Hogan’s death on July 24 was confirmed by the Clearwater Police Department in Florida. In a statement, officials said fire and police personnel responded to a medical call at 9:51 a.m. ET in Clearwater Beach on the Gulf Coast of Florida, near Tampa.
Authorities said “the nature of the call was for a cardiac arrest” and Hogan was pronounced dead at 11:17 a.m.
“A 71-year-old resident, Terry Bollea, also known as Hulk Hogan, was treated by Clearwater Fire & Rescue crews before being taken by Sunstar to Morton Plant Hospital, where he was pronounced deceased,” the statement read.
Police said there was no suspected foul play or suspicious activity.
Hogan’s death comes after E! News reported in June Hogan underwent neck surgery and the procedure “has indeed been successful.” Rumors had been circulating on social media about Hogan’s health since then, and longtime friend Jimmy Hart said on July 22 he was “doing phenomenal.” Hogan dealt with several injuries during his wrestling career, primarily with his back.
Considered one of the most popular wrestlers of all-time, Hogan was instrumental in the rise of wrestling’s popularity, considered one of the first larger-than-life personas. He influenced several stars that joined the business after him.
He was a six-time WWE Champion and was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame twice, once in 2005 and in 2020 as part of the New World Order.
Bollea is widely recognized as the biggest wrestling star of all time and helped WWE become the behemoth that it is today. In the 1980s and 1990s, Bollea’s larger-than-life personality – in and out of the ring – made him a household name and a crossover mainstream star, starring in movies and recognized around the world.
“WWE is saddened to learn WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan has passed away. One of pop culture’s most recognizable figures, Hogan helped WWE achieve global recognition in the 1980s,” the company said in a post on X. “WWE extends its condolences to Hogan’s family, friends, and fans.”
Hulk Hogan makes his entrance during a show in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1991. WWE/Getty Images
The city of Clearwater, Florida, said in a statement that police and fire personnel were dispatched to Bollea’s home after a report of an individual in cardiac arrest. Bollea was treated by fire and rescue crews when they arrived and was transported to Morton Plant Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. TMZ was first to report the news.
Police said in a news conference that there were no signs of suspicious activity in his death and an investigation is ongoing.
With his boasts of possessing “24-inch pythons” for arms and his reminders to “say your prayers and eat your vitamins,” Bollea was instrumental in wrestling’s 1980s “golden era.” Bollea’s popularity and his rivalries with “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, André Rene Roussimoff – known as André the Giant, “Macho Man” Randy Savage and scores of others made professional wrestling a multi-billion-dollar industry in the 1980s and early 1990s.
His decision to leave the then-World Wrestling Federation for World Championship Wrestling (WCW) in the mid-1990s sent shockwaves around the wrestling world. His “heel turn” – the wrestling term for a hero turning into a villain – in 1996 and his run as “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan is one of the most memorable periods of wrestling history and helped WCW usurp Bollea’s former company in television ratings for 83 weeks – the last time WWE trailed another wrestling company in the traditional measure of popularity.
His time in WCW would eventually turn sour as Bollea took part in the “Finger Poke of Doom,” a moment that exposed professional wrestling’s predetermined nature to a level that had not been seen before. That incident – in which wrestler Kevin Nash flopped on his back after being poked by Bollea, allowing the evil Hollywood Hogan to once again become the WCW champion – sent the company into a period of crisis that turned off fans so much that WWE was able to eventually buy its competition for a relative pittance.
Hogan, in his badder “Hollywood” persona, takes on The Rock in an iconic match at WrestleMania X8 in 2002. George Pimentel/WireImage
Bollea eventually returned to WWE as a full-time performer in the early 2000s, having a celebrated match with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson at WrestleMania X8 in which two of wrestling’s biggest-ever stars created a cauldron of noise at Toronto’s Rogers Centre, then known as the SkyDome.
“The Hulkster” would spend a few more years with WWE before moving over to its competition once again by signing with Total Nonstop Action (TNA) wrestling in 2010. His time with TNA would not be nearly as celebrated as Bollea and other older wrestling stars would be featured on the company’s programming to the detriment of younger talent that became disillusioned with the company and its leadership. He eventually left TNA after three years, not having achieved the same kind of success as he had in his early WCW run when he challenged WWE’s supremacy.
The WWE Hall of Famer would return to the company once more until he was caught on tape making racial slurs in a video that surfaced in 2015, a moment that tarnished his legacy among scores of wrestling fans and wrestlers. At the time, WWE ended its contract and removed many mentions of him from its website.
Bollea would apologize for his comments, which were recorded in an “unauthorized sex tape,” according to the Enquirer, and included the n-word in reference to the dating life of his daughter, Brooke.
“Eight years ago, I used offensive language during a conversation,” Bollea said in a statement at the time. “It was unacceptable for me to have used that offensive language; there is no excuse for it; and I apologize for having done it.”
That sex tape was instrumental in the destruction of Gawker, an acerbic website that frequently took on pop culture and governmental figures in the 2000s and early 2010s. The website published the tape on its site, leading to a prolonged lawsuit over the outlet’s invasion of Bollea’s privacy. The $115 million judgment bankrupted the website and became a pivotal moment in media law.
While Bollea reportedly apologized to the WWE locker room for using slurs, many wrestlers never forgave him. His reception at future appearances in the company – he returned in an on-air capacity in 2019 and would make sporadic appearances until his death – received mix reactions and he was sometimes outright booed by the crowds.
Bollea’s death comes a little more than a month before the first event by his new wrestling company, Real American Freestyle. That company seeks to provide a bigger platform for traditional wrestling – the kind one would see in the Olympics rather than WWE’s version – and was set to host its initial event on August 30.
“We lost our commissioner. We lost a friend. And the sport of wrestling lost one of its greatest champions, not just in the ring, but in spirit,” said Chad Bronstein, CEO and co-founder of Real American Freestyle.
“Hulk Hogan believed wrestling was more than just entertainment. He saw it as a brotherhood, a proving ground and a platform for greatness. That’s what Real American Freestyle was built to be, a new stage for the toughest, most passionate athletes on Earth. And Hulk was at the center of it,” Bronstein stated.
