Why So Many People Hate Hulk Hogan

No one can take away the impact that Hulk Hogan has had on the wrestling business. He is without question one of the biggest names in the history of the industry, to the point where if you were to ask someone who doesn't know much about wrestling what they do know, chances are that Hogan's name or likeness will be brought up. Despite that level of impact, the days of Hulkamania running wild are long gone, which begs the question: why does Hulk Hogan get booed?

Surely a man who has given his body and career to making wrestling as popular as it was in the 1980s, as well as being a major reason why WCW skyrocketed in popularity during the 1990s, would have people worshipping the ground that he walks on. However, that isn't the case. Choices made in his personal life, some of Hogan's own personal beliefs, and even his behavior backstage at shows have led people to loathe the WWE Hall of Famer, and subsequently everyone who is associated with him. The January 6 episode of "WWE Raw" was the most recent example as Hogan and Jimmy Hart were booed out of the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, in front of a Netflix-sized audience, and this isn't the first time an entire arena has turned sour. From backstage politics to real-life politics, here are just some of the reasons why so many people absolutely hate Hulk Hogan.

Following his role in the 1987 movie "Predator," Jesse 'The Body' Ventura joined the Screen Actors Guild, a labor union designed to protect and benefit thousands of people within the entertainment industry in the United States. Ventura saw the positive side to being part of a union and thought that wrestling needed one, as the discussion regarding a wrestler's employment status when signed to a major company has gone on for years.

Wrestlers are often considered independent contractors, meaning that they don't get health insurance, unemployment compensation, or social security, and Ventura wanted to put a stop to this. However, Vince McMahon caught wind of the pep talk Ventura gave the WWE locker room before WrestleMania 2 who then promised never to bring up the idea again. How did McMahon find out? Enter Hulk Hogan.

When Ventura sued McMahon in 1991 over his publicity rights and royalties, McMahon revealed on the stand that Hogan had gone to him regarding Ventura trying to start a wrestling union. Ventura was not only angry that someone he considered a friend had gone behind his back and ratted him out, but the fact that Hogan had taken away the chance for even more of his colleagues to benefit from unionizing. Ventura was asked during an interview on "The Steve Austin Show" why Hogan would do such a thing, to which Ventura explained that the financial records of WrestleMania III were brought up in the 1991 trial, and upon discovering Hogan was paid more than the rest of the locker room combined, including his main event opponent Andre The Giant, everything made sense. Hogan and Ventura almost crossed paths at the first Saturday Night's Main Event of 2025, but Hogan missed the show due to family matters.

The year is 2009. TNA Wrestling has just produced its fifth-annual Bound For Glory pay-per-view, and AJ Styles is the World Champion once again. While he is feuding with Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels in the main event, Desmond "Nigel McGuinness" Wolfe has signed with the company and kicks off his run feuding with Kurt Angle, and on October 27, Hulk Hogan announced that he and Eric Bischoff had signed multi-year deals with the company and that they would help take TNA to new heights in 2010. For the first time since the death of WCW, it seemed like WWE might have some legitimate competition again. Then 2010 arrived...

To start, the January 4 edition of "Impact" that went head-to-head with "WWE Raw" broke a number of viewership records thanks to Hogan, leading to Spike TV allowing the show to move to Monday nights for part two of the "Monday Night Wars." However, in the two months before the move, Hogan and Bischoff got rid of the six-sided ring, which fans hated so much they chanted "WE WANT SIX SIDES" on pay-per-view. Hogan also brought all of his best friends to the company, such as The Nasty Boys and Bubba The Love Sponge, to be key faces on the show, and everything that Hogan touched seemed to turn to failure.

The 2010 Monday Night Wars would last for two months before TNA waved the white flag and retreated to Thursdays, but the damage was done. This wasn't the company that made the X-Division famous anymore; this was Hogan's personal playpen, and the company never recovered from a perception standpoint until many years later, when they rebuilt the company's reputation back as Impact Wrestling, which eventually led to their official working relationship with WWE.

This one might seem a bit harsh because, to be perfectly honest, most wrestlers hate taking bumps. A wrestling ring is not a trampoline, it's a thin canvas layered on top of a thin sheet of padding that rests on dozens of wooden boards and steel beams, so landing on it every night is not someone's idea of a good time unless you are a trained professional. However, as time went on, it was clear as day that Hogan was not one for taking massive bumps, even if he tried to pass it off with the old "work smarter, not harder" argument.

