Wrestling the Hulk: My Life Against the Ropes

by Linda Hogan

  At the time, Terry and I took our relationship minute by minute. There was no talk about goals or dreams. There was no conversation about marriage or kids. We were living on the edge. It was fresh, exciting, and fun. Everything was totally different going out with Terry. Going to the gym with him was new for me. Going to wrestling matches was new for me. Hanging out with wrestlers was new for me. A date with him wasn’t the typical night of going to dinner and a movie. He’d call me and ask me to fly to see him and I’d usually go. Little by little he was teaching me about the wrestling business. I also noticed that he was a king among men. He was the lead dude among all the other wrestlers. Maybe the Rocky movie put him there. I don’t know. But I just saw that he had a presence that none of the other wrestlers had. I usually got bored with guys quickly, but Terry intrigued me and kept my interest.

  Taking a Gamble in Vegas

  Girl meets boy. Girl dates boy. Can girl keep boy? Terry and I continued our long-distance romance, but I felt like I was always so readily available for him whenever he invited me to another city to see him. Everybody likes a challenge, especially a competitive athlete like him. I realized that I needed to be a little less available to keep him on his toes. So that’s exactly what I did. I decided that the next time Terry asked me to come to see him, I would tell him no and then surprise him! Sure enough, a few days later, he asked me to come to Vegas and I told him no. After we hung up, I immediately booked a flight, bolted out of the house, and headed to Vegas.

  Upon landing at the McCarran Airport, I took a cab directly to the arena where he was wrestling. I arrived there at about seven thirty P.M., and a preliminary match was already under way. His wrestling buddies immediately saw me in the audience and reported back to the Hulkster. I was dressed in a tight dress with long red fingernails and lots of makeup. Let’s just say I stood out in a crowd.

  To my surprise, Terry didn’t seem happy to see me. I began to think I made a terrible mistake and became embarrassed for showing up without calling him first. I felt like I walked in on a party that I wasn’t invited to. Then it hit me: I’m dating Terry exclusively, but maybe he’s not dating me exclusively, I thought. When I told him I wasn’t coming to Vegas, maybe he made plans with another woman.

  Terry and I got along so great that I never stopped to think about the possibility of him being with any other women. I often forgot I was dating a celebrity and about the fact that he probably had girlfriends in other towns. In Terry’s defense, we had never spoken about being exclusive. But we had so much fun together and had so much in common, I thought it was just understood. I finally asked Terry if he had other girlfriends. He told me that he didn’t and explained that he couldn’t get serious with me because he was on the road all the time. I understood.

  That night, we went back to Terry’s hotel room and made love. Then he fell right to sleep. The following morning when I had to leave to go back to Los Angeles, he didn’t even get up to say good-bye. In fact, he never even looked at me. He simply told me that there was a hundred dollars on the table for my airfare back home. Wow, now I really feel like a call girl, I thought.

  I took a gamble surprising Terry in Vegas and it clearly didn’t pay off. Quick tip: Boyfriends don’t like girlfriends showing up unexpectedly. When I got back to Los Angeles, I decided I would play a little hard to get with no more surprises. Terry would call the salon and I told the girls to tell him I wasn’t there and they didn’t know where I was. I became elusive and created some mystery. I really stuck to my guns. And, boy, did it work! Pretty soon he missed having the convenient access to me and all the fun we had together. Terry even asked me to come live with him in Minnesota.

  I remembered from working at the nail shop that a lot of the girls complained about getting dumped by their boyfriends soon after they moved in together. Again, it’s that old saying, Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? In other words, why would the guy ask you to marry him if you’re already giving him all that he wants? Moving in with a guy whom you’re not married to seems to doom relationships. Well, as far as I was concerned, Terry was going to have to buy the cow. When I told him that I didn’t want to move in together, I didn’t hear from him for an entire week. Uh-oh, there goes a perfectly good guy, I thought. That’s it. We’re done.

  A week later, Terry phoned me at the salon and said he needed to talk to me urgently in person. He seemed very serious. He asked me to fly to San Francisco where he was wrestling at the Cow Palace.

