Should Hulk Hogan be justified by his personal life?

[Savion83]

Hulk Hogan is to wrestling as what LL Cool J is to Hip-Hop, an ICON! A living legend!! Who doesn't know who Hulk Hogan is wrestling or non-wrestling fan? Hogan revolutionized pro wrestling twice in the then WWF and then WCW when he turned heel and led the nWo faction. So Hulk Hogan is honored by his past.

But as Hogan got older in age, he came out with a reality show which included his family called "Hogan knows best" on the VH1 network. It had a good run for a few season's before his daugther Brooke left the Hogan nest and had her own show on VH1 spinning off from Hogan knows best to "Brooke knows best". But prior to then, the Hogan/Bollea family broke apart.

With Hulk Hogan and wife Linda getting a divorce after twenty plus years of marrige. Son Nick going to jail for something real stupid (in my opinion alway). And Brooke music career going nowhere and looking like an airhead in the process.

So the "immortal" Hulk Hogan is MORTAL after all when the Hulkster almost commited suicide in his home by putting a gun in his mouth. But female boxer Laila Ali talked him out of it (thank GOD). Now due to money problems, Hulk Hogan is now apart of TNA wrestling. And has a new girlfriend who he's engaged to named Jennifer.

But ever since Hulk Hogan's downfall (no pun to Chris Jericho) the once Hulkamanics have somewhat turned against Hulk Hogan because of his personal life outside the wrestling industry. Is that fair? So the question is, should Hulk Hogan be justifeid by his personal life?

 

[harrythem]

Hogan gets ripped now because, clearly, he lives in a little dream world where the only words out of his mouth are complete bollocks. That coupled with his very public family issues, means people have lost respect for him and treat him accordingly.

With the suicide issue, I read that Laila Ali herself said that she had no idea about that and Hogan never sounded even remotely upset when he spoke to her. Mind you this is from the man who also claimed to have taught Vince McMahon how to drink, party, and book wrestling. You watch, next week he'll take credit for seeling jesus, the black plague, Maradonna's hand of god goal from 86, the break up of the spice girls and, inventing sliced bread.

So, yeah, he deserves everything he gets. If you ****e yourself out in public, expect people to treat you with the contempt you deserve (like Katie Price/Jordan. I'd like to smack her ****e face)

 

[Optimist Prime]

The problem with Hulk Hogan is that he overexposed himself. Everybody had this image of Hulk Hogan from their childhood or whatever it was. Being this clean cut kid's hero...and icon of the wrestling business...and he pretty much made sure that everybody stopped thinking that way...and paid attention to how his dysfuntional his family and personal life was instead.

I love Hulk Hogan...the Hulk Hogan I used to know. But I would be lying if I said that his overexposure and exploited personal problems didn't have an effect and change the way I've felt about him over the years.

 

[Mustang Sally]

I haven't heard Hogan complain about his personal life being dissected by the public......and it's a good thing since he's the one who decided to put it all on TV in that ridiculous show of his. That "reality" show turned out to have as much to do with reality as "The Wizard of Oz."

What I'd like to know is how the entire TNA fiasco came into being. Did Hogan convince the Dixie-crats that his very appearance would cause people to fall on their asses in awe and wonder ("We're gonna do a 3.0 on January 4th, brother!")...... or did the TNA brass decide it for themselves and ask Hulk to come aboard?

Hulk Hogan is yesterday. He was the irresistible force of the 1980's, but that era is dead and gone. If his personal life is of interest to you, that's wonderful. But it isn't of interest to me.

 

[red ass skull muhfukkah]

I'm probably one of the few people on this forum who, embarrassingly, enjoyed Hogan's Knows Best to a degree. I was a huge fan of his growing up and thought it was interesting seeing what he does on a daily basis, even if a majority of it was setup. I still found it pretty entertaining.

What happened with Nick and his friend and how the Hogans reacted really dampened my opinion of Hogan, not as a family man as that had already been demolished, but as a human being. The whole situation with him talking shit about the kid and telling Nick that jail would be a good thing because it's publicity really left a bad taste in my mouth.

His divorce with Linda didn't really change my opinion of him as divorces are the norm here in the States and there's definitely been worse "Celebrity" divorces that took place in the public eye.

When it comes to athletes and sports, I usually tend to separate the decisions they make in their private life with the ones when their playing or wrestling. Like Tiger Woods, while I may disagree with what he did, I'll still watch him play because he's an amazing golfer. But I couldn't do this with Hogan for some reason.

Maybe it's because he isn't a full time wrestler, if he was, his actions in the ring could outweigh his decisions out of it. But this isn't the case, maybe I'm thinking too deeply or too "personally" into Hogan but my opinion of him as a human being overshadows my love I had for him as a performer.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

The internet has ruined the idealized version that many Hulkamaniacs that grew up watching Hulk Hogan had. They found out that Hulk Hogan was a flesh and blood man with the same faults and failings as the rest of us and not this larger than life, old school comic book character that stood for truth and justice and whatnot. Can you imagine the devestation in the minds of a lot of people if it were revealed that Abraham Lincoln was a puppy kicking, wife beating slave trader in his spare time? That's how a lot of Hulk Hogan's fans felt, whether he was held to a ridiculously high standard or not.

One thing that's really been revealed about who Hogan really is outside of his character is that he's pretty much a shameless self promoter. Hulk Hogan does like to be in the spotlight and does like to be the center of attention. If Hogan's personal life does cause some to look at him in a negative light, then Hogan really has only himself to blame since he does so much to put his personal life on display for the entire world to see. Maybe the Hogan Knows Best reality show was the lynch pin that ultimately ended his marriage to Linda, but nobody held a gun to his head and forced him to sign the contracts. He took the money and the exposure but it just didn't have the result in the long run that he'd hoped.