Hulk Hogan's legacy includes a connection to toxic modern media trends

The only time I met the legendary wrestler in person, I had no idea he would become connected to so many damaging media trends.

The only time I actually met Hulk Hogan, it was an uncomfortable situation for both of us.

He was serving as groomsman in the 2007 wedding of Tampa Bay area shock jock Todd Clem, a.k.a. Bubba the Love Sponge. Bubba and I always had a love-hate kind of relationship – as fellow Hoosiers, we understood and kind of liked each other. But because of our jobs, we were often in conflict – he, the provocative radio shit talker who would do almost anything to spark a public reaction, and me, the media critic at the local newspaper often tasked with pointing out how toxic those words could be.

Bubba often tried to get sympathetic press coverage by giving me limited access to his life. And this time, it was a pretty remarkable situation. I was the only reporter inside the church where Bubba was getting married; the observers included Howard Stern and his news announcer/sidekick Robin Quivers, other folks from Stern’s radio crew, and the Hulkster, decked out in a tuxedo and a bandana.

When I introduced myself, Hogan seemed a little surprised, hesitantly enveloping my hand with his gigantic mitts when I offered a handshake. In the moment, I suspected it was because he might not have expected any press to attend. After watching the ceremony and hanging a bit at the reception – where I stood behind Stern in the buffet line just to see what he ate – I wrote a pretty basic story which wound up being the most-read piece on the website that year for the St. Petersburg Times (now called the Tampa Bay Times).

Of course, I had no way of knowing that, years later in 2012, a video would be published by the website Gawker showing Hogan having sex with the woman Bubba married that night, Heather (Cole) Clem -- sparking a lawsuit that would eventually result in a $140 million verdict and the bankruptcy of the website.

All of these details return to memory now, in the wake of Hogan’s death last week in nearby Clearwater, Florida of a heart attack at age 71. The Hollywood Reporter notes that Hogan also had leukemia at the time. Last week, I spoke with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation show Commotion about Hogan’s tangled legacy – he was the original superstar wrestler who sold the genre as a combo of modern gladiators and superheroes years before Marvel and DC would make movies.

But Hogan also had a toxic side to his life which tarnished his legacy – from the sex tape with Bubba’s then-wife to a different video featuring him using the n-word . Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker was bankrolled by Peter Thiel, a billionaire venture capitalist — making the wrestler the face of a legal action that shut down a major media outlet which had angered Thiel with its coverage.

And there was Hogan’s admission during the Netflix documentary Mr. McMahon that he notified World Wrestling Federation leader Vince McMahon of attempts by another superstar to unionize the wrestlers. Hogan also famously endorsed Donald Trump for president, which may have put off his more liberal fans.

I always thought, based on my coverage of the Shock Jock radio era from Florida, that people who thrived in that environment had a toxicity to their lives that was difficult for other people to exist in. It was often a world of thinly-disguised racism and sexism, filled with self-promoters who were hyper focused on titillating a mostly-male, mostly-white audience with provocative media content. When Bubba was a powerhouse in that world, he had Tucker Carlson and Hogan on his shows regularly.

In many ways, that genre presaged the media world we’re living in now – from conservative-focused idealogues on Fox News and the Daily Wire to the toxic behavior in so-called “reality TV” shows. Too often, these genres involve minimizing and encouraging toxic behavior to draw audiences, offering content which draws in fans while also suggesting that the antics at hand aren’t that bad, anyway.

This is the shady side to Hogan’s legacy that dims his success as a pioneering wrestler, actor, and media figure – a connection to the dark forces in media which have made so much of our current discourse so ugly and destructive.