Luke Jones and Nestor wrestle with the gloriously tainted legacy of Hulk Hogan and the Hulkamania era recounting lost memories of youth and life and love of the squared circle of Vince McMahon and the WWF.
Nestor Aparicio and Luke Jones discuss the legacy of Hulk Hogan, reflecting on his impact on professional wrestling and personal memories. Nestor recalls attending a wrestling event in 1983 where Hogan performed, marking a significant shift in the industry. Luke, a lifelong wrestling fan, highlights Hogan’s role in popularizing wrestling, noting his partnership with Vince McMahon in creating WWE. Despite Hogan’s personal flaws, both agree on his cultural significance and the joy he brought to fans. They also touch on the broader implications of separating the art from the artist in entertainment.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Hulk Hogan, Hulkamania, WWE, Vince McMahon, Ric Flair, professional wrestling, Terry Bollea, persona, legacy, 1980s, wrestling fans, Baltimore, sports memories, entertainment industry, wrestling history.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Luke Jones
8
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore, positive, positively, getting the Maryland crab cake tour back out on the road for our 27th anniversary, which happens on August the third. By the way, I remember what Jeff Beauchamp said about us. He said we would never make it because we would never have the top notch talent necessary to make it here. So 27 years later, I am spiking the ball with lottery scratch offs. I will have some pressure locks and some Lucky Seven doublers throughout the month of August, my 27 favorite things to eat in the city, some of it very, very, you know, like humble and meager and inexpensive and just things that I find delicious. I will be sharing all of them, many of them I have shared with our sponsors, and we’ll be doing later in the month as well. We’re getting down to fade leaves. We’re going to be going to Coco’s. We’re going to be coming to cost us and Timonium as well, just all over the place. We’ll be getting there, but we start at the Beaumont on August the seventh. This is not a football segment. This is not a baseball segment. Luke Jones is joining me now, and Luke is a primary wrestling fan. Folks don’t know that about him, much like my my best friend growing up, Kevin Eck, wrestling became Kevin X life, it probably would have been your life had there been no football or baseball for you and the loss of the Hulkster, you and I, we do a WrestleMania piece once a year. Usually somebody key dies or lives or Gary Michael capetta is coming on. I’ll call you and say, let’s do that. If Jim Ross, you know, like ever shows back up at my house, or would show back up at my house? I would have you over to be a part of it. I’ve done a lot of wrestling stuff. I could do a whole day of old Axel rotten tapes I have, and Vince McMahon’s been on this show, and the rock has been on a couple times, and never had a Steve wiser with Steve, but I’d like to do that we broadcast from raw was war, all of that. I never had Hulk Hogan on the show that I remember. I don’t remember ever meeting him. You know what? I mean, I met Ric Flair big time. I mean, I was in a room with Ric Flair. We talked, I interviewed him. He signed a little thing for me. I mean, I had interactions with all sorts of wrestlers in different ways. We’ve had Goldberg on the set at your DDP, your guy. So, I mean, I’ve done wrestling stuff. I don’t anything I have with Hulkster is me being a fan and then the Gawker Media thing, and what a scumbag of a dude he was in the end, and what a racist he was, what a bad guy. And all the pictures in modern era him wearing all the Maga stuff. So I get all of that, but I mean, Hulk Hogan died on the back end, the Ozzy Osbourne dying and all. And it’s like been a weird week for a guy that graduated in 1985 Luke, or a kid that was born in 83 right?
Luke Jones 03:04
Well, let’s also throw Malcolm Jamal Warner in there, sure. And the Cosby Show, Theo. I mean, regardless of Bill Cosby and the connotations and perception there, I mean, yeah, I’m not gonna lie, Nestor. I mean, and first of all, I’ve said this on the show before in these rare times where we talk wrestling, I mean, other than my faith and my family, I mean there are two things I’ve loved from the moment I can remember, I don’t know, being three years old to this day, and it’s so rare. I heard Bob Costas mention this one time, talking about his love for baseball and just thinking how rare it is, you know, and put aside our family, put aside faith, put aside friends, but just entertainment, hobbies, interests that we have, how rare it is to have something that you’ve loved from the moment you can remember it and you continue to love it. Today, I have two things in my life that fit that description, baseball and more specifically, growing up with the Orioles. It was Cal Ripken and Eddie Murray. I
Nestor Aparicio 04:07
mean, those are my guys, Getty Lee and Houston Oilers. That’s all I’ve done, you know.
