I'm 58 years old and I just went through 8 back surgeries. They started cutting on me in February 2009, and I was basically bed ridden for almost two years. I got a real dose of reality that if you don't have your health, you don't have anything.
— Hulk Hogan
Then as I was wrestling as Terry Boulder. I was on a talk show with Lou Ferrigno, and I was actually bigger than he was! I went back to the dressing room that night and all of the wrestlers go 'Oh my God you're bigger than the hulk on TV' so they started calling me Terry 'The Hulk' Boulder.
The fans know what's happened to me over the past couple of years. I lost my family. I pretty much got devastated financially and the fans know that I've had some hard times - and that's the nature of loyal fans. They want to see the people that they love and believe in get back on their feet.
I love to give the fans what they want. They're what I miss most when I'm not wrestling. That time in the ring is like being in heaven for me.
I'm real critical of myself and if I take the bandana off my head I'm completely bald headed and go from being 58 to looking 68 instantly.
When the script for 'The Wrestler' kept coming to me I said, This movie is so good if you put me in the film as a wrestler people are going to say, 'No credibility, Hulk Hogan isn't a good actor,' whatever Hollywood thinks of me.
I promised each and every Hulkamaniac when I went to that great battlefield in the sky I would bring the WWF title with me.
I quit doing the movies because the wrestling was going so good and was so on fire during the '80s and '90s, but I was getting all these movie scripts.
After watching wrestling for 20 years, I thought I had enough confidence to do it. There were no wrestling schools at the time.
Nobody told me how to talk or think.
I've always felt from everyone I talk to that the fans feel like I'm tangible and they can talk to me and they know me.
If I have a problem with someone I talk about them. I don't pick on their kids.
Wrestling needs to be about the art form again. It needs to be about painting a picture and having a really good match.
Hopefully I can become the Babe Ruth of the World Wrestling Federation and be the champion at the same time.
People always expect Hulk Hogan to be standing up straight, or to have the bandanna on, or to not have my arms covered up. If I have an extra large shirt on people go 'oh yeah you look small.' It kind of ruins the mystique.
I've been talking to certain wrestlers on the phone lately, and certain female wrestlers that were huge stars ten years ago, and the first thing I ask them is 'do you still want to work?' Do they want to talk, or do they want to wrestle or do something else in the business?
And you know what - and I don't mean this in tongue in cheek way - but it's like deja vu. When I walked in to WCW they were producing wrestling on a little teeny sound stage at Disney, okay? I'm walking into TNA and they're producing wrestling in a little teeny sound stage at Universal.
I'm loyal to a fault - even though I've been to hell and back with Vince McMahon, I would never to do anything to hurt him. But it's also survival of the fittest out there.
The coolest thing, and I have it at home, is a huge Hulk Hogan, normal-sized pinball machine. When people come over they play it for hours. When you hit the bumpers and the bells ring it goes, 'Oh yeah!' The whole time you're playing this machine it's yelling and screaming at you, 'What you gonna do, brother?!' I think that's the coolest.
The leg drop was a move that nobody really used, and nobody ever hit the ropes and jumped up really high, so I tried it out in Japan and the people loved it. That's how I came up with it.
I'm the man that made wrestling famous.
Be a father first. Don't put a priority of being a friend with your wife first, or a friend with your kids first.
I woke up and realized life is great and people are awesome and life is worth living.
I've never been in a Sweat Lodge. I, myself, personally don't even like sitting in a sauna, so I've never been to a spiritual retreat so I don't understand the whole process.
I've been around so long and no matter if I've done good things or bad things, or my personal life has been good or bad, the fans have always stuck with me.
Everybody's out there wrestling like a robot.
I feel really good right now. It will really be a tough decision. It's so hard to give up what you love doing. Hanging up the boots will not be an easy thing to do.
If I do hit that rope and do a hop, skip and a jump and get up as high as I can, I'm just going to hold my breath, because I know i'm going to hear all kinds of scar tissue popping.
The only time I'm not Hulk Hogan is when I'm behind closed doors because as soon as I walk out the front door, and somebody says hello to me, I can't just say 'hello' like Terry. When they see me, they see the blond hair, the mustache, and the bald head, they instantly think Hulk Hogan.
You know a lot of times wrestlers get too full of themselves. They can't separate themselves from the characters. They get used to the excitement, the energy, the lifestyle and the money and with a lot of these guys, when it stops, they self-destruct.
You can have a wrestling idea, but you need to have these momentum-shifting moves. We had the Hulkamania movement, then it shifted to the beer-drinking, Stone Cold era, we reinvented the business with growing the black beard and becoming the bad guy, what's that next level.
Ultimate Warrior had a hell of a gimmick, but wrestling is about so much more than that. You have to be consistent, work main events every night and have matches that people really believe in and want to see.
I hate to toot my own horn but I just feel that I know people and I know fans and I don't feel there is that Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt barrier with me. I've always felt from everyone I talk to that the fans feel like I'm tangible and they can talk to me and they know me.
All of a sudden, Hulk Hogan has become retro. Hulk Hogan has become cool again. So to come out and to hear how loud the fans are. To hear how loyal the fans are, it's truly overwhelming. I just can't believe I've been reborn in the WWE.
I fear no man, no beast or evil, brother.
If anybody dared say wrestling was fake, you'd punch 'em. And you never used the word show. If you used the word show it was an insult.
A lot of people didn't realize that with the carpet being pulled out from under me in such a short time frame I got to such a bad place.
I train all the time and the weird thing is I'm in the gym with people between 20 and 25 years old and I look in the mirror and I look better than they do and they are young kids - either they haven't trained hard enough or they aren't serious enough.
I know what happens every time I get in front of a UK crowd - they just go nuts and they are so nice and excited and crazy and they won't sit down.
The best wrestlers, whether it's a Hulk Hogan or a Rey Mysterio, are the ones who have psychology and can understand this business.
To all my little Hulkamaniacs, say your prayers, take your vitamins and you will never go wrong.
We're probably the opposite of the Osbournes. We run a very tight ship.
