WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan was interviewed for Logan Paul’s Impaulsive podcast. The interview covered Hogan’s appearance at the Republican National Convention, his beer, Donald Trump, Andre The Giant, the difference between a work and shooting, and more.
On developing the idea for his Real American Beer:
“We were on the phone with Trump after the thing (Republican National Convention). I missed (Trump’s call). I said, ‘I’m gonna text that son of a gun.’ As I was texting, he called me back and we talked about it. I told him, I said, ‘The timing for this beer is, you know, I saw this crazy open lane.’ My whole thing’s always been marketing and licensing stuff. When I went back to WWE in ’84 to wrestle The Sheik, they weren’t selling T-shirts. They didn’t have any music to go to the ring and I was already doing that in Minnesota. I was making a ton of money on merch and stuff. So, you know, when I came back and did the real American thing, I was telling Trump on the phone, I said, ‘I saw this open lane.’ Trump’s been around quite a while. He’s awesome in the ring too, brother. If you ever have a chance to get in the ring with Trump, you gotta do it. He’ll do whatever you want. I was telling him the weird thing is the timing, because when I saw that open lane where Bud Light crashed and burned with that marketing plan, you know, I said, ‘Oh, boy, here we go.’ I was at a convention. The WWE rushes people through pretty quickly because you got a couple thousand people to see you. You know, if you’re with the WWE, they try to get everybody they can, but when I have time, I like to shake hands, look people in the eye and stuff. This guy had the Pabst Blue Ribbon vice president tag on him. I said, ‘Oh, damn. My dad used to drink that’. He asked me if I ever thought about doing an alcohol endorsement. I said, ‘Well, not before, but now that I saw this open lane, I think I got this crazy idea for a beer that America has been waiting for.’ I was telling Trump back in the day when we’d wrestle, and he saw a lot of it because he was there at the very beginning, if he and I were in the ring and everything was cool, and all of a sudden he knocked my teeth out, sometimes no lawyers, no lawsuits. We would go back out in the ring and settle it, especially if the guy’s been a jerk off and not being safe out there. So we’d go settle it out in the ring. But for me, all the guys I was wrestling, I was like 310 pounds. I was a medium sized guy. All the guys, most of the guys were bigger than me except for Piper and Macho. Everybody else was bigger than me. So I was like let’s have a beer and talk about it, so that’s where the idea came from. Since the Democrats and the Republicans don’t talk, I was thinking, wow, this is even bigger than politics because the beer I was thinking of, it doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, what color your skin is, or what your sexual preferences is, this is the beer for all real Americans because we’re all real Americans. I was telling Trump my idea was, let’s bring America back together, one beer at a time.”
Hogan talking about Bret Hart:
“Bret hates everybody. If it’s not me, it’s Flair, it’s Vince. ‘I’ll never work for Vince again after what happened to my family’, and then he’s back. It just never ends with him. I love Bret to death, man. I started with Bret. I remember when I was in Atlanta, I was in the business for about three years, and I was like, 330 pounds, almost 340. I just remember Bret used to live across the hall from me when I was working for Channel 17, what was it? Crockett promotion, that I was so big, I’d wrestle three guys at once, so I’d pick all three of them up in a bear hug and just ragdoll them. Bret was one of them, but we were just all getting started so it was all fun, but then we got rolling, and man, he says I destroyed his career. You know, it’s like, okay, all right, whatever. I just don’t get it, man, because I love him to death. He’s a good guy and he was a great asset to the business. When you talk like that, you attract more hatred and that negativity. It’s not good man. It’s time to switch up and be positive and happy and love people.”
Hogan on signing a 5 year deal with WWE:
“I signed a five year deal. I’m gonna be 71 years old in a few weeks, but I signed a five year deal for the licensing and merchandising stuff and, you know, like the ambassador stuff. If they need me to do something for WrestleMania, I just love doing it.”
On giving away WWF Title belts when he was the champion:
“When I was the champion, we used to do a lot of promos, a lot more than they do now. So if I was coming to the Capitol Center in Washington, I would do four or five promos, three minute promos, ‘Four weeks from now, brother, I’ll be at the Capital Centre. Three weeks from now, I’m training and I’m hanging off the Washington Memorial. Two weeks from now, I was just training with Bill Clinton. We took that blue dress and we had a picnic. One week from now, and tonight’s tonight.’ So I do all these promos and I would sit in a room with Mean Gene for like, four or five hours, and I would just bang one after another, one after another. When you tell stories every week, you know, and you get the asses in seats, then you walk out there and just pick your money up. That’s easy, but you just gotta fill those buildings. So I used to go through those title belts like every three or four weeks, you know, I just sweat through them. I used to get these belts like every month. Vince would have to make me another belt. I would sweat through the leather. My yellow tights would get brown. I was staying soak and wet so I was giving them away for motorcycles and cars and to my friends. I would just give them away. I gave one to some guy from Harley Davidson and he gave me 10 motorcycles.”
You can check out the complete show below:
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
