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Hulk Hogan opens up to Sports Illustrated about the racist audio recordings

Hulk Hogan is the latest subject of Sports Illustrated’s Extra Mustard blog, with an interview that covers everything that happened to Hogan ever since those audio recordings were released by the National Enquirer, ending his wrestling career perhaps once and for all.

Hogan explained how he never talked with Vince McMahon after the controversy erupted and it was Triple H who gave him the bad news. Hogan called Triple H as soon as he was aware that something was going to be released and Triple H called Vince and called Hogan back within the hour.

“He called me back a half hour later and he goes, ‘I’ve got some news and it isn’t good. Vince said that you need to resign.’ I never heard from Vince or talked to Vince. In the middle of the night, they just fired me,” Hogan said. “They had to do what was best for business,” he added. “Triple H was telling me the USA Network was reacting very badly, and they had to make a quick decision, and that was to put me out to pasture. They were under heavy fire and they were scrambling.”

Despite getting fired, Hogan holds no ill feelings towards the company, Vince, or Triple H even though he requested a meeting and was declined. He said he’d love to sit down and talk with Vince and said everyone makes mistakes and we are all judged by our weakest moment. “If I had a chance to work with Vince and help people, we could help fix a lot of things together.”

Hogan said that he doesn’t think WWE made the right choice in this case and believes that they should have chosen the rehabilitation and education route instead. He noted how WWE helps those who are addicts and they pay for their rehab. “So what’s so uncommon about this was they took the symptoms, said, ‘Oh my god, there’s a symptom of being a racist,’ and threw me away. They usually go to the source. They’ve known me for over 30 years and they know I’m not a racist, so they should have went to the source,” Hogan said.

The Hulkster knows he’s not a racist even though he admits saying those words during one of the lowest points in his life and he’s accountable for them. He mentioned that even Bret Hart, who said he’s glad something like this happened to Hulk, said that he’s never known Hulk to be a racist.

Asked if he would be willing to go work for some other wrestling company, Hogan shot down the idea. “The only place for me to be would be the WWE,” said Hogan. “That’s where my home is. I thought I’d go step-by-step, crawling uphill with WWE, to explain how wrong I was, but that opportunity wasn’t there.”

You can read the whole interview here.

Colin Vassallo
Colin Vassallohttps://www.wrestling-online.com
Colin Vassallo has been editor of Wrestling-Online since 1996. He is born and raised in Malta, follows professional wrestling and MMA, loves to travel, and is a big Apple fan!

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