This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/cslevens on 2025-07-27 06:47:44+00:00.

What happens when the bad things people do to you blend in with the bad things you do to other people?

Does it make you somehow a better person, in that your bad behavior was influenced by your own victimhood?

Does it make you worse, in that you have felt the pain of injustice, and yet continue to perpetuate it for your own gain?

Does it make you something different altogether?

This is the triumph of the smartest, hardest-working, and most successful Professional Wrestler of all time.

This is the tragedy of a broken man who broke everyone who showed him love and friendship.

His name was Terry Bollea. But not really.

He preferred his character’s name: Hulk Hogan.

SUPER SUNDAY, 1983

Hulk Hogan is 28 years old. He is sitting in a locker room in the St. Paul Civic Center, in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It is Sunday, May 24, 1983. He stares at a mirror.

Though he is balding on the top of his head, his long, beach blonde hair pours down his tan shoulders. His physique represents a wave of fitness that is new to the American zeitgeist. Announcers tell audiences that he is 6’7” (Six foot, Seven Inches) tall, and a little over Three Hundred pounds heavy. While these numbers would fluctuate over the years, at this point in time, they were likely true.

Hogan was almost entirely muscle, with no fat. Before the idea of the “Beach Body” was ever coined, Hogan was it.  There were very few people in the world who looked like him. Sure, there were big and strong people. Body builders. Athletes. But many of them were not this aesthetically sculpted. They also had mountains of muscle, sure, but working muscle, and a lot of fat as well. They had rough faces and unkempt hair. In comparison, Hogan looked like something completely different and new. He looked like a fusion of a Greek God, a Ken Doll, and a GI-Joe Action Figure.  And crowds seemed to love it.

Hogan looked at himself in the mirror.  He saw what his co-workers saw.

They hated him for what he represented. He knew this.

But all of that would have to wait. Because tonight would be the first time in his career where he would truly feel like a winner. It would be the night where all his hard work would pay off, where it would be acknowledged that he paid his dues, and where he could prove that his dreams were attainable. All he had to do was put his head down, and follow the script, and the reward would come.

But it is likely that Hogan would have had some difficulty thinking so clearly. You see, he had only been in this line of work for a little under six years at this point. And that six years had already taken their toll.

Hulk Hogan was already tired. He was already in pain.

Even so early into his career, Hulk Hogan felt like a Professional Wrestler.

What is Professional Wrestling?

Professional Wrestling is a sport with a relatively recent pedigree. There are many misunderstandings as to what Professional Wrestling is and is not, so let’s get those cleared up right here.

“Professional Wrestling” as we know it is, actually, an evolution of several previous forms of Public Combat Sport that came together some time in the late 18th and early 19th century. Its direct ancestor is the deceptively named Amateur Wrestling,  which itself derived from ancient Greek Wrestling. Both Amateur and Greek wrestling are forms of combat, where two Wrestlers compete specifically in the art of grappling. Striking the opponent, like through punching or kicking, was disallowed, with the emphasis instead being on the surprisingly technical art of lifting, maneuvering, and restricting your opponent’s full body. The throwing and grabbing techniques introduced in these combat sports are extremely effective in the real world, and actually find common use in modern Mixed-Martial Arts (MMA) today.

In the early 1900’s, continuing lineages of Greek and Amateur wrestling would mix and mingle with the Pan-European sport of Catch Wrestling. Catch Wrestling was an offshoot of these previous styles that developed and adapted to turn into a form of early Pop Entertainment, as opposed to just a “pure” athletic competition. Catch Wrestling had fewer rules, allowed for a wider variety of techniques, and was comparatively more fun for spectators to watch. In addition to wilder, more technical, and sometimes unbelievable techniques, Catch wrestling also made it much easier for audiences to see who would win the matches, as it introduced the “Submission Victory”, where one wrestler visibly gives up out of either pain or a fear of injury.

At some unknown point, which is unknown at its exact date but is likely somewhere before 1930, Greek, Amateur, and Catch Wrestling combined, while incorporating elements of Theater and Carnival Shows, to form the earliest acknowledged forms of Professional Wrestling, or “Pro” Wrestling for short. Pro Wrestling borrowed a lot of aesthetics from Amateur, Greek, and Catch wrestling, as it presented the same fundamental spectacle. Two men, in a ring, grabbing, throwing, and trying to pin each other. A competition of strength, dominance, speed, and technique. However, Pro Wrestling would branch off in a creative direction that dramatically separated it from its three fathers.

Professional Wrestling matches, unlike those before, are pre-determined. Scripted. Neither competitor in the match is actually competing against each other, at least in the short term. They are collaborating with each other to tell an agreed upon story. They both know who will win. They both know who will lose. Their mutual goal is to use their bodies, physicality, and character to tell that story in as entertaining a way as possible.

So yes, Professional Wrestling is “scripted’. It is “fixed”. This is well known at this point.

That said, let me be clear; Professional Wrestling is not Fake.

There is a terrible misconception that Professional Wrestlers are nothing more than “actors”, and that their art is nothing more than some sort of special effects or choreography, like in movies. This idea spreads around, that Professional Wrestlers never actually get hurt in their simulated combat, when the reality is quite the opposite.

Wrestlers get hurt in almost every match they perform in. While you can “fake” many things- a stage punch, a kick that never makes contact- you cannot fake gravity. You cannot fake impact. They may take real impacts to their spine, shoulders, neck, face, limbs, and brain. Falling down once, even for a normal human body, is not good for you.  Even if you are trained to fall down “properly”, like a Martial Artist for example, you are only minimizing the harm. You are not eliminating it.

Pro Wrestlers, even when everything goes exactly to script, will fall down dozens of times in a single match. This adds up over time, very, very quickly. And when things DON’T go exactly to script, the results are worse, more immediate, and horrifying. When things go wrong, Professional Wrestlers get crippled. They lose memories. They die.

When things go right, Pro Wrestlers “only” live in near constant pain. But that is a sacrifice they make for their career. For their art. And it’s a sacrifice many will continually make for literally decades, without stop.

So as we return to our narrative, please remember this:

While Professional Wrestling is not 100% Real, it is certainly not “Fake”.

To believe Pro Wrestling is Fake is disrespectful to the sacrifices of the wrestlers.

That said, to believe Pro Wrestling is Real is not respectful to the sacrifices of reality.

Both beliefs, in their extreme, are a form of delusion.

Verne Gagne

Verne Gagne is pacing throughout the Civic Center, talking with the wrestlers and production. To him, Pro Wrestling is “Real”.

Or, at least, it should be.

At this point in time, Verne Gagne is 57 years old. His voice echoes with the rasp of a man with much practice in the art of having been alive. His 5’11” body is round, hairy, and unkempt, for Verne Gagne does not care for contemporary fashions. While he may look like a normal elderly man (for many middle-aged American men in the 80’s would seem to rapidly age after 40), looking closely would show off the telltale traces of a body that used to be athletic. After all, Verne Gagne is a former accomplished Amateur Wrestler. That’s why his wrestling was “real”.

The company that is about to put on this Professional Wrestling spectacular super-show was the “American Wrestling Association”, or [AWA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Wrestling_Associatio…

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/1maflbf/pro_wrestling_hulk_hogan_part_1_of_4_the_betrayed/