{"id":64929,"date":"2018-08-21T19:18:33","date_gmt":"2018-08-22T00:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=64929"},"modified":"2018-08-21T19:18:33","modified_gmt":"2018-08-22T00:18:33","slug":"interview-highlights-hulk-hogan-talks-about-his-locker-room-meeting-his-disappointment-with-some-wrestlers-not-accepting-his-apology-being-a-role-model-talking-with-vince-and-triple-h","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2018\/08\/21\/interview-highlights-hulk-hogan-talks-about-his-locker-room-meeting-his-disappointment-with-some-wrestlers-not-accepting-his-apology-being-a-role-model-talking-with-vince-and-triple-h\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview Highlights: Hulk Hogan talks about his locker room meeting, his disappointment with some wrestlers not accepting his apology, being a role model, talking with Vince and Triple H"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-68677770\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p><em>Hulk Hogan appeared on Bill Apter&#8217;s new podcast, &#8220;Apter Chat,&#8221; last week. He addressed a few hot topics, most noteworthy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2018\/07\/15\/hulk-hogan-wwe-suspension-lifted-after-three-years-announces-wwe-hogan-meets-with-wwe-locker-room-this-afternoon\/\">being back in the WWE Hall of Fame<\/a> and the locker room speech he gave in the WWE locker room last month that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2018\/07\/15\/hulk-hogan-wwe-suspension-lifted-after-three-years-announces-wwe-hogan-meets-with-wwe-locker-room-this-afternoon\/\">some wrestlers did not embrace<\/a>, including New Day and Titus O&#8217;Neal. The following are extensive highlights as selected and transcribed by PWTorch editor Wade Keller&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>CHECK OUT THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stitcher.com\/podcast\/the-apter-chat\">THE APTER CHAT WITH HULK HOGAN<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2022On being a role model:<\/strong> &#8220;When I got in the business, I just wanted a job because I&#8217;ve always loved this business. But when the role model thing came along, I thought, &#8216;Okay, what&#8217;s this about?&#8217; Then you get to the point where you get used to it. Then the character Hulk Hogan starts making Terry Bollea the man a better person. Then you thank God for it. Sometimes I forget how Hulk Hogan has affected so many people and I have to keep myself in check. And we all make these crazy mistakes. But it&#8217;s about getting knocked down and getting back up and moving forward. &#8230; Sometimes you forget how powerful that character was. You make mistake and have to keep in check. Believe me, I&#8217;ve learned from my mistakes to keep my rear end in check. &#8230; It&#8217;s been a learning curve. &#8230; When things happen I got back to religion&#8230; God, the whole thing. People can readjust, move forward after making mistakes. The first thing I do when I make a mistake or get mad about something or not treat someone 100 percent &#8230; it&#8217;s an amazing situation to ask for forgiveness and be forgiven. &#8230; I can move forward and reset. I feel so sorry for those individuals that can&#8217;t forgive people even when people get back on track and move forward, they still want to hold them to the mistake they made years ago or five minutes ago. It&#8217;s such a weird thing that people are so nice but still judge people. I&#8217;m at a point now where I don&#8217;t judge anybody because I&#8217;ve learned you can make mistakes, we&#8217;re all human, and to find the good in people and to cheer people to move forward, not to try to beat them down and hold them down with a mistake they made. I learned that. Not only have I made a ton of mistakes, but everybody I know has, and it&#8217;s really cool to see people grow, move forward, and learn from mistakes. That&#8217;s the chance the Boys Club gave me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2022On John Cena replacing him as the top Make-a-Wish requested wrestler:\u00a0<\/strong>&#8220;The door that I cracked open, he just kicked it open and he did a million times more work and he raised the bar. It&#8217;s part of what I&#8217;ve been doing forever.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2022His reaction to being removed from the WWE Hall of Fame:<\/strong> &#8220;Wrestling has been my life. I love wrestling. I&#8217;m recording Smackdown as we speak. I watch the Network. I check out all the independent stuff going on. I&#8217;m the biggest mark there is. If you love the wrestling business, you love something new every day and you&#8217;re still a mark. Every single day I learn something new. You can&#8217;t say you know the business. &#8230; It&#8217;s in our blood, so when I got kicked out of the wrestling business, I didn&#8217;t think I could recover. I really didn&#8217;t. What people don&#8217;t realize is that when you get kicked out of the wrestling business for the reason that I did &#8211; the racial remarks &#8211; there&#8217;s a huge ripple effect. Your phone doesn&#8217;t ring. People you thought were your friends just disappear. Your phone ringing, it doesn&#8217;t happen. The big stuff to me was being kicked out of wrestling, something you love, getting torn out of your chest. It was one of the toughest things that ever happened.