Hulk Hogan Paved the Way from WWE to Hollywood for Dwayne Johnson, John Cena and Others
Before The Rock morphed into movie star Dwayne Johnson, and well-before John Cena traded his jorts for a Peacemaker helmet, Terry “Hulk Hogan” Bollea made the leap from a professional-wrestling ring to Hollywood.
Hogan was the man who put WWE (then WWF) on the map — quite literally, in most places. Vince McMahon Jr. dreamt of taking his dad’s WWWF (the extra “W” was for the “Wide” in what had been the World Wide Wrestling Federation) from a regional league to a national one (the “World Wide” was just a marketing gimmick). But to steamroll his competitors in their own territories, McMahon needed two things: TV syndication, and one huge draw. Fortunately, he had a huge dude, Bollea, who stood 6’7” and famously had 24” biceps (really they were 22”), on his roster. Together, they created Hulk (because he was big like The Incredible Hulk) Hogan (to resonate with the northeast’s — the WWWF territory — large Irish population).
It worked — it all worked. Throughout the 1980s, Hogan was by far the most “over” character in professional wrestling. How beloved was Hulk Hogan among children, then the target market of the biz? We literally said our prayers and ate our vitamins just because he told us to.
Hogan, who passed away on Thursday, would become the hero in endless good vs. evil storylines, including a few nationalistic ones. But before Hogan saved us from the likes of the Iron Sheik in 1984, officially spawning Hulkamania, the ultimate babyface got a taste of tinsel town by playing “The Ultimate Male” (fighting “The Ultimate Meatball”) Thunderlips in Rocky III (1982).
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McMahon really, really didn’t like the prospect of losing Hogan to Hollywood, so he kept his star (metaphorically) chained to a turnbuckle for the rest of the decade. But Bollea, being the “Real American” that his entrance song told us he was, soon again felt the pull of manifest destiny. This time, when he went west to film No Holds Barred (1989), McMahon joined him as executive producer. What was to come, no one wanted a piece of.
Suburban Commando (1991) has become a Hollywood cautionary tale of poor packaging, and Mr. Nanny (1993) wasn’t much better. (Mr. Nanny was basically Johnson’s The Game Plan, just 14 years earlier.)
Though Hogan couldn’t draw at the movie theater box office, he still could at a wrestling arena’s box office. But when Bollea inevitably returned to what he did best, he did not return to where he did it best. In 1994, Hogan ditched the WWF for WCW, joining fellow defectors Scott Hall (fka Razor Ramon in WWF) and Kevin Nash (fka Diesel in WWF) as the nWo’s mysterious “third man.” Together, they helped WCW top WWF for the first time ever in TV ratings, a run that lasted for 83 weeks.
Ironically (or not), Bollea wrestled as “Hollywood Hogan” in WCW. Unfortunately, Hogan’s actual Hollywood career was pretty much DOA by this point, though he continued to get cameos, bit parts and straight-to-home-video roles through the ‘90s.
Hogan was not a good actor, but he was also let down by bad material. Everyone starts somewhere, but Bollea never got out of the starting gate. What he did accomplish, however, was introducing Hollywood producers to the untapped (outside of wrestling) potential in the locker room. Johnson has been the single-biggest benefactor, but Cena and Dave Bautista (“Batista” in WWE) are hot on his heels. They’re great wrestlers — much better than Hogan, frankly, though it was a different era — but what has really set their careers apart is their ability to connect with an audience. And why should that have to be limited to the WWE Universe?
Everyone on the WWE (and AEW, etc.) roster is a physical specimen; it is the talking, not the fighting, that creates a top guy or girl. A WWE promo class is basically a Second City improv class. The skills of what is now — for good reason — called sports-entertainment translate to entertainment-entertainment. Hogan was the canary in the coal mine; what came out was John Cena and a CGI eagle.
