10 Wrestlers Who Had Heat With Hulk Hogan

Hulk Hogan was one of the biggest icons in the history of the business and a crossover star who penetrated the mainstream. He was also a lightning rod for controversy and he remains divisive to this day due to his past racist comments and recent penchant for being pictured with neo-Nazis. 

Whilst there are a fair few individuals who aren’t the biggest fans of The Hulkster, the following names had escalated and more public issues with him. Whilst some of these issues were eventually eased, the following includes some of the all-time greats of the business. 

These are 10 Wrestlers Who Had Heat with Hulk Hogan. 

10. Jesse Ventura

Shortly before WrestleMania 2, Jesse Ventura attempted to unionise WWE’s locker room in a bid to get better working conditions and compensation for everybody (including once their in-ring careers were over). Most of the boys in the back weren’t sold on the idea, believing it needed the support of WWE Champion Hulk Hogan to really work. When The Body told The Hulkster about his plan, Hogan went and blabbed straight to Vince McMahon. 

Jesse only found out exactly who ratted him out eight years after the fact and he was not happy about it given the two had been friends beforehand. Ventura has held a grudge against Hogan ever since, so much so that his overwhelming negativity towards the idea of Hulk joining WCW was a major factor in Eric Bischoff’s decision to let the announcer go. 

Jesse’s stance hasn’t softened in the decades since, telling Chris Van Vliet in an August 2024 interview that he will never bury the hatchet with Hogan due to what he considers a major betrayal.

9. Bob Backlund

Before Hulkamania started running wild, WWE was represented by a very different sort of champion. Prior to losing the WWE Title to transitional champ The Iron Sheik (who dropped it to Hogan), Bob Backlund had reigned for years as the clean-cut, all-American boy.

Backlund prided himself on being a role model to children and wanted to project an image that was family-friendly and virtuous. Hogan also projected this image but, unlike Bob, he didn’t exactly practice what he preached. 

In a 2015 interview, Backlund admitted that he resented Hogan for telling children to take their vitamins and say their prayers, while the man himself had ‘cheated’ (in Backlund’s words) to get and then stay ahead. Backlund said he found it embarrassing that a two-faced person like Hogan had succeeded him and Bruno Sammartino and lambasted Hulk for failing to meet the same standards outside of the ring. 

Bob stressed that he didn’t hate The Hulkster, but that he wouldn’t have made him champion on his watch. He also said no to turning heel and having a programme with WWE Champion Hogan so he didn’t disappoint the fans who had stood by him during his own lengthy title reign.

8. The Undertaker

The Undertaker’s first WWE Title win should have been an occasion for him to savour, but The Deadman had to worry about the fact he might have injured the company’s biggest star in doing so. When ‘Taker hit Hogan with a Tombstone Piledriver onto a chair at the 1991 Survivor Series, Hulk whispered ‘Ow, you got me, brother’ upon impact, implying that he had been dropped him on his head for real (before going backstage to seek medical attention).

Undertaker was devastated about it, with some (including the man himself) believing WWE’s decision to have ‘Taker drop the title back to Hogan six days later was a punishment of sorts. Despite immediately being reassured by Shane McMahon that Hulk’s head was nowhere near the mat, it wasn’t until ‘Taker himself reviewed the tape prior to their rematch that he realised what the truth was and confronted Hogan about it. 

Hogan cooked up a story about The Phenom’s knees being too tight around his neck while delivering the Tombstone, which didn’t wash with ‘Taker. Though he was never outright hostile towards Hogan after, ‘Taker knew what he was all about and his radar was on high alert whenever he was around The Hulkster.

7. Scott Steiner

Scott Steiner has never been afraid to speak his mind and has, in the past, launched foul-mouth tirades in the direction of Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, Diamond Dallas Page, Ric Flair and others. In 2012, Steiner launched his latest attack – via his Twitter page – at Hulk Hogan.

The Genetic Freak had choice words for Hogan and Eric Bischoff, accusing the gruesome twosome of ruining TNA, but most of his venom was reserved for The Hulkster. Hogan himself tried to claim he had lobbied to keep Steiner in the company and then gave an interview saying that Steiner must be unhappy in his life if he’s going after him.

Steiner responded by saying he was going to knock Hogan unconscious and that ‘his day was coming’. This all ended up playing out in public during WrestleMania 31 weekend, where Steiner was banned from the building for the Hall of Fame ceremony after Hulk’s then-wife had called the cops on Steiner following a confrontation at an airport. 

6. Shawn Michaels

When Shawn Michaels agreed to work with Hulk Hogan in the Summer of 2005, he believed it was for a three-match series that would see both men work as babyfaces, with The Hulkster ultimately winning 2 matches to his 1. As he was prone to do, Hogan played his ‘creative control’ card and got things changed. Michaels had to briefly turn heel, something that irked him, and he would lose a one-match series to Hogan too. 

