Jimmy Hart, Jerry Lawler react to Hulk Hogan death: 'Still can't believe it's true'
Jerry "The King" Lawler answered the phone and Jimmy Hart was crying on the other end.
They had known Hulk Hogan as long as anyone in the pro wrestling industry, dating back more than 40 years ago when Hogan had some of his earliest matches at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis. Now they were grappling with his death.
So two legends of pro wrestling started talking about perhaps the biggest legend of them all, and about the Hulk Hogan they knew. "Stuff that nobody knew about him," Lawler told Paste BN Sports. "It’s just a sad situation."
WWE confirmed that Hogan died Thursday, July 24 in Clearwater Beach, Florida at the age of 71. The Clearwater Police Department in Florida said in a statement it responded to a medical call at a residence on Clearwater Beach at 9:51 a.m. for a reported cardiac arrest. Hogan was treated at the scene before being taken to Morton Plant Hospital, where he was pronounced deceased.
Hogan, whose real name was Terry Bollea, became WWE's first major star and he’s credited with helping fuel pro wrestling’s worldwide popularity beginning in the 1980s with "Hulkamania." His stardom eventually transcended the wrestling ring into movies, television and pop culture.
"Wrestling is what it is today and would not have been that way without Hulk Hogan," said Lawler, a longtime WWE wrestler and announcer. "I’m 76 years old and I’ve been asked many times who’s the biggest name and who’s the most important person in wrestling, and I say it right off the top of my head, 'Hulk Hogan.'"
Hart, Hogan’s longtime friend and manager, told Paste BN Sports that Hogan had been dealing with complications from neck surgery but he was shocked by the news of his passing Thursday morning. Hart wrote on social media two days earlier that Hogan was doing "phenomenal."
"I’m just so devastated right now," said Hart, who noted he had been getting daily updates from Hogan’s personal assistant. "I still can’t believe it’s true."
Hart was sitting in his car in a Tampa area parking lot staring at a pizza place across the street as the raw emotions poured out, hoping "he’s going to walk out and bring me a pizza right now."
He had last spoken to Hogan about two weeks earlier and the conversation ended the same way it always did between the two. Hart had been a member of The Gentrys when it produced the hit song, "Keep on Dancing" in 1965, and so Hogan told Hart, for the last time, "Remember, keep on dancing."
"When you think of wrestling, because everybody grew up with him, you think of Hulk Hogan," Hart said.