Name: How Hulk Hogan Survived a Brutal Life in Wrestling
Uploaded: 2023-07-26T17:57:24.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'How Hulk Hogan Survived a Brutal Life in Wrestling' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-07-26. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'How Hulk Hogan Survived a Brutal Life in Wrestling' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-07-26. Transcript available.

yeah do you start to get like why didn't you why have you had better luck than
some of these guys
I kind of reeled it in bro you mean why am I still alive yeah is that what you're
asking me
yeah I didn't want to say it like no that's cool it's cool I think honestly
if we stayed up for three four nights in a row partying I would still go work
out right nobody
else would I would still go train I would still eat good I was the training
prayers and vitamins
I was actually doing that you know praying that I wouldn't die yeah vitamins
still a prayer
yeah but even if the vitamins are Percocets I'll have a couple you know maybe a
couple more
but uh a couple more than a couple I mean look when they came out with somas
dude I drove a car
into an invisible driveway yeah yeah and went to get taken in for that was one
of the drugs of choice
for the wrestlers yeah it was very dangerous for them because it was shut
people's throat down my
buddy Richard died he choked on some chicken that he didn't even know he was
eating and
yeah um but he took some of those muscle relax they relax your throat so much
you're it doesn't pull
the food down a lot of people choke today yeah yeah a lot of guys would get the
soma shakes I don't
know if you ever saw that but that's a little scary god it sounds like a tiktok
trend almost it's
just like somebody beating it just and they can't stop or they'll be walking
and they freeze and they
I mean I've seen it happen so many times when you're eating 10 20 of them at a
time you know
and people were taking that much pain pills to feel okay huh oh yeah oh yeah
and you know for me I
would always um I never went down that road yeah you know if there if you're
supposed to take one or
two that would be it I never went down that road five or ten I never did that
you know never we didn't
have addiction it doesn't sound like really I know I've been you know when it
came to weed or this and
that the other I could quit and not do it for three four or five years it
wouldn't matter yeah you know
so it's like but you know I just think because I was real consistent with the
training and actually
trying to eat good in between all the craziness of the drinking and raising
hell I kind of like stayed
on track where I would see these guys defect for weeks and not go to the gym
and just drink
constantly and just not eat not sleep I just I can't handle it man I had to be
the lead dog man
right I still had to be the main event where they get beyond the match
underneath me to be slacking
right I had to I had to blow yeah I had to deliver you know I didn't want
anybody stealing my spot
because they were all trying you know every night yeah I guess it's strange
because you're teammates
but at the same time they're low-key trying to take your throne yeah yeah I
slipped on a banana
peel I got hurt they'd be more than happy to replace me when you look at a lot
of guys have you
know you're in you seem really healthy you know do you feel healthier than I
mean a lot of guys in your
line of work haven't had the a lot of the same blessings of health I mean I
know you got a pretty
bad spine you know um what's bad on you like where's your health at kind of now
and
I think internally I'm healthy it's just I abuse my body so bad you know um in
the last 10 or 12 years
I've had like 25 surgeries you know it's kind of weird because when I went to
do Rocky III when my
mother was still alive if you would come to my house she'd go yo T come over
here first thing I want to do
is measure you you know oh yeah and that's what she did to me before I went to
do the Rocky movie
I was like 335 pounds I was six foot seven on the nose well then right before
my mother died a few
years back she wanted to measure me I was six four and a half huh you know
between the 10 back surgeries
yeah and the two knee replacements and the two hip replacements and the
abdominal stuff and the
shoulders and all the surgeries I've had you know and plus you get older you
shrink up yeah you get a
little bit up so yeah I mean other than you know like when I'm with Sky and we're
walking I lean on
her so it looks like we're in high school I'm like hey baby what's up I'm
really just kind of like
hanging on you know for the ride or if I'm not with her I can pretty much walk
on my own from here to
that door but if it gets too far than that I get like a walking stick which is
embarrassing and
hell is helping Sky says embrace it you're a warrior I said you're right baby
you're right I am a
warrior you know it's a way to look at it yeah so I'm trying to adapt but um
you know we're going
in Monday uh tomorrow morning for another monogram you know because I'm having
some more issues with
my back and they're going to see if the disc is pushing the spine above the