Luke Jones 04:11
8And the other one was professional wrestling. So Hulk Hogan, I mean, I was born in 1983 I mean, hello, I was exactly who Vince McMahon and Hulk Hogan were catering to in 1987 right? So, you know, I full disclosure, I was actually I listened to, there’s a Sirius XM station pro wrestling 24/7 it just went to a full blown station. After years of just being a three hour show, I was listening to that and arriving in Owings Mills for training camp on Thursday, when they kind of shifted gears. I forget what they were talking about, just something pertaining to WWE or something, and they announced it, and it took my breath away. And I say this with a full recognition that there’s a. Difference here between K Fabe, which is the term that is very well known in wrestling, but it applies to all forms of entertainment in some shape or form, the actual entertainer, right, the persona, and even professional athletes, musicians, actors, we all originally come to appreciate a person because of what they do. You know their talent, whether they’re playing a role, whatever it is, and we love the instances when we find out that the real life person matches that, but we also know the reality of how many times that doesn’t happen. So I’m talking with a reference about Hulk Hogan, the persona, persona, and what he meant to me, what he meant to me, bonding with my father as a youngster, when my dad took me to the civic center or the cap center to see wrestling when I was 345, years old, we we weren’t Jim Crockett promotions, family, I wish we had been that’s something I’ve
Nestor Aparicio 06:03
your dad took you to the capital center. Yeah, he did love you see
Luke Jones 06:07
that once or twice. I mean, you know, and obviously the civic center was great because it had both. But I was a WWF kid. I mean, that that’s it. That’s who it was for. It was for the kids, right? I mean, if I had been a teenager, then I probably would have liked Jim Crockett promotions and the NWA way more, but, but like Hulk Hogan was everything. I mean, you know what you ask five year old Luke who his biggest heroes were before his besides his dad and his mom, it was Cal Ripken, Eddie Murray and Hulk Hogan. I mean, that that’s just who it was for me. So you know when you hear that he’s gone. I mean, first of all, you just think about his persona. I mean, he was a superhero in real life, you know, like, even though as a story, right? Even though it, it’s predetermined. I mean, that he’s one of those individuals that, you know, you think, like, not gonna die. Like, yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 07:01
the gold trunks, the red, the gold and the hair and the muscles and the Yeah,
8Luke Jones 07:06
and, you know, there was a little bit, there was a little bit of this going on when Ric Flair, if you recall how dire his health situation was seven or eight years ago, I mean, he was in a coma for for weeks. Um, so, you know, it’s, it’s a conflicting feeling, just from the standpoint of fully recognizing the flaws and the human being and fully recognizing I have my own flaws, just like any other person does. And I’m not absolving anything that he said or did or or even stories of him politicking as a wrestler that might have been to the detriment of others. But I mean, you’re talking about a person that, regardless of any imperfections he had, he brought a heck of a lot of joy to a lot of people. For decades, he other other wrestlers that you know, you even if there were stories of him you know later in his career, maybe kind of exercising his cloud in a way that wasn’t the most flattering. He made other wrestlers a lot of money. Go look at the old house. You know the hold the old attendance for the civic center, or the cap center, or wherever WWF was doing shows in the 80s. If Hulk Hogan was was on the top of the card, it was sold out. If he wasn’t on that card, there may better have Andre. There were 4000 people, literally, they would get Andre, yeah, because they couldn’t sell tickets, yeah, and, like, a few years later, Randy Savage kind of filled the Andre role as, like, a good, not a one A, but at least a good B to Hogan being the A. But, you know, I just think about that. I think about memories that