Years of delivering his classic leg drop had done Hogan's back no favors, with that move being one of the only big bumps he would have to take during a match. So it's understandable why he wouldn't want to do much. With that said, years of evolution in the wrestling business meant that younger, leaner, more athletic stars were performing much bigger moves for much bigger reactions, making Hogan's minimal arsenal seem a lot less intimidating than what it once was. On top of this, Hogan simply seemed to refuse to catch up with the times, and if you watch a match from Hogan's time in the ring after the Hulkamania boom, you could probably count on one hand how many bumps he takes in a match.

Take the main event of Judgment Day 2002, for example. Hogan defended the WWE Undisputed Championship against The Undertaker in a match that was billed as a dream rematch between the two legends. What followed was a slow, lethargic match that ended with Hogan taking two of the worst chokeslams in history, leaving The Deadman visibly angry. Hogan claims to work smart, but that doesn't make it good.

Nobody likes losing, even in an industry where the results are determined ahead of time, but when you are a star at the level of Hulk Hogan, taking a pin is not something that should be done often. Hogan needed to be kept strong during his prime years as he was the biggest star in the business, but as the years went on, it was clear as day that he went into some matches determined to make himself look better in defeat than the winner in victory.

The most notorious example is WCW Starrcade 1997, arguably the biggest pay-per-view in the history of WCW that was to be headlined by one of the best-built matches in company history, Hulk Hogan vs. Sting for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. The natural conclusion to the match was for Hogan to put Sting over and conclude the hottest period in WCW history in style, but that did not happen, as multiple stories about what happened backstage that night have since come to light. Eric Bischoff claims that Hogan didn't want to do business on the night but also felt as if Sting's head wasn't in the game and made the decision himself. Sting claims to be clueless as to what plans were changed during the day, and referee Nick Patrick admitted to getting three different directions for the infamous finish.

All of this could have been avoided had Hogan just taken the pin like everyone thought he should have, but between this, kicking out of The Ultimate Warrior's win at WrestleMania VI at 3.1, and having only ever submitted on a handful of occasions, Hogan's reputation for not wanting to do business that benefited him has been tarnished for years of his career.

Not taking bumps, not doing jobs, and virtually torpedoing the momentum of an entire wrestling company are all results of one major reason why so many people hate The Hulkster: backstage politics. We've already talked about how he turned up to WCW Starrcade 1997 and didn't want to lose to Sting, but this was just one example of Hogan having enough pull behind the scenes to acquire a certain level of creative control. Eric Bischoff claims that Hogan only used the creative control card once, which already goes against what was said about Starrcade as Bash at the Beach 2000 is also brought up in that conversation, but there was one example in WWE that destroyed a relationship with a main event star.

WrestleMania IX is one of the worst events in WWE history, and Hogan is a big reason for that. He was on his way out of the company; he was already in hot water for what happened in The Steroid Trial, and WWE was getting behind Bret Hart as a main event guy to the point where he could be the next face of the company. Hogan said, "that doesn't work for me, brother," and convinced Vince McMahon to put the belt on him so he could have a farewell tour as WWE Champion before dropping the belt back to The Hitman.

The match with Hart never took place in WWE, something Hart was very upset about as the win over Hogan would have been the natural way to pass the torch to him going into the New Generation era, and Hogan's need for the spotlight put a black eye on an event that was already heading into the "Worst WrestleManias of All Time" category before the main event even took place.

The list of things that Hulk Hogan has lied about could make up its own list entirely. We've already briefly mentioned how the creative control discussion is a bit murky, but it gets even more confusing when you find out that Hogan claims to have never used creative control. However, that is just the tip of the iceberg formed out of lies and hypocrisy.

To start, Hogan once claimed that he wrestled 400 days in one year, despite everyone with a kindergarten education knowing that there are 365 days in a year and 366 for a leap year. Hogan said this was because of the time difference in traveling between different countries, which is literally impossible on a fundamental level. One of those countries he went to was Japan, where he claimed to have fought MMA fighters from the PRIDE promotion in 1977, another lie as PRIDE was formed in 1997, and Hogan's first tour of Japan wasn't until 1980. Then there are the claims that he saw Kevin Owens as a star before anyone else, that he invented entrance music, and the best one, that he never used steroids, one lie that Hogan even debunked himself.