  I flew up there although I had the feeling that he wanted to break up. I could almost hear him now, “Linda, you’re a great girl, but it’s not going to work out.” Well, if he’s going to dump me, I’m going to make it difficult for him, I thought. So I made sure I looked smoking hot, wearing the shortest little leopard-print miniskirt and sexiest heels I owned. Hey, I wasn’t going down without a fight!

  After the wrestling match, I took a cab with Terry to his hotel room at the Ramada Inn. He seemed nervous in the car and wasn’t talking very much. We went to his room, and he asked me to sit on the edge of the bed. He started the conversation by saying, “You’ll recall that I mentioned that anybody I was going to marry I had to live with first.”

  “Yeah,” I said, with a nervous gulp.

  Terry went on to say that he loved me and that during the past week when he went back home to Florida for a visit, he began thinking about our relationship. He said he also saw his old girlfriend Donna as well as his parents. He explained that he did a lot of soul searching and that he came to a decision. I figured it was at this point that he was building up for the big breakup. He was quiet for a moment, looked me in the eyes, and said, “Linda, I love you. Will you please marry me?” And it was at this point I realized that he was down on bended knee!

  “Yes. Yes! I will!” My head was spinning! We hugged and kissed each other. I was so shocked at the turn of events! Here I thought when I was flying up that it would be the last time I saw him. But this was what I’d hoped for and apparently he had too! We didn’t want to be apart from each other anymore.

  I didn’t know what kind of husband Terry would be, but I did know that I had never met anyone who captured and kept my heart as long as he did. I felt like I was constantly learning things with him. I had never been out of the state of California before I met him. Now, I was zipping all over the place! I loved the lifestyle and learning about new people and places with him. I loved his craziness. I loved how we would be rolling down a highway in some random state and out of nowhere he would practice his prematch interview talk that he became famous for. I was amazed by the things Terry would come up with and say on the fly. I loved going to the matches and seeing and hearing the screaming fans. I loved that he was somebody, and I was always proud to be his girl.

  Terry also had that southern gentleman quality about him. He was very generous with me and always opened doors. Although we never discussed kids, I knew that I was crazy about him and didn’t know exactly what love was. Did I love him? I felt like I did. But what is love? You want a finite answer to that, but it never came to me. I just knew that I didn’t want to lose Terry. I made my decision that I was willing to go wherever the road took me with him.

  After he asked me to marry him, I came home and told my parents. I think they realized that no matter what they said or did, they were not going to force me out of this relationship. They had met Terry on several occasions and also thought he was a southern gentleman and not the persona that he seemed to be in Rocky III. My parents trusted my decision. They were excited for me. Terry wanted to ask my parents for their blessing to marry me anyway. He invited them to dinner, and on the way over to the restaurant we stopped by to see my friend Dana, who was also a manicurist, and we changed clothes at her place. We took a shower, and Terry asked me if I could wash his jeans for him. When we came out of the shower and I went to transfer his jeans into the dryer, I found out it was broken! He had to wear wet jeans to the restaurant and was not thrilled about it.

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nbsp; We went to this fabulous English Tudor–style steak restaurant called Bob Burns in Woodland Hills, California. I think my parents knew he was going to ask them. We made small talk and had dinner. Then, Terry said to my father, “I love your daughter and I think she’s special. I don’t know how I could live without her. I want to marry Linda; do I have your permission?”

  My father said, “Yes. I just want you to take care of her. I know you travel on airplanes and I don’t want her to get hurt. Please look out for her.” I was so surprised to hear how he kind of passed the torch. He was really concerned that Terry would take good care of me. My mother made one point when she said, “Terry, you have to promise to not take our girl away from us. You travel a lot and are from Florida, but she has a big family here and we love her and we don’t want her to disappear.”

  “I promise,” Terry responded.