hardware and if it is
then they want to go from the middle of my back up to my neck but if the disc
isn't pushing on the
spinal cord then they said we don't want to cut on you anymore and there's
because my left hip is like
25 or 26 years old they think there might be a problem there but
we're going to find out yeah but it's all from that damn fake wrestling
business nobody told me it was
fake um the only thing that I really dug was you know being in the ring because
when I was in the ring
you know I was real present you know I didn't think about anything else you
know ex-wives ex-girlfriends
kids business problems money problems three or four guys that wanted to kill me
in the back I didn't
think about anything you know when I was in the ring I was completely in the
moment yeah you know and
when I the one the one thing that really worked for me was once I clicked I was
not Terry Bollea when I
went to that ring I was Hulk Hogan brother I believed it I mean I believed when
I was in there
I wasn't afraid of anybody or anything and I just that was my attitude you know
because if I didn't
believe it you're not going to get them to believe it that they're watching I
believed it so I was so
dialed into that character man I lived through that thing and it got me through
a lot of craziness you
know it helped a lot yeah was there a part where it started to like where where
did it start to
because everything I noticed like there's a there's a part where it's fun it's
beginning and then it
becomes work you know yeah did it start to feel like that at a certain point I
mean even if you're
a hero to the world it's still yeah I hate it yeah I hated it I hated the
business because of the traveling
and you know the no sleep you have to make a choice between eating sleeping or
working out so the
priorities were working out first yeah eating and the sleep was the third
priority so like if we
wrestled in Madison Square Garden tonight you know and all of a sudden we're
supposed to fly to St.
Louis short flight hour and a half St. Louis all of a sudden you get to LaGuardia
planes canceled
you know oh my god you can't you know now it's delayed it's delayed and it just
you spent all days
in the all day in the airport and then when you land in St. Louis you know do
you go to the hotel first
and check in and waste time or do you go to the gym first so I'd always go
straight to the gym and work
out and then usually I wouldn't have time to go to the hotel I'd usually go to
the arena and I was
always on last so I'd miss room service and food so that was always a scramble
and then I'd check in
the room later at night you know so it was just a potluck sometimes the flights
would be on time and
sometimes they wouldn't but the traveling I hated the traveling because it was
I was flying 300 days a year
then it burns you down oh yeah it's brutal even with stand-up comedy it's like
we get to sometimes
you take the overnight flight because it's the cheapest back then so sometimes
um when I was
living in California we'd fly so I'd get in at 5 30 you get in at 6 30 in the
morning or something
so then they take you straight to radio yeah right so then you're there for two
hours and then you get
back to your hotel now it's around like 11 a.m but you haven't slept really so
you try to get a few
hours of sleep and then you get up and want to live it's just that the
traveling burns people out man
yeah you get off stage last the food call's already been done you're like fuck
man I remember I used to
tease John Belushi you know because we we'd jump on a blower Friday night out
of uh JFK what do you
mean a blower all night you know oh okay I was even an eight ball that guy died
of coke I think
whatever but I I'd jump on the the you know Pan Am you know to go to LA and we'd
land I said all right
bro I'll see you Monday you know because he was on the flight back Monday
morning I'd be on
and he'd see me like it's oh man this is beef that's traveling I said since you've
got here Friday night
bro I've already been back to New York and back once I had to fly back to
wrestle at the Capitol
Center I've been back so since you've been here wrestling for 48 hours I made
the trip there and back
again he goes no you didn't I said I swear to God I did bro you know because
you're out of your mind
I said well so there was a lot of but that's the part I hated was traveling how
tough was it because
you have a family right yeah and how tough was it um I always wondered like to
your kids like
to be because you're everybody's hero like you were like you know you were a
hero to so many people
right I wonder if it's tough for a child to be like oh how do I make my dad
seem like my hero you
know like how do I make my dad seem like my hero if he's everybody else's hero
you know I wonder if
that's tough for a kid you know I'm sure it is you know um the kids were real
aware of who I was
but you know the moment I would come home bro that Hulk Hogan thing was dropped
really at the front
door I didn't have any pictures in my house of me no wrestling crap in the
house at all I didn't want
it in my house some guys have belts hanging and pictures of themselves but
would you ever mess up
