When the script for ‘The Wrestler’ kept coming to me I said, This movie is so good if you put me in the film as a wrestler people are going to say, ‘No credibility, Hulk Hogan isn’t a good actor,’ whatever Hollywood thinks of me.
It’s amazing that even though I’ve lost everything else, I still have wrestling.
I’d like to be the John Wayne of the ’90s. Not in terms of being the macho guy, but as a solid male leading character. Making an action-adventure comedy that kids can see with their families is a natural extension of what I did in wrestling.
We’re the greatest athletes in the world without a doubt.
You can have a wrestling idea, but you need to have these momentum-shifting moves. We had the Hulkamania movement, then it shifted to the beer-drinking, Stone Cold era, we reinvented the business with growing the black beard and becoming the bad guy, what’s that next level.
Everybody’s out there wrestling like a robot.
Hopefully I can become the Babe Ruth of the World Wrestling Federation and be the champion at the same time.
If I do hit that rope and do a hop, skip and a jump and get up as high as I can, I’m just going to hold my breath, because I know i’m going to hear all kinds of scar tissue popping.
I’m the man that made wrestling famous.
I’m 58 years old and I just went through 8 back surgeries. They started cutting on me in February 2009, and I was basically bed ridden for almost two years. I got a real dose of reality that if you don’t have your health, you don’t have anything.
When you start out in the wrestling business, you make a lot of mistakes, tripping over your own feet and looking like a fool.
I fear no man, no beast or evil, brother.
Be a father first. Don’t put a priority of being a friend with your wife first, or a friend with your kids first.
A lot of people didn’t realize that with the carpet being pulled out from under me in such a short time frame I got to such a bad place.
After watching wrestling for 20 years, I thought I had enough confidence to do it. There were no wrestling schools at the time.
I love to give the fans what they want. They’re what I miss most when I’m not wrestling. That time in the ring is like being in heaven for me.
If I have a problem with someone I talk about them. I don’t pick on their kids.
I know what happens every time I get in front of a UK crowd – they just go nuts and they are so nice and excited and crazy and they won’t sit down.
As far as my divorce goes, I love my family and I love my wife to death and I just don’t know what tomorrow’s going to bring.
Wrestling needs to be about the art form again. It needs to be about painting a picture and having a really good match.