Andrew Lutzke
Well… this was not an article I had ever intended on writing, but as I flipped through the TV guide I noticed “Hulk and Linda Hogan: Irreconcilable Differences”. Being an unabashed Hulkamaniac, I had to hit the record button. The real world tends to not understand the beauty that professional wrestling can offer, so often when the mainstream gets a hold of a wrasslin’ story the results can be cringy. It took all of five minutes of watching this particular tabloid trash to drive me into an unreasonable rage. At that point I hit “stop” and was determined to review this dribble in all of its glory. I apologize in advance for ruining your brain cells. May God have mercy on your souls.
Hulk and Linda Hogan in happier times….hey wait a minute…
A bunch of talking heads (people I assume no one has ever heard of) do sound bites on the salacious high points of the end of the Hogan’s marriage.
“Their divorce was like a real life battle royale!” is the kind of tripe being offered up here.
Linda Hogan grew up bouncing around army bases. The producers do not have any old pictures of Linda, so they show images of her as an over-sexed 40-something, which doesn’t jive well with the voice over talking how Linda was shy as a youth.
They talk about Hulk being a fat kid who learned to lift weights to gain popularity. While speaking about Hogan watching the local Florida wrestlers, the image used is Sgt. Slaughter against Pat Patterson from MSG or somesuch. My inner wrestling nerd rages!
Hogan’s rise after appearing in Rocky 3 is gone over. They never mention the “AWA” and ignore all the time between 1982 and the next 2 years when he jumped to the WWF. We go straight to the WWF’s grand successes.
Hulk loved cocaine and screwed lots of women. He and Linda met and had sex all day and all night. The talking heads read quotes from both Hulk and Linda’s books on their sexy time fun.
Hulk never slept with those groupies. He just liked chatting in bed.
Linda became the “Queen of the Ring” once she married the Hulk. Linda became a staple of the wrestling scene and helped carry sports entertainment mainstream. This is about as accurate as when Bluto screamed about the Germans bombing Pearl Harbor.
As the leader of the wrestling wives, Linda made sure all the women wore gowns and long lacy gloves to the matches in order to bring class to the sport. BUNK!!!
Hulk went off to wrestle around the country, banging girls everywhere. Linda was horrified as a celebrity wife and drank away the pain. Linda stayed on for the fame and money. Is this supposed to make her a babyface?
They talk of Hogan winning the WWF World title while showing him holding up the WCW Big Gold Belt. My wrasslin’ nerd rage peaks once more.
Linda convinced Hogan to go with a tanned look based on her years working at a salon. HE GREW UP ON THE FLORIDA BEACHES! He was in a gym everyday with all the other bodybuilders who tan for cosmetic reasons! The lack of logic here is something else.
In 1992, the Hogan’s bought a17,000 square foot mansion and moved in with their shitty kids.
Hulk went off to make movies and screw ladies. Linda guzzled booze to compensate.
Linda wanted to be a star, so she got them a VH1 reality show. Brooke Hogan planned to become a music star with the help of the show, however Hulk helped sink that by being caught sexing up on his daughter’s friend.
The show got huge ratings. Hulk was overshadowed by his family and proved to actually be camera shy. The producers brought in a shrink to help Hulk out mentally, and he wound up in tears during a hypnosis session.
The tabloids exposed the dirty secrets of the family. Hulk didn’t help calm down his wife’s fears of his infidelity as he began to carry two cell phones around with him. At this point, he started banging Brooke’s singing buddy. This lead to Linda filing for a divorce.
It was Hulk’s most heated split since that fateful night in Milwaukee.
They repeat the fake story that Hogan has told about how the divorce sent him down a path of depression and boozing. This culminated with Hogan considering suicide before a timely call from Laila Ali snapped him out of his funk. Hogan was able to spin that BS story into another TV special that was an actually an attempt to start up a new reality show. This might all be well and good if not for Ali saying the whole story was fiction.
With no prenuptial agreement, the divorce was a brutal affair. Linda went to the tabloids and on TV shows with slanderous comments about Hogan stalking her, having sex with Brutus Beefcake, threatening her and so on. Hulk responded by going to the media with stories of Linda’s abuse and alcoholism. He then told Rolling Stone that he understood why O.J. Simpson did it.
Linda wound up with 7 million in cash, 3 million in property and several expensive cars. Once the divorce was settled, they both began to speak well of one another.
A sex tape came out with Hogan making whoopie with the wife of his friend “Bubba the Love Sponge”. The talking heads ignore the racist portions of that tape, which continue to haunt Hogan to this day. Hogan sued Gawker over the video.
The founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel, was outed as gay by Gawker, so he gained his revenge by funding Hogan’s case against the website. After a 2-week trial, Hogan was rewarded 140 million dollars. Gawker filed for bankruptcy and this ultimately led to them settling with the Hulk for 32 million dollars. Linda was not entitled to any of it, a fact that upset her since the tape was made while the Hogan’s were still legally together.
Linda wound up dating Brooke’s classmate once she and Hulk separated. Hulk married a woman who might as well be a clone of Brooke. Hogan cast shade on Linda for making their marriage toxic thanks to her drinking.
Hulk and Linda Hogan in happier times….did…did I get it right this time?
We close with the talking heads explaining that the Hogan’s were so over exposed by all the drama that now none of the gossip mongers care about them . THE END.
Let us never speak of this again.
