Hulk Hogan has quite an interesting relationship with hardcore wrestling fans. While we can recognize his importance as an icon and how we may have thought he was awesome as a child, age and a deeper knowledge of wrestling has made us a bit jaded towards the Hulkster. That’s because we know about his history of putting himself over, maybe killing WCW and telling huge lies to make himself seem cooler than he is.
So, we generally choose to acknowledge his importance in the grand scheme of wrestling… while also recognizing that he can be known to skirt the truth ever so often. Here are seven of his most egregious tall tales:
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Elvis was a Hulk Hogan fan. In Hulk Hogan’s WWE-produced autobiography, he said that he was such a big deal in Memphis that Elvis used to come watch his matches. That’s pretty cool. The one problem is that Elvis died in 1977, and Hogan didn’t start wrestling in Memphis until 1979. There are a bunch of people to lay blame on for this, notably the book’s editor, WWE and Hogan himself. But if you read WWE autobiographies, you know that the ghostwriters tend to just make sh*t up. So, it’s possible that Hogan never actually said this. Maybe he gets the benefit of the doubt here… maybe.
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He could have been in Metallica. One of Hogan’s oldies but goodies is that Metallica and/or The Rolling Stones wanted him to play bass for them. Here’s an actual Hogan quote:
“I used to be a session musician before I was a wrestler. I played bass guitar. I was big pals with Lars Ulrich, and he asked me if I wanted to play bass with Metallica in their early days, but it didn’t work out.”
The beauty of this lie is that it was one of the big Hogan lies that he actually got called on. Lars was on The Howard Stern Show, and he fervently denied that he ever asked Hogan to play for Metallica and even acted like he didn’t know who Hogan was.
Hogan has sort of backed down from those claims, saying he simply sent an audition tape to Metallica and The Stones when they needed bass players. Still, it’s a bit of a stretch either way, especially considering that Metallica needed a bass player after Cliff Burton died in 1986, a few months before WrestleMania III. Would Hogan have actually left being the biggest draw in wrestling to play bass for an upstart rock band? Not likely.
For what it’s worth, here’s Hogan playing bass, so we know he can do it:
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André the Giant’s weight. The story of André the Giant’s weight going into the infamous match at WrestleMania III is one of Hogan’s favorite ever-changing stories. All of the promos leading up to WrestleMania had André at 550 pounds, so he was probably closer to 450 pounds. Hogan, though, likes to boost up the weight as the years go on. For example, a couple of weeks ago, Hogan told Bill Simmons that André actually weighed in at 650 pounds, and that he tore his biceps after the bodyslam. He also said he tore every muscle in his back during the bodyslam, too, and never missed any time.