Times Hulk Hogan Got Caught Lying

Hulk Hogan is undoubtedly one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. He reached the highest highs in the wrestling business and it can be argued that he made professional wrestling what it is today. Although, in the 40 years Hogan has been in and around the wrestling business, he has been known to stretch the truth once in a while. Slight exaggerations are par for the course when in the wrestling ring (heights and weights are often inflated), although Hulk Hogan seems to make the same outlandish overstatements, as well as outright lies, when he is outside the ring as well.

Some of these lies were well known for many years but some fans didn't really mind — after all, he's Hulk Hogan, and everybody is allowed to exaggerate a little. However, Hulk Hogan's fall from grace in recent years has become public knowledge, and his racist rant has turned a lot of his fans against him. Nowadays, fans are less forgiving on wrestling's biggest name. These are just a few of Hulk Hogan's lies (and there are many others) that have been demonstrably debunked.

"The Wrestler" was a critically acclaimed movie from 2008. It won the Golden Lion Award at the 65th Venice International Film Festival, and lead actor Mickey Rourke won a BAFTA award, a Golden Globe Award, an Independent Spirit Award ,and even got an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his performance in the movie.

However, according to Hulk Hogan on "The Howard Stern Show" (h/t 411Mania), he was offered Mickey Rourke's lead role three times. Reiterating the claims to Digital Spy, Hogan said, "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.'"

If Hogan is to be believed, he gave up the lead role to ensure the success of the movie. What an honest and humble act. It's a shame it doesn't appear to be true. Award winning director of "The Wrestler," Darren Aronofsky, shot down Hogan's claims on Twitter, tweeting "for the record the role of the wrestler was always @mickeyrourke it was never hulk hogan's as he claims on @howardstern"

Speaking with newspaper The Sun (via LoudWire), Hogan said this, "I used to be a session musician before I was a wrestler. I played bass guitar. I was big pals with Lars Ulrich and he asked me if I wanted to play bass with Metallica in their early days but it didn't work out."

That is a hell of a claim, Metallica are one of the biggest heavy metal bands of all time. Again though, Hulk Hogan seems to be lying. Lars Ulrich, co-founder of Metallica, says none of it is true, and that he doesn't even know who Hulk Hogan is. During an interview on "The Howard Stern Show" (via Blabbermouth), Ulrich said, "I don't know Hulk Hogan, I don't know enough about him. I'm not a huge wrestling fan. I certainly have no recollection of doing anything with quote Hulk Hogan endquote. That one, I was scratching my head on that one, too."

In the face of outright denial from Ulrich, Hogan walked back slightly on the Metallica claims on "Talk is Jericho." Hogan told the story to Chris Jericho that he merely sent a video audition of his bass playing to Metallica but never heard back from them — which is certainly is a big change from being pals with the founder of the band.

In 2015, while speaking with "Radio Yorkshire," Hulk Hogan made the bizarre claim: That he was the first person to see Kevin Owens as "The Guy." Hogan said, "Well, I hate to brag about it, but I'm the first one to point the finger at Kevin Owens. I saw him on NXT, like his second match, and saw him just chop and beat and grind and beating his guy down and doing it the old school way and really understanding how to get heat, doing it the old school way and I said, 'that's the guy'. I said, 'that's the guy. I don't care if he looks like a wrestler [or] looks like an ice cream salesman. I don't care. That's the guy.'"

While it's nice to see that Hogan saw potential in Kevin Owens, who has gone on to become a huge name in WWE, his statement is ludicrous. Kevin Owens began wrestling in 2000, years before this interview. During that time Owens had a very successful independent wrestling career and had built a cult following among fans. Many people had seen the potential in Kevin Owens before 2015. Not to mention, Hogan is talking about a Kevin Owens match he saw in NXT. If Hogan was the first person to spot Owens, how did Owens even get into NXT in the first place?

In 1993, Kerry Von Erich learned that he had been indicted on drug possession charges stemming from an arrest a month earlier. Kerry was already on a 10 year probation from another charge and was facing serious jail time. Tragically, Kerry Von Erich took his own life at his father's ranch in Dallas at just 33 years of age on February 18, 1993.

