WWE: Hulk Hogan is back: The Donald Sterling of Pro Wrestling

After months of rumours, Hulk Hogan returned to WWE on 15 July 2018. Previously, the pro wrestling legend had been banned from the WWE for three years due to racist remarks. However, at least some of his colleagues questioned the fact that there has been a rethink.

The biggest event around Extreme Rules became a side note: Hulk Hogan, who alongside Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has been the biggest star of the wrestling business until today and who made the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and later World Championship Wrestling (WCW) the market leader in the 1980s and 90s, returned after almost exactly three years of abstinence.

Hogan was a guest at the event backstage, but did not appear in front of the cameras. Instead, his return to the WWE Hall of Fame, from which he was banned on 24 July 2015 due to racist remarks, was mentioned only by backstage interviewer Charly Caruso and on wwe.com. The following Raw and SmackDown editions did not appear either.

Disagreements between the Hulkster and WWE Chairman Vincent Kennedy McMahon have a long tradition. The two super-egos kept clashing and Hogan temporarily left the league to return years later with a great roar. But this time things are different and also some wrestlers have taken up their return with little enthusiasm.

Though Hogan and McMahon have been at loggerheads over and over again, nothing has had more impact than the move from the Hulkster to the media mogul Ted Turner-led WCW in June 1994.

After his career seemed to be on the decline for a few years, the then 43-year-old completely reinvented himself at Bash at the Beach in 1996: the biggest baby face in the business joined Outsiders Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, also fresh out of the WWF and competitor based in Atlanta, Georgia, and founded the New World Order (nWo) together with them.

Hogan gymnastics under a rain of plastic cups, other garbage and desperate abuse of the fans for the first time heel, after he had previously betrayed the WCW team around Sting, Lex Luger and his permanent rival “Macho Man” Randy Savage. With his Leg Drop against the latter, the man from Augusta, Georgia, who from then on called himself Hollywood Hogan, sent a shock wave through the business that catapulted the WCW in the ratings and Monday Night Wars first to eye level and later even to the WWF – a supposedly unforgivable affront against McMahon.

2001, after the WCW was driven to the wall due to catastrophic booking decisions by head-booker Vince Russo among others, the only serious WWF/WWE competition league had to close its doors after 23 years and was sold to McMahon on March 23, 2001. Hogan returned to his former employer in February 2002.

But the great times of the Hulkster as Main Eventer were meanwhile over, his body, in particular his back and his knees badly marked by numerous injuries. However, he was granted a final highlight. In WrestleMania 18 Hogan was not allowed to play in the last match of the evening, but in one of the most unforgettable moments in WrestleMania history: Against The Rock, who was to surpass his fame outside the world of wrestling and become one of the biggest names in Hollywood in the coming years.

Hogan, at that time still on the road with his heel gimmick as leader of nWo, managed something that was not yet common at the time: He pulled the audience in Toronto’s SkyDome to his side. The fans booed The Rock to the ground because they wanted to see the legend triumph. In a battle that was unforgettable because of the atmosphere and match story, symbolizing the symbolic handover of the torch from one icon to the next, The Great One finally won.

In 2003, after an otherwise unremarkable run, Hogan said goodbye once again and spent most of the next ten years at Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) before reappearing in front of the WWE cameras on February 24, 2014. Further matches should not be granted to the at this time 60-year old any more, but as legend, which got in particular with WrestleMania large appearances spendiert, it remained an attraction…

… A sex tape of him became public, which would have been reason enough for WWE, now very much focused on political correctness, to punish him. Seriously, however, Hogan made racist remarks in this video about his daughter Brooke Hogan, a black boyfriend at the time.

As expected, these statements caused a stir, especially since last year the long-time owner of the NBA franchise Los Angeles Clippers, Donald Sterling, was in the media due to a similar case.

The US businessman, who had owned the team since 1981 and is notorious as one of the worst team owners in NBA history, was forced to sell his shares in the Clippers due to a sound recording of his lover María Vanessa Perez, on which he made numerous racist remarks, and was fined $2.5 million and also expelled from the NBA for life.

As a result, WWE was forced to crack down on Hogan. He was declared persona non grata and removed from the Hall of Fame.

African-American Mark Henry, former World Heavyweight Champion and now a member of the Hall of Fame, is willing to give his long-time WWF and WWE companion a second chance and support him in his rehabilitation.

“He said to me,’Mark, I will do what is necessary. Because I want people to see the real me and not the things I said. I go somewhere and people look at me differently than I’m used to, and that’s how it’s been going for a while. I can’t live like this, I have to straighten it out,” Henry Hogan recently quoted Busted Open Radio and told the station his answer: “Great, you’re willing to straighten it out? Then I’m ready to help you.”

But other WWE superstars are understandably less willing to forgive Hogan. This became clear when the African-American WWE superstar Titus O’Neil first aired his disappointment after the announcement of the pardon through the licking of various Hogan-critical tweets.

Last Wednesday, O’Neil then published a longer statement in which he stressed that Hogan’s apology was not honest and that he accordingly doubted that Hogan had actually changed his way of thinking about black people.

O’Neill’s New Day colleagues also posted a statement on Kofi Kingston’s Twitter account stating that they were indifferent to Hogan’s return and had no problems with his reinstatement to the Hall of Fame. At the same time, however, they emphasized that his remarks could not simply be forgotten, but that they do not want to respond with hatred for the hatred that was in Hogan’s statements.

The Hogan story shows one thing above all: that although WWE reacted at the time and removed the legend from its ranks and the Hall of Fame in order to be considered politically correct, the reinstatement also makes it clear that their sole purpose in the action was to keep up appearances until the day the matter got out of hand. Even if wrestlers like O’Neil, Kingston, Xavier Woods or Big E are obviously not yet in the clear.

In a company where black employees remain in the minority and senior officials, including McMahon and Triple H, have been repeatedly accused of racism in the past, this case would have been an opportunity to set a lasting example. However, they have not been noticed.

Even if you didn’t bring Hogan back with a lot of hype, one thing is clear: There’s still money to be made with the Hulkster, because he was, is and remains the face of the golden age of pro wrestling, alongside the undertaker, before the internet brought about a lasting change in business. Sooner or later he will certainly appear again in front of a WWE camera. Despite his inexcusable comments.