During a recent appearance on the “PBD Podcast,” Hulk Hogan shared his memory of when he recognized the immense popularity of Hulkamania at its peak.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On not being initially aware of how big Hulkamania had become: “The first time I really became real, real, real aware of it — people kept saying ‘Oh my gosh, you don’t realize how big Hulk Hogan is, there’s Hulkamania!’ I was just working, I had my head down.”
On realizing it was huge when he walked down Fifth Avenue in New York City: “[That was] the first time I realized — that this wrestling had gone mainstream, that this Hulk Hogan character had crossed these imaginary boundaries and became a media star, not just a wrestling star.
On the first celebrity he got nervous around: “The first time I started shaking and got nervous and the only person that’s ever was when I met Jerry Springer. I was a huge Jerry Springer fan.”
On growing up as a Dusty Rhodes fan: “In Florida, back in the day, there was a real popular wrestler named Dusty Rhodes, The American Dream, and I became a huge fan of his. When we were in high school, you know, we could kind of like arrange our schedule when you’re a senior, and I had shop class and then phys-ed and then study hall all together. So shop class we would start horse-playing around that would lead into the phys-ed class and then study class. If we stayed for study hall, or whatever that was, if we stayed for that, we would wrestle and act like the wrestlers and throw each other around into boxes and do all this stuff. But I was a huge wrestling fan of Dusty Rhodes — never dreaming that I would have the opportunity to get in the wrestling business — but I was such a fan, you know, it kind of just led me in that direction.”
