WWE pulled out all the stops for its Netflix debut on Monday night. That included an appearance from arguably the biggest star in the company’s history, Hulk Hogan, in what ultimately proved to be one of the show’s few lowlights.
While the opening of chords of “Real American” elicited the expected pop that most nostalgia acts receive, the cheers across Los Angeles’ Intuit Dome quickly shifted to boos. The heckling of Hogan only gained steam as the Hulkster proceeded to cut a rambling babyface promo that doubled as an ad for his Real American Beer, which WWE now has a partnership with.
The boos for Hogan were so intense that they even got recognized by Netflix’s subtitles, as pictured at the top of this story.
Watching Hulk Hogan get booed out of a building filled with 18k people restored my faith in humanity 😠#WWERAW #RawOnNetflix pic.twitter.com/f8qBP7uILt
— Public Enemies Podcast (@TheEnemiesPE3) January 7, 2025
With Raw‘s highly anticipated debut on Netflix already putting WWE in the spotlight, the bizarre nature of Hogan’s appearance received plenty of media attention. That included on CNN NewsNight, where conservative commentator Scott Jennings suggested that the living legend was booed because of his public support of President Elect Donald Trump.
“Hulk Hogan came out and was largely booed by the crowd in Los Angeles and it took me aback because, as you know, I’m a big Hulkamaniac,” Jennings said. “It was likely because he decided to get involved in politics and he was in L.A. and he got booed.”
Jennings went on to implore Hogan to embrace his heel persona — “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan — in future appearances, which actually isn’t a bad idea.
“Dump the yellow and red. Go back to the black and white nWo days,” Jenning said. “Lean into your new bad guy MAGA status and own it and continue to generate heat.”
CNN have covered Hulk Hogan being booed on this week’s Monday Night RAW.pic.twitter.com/BzPAo4jsLk
— Fightful Wrestling (@Fightful) January 8, 2025
But while the master of running leg drop is obviously already a heel to WWE fans, the reasoning why isn’t as simple as Jennings and others have suggested. After all, it was just a few segments earlier that another Trump-supporting WWE legend — The Undertaker — made a cameo of his own, receiving raucous cheers as he drove a motorcycle down the ramp, to Kid Rock’s “American Bad Ass,” no less.
THE UNDERTAKER IS HERE!!!#RawOnNetflix pic.twitter.com/aA2CJWfY1e
— WWE (@WWE) January 7, 2025
If the audience at the Intuit Dome was as anti-Trump as Jennings suggested, it’s hard to imagine The Undertaker — who interviewed the 45th/47th president on his podcast just weeks before the 2024 election — being greeted with such fanfare.
So what happened with Hogan?
While Jennings later noted that the 71-year-old “has had some controversies in his life as well,” the fact of the matter is that those “controversies” are more than just a footnote to many — if not most — pro wrestling fans. Ultimately, Hogan has been a polarizing figure for nearly a decade now after it was first reported in 2015 that he made racist and homophobic comments, including the use of slurs while being secretly recorded years earlier.
WWE even disassociated itself from Hogan — arguably the biggest star in the company’s history — for nearly three years as a result of the situation before bringing him back for periodic appearances beginning in 2018. That included at WrestleMania 37 in 2021, in which the crowd at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa also booed him, years before he had become the public Trump supporter he is today.
It’s also worth noting that Hogan hasn’t been booed at every appearance he’s made in the years since the audio recordings first leaked, which only illustrates the complexity of the circumstances that led to his reception on Monday night.
To be certain, his public support of Trump surely didn’t help matters, especially with the appearance taking place in a city as liberal as Los Angeles. But with his reputation already working against him for a multitude of reasons, perhaps one of the biggest unspoken reasons for Hogan got booed as fervently as he did is the reality that wrestling fans see through the schtick. And not only was someone they don’t like interrupting what was otherwise a WrestleMania-caliber show, but he was doing so to shamelessly sell them beer during time that would have been spent better on the actual WWE product.
Say what you will about wrestling fans, but we know the difference between a work and a shoot. And what we perhaps hate more than anything is trying to be sold a shoot when we know it’s a work — especially when it involves a babyface we’ve already decided is a real-life heel.