would you ever be like go to your room and don't come out to the bell rings or
something like like
would you ever like no no brother I didn't do that but the thing was you know I
was uh I dropped that
Hulk Hogan persona and the moment I'd walk in the house I'd take the bandana
off the bald head and I was
just dad or Terry and I was you know I could switch gears pretty easy because I
just didn't
live that character like oh yeah brother yeah red heart thinks he's the
greatest wrestler and all this
crazy crap that these guys think you know I just let it go man it was a job and
I was real good at
what I was doing I had to there had to be a degree of separation with me
because you'll end up killing
yourself you know you can't live up to that character I mean all my guys are
dead and I was a ringleader
you know I was a ringleader I was running them all hard and I'd come to the
edge and I'd stop after
about four days you gotta keep going I'm out you know so it's uh I had I had to
draw a line in the sand
so you were able to do that pretty pretty it was it came naturally for you it
was pretty easy to do
I'm really good at stopping things or starting things and she's been around me
a little while
now but it's beautiful yeah she is I mean you're handsome but she's better you're
not my type
brother okay you just hold your horses back all right yeah and same brother
same brother yeah
yeah but with that baby I got me a whole new family too so I'm good
oh nice congratulations what were you talking about
I'll you look at her and I forget what I was talking about look I feel you I
look I agree with
you look that's all you get I'm not gonna look again don't look again don't
look again I'm over
here brother yeah cool we're good now um yeah there's a lot of guys that have
passed away did
you go to some of the guys funerals what was yeah yeah and I quit doing funerals
and weddings
because I walked in on so many hotel rooms where the guys were passed away you
know
and over the years just yeah yeah I mean if you I don't know the numbers now
but you could probably
google one of the guys could tell you right away but you know with baseball let's
say over the last
20 years you what do you got 20 guys died or basketball 20 maybe it's 30 or 40
I don't know
you know hockey maybe 10 15 20 wrestling 350 yeah I mean everybody's dead yeah
you know I got I got a
retail store right down on Clearwater Beach and you know we sell pictures and
posters and I okay that
okay there's six guys in the picture I'm the only one still alive it's freaky
man I'm sure you know
especially because my mom and dad are dead my brother's dead all my friends are
dead so it kind
of like the mortality thing can get to you after a while so when you ask you
how how my health is I'm
cool you know with all the backs I mean you can have one back surgery and end
up in a wheelchair I've had
10 you know and so I'm very blessed very lucky bro you know and just uh like I
said I'm either all the way in or I'm all the way up
if we're gonna party bro we're gonna party yeah if I'm gonna go straight I'm
gonna go straight you know
and right now I'm on a straight run yeah no alcohol no actually I did take two
Tylenols I was hurting so bad
today but I didn't take Tylenols Advil or leave for for months now and I haven't
drank since January 1st
but when I go nice congrats when I go the other way your nice flare it gets
ugly hope you enjoyed that video
and you can watch another and you can watch this one you can watch this one
different options different
choices some guy just brings you one option not this guy two options watch one
this one or this one

How Hulk Hogan Survived a Brutal Life in Wrestling

yeah do you start to get like why didn't you why have you had better luck than
some of these guys
I kind of reeled it in bro you mean why am I still alive yeah is that what you're
asking me
yeah I didn't want to say it like no that's cool it's cool I think honestly
if we stayed up for three four nights in a row partying I would still go work
out right nobody
else would I would still go train I would still eat good I was the training
prayers and vitamins
I was actually doing that you know praying that I wouldn't die yeah vitamins
still a prayer
yeah but even if the vitamins are Percocets I'll have a couple you know maybe a
couple more
but uh a couple more than a couple I mean look when they came out with somas
dude I drove a car
into an invisible driveway yeah yeah and went to get taken in for that was one
of the drugs of choice
for the wrestlers yeah it was very dangerous for them because it was shut
people's throat down my
buddy Richard died he choked on some chicken that he didn't even know he was
eating and
yeah um but he took some of those muscle relax they relax your throat so much
you're it doesn't pull
the food down a lot of people choke today yeah yeah a lot of guys would get the
soma shakes I don't
know if you ever saw that but that's a little scary god it sounds like a tiktok
trend almost it's
just like somebody beating it just and they can't stop or they'll be walking
and they freeze and they
I mean I've seen it happen so many times when you're eating 10 20 of them at a
time you know