Strangely, Hulk Hogan claims in his autobiography "Hollywood Hulk Hogan" to have been on a flight to Japan with Kerry Von Erich just 72 hours before Kerry Von Erich died. This is strange on a couple of fronts. First, there are no records of Kerry going to or coming from Japan in the days before his death, with his last match in Japan happening seven months earlier. Second, with the charges he was facing, Kerry was unlikely to have been away from home. What's even stranger is there are no records of Hulk Hogan even being in Japan around that time – he would have some matches in Japan in late 1993, but nothing in February as he claims. Maybe Hogan is misremembering a date, since it is very likely Hogan and Von Erich shared flights to Japan in the past. However, specifically saying it was 72 hours before his death is unquestionably false.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.

In 2011, Hulk Hogan appeared on "Boomer and Carton" (via prowrestling.net) to promote his Bound For Glory match with Sting. When the hosts asked Hogan if he had any interest in MMA, Hogan said he did have some experience while wrestling in Japan. Hogan said he fought a lot of Pride fighters during his time in Japan in 1977 and that whenever he had a wrestling match in Japan, he never knew if he was getting into the ring with a shooter.

There are a number of issues with this. Pride, a Japanese MMA company, was first established in 1997, 20 years after Hogan's claim of 1977. Secondly, Hulk Hogan's first tour of Japan happened in 1980 — he was never even in Japan in 1977. It is possible Hogan had trained with MMA fighters in Japan and was erroneously calling them Pride fighters, but his claims are still highly exaggerated.

In 1982, Hulk Hogan appeared in the movie "Rocky III" as the character of Thunderlips. Using the movie as inspiration, Hulk Hogan started coming out for his matches to "Eye Of The Tiger," the theme song to "Rocky III." Hogan even made his entrance at the first WrestleMania using "Eye Of The Tiger." In his autobiography "Hollywood Hulk Hogan," Hogan claimed that he was the first person to ever use entrance music in wrestling, something that would become a staple in the modern day sport.

That simply isn't at all true. There are many instances of entrance music being used in wrestling before Hogan. Gorgeous George is often credited as the first person the use entrance music. way back in the '40s and '50s, Gorgeous George used Sir Edward Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" as he would gracefully entered the ring.

World Class Championship Wrestling was also using entrance music in the '70s, and was the first company to give every single wrestler unique tracks. Therefore, Hulk Hogan was far from the first wrestler to use entrance music as he claims.

In his first autobiography, Hulk Hogan claims that he and Vince McMahon found the first script of their movie "No Holds Barred" to be completely unacceptable. In "Hollywood Hulk Hogan," Hogan says he and McMahon locked themselves away in a Florida hotel room for three days and re-wrote the entire script from scratch. Hogan even goes into detail of finding inspiration for the climactic fight of the movie while sitting on the toilet.

Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon are credited as Executive Producers for "No Holds Barred," but are not credited as writers. Writing credit goes to Dennis Hackin. It's also debatable whether Hogan and McMahon would have even had time for a three day hotel room writing excursion in the late '80s, as both men would have been extremely busy.

Hogan has also claimed he re-wrote scripts on two other movies he starred in, "Mr. Nanny" and "Santa With Muscles," and blames the Writer's Guild for blocking his writing credit. "No Holds Barred," "Mr. Nanny," and "Santa With Muscles" were not very well written, though it's doubtful Hogan had anything to do with that. The bad acting in those movies, though, is definitely his fault.

In his two autobiographies, Hogan spoke about a match he had with The Undertaker at Survivor Series 1991. In the match, The Undertaker hit Hogan with a Tombstone Piledriver on a steel chair. This is how Hulk Hogan describes the event in "My Life Outside The Ring," his second autobiography: "The Undertaker grabbed me again, and flipped me over, and dropped my head on the metal chair in the nastiest Tombstone of all Tombstones. When he dropped that Tombstone on me, my skull made contact with the chair. The jolt of the whole move threw my neck out. My neck, calves, shoulders, biceps, triceps, forearms — everything went numb."

The Undertaker, just 24 years old at the time, panicked as he ran to the back, thinking he had injured the biggest wrestling star of all time. Hogan complained that the Piledriver had messed up his neck and in the years since has said that the Tombstone had given him permanent neck issues.

