Dope and moral scandals .. How did Hulk Hogan turn from the most famous wrestler to the most hated?

American wrestler Hulk Hogan is one of the most famous freestyle wrestling stars throughout its history, reaching the pinnacle of fame and wealth, before successive moral scandals and his betrayal of his wife and closest friends brought him down to become hated by the masses after he was her first love.

Hogan took advantage of his huge muscular structure, as he was about two meters tall, and professional wrestling in 1978 at the age of 25, and two years later he joined the World Wrestling Entertainment "WWE" (WWE), to reach within a few years the height of sports fame.

To know how popular he is, a large group of ultras fans formed to cheer him on, calling themselves "Hulk Crazy" (Hulkamaniacs).

A group of Hogan fans or "Hulk Maniacs" (Reuters)

Hogan defeated Andre the Giant

His stardom rose sharply in 1983 when he defeated the giant Andrei, who weighed about a quarter of a ton, and that victory doubled his popularity after he lifted his already giant opponent in the air and threw him onto the track in an incredible way, making the hall shake with cheers from the crowd.

Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant at the Showboat Sports Pavilion #LasVegas 1983. pic.twitter.com/RWHAaSd7FK

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His sporting fame opened the doors of artistic glory for him, as he participated in many films, and even won the starring role in some of them, which doubled his popularity and brought him more huge money until his fortune reached about 30 million dollars, to be the richest wrestler ever in his generation.

34 years ago today, the 1st prime-time wrestling match in 30 yrs, André the Giant defeated Hulk Hogan.

pic.twitter.com/CgmNfp7QgJ

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Hogan scandal series

It seems that the tyrannical fame and the huge sums of money made Hogan arrogant until he said of himself that he was "the strongest man, not afraid of even wild beasts", and his ego led him to get involved in a series of scandals that wiped out his stardom and transformed him from the most popular wrestler to the most hated by the public.

Scandals began chasing him in the early nineties of the last century when it was discovered that he was taking doping, even though wrestling is an exhibition game, and by his own admission, all fights are representation agreed upon in advance, and the winner is determined by an official contract that determines what each wrestler receives from the money.

To make matters worse, he was not satisfied with taking steroids only, but also trading them by selling them to wrestlers, which made his case exposed by one of them.

And because he is one of the "curling stars" that the public accepts to watch on wrestling arenas, the International Wrestling Federation "WCW" (WCW) decided to return him to competitions in 1996, to regain his stardom and earn money again.

Hogan was keen to make the public forget his stimulant trade until he got involved in a much bigger scandal when his wife divorced him after she discovered his marital infidelity with many women, including her closest friends.

And because the American media deals with such issues with great expansion and the lack of red lines, this divorce was a resounding scandal for the famous wrestler, whose popularity after that began to collapse.

The scandal that made him hated by the masses

Instead of learning from his mistakes, Hogan became embroiled in a new resounding audio and video scandal when an immoral video clip of him with the wife of his closest friend spread, which the American public considered an unforgivable betrayal of his friend, completely destroying his popularity and becoming hated by the masses after he was her lover.

It seems that his resounding downfall and the loss of his popularity in this way made him try to get out of this scandal with the greatest amount of material gains, as he filed a lawsuit in 2016 against the "Gawker" website, which leaked the offensive video, and claimed that it blatantly violated his privacy.

Indeed, Hogan got his wish and the court awarded him a huge compensation of $ 115 million, but it was reduced to $ 30 million due to the site's inability to pay the huge amount.

Hogan testifies before the court in the lawsuit in which he demanded compensation for the violation of his privacy (Reuters)

Although he won a lot of money that compensated him for the high costs of his divorce from his wife, he lost the respect of everyone, as they considered his betrayal of his closest friends a moral and moral crime even if it was not criminalized by American law.

No sooner had Hogan be satisfied with the great compensation, until the losses fell on his head as companies terminated the sponsorship contracts with him one by one, for fear of tarnishing his reputation and taking into account the feelings of the masses that became hate him and consider him a bad example not only for athletes, but for humans in general.