigger of a loaded handgun and putting it in my mouth. Why not end it?”
The couple divorced, with Linda citing that Hogan had been unfaithful, which the wrestler denied.
He married Jennifer McDaniel in 2010, but they divorced 12 years later. In 2023, he wed yoga instructor Sky Daily.
In the summer, Hogan had roared on stage at the Republican Convention: “Let Trumpamania make America Great Again!”
Yelled by a wrestler who became bigger than the ring.
President Trump paid tribute to the wrestler whom he called “a great friend” and the “Hulkster”.
“Hulk Hogan was MAGA all the way - Strong, tough, smart, but with the biggest heart,” he posted on social media.
