TAMPA – Wrestlers across the country are remembering a legend of the industry.
According to the Clearwater Police Department, Hulk Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, 71, died on Thursday.
Hogan was one of the most popular WWE stars of all time.
He lived in Clearwater and built his monumental career in Tampa Bay, starting at a young age.
Those who knew Hogan throughout his life say Hulk Hogan’s name and the WWE were synonymous.
“When you think of pro wrestling, you think about Hulk Hogan,” WWE wrestler Natalya Neidhart said.
Hogan rose to fame in the 1980s with Hulkamania.
From starring in Wrestlemania I, to being part of one of the biggest matches ever versus The Rock, Hogan was known for fueling the early years of the WWE, formerly the WWF.
Local perspective:
However, many wrestling figures remember Hulk Hogan before he was “Hulk”.
“I knew him in passing,” Jody Simon, known in the ring as “Joe Malenko”, said. “This was before he got into the business.”
Simon followed in the footsteps of his father and wrestling great, “Boris Malenko.”
Simon first learned of Terry Bollea when they were growing up. He used to see Terry, a young wrestling fan, at a bowling alley in Tampa.
“Hogan would come to Regal Lanes on Armenia Avenue, and he would kind of sneak in because my dad would be there with me, and he would catch a glimpse of my dad,” Simon said.
Over time, Terry transformed into his wrestling persona, Hulk Hogan.
“Little did anybody know, that eventually my dad would want to sneak in somewhere and see Hogan, because that was a big thing for my dad,” Simon said.
Simon says Hogan embodied the definition of an icon.
“It’s just a loss of an era,” he said. “He was his own era. He was the era of Hulk Hogan.”
Neidhart says she considers Hogan a founding father of the WWE.
Despite his victories in the ring, Neidhart remembers Hogan for the memories she has with him outside the ring.
REMEMBERING HULK HOGAN
“My dad was very close friends with Hulk Hogan,” she said. “Every year, Hulk would throw these big birthday parties and our family would go to them.”
Neidhart watched her father, Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, wrestle alongside Hogan.
“The day that my dad passed away, Hulk called me, and he reached out, and he said, ‘I want you to know how much your dad means to me’,” Neidhart said. “And he told me this really cool story about my dad and him when they were in Japan wrestling. And it was just, you know, it was really cool because he didn’t have to call me. He didn’t have to do that. He could have sent me a text, or he could have just done an interview, but he took the time, just hours after my dad died, to let me know how much my dad meant to him, and I always remembered that.”
Despite being involved in legal controversies throughout the years, wrestlers remember Hogan for his contributions to the wrestling world and his community.
“We’ve all made our own mistakes and we, we hopefully, own them,” Neidhart said.
Wrestlers of different generations hope that Hogan is remembered by the world for
“Anybody wrestling now is there, in part, because he prepared that,” Simon said. “Pretty good legacy.”
WWE wrestlers expect the WWE to pay tribute to Hogan at upcoming shows.
The Source: FOX 13’s Kylie Jones gathered the information for this story. FOX 13’s Walter Allen interviewed wrestling star Natalya Neidhart.