  Ring Bells to Wedding Bells

  On December 18, 1983, my wedding to Terry was like a scene right out of the circus—the geeks, freaks, midgets, and giants were all in attendance. How could you expect anything less when you’re marrying a professional wrestler?

  Terry and I created our own guest lists for the wedding and then combined them for one master list that consisted of two hundred people. My list was composed of my big Italian family, wild manicurists, and beach girlfriends. Terry’s was a bit different. Although he invited his childhood friends, their spouses, and his family from Florida, he also invited his wrestling family from Minnesota and all points in between. When I looked at the names on Terry’s guest list, I immediately knew we were in for one wild wedding reception: Adrian Adonis, Dizzy Hogan, André the Giant, and Bobby “The Brain” Heenan, among others. It was certainly a roundup of colorful characters. Other very important names on Terry’s list were wrestling promoter Vince McMahon Jr. and his wife, Linda. Terry had recently signed a contract with Vince, and plans were all set for us to move to New York after the wedding so he could wrestle for the World Wrestling Federation. McMahon seemed to have big plans for expanding the WWF with Terry as the centerpiece. Our marriage marked an important moment for all of us. While Vince had already brought us into his wrestling family, we were now bringing him into ours.

  Since Terry spent five years early in his career wrestling professionally in Japan, there were many Japanese guests and dignitaries attending our nuptials. They had an incredible amount of respect for Terry, and he was consistently a big draw over there, mainly because of his flowing blond hair and size. They worshipped Hulk Hogan just like he was a sumo wrestler. Before we got married, Terry flew me to Japan. The first day there, I wore my hair in two pigtails, and a lot of photographs were taken of me like that. After we got married, I saw a lot of cartoon drawings of Terry and me in Japanese magazines. They always depicted me with those blond pigtails. I guess my two pigtails, orange lips, and orange nails were my thing.

  With all of Terry’s time spent in Japan, it certainly made sense that Terry would invite his Japanese friends and wrestling colleagues to California for the ceremony. Now, we all know that the Japanese love cameras, right? Well, the Japanese at our wedding were no exception. A Japanese film crew of eight showed up ready to film all of the action from start to finish. Hulk Hogan was a big star in Japan, and their big star was getting married. That added up to major news for them! The legendary Japanese wrestling champion, Antonio Inoki, attended our wedding and, along with Terry, gave me a special gift before the ceremony. They each handed me a velvet gift box, and inside each one was a beautiful and breathtaking strand of real pearls. I wore both strands on the big day and felt just like Jackie O.

  The necklaces matched my beautiful wedding dress, which had pearls all over it. The dress also had long lace sleeves and a veil that flowed behind me, almost twenty feet long. I wore cute white ankle strap shoes and tucked into my bra was a blue hankie, which was my grandmother’s and intended to bring me good luck. Last, I wore a sexy garter with a little touch of red and green on it to celebrate the Christmas holiday season.

  My mom fixed my hair with my sister, aunts, and grandmother looking on. Once I was ready, we all hopped in the limo together to go to the church, which was a beautiful cathedral. From the pipe organ to the hand-carved crucifixes to the large stained-glass windows, I was certain it would be a marriage made in heaven. The church was built in the 1800s in the heart of Hollywood, California. Yep, another Hollywood marriage. So I guess I am a Hollywood wife.

  Terry and I said our vows, and I believed that doing so in the eyes of God would somehow help him live up to them. I truly believed Terry when he accepted the vows read by the priest and said, “I do.” He placed a beautiful three-carat pear-shaped diamond on my left hand, and I placed a beautiful gold nugget–style ring with three diamonds on his. The three diamonds signified Rocky III. After all, that’s where I first saw him.

  Terry and I kissed, then happily walked the great length of the church to the crush of people outside who tossed rice at us. Wrestlers have big hands, so when seven-foot-four André the Giant tosses rice at you, it’s like a snowstorm! We got in the back of the limo, dusted ourselves off, and immediately popped a bottle of champagne, which awaited us on ice. We toasted the start of our brand-new life together as husband and wife. To the world we were now Mr. and Mrs. Hulk Hogan. To our families, we were Mr. and Mrs. Terry Bollea. To us, soul mates.

