Why WWE Should Not Bring Hulk Hogan Back
If we’re to believe Brooke Hogan, “people have been calling” her father, “for Wrestlemania.”
That’s right, Hulk Hogan is supposedly, maybe, possibly, hopefully (not) in talks with the WWE to come back if we’re to believe what his daughter told TMZ. Hogan was terminated by the same company last year after transcripts from his Peter Thiel-funded defamation case against Gawker Media were made public, in which the former champion says, “I am racist, to a point, fucking niggers,” and also, about his daughter that, “I’d rather if she was going to fuck some nigger, I’d rather have her marry an 8-foot-tall nigger worth a hundred million dollars! Like a basketball player!”
Hogan was fired, WWE took every opportunity to scrub its biggest start from the Eighties from its website, and took a big step in “embracing and celebrating individuals from all backgrounds as demonstrated by the diversity of our employees, performers and fans worldwide,” as the company said in a press release announcing the termination. Who wants a guy like that working for your company? Especially when the WWE, a publicly traded company, has done a great job diversifying its talent and ushering the company into its “new era.”
Hogan surely still has plenty of fans out there, ones who for whatever reason can look past his racist remarks and many indiscretions, but bringing him back just doesn’t seem worth it. He was never a good wrestler to begin with, and at 63, it’s pretty much a given that they’re not going to put him in a match. So what? A cheap pop in his home state of Florida at Wrestlemania 33? Or worse: Hulk Hogan somehow getting himself inserted back into WWE storylines for an extended period of time. That just sounds terrible – especially when the company has been banking on all the young talent getting over with fans. Sure, Chris Jericho is 45 and having one of the best runs of his career, but Jericho has always been a great wrestler and character. He helps make the WWE better. Hogan just takes up space.
Ratings slump or not, Hogan would bring any momentum to a screeching halt. He’s not the solution to fixing things. He’s a relic, a racist and a generally all-around bad person who would only make problems worse, not fix them.