Hulk Hogan Talks About Becoming Hollywood Hulk Hogan

Brian Fisher of MSG Networks sent the following preview for Hulk Hogan’s appearance on MSG’s The Game 365 this coming Monday:

Monday (12/16) at 7:30pm, MSG+ presents an all-new episode of “The Game 365” featuring professional wresting superstar Hulk Hogan. Host Fran Healy visits the “Hulkster” at his new Hogan’s Beach Shop in his hometown of Clearwater, FL to talk about his career and life as one of the world’s most famous people. In the episode, Hogan talks about how he got into the business of professional wrestling, the stress of entertaining, and how he has sustained one of the most well-known personas for more than 30 years. He also reflects on missed opportunities, including the chance at having his name on a famous grill and a movie career that didn’t work out like he had hoped.

On missing out on the George Foreman Grill:

“George Foreman and I had the same agent. I went to pick my children up early from school…when I came home I checked my answering machine and my agent said ‘hey, Hogan, I’ve got a grill and I’ve got a blender, which one do you want to pick? I’ll call George and ask him since you’re not home.’ So when I got home I said what’s up with the grill and the blender and he said ‘George picked the grill because you weren’t home’ so $400 million later we’ve got the Foreman Grill…and I’ve got the Thunder Mixer…George has joked about it on several occasions and I would knock him out if I could.”

On acting:

“Everyone knows me from the Rocky III movie with Sylvester Stallone when I played Thunderlips, but I think the movie that was my favorite movie, that all the kids loved and what I was hoping would be a breakthrough movie was Mr. Nanny. Everybody’s made that same movie, Arnold made it, Stallone made it and I actually thought that movie, with the comedic relief and how funny it was and how good of actors the kids were…I thought that would be the one that was the home run, but it did what it did. It was good, but it wasn’t that breakthrough…that would put me in the same category in Hollywood that I was in wresting. I thought it would have been great if I could carry that weight of the wresting into the box office and the weight of the box office into wresting. I thought it would have been the perfect marriage.”

On the Hulk Hogan name:

“The name is everything. The name is going to live long after I’m here. The name is going to go down in the history books…if you see wrestling you’ll see the name Hulk Hogan. The name is so powerful that you can’t destroy the man. There is so much net worth, so much volume in that name, so much of a constant, through good and bad business-wise and good and bad personally, the fans are loyal to me…it means everything.”

On how he got into wrestling:

“I was a wresting fan, number one, and grew up right in Tampa. We had the greatest wresters come into Tampa, we had Florida Championship Wresting and that’s all I knew. I was playing music in a band to make a living and the wrestlers would come in to hear my band because it was a real popular band. I got to know the wrestlers and finally got up enough nerve to say ‘hey, I love wrestling, and man, I’d love to try it out.’ They said sure, kid, come down for a tryout. They had me in the ring on the first day and broke my leg to run me off. I came back about four months later with a different attitude and a very short haircut.”

On Andre the Giant:

“Against Andre, I was scared…I was scared to death. I was hoping that he was going to be nice to me and be in a good mood. I miss him a lot…we spent a lot of time together. Once he started liking me – it took about seven years to win him over and once he stopped beating me up all the time – we got along great. But when you get slammed from seven-foot-four, it definitely stings.”

On becoming Hollywood Hulk Hogan in 1996:

“I liked being a bad guy in the ring, but 24 hours-a-day I liked being a good guy. Because when I was a bad guy in the ring, you weren’t supposed to be nice to people, you weren’t supposed to sign autographs or take pictures and that was tough for me…I always snuck it in on the side, so I wasn’t the true bad guy that I should have been.”