Hulk Hogan was not welcomed back with open arms by the WWE universe when he made a guest appearance on the All-Star debut of Raw on Netflix earlier this month.
Hogan was mercilessly booed by the sold out Los Angeles crowd. While some attributed the negative reaction to his very vocal foray into politics and supporting the election of President Donald Trump, it’s much more likely due to the racist language he used that was caught on tape a decade ago that emerged from his lawsuit against Gawker. The Undertaker has also been very vocal of his support for Trump, but he received a hero’s welcome at Raw when he celebrated alongside Rhea Ripley.
The former champion was set to appear this weekend on WWE’s next primetime Saturday Night’s Main Event special on NBC. However, that appearance has now been called off with Chris Featherstone reporting that Hulk Hogan won’t be appearing due to “family commitments.”
It’s an interesting story given that Hulk Hogan had promoted the show and reports earlier this week indicated that he would be present. Were there “family commitments” that arose at the last minute? Or is that cover for Hogan and WWE not want to risk further embarrassment from getting booed out of the building once again? You be the judge.
In spite of his checkered past, Hogan has made sporadic appearances for the company at special events going back to 2018 after he was fired in 2015 when the tapes emerged. However, his Netflix appearance was the first one in front of a live crowd in quite some time.
WWE is as hot as they’ve been since the Attitude Era and they don’t really need aging stars from bygone times to juice the numbers or engagement anymore, especially one with the baggage of Hulk Hogan. If the Netflix Raw was his last WWE appearance for a while, it’ll be quite all right if Hulkamania grinds to a halt.
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