My Life Outside the Ring Read online

  My Life Outside the Ring

  Hulk Hogan

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in the USA by St. Martin’s Press in 2009

  First published in Australia by Hodder & Stoughton in 2009

  First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Eric Bischoff, LLC.

  The right of Eric Bischoff, LLC. to be identified as the Author

  of the Work has been asserted by them in accordance with

  the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

  retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the

  prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any

  form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without

  a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  Epub ISBN 9781848946675

  Book ISBN 9781444704242

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  To Brooke and Nick, for accompanying me on this

  journey from old life to new.

  I love you.

  To Jennifer, for helping me realize how beautiful life is. I love you.

  To Linda, I pray that you find peace and joy in life.

  I love you.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  PART I: Growing Up

  Chapter 1 From the Beginning

  Chapter 2 Finding Faith

  Chapter 3 Working Out

  Chapter 4 Fighting My Way In

  Chapter 5 Backing Away

  PART II: Wrestling Mania

  Chapter 6 On the Road

  Chapter 7 Just When I Thought I Was Out . . .

  Chapter 8 Hulking Up

  Chapter 9 Livin’ the High Life

  Chapter 10 The Perfect Family

  PART III: Trials and Tribulations

  Chapter 11 Pain

  Chapter 12 Behind Closed Doors

  Chapter 13 Something New

  Chapter 14 Season of Change

  PART IV: The Unraveling

  Chapter 15 Cruel Summer

  Chapter 16 The Vigil

  Chapter 17 The Downward Spiral

  PART V: Turning the Page

  Chapter 18 A Secret Revealed

  Chapter 19 Coincidence or Fate?

  Chapter 20 Revelations

  Afterword: Expect the Unexpected

  Acknowledgments

  This book could not have been written without the support of great friends—some old, some new—and I’m grateful for all of them.

  Thanks to Eric Bischoff for being there every step of the way. Jason Hervey for bringing me relief when the chips were down. Henry Holmes for seeing me through the last twenty-five years. Scott Hervey for taking on my new burdens. Also Peter Young, my agent, who has become my blood brother. David Houston for absorbing the attacks of the last two years while turning into a real friend and guiding light in the process. Also, to Michael Bernard Beckwith and James Arthur Ray for awakening the Spirit of Christ that has always been in me. I know now I am responsible for my own joy and happiness.

  Nothing would be possible without the support of the Hogan Hit Men—the guys who would lay down their lives for me (as I would for them)—Jimmy Hart, Brian Knobs, Brutus, and Big Todd “Yeah-Yeah-Yeah.” And, of course, the man who’ll take our antics to the grave and who’s always there no matter how heavy it gets, Bubba the Love Sponge. (No, Linda, we are not gay lovers.)

  I would also like to thank Elizabeth Rosenthal for always watching my back, not to mention making the connection that sparked this book in the first place. Joel Kneedler at Alive Communications and Kathryn Huck at St. Martin’s Press for making it possible that my words actually land on the bookshelves. Steve Chapman for being such a good friend and holding down the neighborhood! Finally, thanks to my personal shrink—Mark Dagostino—for helping me write one hell of a book!

  I’m heading into the second half of the game now; I’m especially grateful to Nick, Brooke, and Jennifer for moving forward with me—present and aware in every moment.

  I bless those who curse me and pray for those who have spitefully used me. I am sorry, I had to leave them behind.

  Introduction

  Three pounds. I remember thinking, Three pounds of pressure is all it takes to pull this thing. Do you know how easy that would’ve been? I’d been staring at myself in the bathroom mirror for two days straight. Two days. A gun was in my hand and my finger was on the trigger and I was thinking, It would just be so easy. I felt like a snake charmer. I was headed down this dark road convincing myself it was a road I wanted to take. The weird thing was, I didn’t even remember bringing that gun into the bathroom. When did I pick this up? Was it in the safe? Did I have it in the car with me the other night? I bought that gun years ago to protect my family. A last resort. Was I really gonna use it for this?

  I popped half a Xanax and took another swig from the big bottle of Captain Morgan’s I’d set on the counter.

  The house was empty. Too quiet. I don’t do well alone. My kids were gone. My wife was gone. She had left before, but this was different. She didn’t want to fix things. She’d filed for divorce—actually went to a lawyer and filed papers after twenty-three years. My mind kept running through it all, over and over. My daughter thinks I’m the reason Linda left. There’s so much I want her to understand, but she won’t talk to me. She won’t hear my side of the story.

  My thoughts drifted to my son, Nick. Nearly four months had passed since he got into that terrible car accident. And every day since, the details of that August night played over and over in my mind.

  It’s not often that a man can pinpoint the moment when life as he knew it began to unravel. For me, it was just after seven thirty on the night of August 26, 2007.

