Hulk Hogan Talks His Relationship With WWE, TNA Being Number One Overseas, Steroids, Shrinking
Hulk Hogan appeared on Rover's Morning Glory earlier this week to promote last night's Impact Wrestling taping. Here are a few highlights:
Shrinking: "I'm 6'4 now, I used to be a lot, lot, taller. I actually did [shrink]. When I was 27 years old, I was 6'7 on the nose. After 35 years of jumping up and landing on my tailbone doing the legdrop, and nine back surgeries, and two hip replacements, and two knee replacements, I'm now 6'4 1/2."
TNA's success overseas: "The company I'm with, Impact Wrestling, they're the number one company overseas. All through Europe and Australia, the numbers are crazy and we're pushing really hard here in the States."
Changes in the business: "What I've noticed mostly is things move so fast, the universe is getting so big. There are so many choices with satellite, cable, reality TV, social media, people switch gears so much that things have to move faster. Like if you and I were to start an argument right now, [in the past] we'd probably wrestle a year from now and blow the thing off. Well now, if we start an argument we'll probably wrestle by the end of the hour. You have to most faster, it's just the business has changed."
Doing steroids early in his career: "It was kind of a wave of what was the correct thing to do at the time. [In the] '70s, 80's, doctors would write you a prescription for a steroid, where every sport in the world was doing it and the mindset was, 'it was safer than taking sugar.' Well, everybody's been re-educated. Steroids are for injuries and certain medical uses, but not for bulking up and enhancing athletic ability. So, I think the mindset changed around '90 when it became illegal... There was an era when the steroids were predominant in every single sport across the board, but now I think even though it's prevalent, it's not as inundated as it was back then. I think you can pull out isolated incidences in any sport and point people out."
His relationship with WWE: "On a personal level I'm friends with them, but on a business level, I'm the bitter enemy [joking]. I'm not the enemy, we don't compete with the other company because they are a totally different entity. They're a PG company, we're pretty aggressive. It's not like we want wrestling how it used to be, but wrestling how it should be [with] a lot of physicality and back to the bare necessities of what this business is about. So we're really not competing, but on a business level we're not on the same team, that's for sure. But on a personal level, I'm friends with everybody."
Hogan also discussed being fat as a child, getting his name, his divorce, tweeting the photo of Brooke's legs, his son's car crash, hitting hard times and more. You can check out the full interview in the video above.