WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan isn’t ruling out a return to the ring, and he reveals that Shane McMahon tried to get him to come back for WrestleMania 39.
Hogan last wrestled in 2012, and he has been dealing with health issues in recent years. But he has recently opened up about how cannabis has helped improve his health.
During an appearance on The MMA Hour with Ariel Helwani, Hogan was asked about potentially returning to the ring, and he described how Shane McMahon tried to put something together, but the timing wasn’t right due to his health issues. (H/t Fightful for the transcription.)
“You know what’s so funny, Shane McMahon called me,” Hogan said. “He goes, ‘Hey, you got one more in you, old man?’ I said, ‘Take it easy with the old man stuff, brother.’ I said, ‘What do you want to do?’ He goes, ‘All you gotta do is stand in the middle of the ring, and I’ll come do it.’ I said, ‘Right now, my back needs a little more work, but that’s something we can talk about next year.’ I’ve always wanted to have a retirement match. I’m not moving around the way I should be, so I’m going to keep working and keep training and keep doing rehab and see where I’m at about six months from now. All I found out in the wrestling business, brother, is you never say never.”
Hogan clarified that McMahon reached out to him roughly three months ahead of WrestleMania 39, and while they talked about potential storylines, Hogan told Shane that his back needed more work, so he couldn’t do the show. “The Hulkster” then noted that he and Shane left it on an open note, as they could touch base in a few months.
“I talked to Shane probably about three months before WrestleMania, and he happened to be at Madison Square Garden, and I guess there’s a place in Madison Square Garden where they got the Hall of Fame, and they’ve got my boots up there, and they got my tights. He took a picture standing in front of it, and Shane called me at home. He goes, ‘Hey, look at that picture I just sent you.’ I looked at it, he goes, ‘Well, you got one more in you?’ I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ He started running storylines by me to try to ramp us into that mode. I said, ‘Those were all good storylines, whether you’re coming at me like, ‘Hulk, you quit. My father made you and you left, you walked out on my father,’ which I did. Or go the opposite way, that ‘my dad did you wrong,’ because him and his dad go back and forth all the time. ‘My dad did you wrong, I wanna revitalize your career.’ There’s several things we came up with. I told him, ‘I just need to get my feet underneath me more. Now’s not the time, not this WrestleMania, definitely not. Let’s talk about four or five months from now and see where I’m at.”
The WWE Hall of Famer also named Steve Austin as the opponent he would want to face in his hypothetical return to the ring.
“If he would get in the ring with me, that’s the reason I went back to wrestle The Rock was to get in the ring with ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin because me as a bad guy; as Hollywood Hogan, I could have tore the place down with him because he was the ultimate good guy at the time, but I think he was having some physical problems with his legs and nerve damage, and he was about at the end of his run. So if I had one guy to get in there with, it’d be him. I just don’t know, with all this time passing and both of us getting older and wiser if it would even make sense. You have to be crazy to back in there at my age, anyway. I just haven’t talked to him about anything like that ever, so if he would get in the ring, he would be the guy.” (H/t Fightful for the transcription.)
The interview is available here:
In the same interview, Hogan referred to his past racist comments as a speed bump. Click here to see what he had to say.
