Former WWE superstar Hulk Hogan is known for ruffling feathers and getting under people's skin. He did it while performing as a professional wrestler, and as an actor, and he's done it for years sometimes while only on the cusp of the entertainment world. Most recently, Hogan (real-name: Terry Bollea) struck a strange chord by going public with a message about the coronavirus pandemic that counters many other views on the virus itself and the idea of vaccinations.
The Hulkster took to Instagram with a post featuring a picture of himself – obviously wearing a championship belt and his signature tearaway shirt – going into prayer-hands mode next to the quote "I am that I am." The fact that the quote is attributed to Hulk Hogan instead of the Book of Exodus from the Bible's Old Testament is worthy of its own commentary, but here's the paragraph in particular that many people put their hands up to their ears for.
Maybe we don't need a vaccine, Maybe we need to take this time of isolation from the distractions of the world and have a personal revival where we focus on the ONLY thing in the world that really matters. Jesus.
It's certainly a gobsmacker of an approach for the guy who was so synonymous with the vitamin industry during his star-making run in the 1980s. Not that vitamins and vaccines are the same thing, but one might have thought Hulkamania would have been capable of run wild while fully supplemented and vaccinated. Apparently not.
Fear not, though, fans of the nWo and the movie Mr. Nanny. It's not entirely clear just how behind this sentiment Hulk Hogan actually is, since he didn't actually come up with anything that was in the post beyond its top line ending with the "HH" signoff. Check out the full post below.
The majority of that post is something that was already floating around social media, from the "worship athletes" line to the "maybe we don't need a vaccine" line. So it's something that Hulk Hogan stumbled upon as opposed to something he thought long and hard about while banging away at the ol' Smith Corona. Someone that Hogan definitely won't be quoting anytime soon is former rival Bret Hart, who shared some choice words about Hogan in March.
Hulk Hogan hasn't been in the spotlight all that much lately, having spent part of the last decade caught up in a legal battle with Gawker over posting of a sex tape, as well as a morale battle over Hogan's racial slurs heard in said video. The latter got him removed from the WWE and its Hall of Fame for a few years, though the company later rescinded that decision by allowing him in through not only his traditional persona, but also through his nWo affiliation (which is set to happen in 2020).
Having first returned to the WWE at the end of 2018 as the host of Crown Jewel pay-per-view, Hulk Hogan appeared across several different WWE events in 2019, notably to pay tribute to the late Mean Gene Okerlund on a Monday Night RAW, as well as a self-joshing WrestleMania 35 appearance. It's unclear if he's got a future with the WWE, but considering the company's strict rules about how the audience-less episodes are currently being produced, right down to the memorable WrestleMania 36, Hogan's attitude about the coronavirus pandemic likely won't do him any favors.
