Before Hulkamania was running wild in the WWF, it was beginning to surge in 1982 after Hulk Hogan appeared in the popular flick, Rocky III.
Between making the towns in the AWA and going overseas to compete for New Japan Pro Wrestling, Hogan was also all over the media circuit, promoting the film and his part in it as the menacing “mountain of molten lust,” Thunderlips.
Famously, he appeared on the popular late-night talk show The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson that June, just weeks after the film’s release.
Hogan was also in an adult magazine.
Yes, brother, you read that right. Hulk Hogan, the all-American hero who would go on to preach the virtues of “train, say your prayers, and eat your vitamins,” appeared in a skin rag.
Capitalizing on the growing interest in the Hulkster, Hogan was the subject of a feature in the November 1982 edition of Oui. Originally, he agreed to an interview before getting cold feet.
“After the shoot, Hulk got a little uncomfortable with the concept and decided to skip the interview,” wrote photographer Mark Weiss last July in a social media post paying respect to Hogan’s legacy after his passing.
Since that didn’t work for Hogan, the magazine did the next best thing: they interviewed his mom.
Titled, “My Boy Hulk,” the dek read, “In Rocky III, he’s Thunderlips, womanizer and decidedly ungentle giant. On the circuit, he’s Hulk, bone-crushing bad guy. But in Tampa, he’s just the best boy a mom ever had.”
In it, his mother, Ruth Bollea, gave a revealing look at her son, including how Hogan might have had a promising career in another sport if it weren’t for an injury at 15 that split the bone in his arm and tore the cartilage off.
“If it hadn’t been for that, you know, he might have had a good career in baseball,” Bollea told Oui.
Instead, Hogan found himself in a completely different ballpark, entering the world of pro wrestling, which he would go on to dominate for more than three decades.
As Momma Hulk put her son over, pictures of Hogan surrounded and straddled by bare-chested beauties make up the spread. If nothing else, the experience had to beat bumping for the near-500-pound “Crusher” Blackwell.
Weiss called it a wild photo shoot, with some shots pushing the limits at that time. Today, it’s a forgotten piece of lore about a legend whose stock was on the rise more than 40 years ago before his reputation, ironically, was done in after content from a secretly recorded sex tape in 2015 showed Hogan’s ass — literally, figuratively, and socially.
“This shoot captured Hulk at a pivotal moment — right before he became a household name with Rocky III and the WWF boom. A true time capsule from the early days of Hulkamania,” Weiss wrote.