and people were taking that much pain pills to feel okay huh oh yeah oh yeah
and you know for me I
would always um I never went down that road yeah you know if there if you're
supposed to take one or
two that would be it I never went down that road five or ten I never did that
you know never we didn't
have addiction it doesn't sound like really I know I've been you know when it
came to weed or this and
that the other I could quit and not do it for three four or five years it
wouldn't matter yeah you know
so it's like but you know I just think because I was real consistent with the
training and actually
trying to eat good in between all the craziness of the drinking and raising
hell I kind of like stayed
on track where I would see these guys defect for weeks and not go to the gym
and just drink
constantly and just not eat not sleep I just I can't handle it man I had to be
the lead dog man
right I still had to be the main event where they get beyond the match
underneath me to be slacking
right I had to I had to blow yeah I had to deliver you know I didn't want
anybody stealing my spot
because they were all trying you know every night yeah I guess it's strange
because you're teammates
but at the same time they're low-key trying to take your throne yeah yeah I
slipped on a banana
peel I got hurt they'd be more than happy to replace me when you look at a lot
of guys have you
know you're in you seem really healthy you know do you feel healthier than I
mean a lot of guys in your
line of work haven't had the a lot of the same blessings of health I mean I
know you got a pretty
bad spine you know um what's bad on you like where's your health at kind of now
and
I think internally I'm healthy it's just I abuse my body so bad you know um in
the last 10 or 12 years
I've had like 25 surgeries you know it's kind of weird because when I went to
do Rocky III when my
mother was still alive if you would come to my house she'd go yo T come over
here first thing I want to do
is measure you you know oh yeah and that's what she did to me before I went to
do the Rocky movie
I was like 335 pounds I was six foot seven on the nose well then right before
my mother died a few
years back she wanted to measure me I was six four and a half huh you know
between the 10 back surgeries
yeah and the two knee replacements and the two hip replacements and the
abdominal stuff and the
shoulders and all the surgeries I've had you know and plus you get older you
shrink up yeah you get a
little bit up so yeah I mean other than you know like when I'm with Sky and we're
walking I lean on
her so it looks like we're in high school I'm like hey baby what's up I'm
really just kind of like
hanging on you know for the ride or if I'm not with her I can pretty much walk
on my own from here to
that door but if it gets too far than that I get like a walking stick which is
embarrassing and
hell is helping Sky says embrace it you're a warrior I said you're right baby
you're right I am a
warrior you know it's a way to look at it yeah so I'm trying to adapt but um
you know we're going
in Monday uh tomorrow morning for another monogram you know because I'm having
some more issues with
my back and they're going to see if the disc is pushing the spine above the
hardware and if it is
then they want to go from the middle of my back up to my neck but if the disc
isn't pushing on the
spinal cord then they said we don't want to cut on you anymore and there's
because my left hip is like
25 or 26 years old they think there might be a problem there but
we're going to find out yeah but it's all from that damn fake wrestling
business nobody told me it was
fake um the only thing that I really dug was you know being in the ring because
when I was in the ring
you know I was real present you know I didn't think about anything else you
know ex-wives ex-girlfriends
kids business problems money problems three or four guys that wanted to kill me
in the back I didn't
think about anything you know when I was in the ring I was completely in the
moment yeah you know and
when I the one the one thing that really worked for me was once I clicked I was
not Terry Bollea when I
went to that ring I was Hulk Hogan brother I believed it I mean I believed when
I was in there
I wasn't afraid of anybody or anything and I just that was my attitude you know
because if I didn't
believe it you're not going to get them to believe it that they're watching I
believed it so I was so
dialed into that character man I lived through that thing and it got me through
a lot of craziness you
know it helped a lot yeah was there a part where it started to like where where
did it start to
because everything I noticed like there's a there's a part where it's fun it's
beginning and then it
becomes work you know yeah did it start to feel like that at a certain point I
mean even if you're
a hero to the world it's still yeah I hate it yeah I hated it I hated the
business because of the traveling
and you know the no sleep you have to make a choice between eating sleeping or
working out so the
priorities were working out first yeah eating and the sleep was the third
priority so like if we
wrestled in Madison Square Garden tonight you know and all of a sudden we're
supposed to fly to St.
