One reviewer wrote: “I was never a big Hulk Hogan guy until I watched this documentary. It shows a 70-year-old man who has regrets (a lot of them), but it also shows the human side of him.”
Netflix’s new four-part doc, Hulk Hogan: Real American, has a horrible title. What’s a real American anyway? A better, more appropriate one: Hulk Hogan: A Real Showman. Anyway, once you get over that, it’s a heck of a watch for wrestling fans and non-fans. It’s incredibly poignant to watch and listen to Hulk look back through his incredible life mere months before his premature passing.
Hulk (real name Terry Bollea) had many highs and lows, twists and turns. He grew up poor and started off trying to make it in music, but eventually turned to the squared circle, where he became the biggest wrestling star in the world. He’s credited by many with making pro wrestling mainstream, not just a fad like roller derby.
For the doc, Hulk is filmed pumping iron, but he often needs a cane to get around. A half-century of crashing into a mat has taken its toll, to say the least. His ex-wife, Linda, is also interviewed at length, as is his son, Nick. A who’s who of wrestlers also comment, including Cody Rhodes, Kevin Nash, Triple H, Bret Hart, and Booker T, to name just a few. They’re all wonderfully thoughtful. Hart is the most critical.
Courtesy PEOPLE
I’m not into spoilers, but here are five things that you won’t see in this compelling work.
Vince McMahon, Hulk’s best frenemy, appears in archival footage, but he is not interviewed for the doc.
Brooke Hogan, Hulk’s daughter, doesn’t do a sit-down in the doc.
Hulk was married three times, but his second wife is mentioned only in passing.
Hulk says that Linda took seventy percent of everything in their divorce and left him broke. What happened to the thirty percent? Where did all the money go?
Linda’s divorce rebound, a 19-year-old, is not interviewed. Linda pleads ignorance about his age … even though he went to school with her kids.
Regardless, Hulk Hogan: Real American left me wanting more, a lot more – and that is a good thing.
__________
Jon Hart is the author of Unfortunately, I was available, the sequel to Man versus Ball: One Ordinary Guy and His Extraordinary Sports Adventures.
