Hulk Hogan Talks About WWE Dropping Him After His Racism Controversy
WWE Hulk Hogan was recently interviewed for Sports Illustrated’s Extra Mustard blog and says he believes pressure from the USA Network is the reason WWE distanced themselves from him so forcefully in the wake of his racism controversy.
Hogan told Justin Barasso that he spoke to Triple H shortly after the scandal broke but had a conversation with Vince McMahon about the situation.
“Triple H was telling me the USA Network was reacting very badly, and they had to make a quick decision, and that was to put me out to pasture.” Hogan said. “They were under heavy fire and they were scrambling.”
“The only person I talked to was Triple H. I called him and told him there was some old news coming out from when TMZ first reported the tape and there were some racial slurs on it. Triple H said, ‘Okay, thanks for calling. Let me talk to Vince,'” Hogan recalled.
“He called me back a half-hour later and he goes, ‘I’ve got some news and it isn’t good. Vince said that you need to resign.’ I never heard from Vince or talked to Vince. In the middle of the night, they just fired me.”
Hogan said he and his attorney, David Houston, requested a meeting with WWE to work things out, but WWE declined the request. Hogan feels like WWE treated him unfairly by immediately cutting ties with him and scrubbing him from the WWE website.
“They’ve known me for over 30 years and they know I’m not a racist, so they should have went to the source. I don’t use the word, ever, except for in that moment of anger, so I wish WWE went to the source instead of the symptoms. I could have explained I’ve tried every day since then to be a better man,” Hogan said.
Hogan was hopeful that he’d get a chance to address the WWE Universe, ask them for forgiveness, but it never panned out.
“The only place for me to be would be the WWE. That’s where my home is. I thought I’d go step-by-step, crawling uphill with WWE, to explain how wrong I was, but that opportunity wasn’t there,” Hogan said.
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