  After a long day out on the boat, I’d grabbed a quick shower and hopped in my black Mercedes to head to dinner. Nick and his three buddies had gone just ahead of me to grab a table at Arigato, this Japanese steak house a few miles away. I assumed they’d all gone together in my yellow pickup.

  I was wrong.

  The fast-moving thunderheads that passed through that afternoon left the roads soaking wet. I remember my tires splashing through puddles as I left the big house on Willadel Drive. Just as I left, Nick’s friend Danny drove up in my silver Viper with his pal Barry in the passenger seat. Their windows were down, and they looked a little panicky as they pulled up beside me.

  “Nick got in an accident!” they said.

  Great, I thought. This is all I need, thinking that it was just a fender bender.

  “Where?” I asked.

  They told me on Court Street near Missouri Boulevard—not much more than a mile from where we were.

  For some reason it didn’t occur to me that it might be a life-threatening situation. With all the stoplights on that road, I thought they meant that Nick had rear-ended someone, or maybe someone rear-ended Nick. I was a little confused as to why Danny was driving my Viper, but I still thought Nick was in my yellow truck.

  So off we went. I turned east and headed down Court Street with the sun getting ready to set behind me. All the lights were green, so I was cruising along when all of a sudden I saw flashing red-and-blues up ahead.

  What the hell?

  I couldn’t have left the house more than three or four minutes after Nick. But
as I looked toward the intersection of Court and Missouri there were police cars in the middle of the road blocking traffic in both directions.

  That’s when I saw it: a yellow vehicle smashed up into a palm tree in the center divider.

  Oh my God. Nick!

  I panicked. I needed to get closer. Traffic was stopped, so I turned into the oncoming lanes and raced down Court Street the wrong way.

  As I hit Missouri I just stared at this mangled yellow wreck on the tree, thinking, Holy shit. It didn’t look like my truck at all. I was confused for a moment. I had this weird little flash of relief. Danny and Barry got it wrong. That’s not my truck. Phew! Nick’s okay.

  Then all of a sudden it hit me. Oh my God. That’s my yellow Supra!

  My stomach clenched up in a knot. I pulled the Mercedes up on the curb, got out, and started running toward the car. “Nick? Nick!?” A cop tried to hold me back, but there was no way. “That’s my son!” I yelled as I pushed past him.

  The yellow Supra was the car Nick loved most. I had no doubt he was behind the wheel. But I couldn’t see him.

  I could see his best friend, John Graziano, slumped over in the passenger seat. Nick was nowhere to be found. I thought he’d been thrown from the car, so I’m looking up in the tree, on the ground, across the street. By this time another police car is pulling up, and I hear sirens from the fire trucks coming up the road.

  The car had spun around somehow and hit the tree backward. As I reached the front of it a policeman pulled John back. I saw his head. His skull was cracked open at the top of his forehead. It was awful. I almost fainted. It buckled me. John was like a member of my family. And the bleeding was bad—like it wasn’t gonna stop.

  I was right there leaning on the side of the car with my hands when I finally saw Nick—my only son—folded up like an accordion with his head down by the gas pedal. “Nick!” I yelled. I could see he was alive. He turned his head, stuck his hand out, and gave me a thumbs-up. For a second I was relieved. Then the chaos set in. The sound of engines. Sirens. A saw. Paramedics pulling John from the passenger seat. So much blood.

  I can’t even describe to you how panicked I was. The police and firefighters seemed panicked, too. The Supra’s removable targa top was off, and you could see that the cockpit of the vehicle was pretty intact, but the rest of the car was just mangled. The fiberglass shell on this thing had crumpled like a toy.

  All of a sudden the firefighters started cutting the side of the car to try to get Nick out, and I was standing right there when I heard my boy screaming, “No, no, no, stop! Stop! You’re gonna cut my legs off. Dad! Just unbuckle the seat belt. I can get out!” So I reached in and pushed the button on his seat belt, and Nick just crawled right out. His wrist was broken. His ribs were cracked. None of that mattered. He was gonna be okay.

  But not John. John wasn’t moving.

  I pressed the gun to my cheek. I tried not to look in the mirror.

  In between flashbacks I kept obsessing about Linda. How could she leave in the middle of all this? How could she?

  I even turned the pity party on myself. I’m a mess. I’m in so much pain. My hip. My knees. I don’t even know if I can wrestle anymore. What the hell am I gonna do? My back hurts so bad I have to sit just to brush my teeth. In this damned chair. Right here.

  I can’t get out of this thing.

  My God. Look at me. . . .

  As the paramedics tended to Nick, I called Linda. She was out in L.A., where she had been living for months. No one knew we were separated then. No one knew how bad things were between us. But she was my wife, and she was still my first call.