  It was like a fairy tale come true.

  Terry and I were whisked off in the stretch limo to our wedding party, which was at the Westwood Marquis (now the W Hotel) in Westwood, California. We had an absolute blast! Hulk, André, and the other wrestlers held the bar up all night long. I remember the band played “New York, New York,” which was soon to be our new home. Terry and I took the dance floor alone as everyone looked on with glee in their eyes. Then I tossed the bouquet, which my friend Dana caught. Terry also had to remove my garter in front of the crowd. The sexy stripper music kicked in, and to everyone’s surprise Terry got down on one knee and pulled it off . . . with his teeth! The guests screamed, laughed, and applauded just as though he was in the wrestling ring. A true performer.

  At the end of the night when Terry carried me over the threshold of our hotel suite, I felt like the luckiest girl in the world. I had ordered some room service and was getting out of my wedding dress when there was a knock at the door. Room service is here already? I thought. I opened the door and to my complete surprise, it was my mom. “Is everything okay?” I asked, surprised.

  “The wrestlers have been down there drinking all night, and they want me to pay the bar tab, which is twelve thousand dollars,” she said. “I don’t have the cash or a credit card to cover that.”

  I felt for my mom, and she had no choice but to ask Terry for the money. That really upset him. He was going to take care of me from the wedding night on, but he felt that the party was a send-off and the bride’s parents should cover it. I understood that. My mother understood that. And my family understood that. However, it was a bad situation, and I know my mom felt sorry for asking, but she had no other choice. Terry tossed his wallet to me and generously came to the rescue. I felt bad for him, but my mother did plan and pay for the entire wedding despite the fact that her house had burned down just two months before. My mother apologized profusely and kissed me good-bye.

  After my mother left, I went into the bathroom and changed into a sexy negligee. When I came out Terry had fallen asleep, so drunk and tired that he still had steak in his mouth. Not exactly what wedding night dreams are made of.

  Chapter Four

  Coast to Coast

  A FEW MONTHS BEFORE TERRY AND I GOT MARRIED, Vince McMahon Jr. and Terry reunited by phone again. Vince Jr. called with an offer we couldn’t refuse. He flew out to our condo in Minnesota to talk about a new business opportunity with his company the World Wrestling Federation (WWF).

  Terry was really putting his name on the map in Minnesota as a wrestler to be reckoned with. Then, with the further exposure from appearing in the Rocky III mo
vie, Terry’s star was definitely on the rise. There was no doubt that Vince had a keen sense of business and noticed the attention on the Hulk. He was always ten steps ahead of the other promoters and a genius when it came to marketing and television. Vince and his wife, Linda, would eventually take this business from small, dingy, dimly lit no-name arenas with fifty to one hundred people in the audience to a billion-dollar, multimedia, worldwide company.

  Vince knew that Terry was his golden boy, and Terry soon became his golden goose by becoming the front man for the WWF.

  WHEN VINCE FIRST CAME TO MINNESOTA TO MEET WITH TERRY, Terry asked me to pick Vince up at the airport while he showered after a wrestling match. Vince was tall with a commanding presence, just like his wrestlers. He was also charismatic, with a great announcer’s voice. Vince recognized me instantly. He introduced himself and gave me a big hug. On the way back to the condo, we made conversation, which mainly consisted of talking about the old days working with Terry. When we got to our place, Vince and Terry got along great. They sat in the living room together for hours, hard at work mapping out a plan. From the laughs coming out of the living room while I worked in the kitchen, it was clear that they acted like no time had passed and they definitely seemed excited by the new plans.

  They eventually invited me into the living room to speak with me about their business ideas. They also wanted to see if I was up for us doing what Vince needed us to do. It was clear that there was not only going to be a lot of traveling to matches in different cities, but there were going to be many photo shoots, interviews, live television, and marketing meetings in order to put wrestling on the map. It seemed like it was going to be a constant flow of work with no time off.