I have with my dad. I mean, my brother and I to this day. I mean, I’m a big wrestling fan. My brother and I, we get along well, but he’s not in the sports a whole lot. He’ll watch the ravens, but maybe I get him to watch an inning of Orioles baseball every now and then. But 80% of what we watch together on television is a E, W, W, W, E, or some kind of other wrestling. You know, sometimes it’s something on Peacock, which has the whole WWE and and NWA and all kinds of old stuff. And we’ll throw that on. So anyone who loves professional wrestling, I mean, and this is where he built it, I mean, you know, he, he and Vince McMahon. And, you know Vince McMahon, with the things you can talk about with him and his transgressions as a human being, but you think about how much those two did and for what’s become a multi billion dollar industry, I mean, not just WWE. I mean, WWE is the Disney of pro wrestling. It’s the overwhelming it’s, it’s the Kleenex brand that everyone just refers to wrestling as, WWE now, but there are other companies, aw, TNA, you know, Ring of Honor for years. I mean, you go down the list New Japan, you know, as far as global brands, you know, but none of it would be what it is today without Hulk Hogan. And Vince McMahon in that partnership, and neither one of them would have been as successful as they became without the other. And you know, again, there’s a conflict. There’s a conflicted element to that. At the same time, regardless of things that I know about Terry bolea or flaws, imperfections about him, I’m also not going to sit here and lie to you and express any shame that I was a hawkmaniac in the 80s and 90s. And I love the part of it, and I still do to this day. And I’ll give you I think I’ve told you this probably when Hulk Hogan lost to the Ultimate Warrior WrestleMania six. So this was 1990 I wasn’t I was six and a half years old then, so I sobbed. And that was, that was the moment when my parents kind of peeled back the curtain for me a little bit and said, you know, like, you know, this is kind of, it’s a show. And I sobbed. You would have think. You would have thought it was the Raven. You know, the Ravens didn’t even exist then. But, you know, just talking in terms of, you’re a Baltimore sports fan, the ravens, the Orioles of the Terps, all lost the championship, you know, their perspective championships on the same day. I mean, that’s how devastated I was, but it, but it’s and it’s silly to talk about it now. I laugh about it now, obviously, but that’s how much it meant to me as a kid. So, so, yeah, I was sad. And you know, some of that sadness is also knowing how beloved his persona was, and that not being able to be better married with him as a human being in a way that I would say someone like Ric Flair, who is far from not a perfect individual. And you know, there are things about him over the years that you would hear, and not some things that I’m guessing he’s not proud of. Yeah, he’s
Nestor Aparicio 11:45
not me too. He me three, sure, but my point,
Luke Jones 11:48
but I guess the point I’m trying to make is I think I was a
Nestor Aparicio 11:53
8flare guy in that relationship, by the way. I love what flair? Flair dies. That’s going to mess me up, sure, sure. But you
Luke Jones 11:59
know, there’s something about flair that you know, even with knowing all that, I feel like there was, you know, he’ll as he’s aged, he has eligibility about He’s allowed himself to be more vulnerable in a way that Ric Flair and Richard Fleer, the human being flawed as he might be, he’s he’s allowed himself to be vulnerable to a point where I think people even accept, yeah, you know, you’re you’ve done some scuzzy things over the years, big time, and that might be the nicest way to say it, but you know, I think Hogan missed the boat on that with not showing some contrition over certain things, you know. And obviously that, you know, people are going to feel a certain way about it, but acknowledging that part of it and wanting to show sensitivity to that part of it, I still love the persona, and it’s something that I will remember fondly, and makes me think of my dad and I had friends and family members text me just because they know how much of a wrestling fan. I am dude.
