Hulk Hogan looked full of life delivering classic hype wrestling speech in last live TV interview weeks before death
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HULK Hogan appeared full of life in one of his final TV interviews as he promoted an exciting new wrestling league.
Hogan was in the midst of creating a huge project when he suddenly died at 71 years old on Thursday.
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Hulk Hogan was full of energy when he gave one of his final TV interviews in May
Credit: Fox News
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The WWE star, seen in 2010, died on Thursday after suffering cardiac arrest
Credit: Getty
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First responders rushed to his mansion in Clearwater, Florida and desperately tried to save his life for 30 minutes
Credit: AFP
In May, the WWE Hall of Famer sat down with Fox & Friends to chat about his new league Real American Freestyle.
The freestyle wrestling promotion, which was cofounded by the late star, combines the athleticism of the collegiate and Olympic sports with the entertainment of WWE, Hogan said.
Hogan and his league partners looked bright-eyed as they chatted with the Fox morning hosts about the fresh talent they were introducing to viewers.
The star was dressed in his iconic bandana with his bleach blonde hair peeking through and his horseshoe mustache shining bright against his tanned skin.
The WWE legend gushed about the young wrestlers competing in the league and said they understood how to put on a good show.
At the end of the interview, Hogan launched into one of his iconic promo speeches and said, "It's gonna be crazy brother!"
"I'm in New York City. I got all lit up last night."
By the end of the vibrant speech, Hogan had every Fox & Friends host vowing to tune in to the first match at the end of the summer.
Real American Freestyle's events are set to stream exclusively on Fox Nation.
When approached for comment, a Fox Nation spokesperson said the network was "deeply saddened" to hear of Hogan's death.
Ric Flair in Tears: Wrestling World Mourns Hulk Hogan After Tragic Passing
"Our hearts go out to his family, friends, and his many fans," the spokesperson said.
A source inside the network confirmed they would move forward with two inaugural events for Real American Freestyle that will take place on August 30.
Hulk Hogan career timeline
1977: Made his professional wrestling debut.
1979: Joined the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE) and gained recognition.
1982: Appeared as "Thunderlips" in the film Rocky III, significantly boosting his mainstream exposure.
1984: Defeated The Iron Sheik to win his first WWF Championship, ushering in the "Hulkamania" era.
1985: Main evented the first-ever WrestleMania, teaming with Mr. T against Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff.
1987: Slammed Andre the Giant at WrestleMania III in one of wrestling's most iconic moments.
1993: Departed WWF for World Championship Wrestling (WCW).
1996: Shocked the wrestling world by turning heel and forming the New World Order (nWo) with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash at Bash at the Beach, becoming "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan.
2001: Returned to WWE after WCW was acquired.
2002: Had a memorable match against The Rock at WrestleMania X8.
2005: Inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.
2005-2007: Starred in the reality TV show "Hogan Knows Best."
2012: Had his last official televised match for TNA Impact, though he made sporadic appearances in WWE afterward.
2020: Inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame for a second time as a member of the nWo.
HOGAN'S HEALTH
Hogan had been suffering from significant health issues for the past several months.
He was hospitalized last month as he recovered from a neck surgery that he underwent in May.
In June, a series of downturns left him reportedly unable to feel his legs or walk without a cane.
Some people feared that he was on his deathbed, though multiple friends close to the wrestler denied or downplayed his poor health.
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Hogan looked full of life as he promoted his new league
Credit: Fox News
6
Hogan was inducted to the WWE Hall of Fame twice after a historic career
Credit: Getty
6
He gave a rousing speech at the Republican National Convention around one year before his death
Credit: AFP
Hogan suffered cardiac arrest at his $11.5 million Clearwater, Florida, mansion on Thursday morning, police confirmed.
Paramedics rushed to the property after getting a frantic 911 call and spent a desperate 30 minutes trying to revive the wrestling legend before taking him to the hospital, where he was declared dead.
Hogan's wife, Sky, broke her silence on his death Friday, and said, "I wasn't ready for this."
She admitted that her husband had been "dealing with some health issues" but insisted she thought he would pull through.
"I had so much faith in his strength. I thought we had more time," she said.
Sky remembered Hogan as "my partner" and "my heart" and had faith that, as a Christian, he had been "welcomed home."
"Please keep his family and all of us who loved him in your prayers as we try to navigate this new reality," she wrote.