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2022On WWE officials beginning to communicate with him again:<\/strong> To fast-forward, radio silence for the first year-and-a-half, then out of nowhere, Triple H reached out to me. &#8216;Hey man, I hope you&#8217;re doing well, at least the best you can.&#8217; It meant he was concerned about me. That was really cool. &#8230; I didn&#8217;t get to know too many of the young guys back in the DX days, but when I heard from him, it gave me hope. Every once in a while he&#8217;d talk to me, we&#8217;d say a few words over the phone. It was really cool, but I never talked to Vince. Then Triple H and I started talking a little more this last year about possibilities. &#8230; I told him things I&#8217;m doing with a charity that gives legs to kids with prosthetic legs. There are so many kids who can&#8217;t afford to have legs. I was telling Triple H what I was up to, with my little beach shops that I have going and every once in a while I&#8217;d have an autograph signing and everyone was so nice &#8211; white, black, indifferent, doesn&#8217;t matter what race, color, or creed. They&#8217;d get in line and say we love you and we stand behind you. If they did want to talk about the racial slur, they would say, &#8216;Man, we know who you are and it was a mistake.&#8217; The people were so gracious and it gave me this gracious hope that maybe some day I could get back on my feet with the brothers in the wrestling business.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2022On when he began talking to Vince McMahon again: &#8220;<\/strong>So fast-forwarding, we started talking and Triple H knew what I was doing with the Boys &amp; Girls Club, and there was a common bond there. So then we started talking about different things like Saudi Arabia and things like that. I said I&#8217;d really like to talk to Vince. I&#8217;d text Vince on his birthdays and he texted me on New Year&#8217;s and stuff like this, but we never had a good conversation. And all of a sudden it&#8217;s &#8216;Hey, monster, how are you doing?&#8217; And so we talked. We had been texting, but it was so good to hear his voice. He hasn&#8217;t changed a bit. It was the same old intense Vince, and we talked and it was a great conversation. We talked every couple months or so. And Triple H said, &#8216;I think it&#8217;s time you have a conversation with yourself and do you really want to do anything with wrestling.&#8217; I said, &#8216;Oh my god, I&#8217;d love to.&#8217; One of the things we agreed upon is they wanted to bring me back but we want you to talk to the black athletes. I said, &#8216;No, I&#8217;m not going to do it. If I come back, I want to talk to everybody. What I did hurt not only the business, it hurt white, black, every athlete you have, Japanese, everyone who loves this business. I dropped us all down a notch. So I wanted to come back and talk to everybody. That&#8217;s how it happened. I flew into Cleveland a few weeks ago because they had Extreme Rules in Pittsburgh. I thought I could maybe slide in there, do what I needed to, and slide out. I flew into Cleveland and was going to drive to Pittsburgh, but when I landed in Cleveland, the fans were there. They stalk you, they find you. So I kind of like was surprised. I thought we could sneak in. Me and Jimmy Hart were together. So we spent the night there. Pat Patterson shows up. He flied to Cleveland. He said, &#8216;I heard you were coming back.&#8217; I just love being around Pat, he&#8217;s one of my closest friends in the business. We laughed and joked in the car on the way to Pittsburgh. We get to Pittsburgh, but right before I got to the building, my phone was blowing up going &#8216;Congratulations, you&#8217;ve back in the Hall of Fame.&#8217; I had no idea, I thought we were just going to talk. It made me grin from ear to ear. I didn&#8217;t start crying because I had two other men with me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2022On his speech to the locker room:<\/strong> &#8220;But we get to the building and we go in and everybody&#8217;s in a room and I walked in the room and I made it really clear what I wanted to say. There were two trains of thought &#8211; there was Plan A and there was Plan B. I know how busy everybody is on TV days. &#8230; I figured all the talent was there, so I thanked them for the time. The first thing I want to do is tell you guys 12 years ago I said something that three years ago just came to light and I want to apologize for everything I said. I can give you the woe is me story and tell you all the things, all the reasons why I was in the space I was in, the dark dark space. Everybody&#8217;s got an excuse, but the truth is I said these things 12 years ago and I didn&#8217;t even know they were said three years ago. I can&#8217;t remember what I said last weekend, much less 12 years ago. When I said it, it was in a fit of anger. I did say it. I&#8217;m accountable. That&#8217;s not who I am, it&#8217;s not how I feel, it&#8217;s not what I believe. When I said it, I was very very mad, very very mad at a situation. But I did say it, it was inappropriate, it was out of context, it was hurtful, it was unacceptable, and I did it. And I apologized and said if you guys can ever forgive me, I&#8217;ll be forever grateful. I wanted to be sure that was my one train of thought, that what I said was out of character and when I was mad and it was the worst thing anybody could ever say and I am so sorry. Those of you who know me, you know I&#8217;m not like that, but those who don&#8217;t know me who have only been working here a couple years, let me prove myself that you know who I am. I wanted to be sure that was my one train of thought, that I got to apologize and was accountable that I did say it and I am sorry.