  “Linda, you’re not gonna believe this, but Nick wrecked the Supra,” I said, expecting her to ask if he was okay. Instead, she lost it.

  “What the fuck!? What the hell was he doing?”

  I tried to get her to listen, but she just kept screaming. When the cops came up to try to ask me questions and she wouldn’t let me get a word in, I had no choice but to hang up on her.

  I called Brooke instead, who was off in Seattle working on her music. Nick’s her baby brother. They’ve always been close, and she broke down crying just listening to the sound of my voice. She was happy to hear that he was okay, of course, but when I told her that John was in real bad shape, she started bawling. She hated being so far away. I told her to get on a plane, and she said she would be there as soon as she could.

  I was pacing like crazy at this point, just freaking out about the whole situation. For all I knew Linda still didn’t understand how serious this accident was, so I called her back, and she started screaming at me again for hanging up on her the first time.

  By now a couple of medevac helicopters were landing on the scene. I couldn’t hear a thing. So I hung up again and turned my attention to Nick. He really seemed fine, and he kept telling the EMS people that he was okay, but they wouldn’t budge: They insisted he get into one of the helicopters—and told me I couldn’t ride with him.

  I lost it. I was woozy. The whole thing played out in this weird way, like slow motion and all sped up at the same time. I looked over and saw John laid out flat, strapped to a gurney as they lifted him into a chopper. I turned and saw firefighters pulling that mangled, cut-up car away from the tree. The press was there. There were video cameras and flashbulbs going off. It was all just crazy.

  As the helicopters took off I called Linda back, and she finally calmed down enough to ask if Nick was okay. I told her, “He’s walking around. He’s talking to me. They’re flying him to Bayfront Medical Center to check him out, but I think he’s fine.”

  Then I told her about John. She couldn’t take it. I could hear her break down right over the phone.

  “Linda,” I said, “just get on a plane and get back here. Nick needs you.”

  At this point I was running back to my car, but a cop stopped me before I could get in. I guess he saw me all wobbly and pacing and didn’t think it was safe for me to drive. He offered to take me to the hospital instead. I was glad. I’m not sure I would’ve made it in that condition.

  I climbed into the back of that police car, and he just took off. We were flying down all these back roads with the lights going and the siren blaring, running red lights, blasting through stop signs. The world was a blur. And as I sat in the backseat of that cop car, alone, the whole thing started to hit me.

  What if Nick has internal injuries? What if he’s in shock? Is he hurt more than he’s letting on? How had this happened? And what about John? I’ve never seen someone’s head busted open like that.

  I felt sick to my stomach. John had to pull through. I prayed to God that he’d be okay. And I prayed to God for my son.

  Here I was, nearly four months later, consumed with thoughts of John Graziano, who was still barely clinging to life in a hospital bed.

  What if he never recovers?

  I took another swig from that bottle of rum. I got angry at the cops and the media and everyone who blamed my son for hurting John. It was an accident. A horrible accident. Nick didn’t set out to hurt anybody. He feels so guilty. I wish I could help him.

  Slowly that anger gave way to pain and this feeling of helplessness.

  Why can’t I make this all stop?

  I could feel the life draining out of me. I could feel myself bleeding. That’s what it felt like: bleeding. Not from a cut on my body, but a wound somewhere deeper. It had me curling my index finger on the trigger of a loaded handgun and putting it in my mouth.

  For all my strength, my will, my ability to excel and be the best, I couldn’t control that feeling. That depression. Whatever you want to call it. I couldn’t control it any more than I could control the craziness that seemed to be crushing my family.

  I hit bottom, bro. And I stayed there for two straight days. I even slept with my head on that counter. If I got up to go to the bathroom once or twice, I sat right down again and stared at myself like some fool looking for answers that weren’t coming.

  And tha
t voice in my head would not stop.

  Maybe I should just do it. Only cowards commit suicide. My family would be better off without me. What about the kids? I’m gonna do this. Just pull the trigger. Why not end it? Just do it, Hogan. Do it.

  That could have been the end of me right there—that night in early December 2007, in the bathroom at the big house in Clearwater that everybody’d seen on Hogan Knows Best.

  I could picture the crime scene. The news stories. The whole thing.

  Obviously I didn’t kill myself—but I came damn close. And if it weren’t for a completely unexpected phone call that snapped me out of that stupor, I might have followed that dark road all the way to its end, and I might not be here writing this book today.

  In the days after I sat there with that gun in my hand, I realized something: I was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. If I was gonna keep living and breathing, I had to change things. I didn’t know how I would do it. Maybe I’d have to change everything. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I wish I didn’t have to sink that low to get to that point, but that’s what it took.

  Slowly but surely in the weeks and months that followed, I opened my eyes to a whole new world. And it worked. I’m choosing to live life differently in the second half of the game.