A good friend of mine keeps, among his most treasured possessions, an original audio cassette of Hulk Hogan’s 1995 album, Hulk Rules. Every five years or so, he’ll pull it out at a party to show it off like a sacred artifact. It always gets a reaction.
The cover features Hulk Hogan in peak mid-’90s form: yellow tank top, red bandana, golden hair, and a handlebar mustache, squatting and flexing before a rippling American flag. Flip the tape over and you’ll see tracks like “Hulkster’s in the House,” “Hulkster’s Back,” and “I Want to Be a Hulkamaniac.”
But the part my friend loves most—the crown jewel—is found in the liner notes. It opens with a sentence so bold, so absurd, that it’s somehow both ridiculous and perfect:
“Millions of adults and children in the United States and around the world know that Hulk Hogan is the most powerful force in the universe.”
Not believe. Know.
And the wildest part? If you were a kid in America in the 1980s or ’90s, that actually tracked. Hulk Hogan wasn’t just a superstar. He was a force of nature. He felt inevitable. Unbeatable. Eternal. Who could possibly be bigger than him?
So when news broke Thursday of Hogan’s death at the age of 71, it wasn’t just a celebrity obituary. It was the final bell for a larger-than-life character who once loomed over pop culture like a colossus. For a lot of people now well into middle age, it was a moment that sparked a wave of memory: the red and yellow. The flexing. The ripped shirts. The leg drop. The cheers. The mania.
More Than Just the Hero
For some, the memories go even deeper. Those who stayed with wrestling long after the glory years of the WWF may also think of “Hollywood” Hogan—the swaggering villain in black who led the nWo and turned heel in a twist that stunned the wrestling world. He made being bad look so good, and in doing so, revived a stagnating industry. That was his second act, and it was just as seismic as his first.
But the real lifers—the fans who followed Hogan across decades—will also think about the shadows. The racial slurs. The sex tape. The lawsuit that helped dismantle Gawker. The awkward, vaguely reactionary public appearances. The times he showed up late in his career and got booed, yet still couldn’t seem to understand why.
The truth is, there are many versions of Hulk Hogan, layered like sediment in the minds of those who grew up with him: the superhero, the heel, the aging icon, the fallen idol.
With his death, the layers are sealed. No more twists. No more reinventions. Just a final moment to pause and take it all in—to look back and decide what he ultimately meant.
The Childhood Myth
If you didn’t live through Hulkamania, it’s hard to grasp just how deeply Hogan dominated the cultural consciousness of kids in the ’80s and early ’90s. He was bigger than wrestling. Bigger than cartoons. Bigger than any one medium. He was the good guy: loud, righteous, strong, and seemingly powered by the cheers of his fans.
He wasn’t subtle. He wasn’t complex. He wasn’t supposed to be. His character was tailor-made for 8-to-14-year-olds glued to the TV, slack-jawed and wide-eyed. And it worked. Here was someone who slammed giants, preached vitamins and prayers, and promised that good would always triumph—as long as you believed.
Would wrestling have exploded the way it did without Hulk Hogan? Maybe. But probably not like that. Not with that reach. Not with that impact. He helped force mainstream America to reckon with pro wrestling as more than just a sideshow. You didn’t have to like it, but you knew who he was.
Everybody did.
The Fallout
As he got older, the sheen wore off. The movies flopped. The scandals piled up. That old warm glow of childhood adoration collided with the complicated reality of who the man behind the mustache really was.
And for many fans, that realization felt personal. It wasn’t just a hero falling from grace—it was a betrayal of all the simple joy and belief they once invested in him. It turned something pure into something complicated.
Some fans forgave him. Others didn’t. Some still wrestle with what to feel.
But whether you see him as a pioneer, a phony, a punchline, or a prodigy, there’s no denying the scale of his cultural footprint. He was the guy. And when you’re that guy, people are going to remember you in all your contradictions—whether you want them to or not.
The Final Bell
No more comebacks. No more cameos. No more rebrands.
Hulk Hogan is gone, and what remains is the legacy he built—and the myths we built around him. He was the most powerful force in the universe, at least according to a cassette liner note and a generation of kids who believed it, if only for a little while.
So now, we flip the tape over, read the liner one last time, and press stop.