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Hulk Hogan the man did terrible things. But the character was revolutionary
When Hulk Hogan died and a rush of people searched his name on Google to read various obituaries, I'm sure at least some of them were shocked to find that one of the most popular search terms related to the WWE Hall of Famer is 'Hulk Hogan lies.' There are countless videos, Reddit threads, social media posts and articles detailing all the things the Hulkster apparently said that were either exaggerations, distortions or outright fabrications. One time, Hogan said he was asked to play in Metallica. The band denied the story straight away. Hulk said in his autobiography that he partied with John Belushi after WrestleMania 2 in 1986, even though Belushi had died in 1982. There's also the time where Hulk thought the Jackass star Bam Margera was dead when he very much was not. If you aren't a wrestling fan (you're reading the Guardian. You're probably not a wrestling fan) you might wonder why someone who was famous for four decades would feel the need to lie about whether he could have been in Metallica. These are the sorts of lies the quarterback of your high school tells at the reunion. 'Andre the Giant was 700lbs when I bodyslammed him in from of 200,000 people at the Roman Colosseum' is definitely an anecdote that could get you a free shot at the no-host bar at the Elks Lodge, but if you're Hulk Hogan, you could just be honest and say Andre was more like 400lbs and the crowd was between 80,000 and 93,000, depending on whom you ask. Also, it was in Pontiac, Michigan, not Rome. Hulk Hogan did not need to lie, but he did. Often. Lying, fabrication and multiple layers of reality are fundamental tenets of professional wrestling at every level of the industry. In 2019, I worked at WWE as a writer for their TV show SmackDown just long enough to get fired. I wasn't there for enough time to actually get good at the art of crafting a compelling wrestling story, but I was there long enough to realize that the most crucial element of wrestling is some form of dishonesty. The performer's job is to approximate reality, to portray their character not just on TV, but on social media, in the press, and sometimes even at the airport. Wrestling is performance art on an entirely different level. Terry Bollea had to live his life as Hulk Hogan – the bandana, the tank tops, the white mustache. In his now-infamous reality show, Hogan Knows Best, despite the conceit of seeing inside Hulk's real home, he was still that character. Terry Bollea was so committed to being Hulk Hogan that he had a formal bandana for black tie events. No one would be mad if he wore, say, a Kangol hat or maybe … no hat at all? When Hogan testified in the Gawker trial, it was shocking to hear him refer to 'Terry Bollea' and 'Hulk Hogan' as two different people. The line wasn't just blurred. It was wiped away completely. In the pro wrestling parlance, this veil of fiction is called 'kayfabe' – a word with its origin in the old-timey carnival culture that wrestling evolved from. Kayfabe is both a noun to describe the glorious unreality of wrestling and a verb to describe when someone is subtly lying to you (or hiding something incredibly important). In WWE, there are layers of kayfabe, with fewer and fewer people smartened up to what's happening the deeper you go. The outcomes of the matches are kayfabed. Who is wrestling in the main event of WrestleMania 42 next spring is super kayfabed. This doesn't seem that terribly different from protecting the ending of a summer blockbuster film, but when you're inside the business, you realize that everything can be kayfabed. How can you trust anything anyone says? WWE just launched a reality show on Netflix called Unreal, which claims to lift the veil on the behind-the-scenes creation of their storylines. I immediately said to myself: 'This is just another layer of kayfabe.' The sacred work of wrestling is to make people believe, to bend the truth just enough to make a few bucks off our curiosity. This is the world Hulk Hogan lived in. I still love wrestling, and despite the horrible things he said and did, I still see Hulk Hogan the character as one of the most influential heroes in American history. He managed to make the most mundane, thunderingly obvious credo ('say your prayers and eat your vitamins, kids!') sound revolutionary. He knew how to captivate an audience with nothing more than a gesture. He understood the art of platonic seduction – the way to get someone to not just love you, but to think that their struggle is also yours. Wrestling fans – both children and adults – could live vicariously through Hulk Hogan. His appeals in his speeches were to his 'Hulkamaniacs', the fans that gave him the strength to do the impossible. At WrestleMania 3, if Andre the Giant wanted to beat Hulk Hogan for the WWE Championship, he'd also have to contend with the millions of Hulkamaniacs cheering for him. In the unreality of pro wrestling, you, the audience member, are the real protagonist. Hulk Hogan is merely a vessel for you to travel in. If this sounds familiar, it's because it is. One of Hulk Hogan's last televised appearances was at the Republican national convention in 2024. He tore a Trump T-shirt off his body instead of a Hulkamania shirt and pledged his full fealty to our future president. In some twisted way, it was a passing of the torch. For years, Hulk Hogan had been the apex of wrestling's art of unreality. His talent for leading the masses peaked around 1988, and as the world got more savvy about WWE's particular magic trick, the connection severed. He left for a rival company, became a bad guy, and reinvented the art form again. But it could never be quite what it was