Hulk Hogan 'paralysed': Is the wrestler's famed ‘leg drop of doom’ to blame?
Wrestler and Olympic gold winner Kurt Angle revealed on his podcast that Hulk Hogan last week told him he had lost ‘all feeling’ in his lower body after yet another back surgery. Hogan, real name Terry Bollea, has in the past blamed his finishing move the ‘leg drop of doom’ for his health troubles.
Hulk Hogan has claimed to have undergone more than a dozen surgeries.
Hulk Hogan can no longer ‘feel his legs’, according to his friend and fellow wrestler Kurt Angle.
Angle, the former Olympic champion and retired WWE star, revealed on his podcast that Hogan – real name is Terry Bollea – recently told him he had lost ‘all feeling’ from the waist down after yet another back surgery.
Angle said Hogan made the comments last week backstage at the 30th anniversary of WWE’s TV show Monday Night Raw.
Let’s take a closer look at what Hogan said and whether his condition has anything to do with his famous finishing move the ‘leg drop of doom’:
What did Hogan say?
Metro UK quoted Angle as saying that Hogan claimed he had his nerves cut during surgery and can no longer feel his lower body.
As per News.com.Au, the 1996 Olympic gold medal winner stated that Hogan now needs a cane to get around.
“I thought he was using the cane because he had pain in his back. He doesn’t have any pain. He has nothing at all. He can’t feel anything,” Angle said.
‘So now he can’t feel his legs, so he has to walk with a cane.”
That’s pretty serious, man. I mean, I really feel for Hogan. He put his heart and soul into the business and it ate him up.’
Hogan last week opened RAW’s 30th-anniversary show flanked by long-time real life friend and manager Jimmy Hart.
“I mean, if you’re gonna kick off the show, the 30th anniversary of Raw, [it] should be Hulk Hogan. He’s the name and face of the company. He’s the guy that revolutionised pro wrestling. I have so much respect for him,” Angle concluded, as per News.com.Au.
As per Metro UK, Hogan has claimed to have undergone 17 surgeries – 10 of those on his back alone.
“My knees are fake, hips are fake, back is full of metal and part of my face is full of metal… I didn’t get the memo about the fake wrestling,” the website quoted him as saying.
Is the leg drop really to blame?
Hogan has in the past blamed his health troubles on his signature move.
In 2019, he told the Los Angeles Times in an interview his back was in its condition because he had to drop the leg “over 300 times a year”.
He also claimed he would never have used the maneuver if he had known its long-term effects on his body.
“All the back surgeries I’ve had are because of that leg drop… Dropping that leg for 35 years did me in,” he told the newspaper.
Hogan is yet to publicly comment on Angle’s claims.
However, it is important to note that Hogan has a history of, shall we say, stretching the truth including:
- Saying the Undertaker once hurt him by dropping him on his head with a tombstone piledriver
- Claiming he once worked 400 days a year
- That 93,173 people were jammed into the Pontiac Silverdome to witness Wrestlemania III (the WWE makes the same claim, but the actual number was approximately 78,000)
- Andre The Giant weighed 600 pounds at the time of their most famous match
- He fought Pride fighters in the 1970s (the company was established in 1997)
- That Metallica wanted him to be their lead singer
- That filmmaker Darren Aronofsky thrice offered him the lead role in his movie The Wrestler.
So anything Hogan claims – in an industry by its very nature prone to exaggeration and hyperbole – should be taken with at least a pinch of salt.
The news also comes just days after Hogan put up two tweets that read ‘Help’ followed by “I ran out of toilet paper brother, help!!!!!!!!”
The tweets, which left fans wondering what had just happened, were quickly deleted.
With inputs from agencies
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