Nestor Aparicio 13:01
When Hulk Hogan walked into the arena, and you’re six years old, eight years old, 10 years old, and I’m 30 at the time, it’s amazing. It was, it was Ray Lewis, right? I mean, they’re, they’re very, uh, similar, and Caitlin Clark’s didn’t want that The Beatles the New Kids on the Block. Pick anything you want. Pick that concert when Van Halen was on top of the world, or with David Lee Roth, whatever. Like that moment in life, larger than life, and that’s what we talked about Live Aid last week in that way, like we talk about Led Zeppelin, that way. We talk about things that way. Um, Hulk Hogan, certainly for me, you know, like so my Hulk Hogan stories predate your birth, but I was a wrestling head big time. 1977 7879 80 way more into wrestling than I lead on. I think you know that. And I’ve shared images and pictures, and I have lots of memories of all of that part of life. And my friendship with Kevin Eck in middle school and high school and I sort of wrestling jumped the shark for me as a fan, as a fan, as someone who would pay to go do it, was really into watching it every week when Hulk Hogan won, when Hulk Hogan won, it was January, 1984 I had a pregnant girlfriend. I was working at the paper. It was about that point where it jumped the shark in a in a big way, in a way where, like, it was on the Saturday Night Live thing, and it was on TV all the time, and it just I stopped following it like to know who the champion was, or any of that. So like when Mick Foley and all of that happened with, you know, came raw was war. I don’t know who the champions are. And I think there was a period where, like, raw was war came back in a period of time, and Hollywood Hogan and all that, with the black beard and and the wearing the black and all of that, 15 years later that. Became popular around my radio station, around Ray Bachman, around people being here, people like you that liked it. But for me, I was a huge wrestling fan from 1975 until 1984 that being said, Hulk Hogan was moving through the chain of command in the AWA in the Midwest, and Vernon’s promotion, where Nick bachwinkle was the champ and Bobby Heenan was the heel manager. And they had old Crusher and bruiser and old Vern gagne, his son, Greg gagne, in the business out of Minnesota and Chicago. Hogan came from that out of the Memphis promotion, and I could get Chip namius on to talk about Jerry Lawler and the king and mid south and all of that. But Hogan came into the capital Center as a bit of an unknown. He had not been on television. He had not been on the WWE, but he came in and had a match with Bob Backlund and, like, it was really weird, because it was right around the time he was about to get the rocky roll and the thunder lips roll and all of that, and come in as a heel with Freddie blassie as his manager, and into the WWE McMahon was about to buy him from the promotion of the AWA, and he was in a match at the Capitol center that was like a dark match that nobody really knows about. And you know about it because you’re a wrestling head if you have more history than I have tell me, but DC kind of dabbled with Dusty Rhodes at one point, with a with a bull, uh, bull whip thing with a lot of blood, and superstar Graham when they kind of crossed the www e NWA divide. So I saw Hogan before anybody saw Hogan, because he had never wrestled around here and this capital center thing was, like, really, like, weird, because back when was, you know, he was doing the Greg Valentine, and whoever the heels were, Adrian Adonis, George Steele, whoever the bad guy, killer con, whoever the bad guys were then, and Hulk Hogan. There was no typical storyline build up where bad guy comes in, beats up somebody gets a manager, you know, beats up Ivan Putski, and then gets the title shot, shot at the belt. And Hogan did that. So Hogan then became part of the vernacular, because after that capital center event, it was March of 8081, somewhere in there, sounds about right? Yeah, I can look it up. And I did, I did a couple of weeks ago because I’m trying to get Jeff krulick on, the guy from the capital center book and actually, there was a piece with Leonard Raskin and I from Costas and Dundalk where we did a capital center book piece. I held up my ticket stuff from that event. And I had Googled it. I googled it I googled it a couple weeks ago because, like, Tony Atlas was on that car, like just trying to Larry sabisco, you know, was that era, and Hogan became from that moment till three years later, when he won the belt. And the whole thing with with Iron Sheik kind of happened after back when they were trying to get rid of backlin and really moving into the entertainment era, moving into the Cyndi Lauper Freddy Albano, where it was truly going to make a lot of money and be a national act. And, as you said, become Kleenex wrestling. Hogan was identified as the guy and Ted Turner sort of had, you know, his thing and their money and TBS and cable television and all of that. And that