in the mid-80s. Wrestlers such as Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock and John Cena could captivate a crowd, but it was nothing like Hulkamania. No one would or could ever truly believe like that again. This is why WWE has to open up (or at least pretend to), like the Soviet Union at the end of the cold war. After years of sitting under the learning tree of WWE's former owner, Vince McMahon, Donald Trump took the tools of platonic seduction that Hulk Hogan perfected and applied them to politics. The use of the word 'we', the commonality of struggle, the dastardly enemies to defeat in righteous combat. Even the empty slogans. Is 'make America great again' that far removed from 'say your prayers and eat your vitamins'? When Hulk Hogan exaggerated a story or outright lied, he'd very rarely retract his statement. When he was allowed back in the WWE locker room after tape of his racist tirade circulated publicly, he spent most of his apology warning fellow wrestlers to be careful about 'getting caught'. Hulk Hogan was a man who made his own truth. He didn't need to do anything other than live in the world he made for himself. The more he made up about himself, the grander he became. He was truly the greatest American hero, because he personified the most American virtue of them all: you do not have to be you. And the more he fashioned himself a superhero, the more we wanted to be him – to fully merge with him into one entity. This power was both awe-inspiring and perhaps the most terrifying weapon any human being could wield in this life. Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Hulk Hogan the man did terrible things. But the character was revolutionary
When Hulk Hogan died and a rush of people searched his name on Google to read various obituaries, I'm sure at least some of them were shocked to find that one of the most popular search terms related to the WWE Hall of Famer is 'Hulk Hogan lies.' There are countless videos, Reddit threads, social media posts and articles detailing all the things the Hulkster apparently said that were either exaggerations, distortions or outright fabrications. One time, Hogan said he was asked to play in Metallica. The band denied the story straight away. Hulk said in his autobiography that he partied with John Belushi after WrestleMania 2 in 1986, even though Belushi had died in 1982. There's also the time where Hulk thought the Jackass star Bam Margera was dead when he very much was not. If you aren't a wrestling fan (you're reading the Guardian. You're probably not a wrestling fan) you might wonder why someone who was famous for four decades would feel the need to lie about whether he could have been in Metallica. These are the sorts of lies the quarterback of your high school tells at the reunion. 'Andre the Giant was 700lbs when I bodyslammed him in from of 200,000 people at the Roman Colosseum' is definitely an anecdote that could get you a free shot at the no-host bar at the Elks Lodge, but if you're Hulk Hogan, you could just be honest and say Andre was more like 400lbs and the crowd was between 80,000 and 93,000, depending on whom you ask. Also, it was in Pontiac, Michigan, not Rome. Hulk Hogan did not need to lie, but he did. Often. Lying, fabrication and multiple layers of reality are fundamental tenets of professional wrestling at every level of the industry. In 2019, I worked at WWE as a writer for their TV show SmackDown just long enough to get fired. I wasn't there for enough time to actually get good at the art of crafting a compelling wrestling story, but I was there long enough to realize that the most crucial element of wrestling is some form of dishonesty. The performer's job is to approximate reality, to portray their character not just on TV, but on social media, in the press, and sometimes even at the airport. Wrestling is performance art on an entirely different level. Terry Bollea had to live his life as Hulk Hogan – the bandana, the tank tops, the white mustache. In his now-infamous reality show, Hogan Knows Best, despite the conceit of seeing inside Hulk's real home, he was still that character. Terry Bollea was so committed to being Hulk Hogan that he had a formal bandana for black tie events. No one would be mad if he wore, say, a Kangol hat or maybe … no hat at all? When Hogan testified in the Gawker trial, it was shocking to hear him refer to 'Terry Bollea' and 'Hulk Hogan' as two different people. The line wasn't just blurred. It was wiped away completely. In the pro wrestling parlance, this veil of fiction is called 'kayfabe' – a word with its origin in the old-timey carnival culture that wrestling evolved from. Kayfabe is both a noun to describe the glorious unreality of wrestling and a verb to describe when someone is subtly lying to you (or hiding something incredibly important). In WWE, there are layers of kayfabe, with fewer and fewer people smartened up to what's happening the deeper you go. The outcomes of the matches are kayfabed. Who is wrestling in the main event of WrestleMania 42 next spring is super kayfabed. This doesn't seem that terribly different from protecting the ending of a summer blockbuster film, but when you're inside the business, you realize that everything can be kayfabed. How can you trust anything anyone says? WWE just launched a reality show on Netflix called Unreal, which claims to lift the veil on the behind-the-scenes creation of their storylines. I immediately said to myself: 'This is just another layer of kayfabe.' The sacred work of wrestling is to make people believe, to bend the truth just enough to make a few bucks off our curiosity. This is the world Hulk Hogan lived in. I still love wrestling, and despite the horrible things he said and did, I still see Hulk Hogan