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-1248490735\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><strong>\u2022On switching to the second phase of his locker room speech strategy:<\/strong> Then I switched gears to Plan B. And I said now I want to let you guys know this is the biggest spotlight in the world, WWE is the biggest spotlight in the world; if you&#8217;re a little star don&#8217;t even slip on a banana peel. Try not to make any mistakes like I made. When you&#8217;re a big star and you make a big mistake, you&#8217;ll be on the front page of every newspaper, every magazine. I made a mistake, and the WWE machine is so big and made me such a big star, everybody knows what&#8217;s going one, so please be careful &#8211; everyone has cell phones and cameras. Be careful. I had the train of thought A and train of thought B, and I made it as clear as I could possibly make it. I admit I was nervous. I&#8217;ve never been that nervous in my life talking to my peers. Those are my two things. A lot of people accepted my apology. A lot of people heard what they wanted to hear. A lot of the narrative that came out of the meeting was off point. A lot of the narrative was really different because I was surprised to hear some people interpreted what I said that I was just sorry I got caught on camera. I never said that. But I guess sometimes the media and people go with the most negative narrative that can come out of there. That&#8217;s pretty much what happened.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2022On wishing wrestlers not forgiving him understood the &#8220;brotherhood&#8221;:<\/strong>\u00a0&#8220;It is what it is. I said those words. It was totally unacceptable. I wanted to get in front of all the talent and apologize and I wanted to move forward.\u00a0I just hope the brotherhood can get back to the way it was because when you&#8217;re in the ring and somebody is piledriving somebody and body slamming somebody, you protect your brother and you make sure physically they&#8217;re safe. And outside the ring, you&#8217;re supposed to protect your brother. In this case, it&#8217;s a situation where 75, 80, 90 percent of the wrestlers are protecting me and they&#8217;re giving me another chance, you know, to move forward.\u00a0There&#8217;s\u00a0just a few wrestlers that kinda like don&#8217;t understand the bond and the brotherhood of wrestling and if someone makes a mistake, you need to forgive them and move on and try to let them prove themselves. But I just wish I could have one-on-one conversations with people who don&#8217;t know me and try to explain myself better. All in all, it was a great day and a highlight of my life to be back in the Hall of Fame and be able to move forward. It&#8217;s been a great time these last couple weeks.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>CHECK OUT THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stitcher.com\/podcast\/the-apter-chat\">THE APTER CHAT WITH HULK HOGAN<\/a><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>RELATED STORY:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2018\/07\/15\/hulk-hogan-wwe-suspension-lifted-after-three-years-announces-wwe-hogan-meets-with-wwe-locker-room-this-afternoon\/\">Hulk Hogan WWE suspension lifted after three years, announces WWE, Hogan meets with WWE locker room this afternoon<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>RELATED STORY:<\/strong>\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2018\/07\/19\/titus-oneal-says-he-hopes-hogans-statement-to-wwe-wrestlers-on-sunday-isnt-repeated-says-apology-lacked-remorse-or-desire-to-change\/\">Titus O\u2019Neal says he hopes Hogan\u2019s statement to WWE wrestlers on Sunday isn\u2019t repeated, says apology lacked remorse or desire to change<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-2676434890\"><div id=\"pwtor-2125068007\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>Hulk Hogan appeared on Bill Apter&#8217;s new podcast, &#8220;Apter Chat,&#8221; last week. He addressed a few hot topics, most noteworthy being back in the WWE Hall of Fame and the locker room speech he gave <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2018\/08\/21\/interview-highlights-hulk-hogan-talks-about-his-locker-room-meeting-his-disappointment-with-some-wrestlers-not-accepting-his-apology-being-a-role-model-talking-with-vince-and-triple-h\/\" title=\"Interview Highlights: Hulk Hogan talks about his locker room meeting, his disappointment with some wrestlers not accepting his apology, being a role model, talking with Vince and Triple H\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-prowrestlingnews","category-news_wwe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/HoganHulk_artTB_6001.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64934,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64929\/revisions\/64934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}