became, really the battle between Coke and Pepsi. But Hogan man like 1983 summer of 83 he’s still in the NWA, and he had been in in the WWE as a bad guy with blassie went away, and then McMahon put money up. And I guess, obviously thunder lips had happened in the summer of 1983 my family’s greatest trip ever. They my dad came and said, Where do you want to go? I said, I want to go? I said, I want to go to St Louis, Kansas City, and see baseball games, see the Phillies play. My mom always wanted to see the fountains in Kansas City, I told you that. And we were out in Kansas City 11 years ago now, and the keel auditorium had wrestling matches. And we ordered a way for Phillies, Cardinals tickets. Danny Cox made his major league debut. I saw Steve Carlton pitch, you know, the whole deals, 83 Philly, so they’re about to play the Orioles in the World Series. And I went out St Louis in my rush, moving pictures, tour shirt. And we, we checked into the the hotel circle roadway in Barbara. Took you there for barbecue to pappies. It’s right by the the Washington you can. Office, and it’s gone now. It’s a parking lot. The hotel was a circle roadway in and we checked in, and I got the Saint Louis Post Dispatch, because I was such a newspaper head. I mean, I was just like, obsessed with wanting to work in a newspaper. I bought newspapers, I read newspapers. I was obsessed with newspapers, clipping them, reading them, kind of like the guy in the the Clint Eastwood movies, but without the all the rage Play Misty for Me and without the psycho. And when I, when we checked into the hotel, I bought the St Louis Post Dispatch, and there was an ad in the paper, and I gotta get pika to pull this ad, because the ad was wrestling Friday night at the keel auditorium. I’m like dad, rich flares, wrestling, Harley Race. We’re not going to the baseball game. I know we came out here. I know we took the Greyhound 12 hours out here. I know we have tickets, and I know. And my dad’s like, Fine, we’ll sell the tickets. We sold the tickets to the bellhop. We walked to the keel auditor. My dad and I walked down there, and we walked in, we didn’t sell the baseball tickets, so we got the wrestling tickets. My dad, you know, pulled out $7 $21 the guy said we have first row. My dad’s given to us, so we had first gonna get you parking for an event. Now, $7 we had first row. And on that card, Baron von Raschke was on that card. And to me, he was very exotic, and I know I can probably get him on the show, and I’m a jerk for not because he he does things like my show. He’s up in Minnesota, and actually Bob Hagan knows him, so I’d like to get the Baron on. But to me, the Baron is in character like I don’t even watch the documentary, because I I want to stay K Fabe with him. And apparently it’s a superstar Graham vice thing that came out that I need to watch too. Yeah, I just
Luke Jones 21:48
watched, I just watched it a couple weeks ago. Was it good?
8Nestor Aparicio 21:52
I mean, yeah. I mean, a lot, Seattle was a superstar guy. So,
Luke Jones 21:55
yeah, the dark side. And obviously it’s called dark side of the ring. Like, you know, it ends up most of them are just sad, you know? I mean, you realize, yeah, well, and, you know, I mean, that’s where I was
Nestor Aparicio 22:06
going to take it with Hogan, because I looked up and I’m like, Hulk Hogan died. And when I said to my wife, Hulk Hogan died, and I came back and said, 71 and I’m like, I’m going to put something up. And I was going to tell you this story about the keel auditorium, yeah, because I put these pictures up. So 1983 we get these tickets, and it was Harley Race and Ric Flair. So like that alone, like, literally, dude, I remember being in the lobby of this circle hotel, looking down at the paper, and I said to my dad, I’m like, we can’t work. We gotta go see Ric Flair. It’s Ric Flair. And Hogan was on the card. Blackjack Mulligan was on the card. I have pictures outside. And I had a pentex camera, the same one I always took the concert pictures with and whatnot that I got for my birthday year before. So I was a little bit of a serial picture taker. I was trying to, you know, hone my skills. And so I took a couple of pictures, and I stood outside the keel my parents went in, and I was outside alone when the wrestlers were arriving. Rich flair showed up in a white Lincoln Town Car. You know, hair out. I got pictures of all of that. So I had a fanboy moment. 