Hulk Hogan on His Ex-Wife, His Daughter’s Love Life, and a Possible Feud With Bubba the Love Sponge

April 29, 2010
Photo: The Howard Stern Show

A Radio Man

Hulk Hogan stopped by promote TNA Wrestling and told the crew something was missing: “I miss Artie, man. You know what? Artie’s going to make a huge comeback and take this whole place over.”

Howard hoped so, asking how Hulk felt about hosting his recent special on Howard101.

Hulk said he’d had an epidural for back pain just an hour before going on-air, and that was the easy part: “It was cool. The tough part was you guys throwing me to the wolves…I probably should’ve had about 10 or 12 years of radio before I walked into a studio. It’s like taking someone off the street and putting them in a fighter jet and just kicking the fighter jet off the end of the aircraft carrier and going, ‘Fly!'”

Hulk said good radio wasn’t easy: “There’s a pacing. There’s a timing. There’s a flow. Oh my god, man. Much respect.”

His Feud With Bubba the Love Sponge

Photo: The Howard Stern Show

Howard asked if Hulk was just pretending to be feuding with Bubba on TNA, so Hulk explained: “That was a shoot. We have stuff that’s a work…a shoot is when it really goes down.”

Hulk went on to say Bubba was a positive addiction to TNA’s talent roster–unlike ‘Awesome Kong,’ the female wrestler who infamously gave Bubba an off-script/on-camera slap.

Howard asked if the name ‘Awesome Kong’ was latently racist, but Hulk balked: “Brother, I didn’t name her that.”

On His Ex-Wife Linda

Photo: The Howard Stern Show

Howard wondered if Hulk’s ex-wife, Linda, also had to share the cost of the damage from their son’s car accident, but Hulk explained: “No, no she doesn’t. She’s out of the mix. She did some stuff to get herself out of the situation.”

Hulk said he was glad to have Linda out of his hair. Hulk told the crew that his marriage was falling apart when Vh1 approached the family to film ‘Hogan Knows Best’: “It was already unraveling…I was hoping that if Linda got on camera and Linda became a star, that–that marriage that was unraveling, maybe it would pull us back together…but it didn’t. It made it worse.”

The show’s final season is a glimpse into that crumbling marriage: “When we hit Miami, it was pretty much over.”

Brooke Hogan’s Love Life

Photo: The Howard Stern Show

Hulk said he was glad to see Brooke had broken up with ‘$tack$,’ her longtime boyfriend: “Mismatch, bro. You know, I fought that fight for so long. And Brooke’s 21 now. Up until she was 18, I would bluff these guys. But then, you know, you gotta let these kids make the right choices and hope to God they make the right choices and that was the wrong choice.”

Howard asked if Hulk would’ve let Brooke marry the guy, but Hulk denied it: “Nah. I would’ve stepped in and said all that stuff.”