Hulk Hogan on his physical condition and 'wrestling as a business'

• athletes

Hulk Hogan was part of the Full Send podcast where he talked about his physical condition. Performing at the highest level within the WWE must have taken its toll on his health. Hogan hasn't tried to wrestle in 15 years. He has had many surgeries and is still in pain.

“I’m kind of regrouping and ramping back up. I haven’t really wrestled since I mean, I wrestled The Rock at 18, Vince at 19, was part of 20 and 21 WrestleManias, but since then, I’ve kind of really backed off.

I still work with the WWE, gone to Saudi Arabia a couple of times and done stuff with Ric (Flair), but nothing physical because my body shut down on me about 14 or 15 years ago. I ended up having like 25 or 26 surgeries in a row.

Ten back surgeries. I went in for one and ended up having ten. I had the knees replaced after this was scoped five times. This was scoped six times. I finally replaced the hips. I got a bullet hole on my shoulder from a couple bad shoulder surgeries.

Abdominal surgeries. Couple surgeries in my face because I always would leave with my left and get kicked in the face a bunch of times. I had the orbital socket broken a couple of times”. - he said as quoted by pwmania.com

Hulk Hogan on wrestling

Hulk Hogan has emphasized many times that he sees wrestling as a business, and now he has revealed the reasons for that.

The difference in earnings has always been obvious, and that principle continues to this day. “Everybody says, ‘Oh, this business is a work.’ Okay, well, if I’m making twice as much money as you and you’re wrestling me, is that a work? That’s a fu** shoot brother, and that’s how I looked at it.

This business was a shoot. It was the man that made the most money. When I worked for Vince and Bob Backlund was the champion, I wrestled Backlund and Backlund always got paid more than me. I was like, oh, really. So this isn’t a work.

So it does matter if you win or lose. It does matter if you’re the champion or not. Everybody goes, it’s a work. Well, it’s really not a work. It’s about the money and the mileage, and for me, you know, if you’re a good guy, usually, until the NWO came along, back in the day if you’re a good guy, your merchandise was two to one over the bad guy’s stuff.

That’s not a work to me. That’s a shoot, brother. If I’m making more money than you and I’m wrestling you, my T-shirts are selling twice as much as yours, maybe it’s a work to you, but not to me if my check is double yours. So I always looked at it that way”.