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rt316
  • 2 days ago
Transcript
00:00Rik, first of all, I am so, so sorry.
00:03This must hit you profoundly.
00:08More than I'll ever know.
00:13People always wanted to paint us as enemies,
00:18but we were actually very, very close friends.
00:23And we kept up with each other on a regular basis.
00:30I just talked to Jimmy Hart yesterday, and he was fine.
00:35To have this happen is just horrible.
00:40How did you get the news?
00:42I'm so sorry, Rik. I am so sorry.
00:45Oh, I got it from everybody. My phone won't stop.
00:50And that's a good thing, because everybody is saying something nice.
00:56When social media can be so cruel,
01:00and in this case, everybody is saying something nice.
01:03So, you know, I knew him over the years, but not like...
01:09He loved me. He loved you, Harvey.
01:10I really had a connection with this guy.
01:15I'm wondering what he meant to you. I want to hear your connection to him.
01:21Well, we had magic. I mean, it wasn't like me and Steamboat, but we just had a chemistry that was,
01:32and I felt like equal to me and Steamboat, but in a different way, and he was so over.
01:41I mean, when I went there in the 90s, I had never seen anything like it in my life.
01:46And the music started, and he came down the hallway.
01:50I mean, I would get him down for two minutes, and we'd have...
01:55It's just an unbelievable relationship, I mean.
01:59And I'll give you an idea of how much fun we had working together.
02:02If we were doing a dark match after TV, we would go, and he'd say,
02:09room service, and throw me in and give me the boot, drop the big leg at me.
02:15We got back in the hotel for room service. I mean, that's how much fun we had working together.
02:22So, you guys were rivals in the ring, and I'm so curious about this.
02:30Was there ever... Did that ever kind of bleed out into real life, or were you always secretly friends?
02:38Always friends. Always friends.
02:41I'd probably be remiss to say I wasn't jealous that he was making so much more money than me,
02:47but, you know, it had nothing to do with him. It's just, you know, I'm not going to bring up his name.
02:56The promotion just put me in a bad spot, but not with him ever. Are you kidding? I loved him.
03:02And everywhere we went, we drew money. It's just, we had a connection, and since then,
03:11we've done signings together, and like the hard rocks, and I keep up with him.
03:17I've been out to his bar for karaoke, and I mean, it's just, you know, everybody wants to take a shot at Hulk,
03:25but he doesn't deserve it. You know, people make mistakes, and, you know, who knows how that happened,
03:34but, you know, it's just, it's unfair to judge anybody by, you know, I mean, who would I be to judge anybody?
03:44I mean, really, who is anybody that's a celebrity to judge anybody? We've all made mistakes.
03:53So, you know, I've talked to him over the years, and, you know, about his ups, of which there were many,
04:00and his downs, of which there were definitely some. Where was he, where was he at the end of his life in terms of his head?
04:09Where, where was Hulk Hogan, Terry Balea?
04:13Well, I think he was doing great in it, but there's a, there's people that just, you know,
04:21they take shots at Hulk, and they, you know, they want to blame him for being protective of his position,
04:29but they don't, the young guys don't understand that back in the 80s, you didn't, you didn't,
04:34it was, it wasn't as political as it is now, but you had to fight for your position. I mean,
04:41not fist fight, but in some cases even fist fight, but because everybody wanted to be you. Does that make sense?
04:48It does, and you mentioned being political. He, he was political. I mean, he was, I believe,
04:56the star of the Republican National Convention last year. And that, look, it's, we're a 50-50
05:03country divided, and he paid a price for that even when he showed up in the ring.
05:09Yeah, well, you know what, one thing about Hulk, and I, I've never forgotten, he used to say to me,
05:18it's about, it's not about who's the best worker, it's about who makes the most money.
05:26I hated that saying. Well, what's interesting about that saying is that kind of applied to your
05:34relationship with him, that he made a lot more money than you, and that's what mattered to him,
05:40yet you never showed jealousy toward him. No, well, I couldn't, I wasn't mad at him,
05:45I was mad at the promotion. I'm not going to bring up any names, because now it's not a time to blame
05:50anybody, but, um, you know, he, he, he, he, with me, he knew that I wanted to work with him,
05:57because it, that meant I was on top, and we had some fantastic dealings. The, the, the match with
06:04Shaquille O'Neal, a special referee, and then the Halloween Havoc were Tommy Hearns, Muhammad Ali,
06:12Sherry Martel, I mean, they're never going to be called classics, but they drew money, and we,
06:19we drew money, and he, he, I, the one thing that I, I said it publicly at the garden one night,
06:28my son, uh, went to six rehabs, and, uh, he never, he, he, I, my insurance didn't cover rehab, so
06:43Hulk lent me money one time to, to, to, to keep him in rehab, and keep him off life support, so I've
06:51never forgotten that, and I went to pay him back, and he said, you never have to pay me back, I'm here for you.
06:57Wow. And then when I was, when I was dying in the hospital, I don't remember, but he was the first
07:02one there, so, how, how, how, how do you forget things like that? So, um, this is, um, you know,
07:13an hour after we broke the news, so maybe it's too early, but I'm going to try. Um, he was a
07:20complicated man. Um, what do you think his legacy is? His legacy is, he's arguably, along with Steve
07:28Austin, the biggest star in the history of wrestling. Uh, for his generation, for his generations,
07:37he was light years ahead of me. I, I used to go ahead, go back to Minneapolis to see my mom and dad,
07:44and they weren't part of the NWA. And it's one of the greatest things I ever remember. My dad would
07:51say to me, everybody knows who Hulk Hogan is. They don't know you. Okay, dad.
07:58Well, that's, that's not true. No, no, in Minneapolis, we didn't go there, you know, and
08:05I mean, he just, we met up on the road, and when we did, we always partied and had fun, and
08:10and, you know, we competed, and, but the one thing that was for a, a, a, a, a for sure factor is the
08:20building was full, and we had fun, you know, and we didn't talk about it for three hours. We, we knew
08:29what, we knew what we were going to do, because we felt it. I get it. Rick, look, I know this was
08:35really hard to come on this soon after, uh, the announcement, but we so appreciate it. And again,
08:41at least from me and from TMZ, our deepest condolences. Well, thank you. You know, I just,
08:48I hope everybody
08:51just stands up and says, man, Hulk, you're the greatest. He made a lot of people, a lot of money.
08:57That he did. Not, not, not just a promotion. He made a lot of people,
09:02a lot of money. I can remember when he was working with Kamala, and Kamala wasn't getting paid right,
09:10and he went, he went to Vince and said, Kamala needs more money. I mean, he had a good heart. Too good.