Hulk Hogan

Overview

Hulk Hogan is a semi-retired American professional wrestler who grew to fame in the mid 1980's working for the Vince McMahon owned WWE, known as the World Wrestling Federation at the time. Hogan gained national prominence and stardom in 1984 after defeating The Iron Shiek to become the WWF World Heavyweight Champion, which helped catapult both Hogan and the WWF to a new level and kicked off the multimedia empire that the WWE is known as today. As Hogans' career continued to skyrocket, he became the most iconic name associated with professional wrestling in the United States and in many countries across the globe. This went on to help Hogan not only become a moneymaking empire inside the ring, but to also be successful in many other ventures, including commercials, Saturday morning cartoons, and films.

Hogan's incredible career included headlining alongside André the Giant during Wrestlemania 3 inside the Pontiac Silverdome in Detroit, Michigan. The live pay-per-view event broke the indoor attendance record with a reported 93,000 fans attending. Hogan body-slammed the billed 7'4", over 500 pound giant in front of the record-breaking crowd, and went on to maintain a run as the top star in the WWF during the rest of the eighties and into the mid 90's. In an unprecedented move at the time, Hogan jumped ship to join the WCW in 1996 at the Bash at the Beach pay-per-view. Hogan's actions, namely his turning heel and founding the New World Order, shocked the wrestling world. Hogan remained under contract with WCW, eventually returning to his good guy roots until the company was purchased by Vince McMahon and the WWE in 2001. Hogan made sporadic appearances for the WWE throughout the 2000's, until he became a member of TNA Wrestling in 2009.

Video Game Depictions

Hogan's character and likeness has been used to sell video games for many years. The Hulkster first appeared in the Commodore 64 game MicroLeague Wrestling, and next in WWF Wrestlemania, the first licensed game for the WWF. Hogan was on the cover for the game, which was developed by Rare, Ltd.. This began a long-term partnership between the WWF and Acclaim Entertainment, Inc. Hogan's likeness continued to be used to promote the WWF's video game releases thoroughout the early 90's. WWF Wrestlefest, an arcade game released in 1991, featured a number of signature moves for each wrestler including Hogan's patented leg drop maneuver.

Hogan was a major selling point for WWF releases until he changed companies by signing with WCW. After turning heel and forming the NWO, he was again used to market a video game release, that of WCW vs. nWo: World Tour on the Nintendo 64, which was the first time that fans saw Hogan on the cover of a video game not sporting his traditional red and yellow attire. The following year, in 1998, Hogan again graced the cover of a N64 WCW game titled WCW/nWo Revenge, which many would say is definitively the best WCW video game of all time. Featuring a similar gameplay system as World Tour, Revenge added some new features and improved on the implementations of the previous years entry. Hogan was one of the main characters in the game, which featured his signature spray painted nWo World Title Belt.

He continued to appear in WCW branded video games until the purchase of the company by the WWE in 2001. In 2002, the WWE released WWE WrestleMania X8 for the GameCube, with Hogan featured on the cover of a WWE video game for the first time since 1994's WWF Royal Rumble for the Sega Genesis. X8 features all of Hogans' signature moves, as well as his return to the red and yellow attire with an all black alternate costume. Hogan once again surfaced in a WWE game in 2005 as an unlockable legend in WWE Day of Reckoning 2. In order to play as Hogan, you would have to complete the entire story mode of the game. In an interesting move, Hulkamania ran wild, three times, in WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2006. The Hulkster is featured in that game as three unlockable legend characters. You can play as regular Hulk Hogan, Hogan 80's (which is a model of Hogan from the 1980's with increased attributes), and as Hollywood Hogan.

Hulk continued to be featured in a number of different WWE games during this time period as an unlockable legendary playable character, as well as being a featured character and cover athlete for the WWE Legends of WrestleMania and WWE All Stars releases. Hogan made his first and only appearance to date in a TNA Wrestling branded video game with the 2010 release TNA iMPACT: Cross the Line, as an exclusive character for the Nintendo DS version of the game.

WWE 2K16 was supposed to feature him as a playable character, but all likenesses of him were removed prior to release.

Wrestling Titles Held:

World Championship Wrestling (WCW) :

6 Time WCW World Heavyweight Championship

World Wrestling Federation / Entertainment (WWF, WWE):

6 Time WWF/E Championship

1 Time WWE Tag Team Championship

1990 1991 WWF Royal Rumble Winner

2005 WWE Hall of Fame