Looking back at footage of the match, however, Hogan's head doesn't come close to touching the chair below him, and The Undertaker performed the move as safely as possible. Hogan has changed his story a few times over the years, saying maybe it was Undertaker's knee that jammed his neck. The images still say otherwise, and Hogan's neck was nowhere close to any danger.

In his autobiography "Hollywood Hulk Hogan," Hogan claims that he was a "fat kid" in his youth, but still goes on to brag about his legendary feats of athleticism. Hogan claims to have batted an "unheard-of" .714 in the Little League World Series.

Hogan says that while he wasn't the most athletic baseball player ever, he still had plenty of pure power and established himself as a home run hitter. He says his performances for West Tampa Little League put him on the map, and talent scouts from the New York Yankees and Cincinnati Reds came to see him play. Hogan's apparently impressive baseball career however got cut short because of injury. As he told Mercury News, "As I threw underhanded to first base, I broke my arm. My arm was never the same."

It all sounds very impressive, but is it true?

Apparently not – the Little League website has no record of Hogan's "unheard of" accomplishment. Not only that, it has no record of a young Terry Bollea even playing in the Little League World Series.

Hulk Hogan has told the story many times that he passed on the opportunity to endorse what would become the George Foreman Grill. Telling the story on "Hogan Knows Best," Hogan says he missed a phone call as he was picking up his kids from school, and while he was away from the phone, the grill was offered to George Foreman instead. Hogan told the story of getting the phone call on his reality show, "I come home and hit the old school voicemail recorder and he says, 'Hey Hulk, this is Sam Perlmutter, I have a grill and I have a blender and I go call you and George Foreman to see who wants it.' I wasn't there to answer the call, so when I called Sam back he said George had taken the grill. $550 million later, George got the 'Lean, Mean Grilling Machine.'"

However the true origins of the George Foreman Grill has no Hulk Hogan in sight. The designer of the grill had connections to George Foreman through an attorney named Sam Perlmutter (the same guy Hogan talk about). Perlmutter showed the grill to Foreman, who agreed to endorse the grill after his wife made him a hamburger on it. Foreman said, "I like it. I tried it, and it works. Let's do it."

And the rest, as they say, is history. Hulk Hogan was never in consideration for the George Foreman Grill.

In his second autobiography "My Life Outside The Ring," Hogan made the outlandish claim that he once wrestled 400 days in one year. Because of the time difference flying back and forth from Japan, Hogan claims his years were longer that 365 days. Hogan said, "If I say I wrestled four hundred days a year, it's no exaggeration. My years were actually longer than 365 days. There were times when I'd fly back and forth to Japan twice a week just to wrestle. Now it was nothing to wrestle in Madison Square Garden one day, then fly all the way to the Egg Dome in Tokyo the same day, 'cause you'd gain fourteen hours, and then fly back to the West Coast and so on ... So I could wrestle in Japan today and then fly back across the International Date Line and land in another town yesterday. I was constantly adding days to my years!"

First of all, there are certainly no records of him wrestling in Madison Square Garden one day and then the Egg Dome the day after. Second of all, even if he did do that, he wouldn't have gained 14 hours as he said, he would actually have lost 14 hours. Hogan's claim of wrestling 400 days a year isn't just baffling, it is mathematically impossible.

In 1991 on "The Arsenio Hall Show," Hulk Hogan flat out denied ever abusing steroids. Hogan would go back on this claim three years later during the 1994 Vince McMahon steroid trial, where he claimed he had taken steroids before, but had stopped taking them in 1990. This could be somewhat believable as in the early '90s, since Hulk Hogan was visibly skinnier he used to be (though obviously still in better shape than most).

Hogan has since opened up more about his steroid use, saying a lot of it was doctor prescribed. In his first autobiography, Hogan goes in depth on the topic (though in his book he sometimes spells it incorrectly, as steriods). Hogan said, "At that time, every wrestler I knew was taking part in steroid use in the WWE. They were part of my generation. I'm not making excuses, but they were everywhere. And a lot of that had to do with what we knew about them, which obviously wasn't enough. The most commonly prescribed were testosterone, Deca-Durabolin, and Dianabol. I never had a question about whether I would take them. It was part of my daily regimen. Did you take a shower? Yeah. Did you brush your teeth? Yeah. Did you take your steroids? Yeah. That was the deal. It was how I lived..."

That is certainly a far cry from saying he never used them on "The Arsenio Hall Show."