Not only did Shawn take Hulk apart verbally during interviews and segments leading up to the big bout, but he also then entered a now-legendarily over-the-top performance in response to Hogan’s politicking, overselling everything to the point the match almost veered into parody territory.  

In the years since, Michaels has been less-than-complimentary about Hulk, while Hogan claims Vince McMahon dictated the storyline and that he only pulled out of match number two when HBK started acting up. 

5. Bret Hart

Bret Hart has held a grudge for a long time towards Hulk Hogan. According to Bret, Hogan was scheduled to drop the WWE Title to him in the main event of SummerSlam 1993, passing the torch to the Excellence of Execution as the face of the WWE’s New Generation in the process. 

However. Hogan opted to lose the belt to Yokozuna at the King Of The Ring event instead. Hart claims to have confronted Hogan in the dressing room about the snub and accused him of playing politics to rob him of his crowning moment. 

Despite this, the two men cleared the air and worked together harmoniously in WCW. However, something has changed since those days and Bret will never miss a chance to take a shot at the man.

4. Matt Borne

Hulk Hogan left WWE after WrestleMania VIII, as the heat from the looming steroid scandal (not made any better by Hogan’s infamous, lie-filled appearance on the Arsenio Hall show) had simply gotten too hot. 

He returned in the run-up to WrestleMania IX, where he teamed with Brutus Beefcake to defeat Money Inc., before waltzing out later in the show to bag the WWE Title from Yokozuna.

According to Matt Borne, AKA the original Doink the Clown, he was originally supposed to wrestle Hogan at the Showcase of the Immortals, but Hogan allegedly didn’t want to. Borne, presumably bitter at losing out on a bigger WrestleMania payday, held it against the Hall Of Famer, though his issues with Hogan weren’t limited to just his refusal to work with him. As Matt would explain in later years, he considered Hogan to be an arrogant phoney who he found hard to like as a person. Borne also disliked Hogan for what he supposedly did to Randy Savage. 

3. Mick Foley

Mick Foley is known as one of pro wrestling’s nice guys and you’ll struggle to find anybody within the industry who has a negative thing to say about him. However, Hogan found something to throw shade over.  

During an appearance on TSN’s Off The Record in 2003, Hogan criticised Foley for not working out as much as he did and for ‘prostituting’ his body by working a more extreme style. On the same programme months later, a clearly upset Foley responded by saying that he was in good cardiovascular shape when he wrestled, citing long matches with the likes of Shawn Michaels, Steve Austin and The Rock as evidence. 

He also called Hogan’s comments about him ‘cruel’ and said that at least fans didn’t have to apologise after watching some of his matches. Hogan finally apologised to Foley for his comments (almost 22 years after the fact) during an episode of A&E’s Most Wanted Treasures, admitting his ignorance and expressing regret for what he said. 

2. The Ultimate Warrior

The Ultimate Warrior was supposed to be the heir apparent to Hulk Hogan’s WWE throne, with Vince McMahon seeing him as the man to take WWE forward in the early 1990s. But even a WrestleMania main event victory over The Hulkster, which was supposed to be a passing of the torch, didn’t get Warrior to that next level and it wasn’t too long before Hogan was back in the top spot. 

The two worked together later in WCW, which included a downright disastrous match at Halloween Havoc 1998, and were apparently on decent enough terms away from the ring. This changed following the release of WWE’s The Self-Destruction of The Ultimate Warrior DVD. 

As one of the DVD’s talking heads, Hogan was shown making disparaging remarks about Warrior, calling him a flash in the pan and insinuating that he had convinced The Iron Sheik to break Warrior’s legs for holding McMahon up for money prior to SummerSlam 1991. Warrior’s response to these comments came in the form of a venomous, almost hour-long shoot interview, while Hogan was deposed for Warrior’s lawsuit against WWE relating to the DVD. The two men, quite amazingly, mended fences during WrestleMania XXX weekend, just hours before Warrior passed away.

1. Randy Savage

Whether as partners or opponents, Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage were simply money together. The Macho Man complimented The Hulkster wonderfully – and vice versa – with the two men making a lot of money as both friends and enemies. 

The two were close behind the scenes until Savage found out that Hogan and his then-wife Linda were harbouring his estranged wife Elizabeth as she pursued a relationship with another man. After that, Randy held a grudge against his former Mega Powers running buddy, though they continued to work together without incident in WCW during the mid-to-late 1990s. 

But after Savage left the company for good in 2000, he would incessantly run down Hogan in interviews, challenging him to fights, and even recording a diss track about him on his rap album. 

The two momentarily crossed paths backstage at TNA’s 2004 Victory Road pay-per-view and almost came to blows, before things cooled down and Savage retired from the spotlight. A chance meeting at a doctor’s office saw the two men reconcile just months before Randy’s passing in 2011, according to Hogan.