1983 with the Hawkster. Before you were born, you were in your mother’s belly. You’re about to be born. Um, so summer of 83 so, you know, it’s not lost on me. And so I came in, I said he’s 71 and I want to put a post up. And I’m like, What a piece of shit that guy was. I’m thinking, like, the Gawker thing. And I’m thinking, like, just all of it. I even remember Aubrey Huff being with the bubble, the love sponge guy, and like, like, and I know that that was, like, all a thing, right? And, and then I realized. I didn’t even realize till David Aldridge, my NBA reporting friend who worked at the Washington Times a million years and has attended every NBA final for like 35 years, put up the racist stuff. And I’m not black, so I like, it’s not the first thing I think of. You know what I mean? I if I had heard that, and I have African American friends, several were big wrestling fans who put up things about Hulk Hogan, I’m thinking, and nah, nah, not nah, nah. And I put up my pictures, and I have my memories like you have your memories, and they’re tied to your dad and to the Hulkamania doll and all that. But I never had any interaction with the man himself at all. I’ve never been taking these pictures in St Louis and seeing them at the Capitol center. And after that, dude, I’m really being honest with you, I don’t know why. I just didn’t like wrestling anymore, in the same way I don’t like the NBA anymore. And that’s, you know, in the same way I never liked lacrosse, in the same way I never fell in love with golf. You know what I mean? Like, I liked wrestling a lot, and the minute he won, it became such a ubiquitous it was a jump to show I didn’t hate wrestling, and everybody knew who he was, but I didn’t like watch it every week, and I got invited to go to the matches, and Kevin, my best friend, was obsessed with it, sure, and I was all. He’s much more. I’ll go see flair when flares in town. I’ll go see the bash. I was way, way, although I attended when Cyndi Lauper came in and they did the Hall of Fame. I was at that that night when she performed and Alban, I mean, when they had the slammies, right? They I did. I went to the arena for things, but I didn’t go to the capital center to see all Cogan following it anymore. I wasn’t following it anymore. And it wasn’t because of Hulk Hogan. It just was because I knew it was fake. And I discovered girls in hammer Jack. I mean, come on, dude. I mean, I’m 1617, I had a I had a son. I had a job at the paper. I was hustling rock stars. It just, it wasn’t, I think,
Luke Jones 25:42
8yeah, I think your story is more typical of much more, a much larger percentage of the general population than those of us who love wrestling, right? And you know, for me, what’s just fascinating about I mean, obviously I talked about the hulkamaniac era of my youth. But here it was Hulk Hogan turning heel as part of the NWO in I was, I didn’t jump onto it right away, because that was 96 full disclosure. It came down to the fact that my family finally had satellite, you know, we I could finally get TNT and USA that I he brought he sucked me back
Nestor Aparicio 26:23
in. You’re making your key point for the Orioles future. If I can’t get the case. No
Luke Jones 26:27
question, no question. But So and, and to be clear, like I guess, I consider myself a lifelong wrestling fan, but from about 1993 through 98 I didn’t really watch it anymore. Hawk had, you know, dipped out of WWF at that point he had gone to WCW. I was mildly curious. I remember watching the pay per view when he finally wrestled flair, because that never happened in WWF, when flair had been there a couple years earlier, but I didn’t watch it wasn’t on TV regularly, and I wasn’t on broadcast TV, but the whole NWO thing, and a bad guy, Hulk Hogan when I was 15, that was appealing to me. And then Stone Cold Steve Austin, and then the rock, and then Goldberg, and like, you know, the whole Attitude Era, the Monday night wars, all that. And then the final, you know, the final act. And, you know, I don’t want to get drag on too long here, but the rock was, became my guy, you know, he was my guy that, you know, from that era, you know, late high school into college, before he started doing movies and abandoned WWE as a full time wrestler, but he had the rest the WrestleMania match between, you know, it was build his wrestling’s past versus wrestling’s future. Even though it’s hilarious, because the rock that was his last year as a full time wrestler at that point, but it was Hogan against rock at skydome in Toronto. Hogan, it was the NWO version. You know, the NWO had invaded WWF at that point. I I think they were still WWF for like, another few months at that point, and the whole story was supposed to be baby face rock against heel Hogan at Sky Dome. The Toronto crowd had none of that, and everyone always thinks the top WrestleMania moment. What Hogan versus Andre WrestleMania three, Pontiac Silverdome. I watched that on closed circuit TV in Towson with my dad. It’s one of my earliest flashbulb memories as of what, three and a half year old. But that Hogan rock match, they changed it on the fly, because that crowd was so overwhelmingly nostalgic for Hulkamania that he worked babyface and rock shifted to heel, and it was an amazing match. I mean, it really was. And it was, this was Hulk Hogan back in WWF for the first time in, what, nine years at that point in time. And it was just extraordinary. And it gave him a final run as a, you know, regular wrestler in WWF. And He
Nestor Aparicio 28:59
came back as Hulk Hogan at the end blonde hair.