Hogan's lying spree really gets worse outside of the ring, too. Lars Ulrich from the band Metallica offered Hogan the chance to play bass for the band, except he didn't as Ulrich had never spoken to Hogan. Darron Aronofsky was going to have Hogan as the main character in the 2008 movie "The Wrestler," except no, he wasn't, as Hogan was never considered for the role, and one of the most bizarre being that he missed the chance to publicly endorse what would eventually become the George Foreman Grill (yes really) because he was picking his kids up from school. 

There's an old saying that politics and sports don't mix, and for the most part, the two have largely remained separate,e barring a few examples that have gotten sports fans all hot and bothered. However, when you publicly endorse one of the most controversial political figures in the world and then go on to the biggest wrestling show of the year, chances are you aren't going to get the warmest reception.

It's not really a secret at this point to learn that a lot of wrestlers, particularly in WWE, vote Republican during election years. After all, Linda McMahon has literally been nominated to be the leader of the Department of Education under Donald Trump's second administration. But when someone is so vocally positive towards someone like Trump, it can often rub people the wrong way, especially wrestling fans. 

In the lead-up to the 2024 US Presidential Election, Hogan appeared at two Trump rallies to get the people in attendance fired up. The first appearance was in the days following the assassination attempt on Trump's life, where Hogan told the world that "Trumpomania" was running wild and that all of the "Trump-ites" around the country should vote for the man who would make American great again. He then showed up as a surprise guest at a rally at Madison Square Garden, where he showed everyone just how fired up he was by being unable to rip his t-shirt off in his trademark routine.

Many people point to Hogan's endorsement of Trump as the main reason why he got booed so heavily at the January 6 episode of "WWE Raw." However, The Undertaker was also on the show, and he didn't get booed despite publicly endorsing Trump, so what was the reason for such an overwhelmingly negative reception?

This isn't an attack on Hogan's character or anything because this is something that he has legitimately admitted (to a point).

In 2015, any and all goodwill that The Hulkster had left went out of the window when a sex tape that was filmed eight years earlier leaked online. Any sex tape could be catastrophic to a person's career, but the fact that the sexual part of the video is the least controversial part of it is truly something as Hogan would go on to have an "Anti Black" rant. The WWE Hall of Famer would repeatedly use the N-word (you know the one) as a slur, expressed his disgust about the fact that his daughter Brooke was dating a black man at the time, and after all of that, would say that he is actually racist to a point. 

To put it bluntly, it seemed as if there was no coming back from this incident. WWE cut all ties with Hogan by terminating his contract, removing all references to him from their website, which included removing his Hall of Fame profile page (he still remains in the Hall to this day) and being cut from all further releases of WWE's video games with 2K. Hogan did try and save face a few months later when appearing on "Good Morning America" by saying that he inherited the language he used and his own views on black people from his environment, but that didn't really do much in repairing his image.

Since the incident, WWE has been happy enough to welcome him back into the fold, but fans have never let him forget, with many people taking great joy in seeing him host WrestleMania 37 with Titus O'Neil, where Titus was cheered, and Hogan was booed heavily.

It's always best to leave the game before the game leaves you, something that Hogan simply hasn't been able to get through his bandana. For all of the things that Hogan has done throughout his career, whether it's in the ring or behind the scenes, people hating him and booing him out of buildings across the world is not something that has come out of left field, it's been happening for decades.

Once the glory years of WWE in the 1980s were over, fans wanted much less Hogan on their weekly wrestling shows. Less than two years into his run with WCW, people were already sick of seeing him, routinely cheering the "WCW guys" over the man who made WrestleMania famous. Even his run in WWE during the Ruthless Aggression era ran out of steam as quickly as it began, and then there's everything that happened with TNA that all culminated in 2015 with the sex tape scandal. Every company that Hogan has worked for at one point or another has had that moment where the fans turn on him, but because of who he is and what he's done during his career, there's a constant need to keep him around, whether that's his decision or not is irrelevant.

We are seeing that in 2025. Fans tuned in to "Raw's" debut on Netflix for the stars they had been connected to in the months and years leading up to that night, not to see a man who has openly admitted that he is racist and supports a President who has posed a massive threat to members of the LGBTQ+ community. All in all, Hogan will continue to be hated until he knows when to call it a day, and at this point, that isn't happening.