Ric Flair and Hulk Hogan are two Mount Rushmore wrestlers from a bygone era but the two will always be central to the discussion of the profession. On the debut episode of the “Wooooo Nation Uncensored” podcast, Flair said that the Hulkster is not doing very well.
“He’s having some really bad health issues but he keeps up with me,” Flair said. “We support each other, good and bad. When I was in the hospital he flew up that day like everybody else that came up to see me…Hulk was gracious, Jimmy Hart was great. I don’t remember seeing them because I was in a coma but they made the effort to go. Those are the kind of things that mean a lot.”
Hogan, who was born Terry Bollea on August 11th, 1953, remains the only wrestler in history to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine.
Flair said the he and Hogan speak every other week and did not go into great detail about the nature of the issues, but it was not the first time in recent months that Hogan has had details of his aging brought up.
Brooke Hogan had told Hollywood Raw that a recent surgery was the 25th such instance in the last 10 years for the former champ.
She said, “We counted how many surgeries he’s had in the last 10 years and I think we’re at 25. He’s done a ton, but this last one that he just had finally was like the winning ticket. So right now, he’s feeling great. He’s working out two hours in the gym every day. He’s still chugging along.”
From WrestlingNews.com, they found a video of Hogan from September that shows him seriously struggling to move around.
Things for Hogan have not always been easy. In the last 15 years, the superstar found himself in the spotlight for the wrong reasons several times.
He and longtime wife Linda divorced in November of 2007, and that same year, he used racial slurs on a phone call with his son Nick, who was serving time in prison. During this phone call, Hogan ranted about his daughter sleeping with a black man and liberally used the “N” word to embellish his point of view.
Hogan was fired by WWE soon after tapes of the racially-charged rant were released, but he was brought back to the company in July 2018. He has since made a few appearances on WWE television, including opening both nights of WrestleMania 37 this past year.
Also, as part of the podcast, Flair remembered fondly how Hogan has long been there for his family. He recollected the time when Hogan sent the family money to help with his son’s medical bills, saying, “When my son was going through all of the issues in the hospital, I couldn’t keep up with the rehab bills or the hospital bills because every time I gave [Reid] the responsibility of paying his own insurance, something would lapse like his phone bill. Sometimes you had to teach him how to be responsible. I called [Hogan] one day and I said ‘I need $14,000.’ He said ‘call this person’ and I had it in an hour. I’ve never forgotten it.”
Hopefully Hulkamania continues to run wild for years to come.