8Luke Jones 29:02
He so he came back to WWF as part of the NWO Nash and Scott Hall also. But it was short lived, because the fans were just they were so bonkers about him being back in WWF that they just wanted to cheer him. And then eventually they leaned into it. And, you know, he had one more brief, month long title reign a couple months later. And you know, so, I mean, I just spelled it out for you right there from me in the mid 80s, as as a little two and three year old, who knew all the wrestlers but Hulk Hogan was his guy to at that point my life, being what 19 years old, I guess, and loving it all over again. I mean, it’s just, you know, anyone who loves wrestling, whether you were a Hulk Hogan guy, or whether you’re a Ric Flair guy or whoever you know, plenty of people don’t like Hulk Hogan, and understandably so with the away from the ring. You know, you know Terry Boley. I get it. But anyone who loves. Clubs wrestling without Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon in that partnership. Who knows what it would look like today? I mean, it certainly would not be what it is today, if not for that, because those two took something that was so corny and so regional, you know, the territories all of it, it was small potatoes everywhere, except for a couple parts of the country, and they made it this global entity. I mean, it’s just you have to recognize that regardless of how you feel personally about Terry bolea or any of that. And I’m not going to tell anyone how to feel. I don’t. There’s plenty of things he said and done that I don’t like. I’m not going to sit here and defend it, but recognizing, I mean, you know, I’ve heard him called the he’s the Babe Ruth of wrestling, and no disrespect to Bruno or flair or anyone like that, but Hogan’s the biggest superstar, biggest draw that the business has ever seen. And everything it is today can be connected back to Hulkamania blowing up in the mid 80s, and what that meant for the business, for better or for worse, but for how successful and how lucrative it became and what it is today. I mean, you have to recognize that regardless of how anyone wants to feel about them, and they can feel how they want. You know,
Nestor Aparicio 31:16
I’m glad we did this, because, like, I had my own memories that I could get off my chest about it. But the other part of this is I came back in said scumbag, and I’m like, found those pictures and I put them up. You can find them on my Facebook of a very thunder lips looking it was that arrows 1983 looks like thunder lips literally out on the street. Dude was touching his muscles in the pictures funny, but I said 71 and I’m thinking, sad as a 56 I mean, to be 57 year old guy. And I’m thinking, you know, like half these guys have been dead for you mentioned macho man. He’s been dead 20 years. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like 1514, years for macho man. So I’m just like, for me. I’m like, all George saherian, just look that up. Doc, doctor in attendance and ringside. Dr, George P saharian, I remember hearing that, and then, you know, he’s getting indicted Three years later, and Hogan was in the middle of that. That was 1985 40 years ago that Hogan was involved in stuff they could have put him in prison. So saying all of that at 71 and the superstar Graham thing that I said I’m going to watch because I am the dark side of the ring is that, like, there’s no happy ending for any of these cats like and to your point, flair finding some level of being beloved. You know, I’m thinking of the Ricky steamboats and different people like that.
Luke Jones 32:40
And there are good people in the business. I mean, there are, but it’s a, and you just alluded to it. It’s really hard life, regardless of any choices, bad choices, bad characters, bad actor. It’s a really, it was a tough way to make a living. It really was, and that’s where I look, you know, my red
Nestor Aparicio 32:59
8and also it was owned by Vince, who was a prick, sure. So that on top of and there were
Luke Jones 33:05
everything else, right? There were other territories, and people that ran territories that weren’t, didn’t take care of Wrestlers, well either. I mean, it’s But all that said the reverence I have, it’s for the kayfabe, the magic of the show, right? In the same way that we love movies. We love music. You know, even though we know that there are musicians that are complete a holes, right? I mean, there’s the separation of the art from the artist, and that’s where, where I’m coming from here
Nestor Aparicio 33:30
with do that every time I hear a Michael Jackson song, right? Sure, literally, sure so.
Luke Jones 33:34
But I’m gonna miss all Kogan from a kayfabe standpoint, and those memories will be with me for the rest of my life. Because I again, I think of my dad. I think of my dad with Orioles baseball and ravens football, and obviously Pink Floyd and, yeah, watching wrestling. Because, uh, that’s something we did from the time I can remember all the way up to, you know, the he passed in oh four, we were still watching wrestling then together. So, lots of great memories, and Hulk Hogan was in the middle of that, for better or for worse, in terms of acknowledging Terry bolea,
8Nestor Aparicio 34:07
drink your milk, eat your cookies, take your vitamins, say your prayers. Luke. What you gonna do? Yeah, the Hulkster. He is Luke Jones, I’m Nestor. We are wnst. Am 15 said, Well, come back. Talk about more important. Oh, that’s pretty important, but we’re positive. Talk Hogan. Stop my day. You.