the character as one of the most influential heroes in American history. He managed to make the most mundane, thunderingly obvious credo ('say your prayers and eat your vitamins, kids!') sound revolutionary. He knew how to captivate an audience with nothing more than a gesture. He understood the art of platonic seduction – the way to get someone to not just love you, but to think that their struggle is also yours. Wrestling fans – both children and adults – could live vicariously through Hulk Hogan. His appeals in his speeches were to his 'Hulkamaniacs', the fans that gave him the strength to do the impossible. At WrestleMania 3, if Andre the Giant wanted to beat Hulk Hogan for the WWE Championship, he'd also have to contend with the millions of Hulkamaniacs cheering for him. In the unreality of pro wrestling, you, the audience member, are the real protagonist. Hulk Hogan is merely a vessel for you to travel in. If this sounds familiar, it's because it is. One of Hulk Hogan's last televised appearances was at the Republican national convention in 2024. He tore a Trump T-shirt off his body instead of a Hulkamania shirt and pledged his full fealty to our future president. In some twisted way, it was a passing of the torch. For years, Hulk Hogan had been the apex of wrestling's art of unreality. His talent for leading the masses peaked around 1988, and as the world got more savvy about WWE's particular magic trick, the connection severed. He left for a rival company, became a bad guy, and reinvented the art form again. But it could never be quite what it was in the mid-80s. Wrestlers such as Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock and John Cena could captivate a crowd, but it was nothing like Hulkamania. No one would or could ever truly believe like that again. This is why WWE has to open up (or at least pretend to), like the Soviet Union at the end of the cold war. After years of sitting under the learning tree of WWE's former owner, Vince McMahon, Donald Trump took the tools of platonic seduction that Hulk Hogan perfected and applied them to politics. The use of the word 'we', the commonality of struggle, the dastardly enemies to defeat in righteous combat. Even the empty slogans. Is 'make America great again' that far removed from 'say your prayers and eat your vitamins'? When Hulk Hogan exaggerated a story or outright lied, he'd very rarely retract his statement. When he was allowed back in the WWE locker room after tape of his racist tirade circulated publicly, he spent most of his apology warning fellow wrestlers to be careful about 'getting caught'. Hulk Hogan was a man who made his own truth. He didn't need to do anything other than live in the world he made for himself. The more he made up about himself, the grander he became. He was truly the greatest American hero, because he personified the most American virtue of them all: you do not have to be you. And the more he fashioned himself a superhero, the more we wanted to be him – to fully merge with him into one entity. This power was both awe-inspiring and perhaps the most terrifying weapon any human being could wield in this life. Dave Schilling is a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Hulk Hogan's cause of death revealed
Hulk Hogan's official cause of death was revealed on Thursday. The athlete died from acute myocardial infarction, commonly known as a heart attack, which occurs when blood flow to the heart is suddenly blocked. In addition, it was revealed that the wrestling icon had been privately battling chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), a form of cancer that affects white blood cells known as lymphocytes. A cremation approval report obtained by Page Six disclosed that Hogan had previously been diagnosed with atrial fibrillation — a condition marked by a fast and irregular heartbeat, as defined by the Mayo Clinic. The wrestling legend died on July 24 in Florida , aged 71. Hogan's death was officially ruled as natural causes. His official cause of death follows on from claims Hogan felt 'weak' and 'embarrassed' shortly before he died. Eric Bischoff, his good friend, shared details of his last-ever meeting with Hogan. Speaking on the 83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff podcast, he explained: 'I could tell he was weak. He sounded tired. '[Hogan] said, 'I really want to see you, but I'm kind of embarrassed for you to see me this way because I've been pretty sick.' When I look at you, I don't see the same thing you see when you look in the mirror, so f*** that, I'll be down Monday.' Hogan's personality still shone through in their conversations, despite his health struggles. Eric shared: 'It was work for him to have a conversation but he was the same guy.' Earlier this week, Brooke Hogan took to social media to pay tribute to her dad and to reflect on their turbulent relationship. The 37-year-old star said on Instagram: 'When he left this earth, it felt like part of my spirit left with him. I felt it before the news even reached us. I know he's at peace now, out of pain, and in a place as beautiful as he imagined. He used to speak about this moment with such wonder and hope. Like meeting God was the greatest championship he'd ever have.' Brooke also used her post to 'clear a few things up' regarding their estrangement. The realty star wrote: 'It was a series of private phone calls no one will ever hear, know, or understand. My father was confiding in me about issues weighing on his heart, both personal and business. I offered to be a life raft in whatever capacity he needed. I told him he had my support. I begged him to rest, to take care of himself.' Brooke and her husband, Steven Olesky, actually moved closer to the wrestler as he battled with health problems.
