Hulk Hogan – The Icon That Built The Legacy

April 30 – Rob Bonnette breaks down Hulk Hogan’s iconic legacy as a Legend of WrestleMania!

As much as we’ve learned about the man who played the character and how that’s changed all of our opinions about both him and that character, one thing has remained true. And that is the fact that none of what exists in the world of pro wrestling in 2026 – the companies, the events, the podcasts, the websites, the forums, the conventions and the very human connections many of us have made with each other by participating in that world – would be here without Hulk Hogan. Without him, we are not having these kinds of conversations anywhere in 2026 about professional wrestling.

Hogan was everything that was needed to propel a wrestling company to national prominence.  Are there other wrestlers who could have physically done what he did in the ring and as a wrestling character? Yes, but there was no one who at the time brought everything he did to the table. At 6’8, he didn’t just stand out among regular people; he was able to stand out amongst the large men who worked in the business of pro wrestling. He was a larger than life figure who knew how to work a live audience in the building and watching on TV, and who had enough cache in the outside world to be accepted into their circles as a genuine guest and not as the butt of jokes.

Hogan would main event seven of the first eight WrestleMania events, rightfully should have main evented an eighth one (WrestleMania 18), and was standing in the ring celebrating at the end of two more. When WrestleMania XI was struggling to sell tickets, his addition to the card would ultimately sell the place out. And when he returned in 2002, 60,000 people at the Toronto SkyDome tossed all kayfabe aside and cheered him even though he was working heel against the biggest star in the business at the time, the Rock. He co-hosted Saturday Night Live leading into the first WrestleMania, something unheard of for a pro wrestler in 1985. And that didn’t happen again until 2000. To this day, the first name that comes to mind when the subject of pro wrestling is brought up outside our bubble is often his.

Hogan would lead two different companies to the most lucrative days of their existence, but it’s what he did to establish the WWE as the preeminent force in the business that stands the test of time. The pay-per-view business was built on shows that he headlined, going from a once a year occurrence to quarterly events, to the now monthly model that exists now. And the bridge to Hollywood that so many wrestlers hope to cross now was forged through his role as Thunderlips in Rocky III.  Sadly, both he and the man who played him would become tragic figures later in life as we learned more about him. But what he accomplished before we knew all of that about him is the very reason we are here doing this today.