The Hulk Hogan vs. Gawker trial is already full of jurors who think wrestling is real and discussions about how Terry Bollea and Hulk Hogan have different penis lengths — spoiler alert, they’re the same guy — and everyone’s got an opinion. To illustrate this, let’s source quotes from opposite ends of the public speaking spectrum: WWE Hall of Famers Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart and The Iron Sheik.
On the debut episode of The Sharpshooter Show (Bret Hart’s easily-named podcast with his kids), The Hitman explained that while he’s not a fan of Hogan’s — he once called him a, “phony piece of sh*t,” if you’ll recall — he understands the situation Hogan is in, and believes he’s got a “good case.”
“I am not a big Hogan fan but I will say that when someone tapes you without your knowledge and uses it against you… he’s got a good case maybe that way. As far as damages and stuff. You can never take away what he said. All of the stuff that he said came right out of his own mouth and was his own words. It did a lot of harm to his image. It cost him his relationship with the WWE. Probably for a lot of fans, especially black fans, I think they really saw a side of him that they’ll never really bond with again. Maybe rightfully so. As soon as I saw all that stuff happen I was like, ‘Wow! How could he make that kind of mistake?’
When you’ve got friends like that Bubba guy that would actually tape you doing all these things and then try to sell those tapes. It sounds like a bunch of slimy people. Hogan is a slimeball and it seems like the kinds of people he hangs out with are slimeballs. Everybody got messy. Everybody got dirty out of that thing. If he makes a lot of money on it, I dunno, I can’t put a price tag on integrity and reputation. You’d never catch Bret Hart saying the things Hulk Hogan said.
Meanwhile over at Esquire, they’ve published an open letter from the Sheik that is predictably too profane to reproduce in its entirety here, and even more predictably ends in a camel clutch threat. The highlight is probably The Sheik(‘s handlers) calling Hogan a, “half and half Howdy Doody-looking guitar player.” Anyway, here’s Sheik saying he’s going to suplex and buttf*ck a website:
CHEAP HEAT IS THE HEAT YOU GET FROM EASY WAY. YOU MAKE SOMEBODY LOOK BAD THAT IS THE CHEAP HEAT. THIS WAY I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THE GAWKER.
THE GAWKER YOU DUMB NO GOOD SON OF A BITCH YOU GET THE CHEAP HEAT YOU DON’T RESPECT THE PRIVACY YOU HAVE NO CLASS YOU TRY TO BURY THE PEOPLE FROM THE CHEAP HEAT. YOU ARE NOT THE REAL YOU ARE THE JABRONI OF THE EARTH. NOT EVEN THE 100 MILLION MILLION DOLLAR SAVE YOU FROM MAKE THE WORLD A BAD PLACE. YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TAKE THE PRIVACY AWAY. I CANT WAIT I SEE MR. GAWKER I SUPLEX YOU PUT YOU IN CAMEL CLUTCH BREAK YOUR HIS BACK I MAKE HIM HUMBLE.
You can read the full letter here.