Louis short flight hour and a half St. Louis all of a sudden you get to LaGuardia
planes canceled
you know oh my god you can't you know now it's delayed it's delayed and it just
you spent all days
in the all day in the airport and then when you land in St. Louis you know do
you go to the hotel first
and check in and waste time or do you go to the gym first so I'd always go
straight to the gym and work
out and then usually I wouldn't have time to go to the hotel I'd usually go to
the arena and I was
always on last so I'd miss room service and food so that was always a scramble
and then I'd check in
the room later at night you know so it was just a potluck sometimes the flights
would be on time and
sometimes they wouldn't but the traveling I hated the traveling because it was
I was flying 300 days a year
then it burns you down oh yeah it's brutal even with stand-up comedy it's like
we get to sometimes
you take the overnight flight because it's the cheapest back then so sometimes
um when I was
living in California we'd fly so I'd get in at 5 30 you get in at 6 30 in the
morning or something
so then they take you straight to radio yeah right so then you're there for two
hours and then you get
back to your hotel now it's around like 11 a.m but you haven't slept really so
you try to get a few
hours of sleep and then you get up and want to live it's just that the
traveling burns people out man
yeah you get off stage last the food call's already been done you're like fuck
man I remember I used to
tease John Belushi you know because we we'd jump on a blower Friday night out
of uh JFK what do you
mean a blower all night you know oh okay I was even an eight ball that guy died
of coke I think
whatever but I I'd jump on the the you know Pan Am you know to go to LA and we'd
land I said all right
bro I'll see you Monday you know because he was on the flight back Monday
morning I'd be on
and he'd see me like it's oh man this is beef that's traveling I said since you've
got here Friday night
bro I've already been back to New York and back once I had to fly back to
wrestle at the Capitol
Center I've been back so since you've been here wrestling for 48 hours I made
the trip there and back
again he goes no you didn't I said I swear to God I did bro you know because
you're out of your mind
I said well so there was a lot of but that's the part I hated was traveling how
tough was it because
you have a family right yeah and how tough was it um I always wondered like to
your kids like
to be because you're everybody's hero like you were like you know you were a
hero to so many people
right I wonder if it's tough for a child to be like oh how do I make my dad
seem like my hero you
know like how do I make my dad seem like my hero if he's everybody else's hero
you know I wonder if
that's tough for a kid you know I'm sure it is you know um the kids were real
aware of who I was
but you know the moment I would come home bro that Hulk Hogan thing was dropped
really at the front
door I didn't have any pictures in my house of me no wrestling crap in the
house at all I didn't want
it in my house some guys have belts hanging and pictures of themselves but
would you ever mess up
would you ever be like go to your room and don't come out to the bell rings or
something like like
would you ever like no no brother I didn't do that but the thing was you know I
was uh I dropped that
Hulk Hogan persona and the moment I'd walk in the house I'd take the bandana
off the bald head and I was
just dad or Terry and I was you know I could switch gears pretty easy because I
just didn't
live that character like oh yeah brother yeah red heart thinks he's the
greatest wrestler and all this
crazy crap that these guys think you know I just let it go man it was a job and
I was real good at
what I was doing I had to there had to be a degree of separation with me
because you'll end up killing
yourself you know you can't live up to that character I mean all my guys are
dead and I was a ringleader
you know I was a ringleader I was running them all hard and I'd come to the
edge and I'd stop after
about four days you gotta keep going I'm out you know so it's uh I had I had to
draw a line in the sand
so you were able to do that pretty pretty it was it came naturally for you it
was pretty easy to do
I'm really good at stopping things or starting things and she's been around me
a little while
now but it's beautiful yeah she is I mean you're handsome but she's better you're
not my type
brother okay you just hold your horses back all right yeah and same brother
same brother yeah
yeah but with that baby I got me a whole new family too so I'm good
oh nice congratulations what were you talking about
I'll you look at her and I forget what I was talking about look I feel you I
look I agree with
you look that's all you get I'm not gonna look again don't look again don't
look again I'm over
here brother yeah cool we're good now um yeah there's a lot of guys that have
passed away did
you go to some of the guys funerals what was yeah yeah and I quit doing funerals
and weddings
because I walked in on so many hotel rooms where the guys were passed away you
know
and over the years just yeah yeah I mea