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WWE Terminates Hulk Hogan’s Contract Due To Racist Comments

By John Canton • Published 24th July 2015
TJR Wrestling

This a shocking story that broke late last night when people started to notice that WWE was trying to remove every Hulk Hogan reference from their website. Apparently there was some major story that was going to break on Friday morning about how he said some racist comments that were somehow acquired by the National Enquirer and it’s so bad that WWE had to fire him. Now it’s Friday morning, the story is out and WWE released a statement too.

The story from the National Enquirer and Radar Online, who worked on it together, is from a sex tape that Hogan was part of with Heather Clem, who was the wife of his former good friend “Bubba The Love Sponge” and apparently Hogan said some comments about how upset he was that his daughter Brooke was sleeping with an African American man. This is from the same sex tape from nine years ago that Gawker released and Hogan is suing them over. The comments were apparently made while he was in bed with her.

Here’s an excerpt from their report:

“I guess we’re all a little racist,” he crowed on the tape, multiple sources have confirmed exclusively to The ENQUIRER.

Despite his TV image as a born-again Christian, the tapes prove that Hulk is a very different man off camera!

In a startling exchange, the 61-year-old told Clem – who he sued for invasion of privacy after their XXX tape was leaked to a website – about his frustrations with blonde bombshell Brooke, 27.

“She is making some real bad decisions now,” Hulk said, sources tell us. “My daughter Brooke jumped sides on me. I spent $2-3 million on her music career, I’ve done everything like a jackass for her.”

The bitter bodybuilder continued, “The one option Brooke had, Brooke’s career besides me, is [to] sell beach records.”

At that point on the tape, the former “Hogan Knows Best” star bemoaned how a “black billionaire guy” had offered to fund her music career.

He also attempts to use bizarre, twisted logic in an attempt to justify his bigotry at the man.

“I don’t know if Brooke was f*cking the black guy’s son,” Hulk raved, the sources add.

“I mean, I don’t have double standards. I mean, I am a racist, to a point, f*cking n*ggers. But then when it comes to nice people and sh*t, and whatever.”

Then, in a tirade to rival the racism embarrassments suffered by Mel Gibson and “Dog The Bounty Hunter,” Hulk unloaded even more hatred!

According to sources, he said: “I mean, I’d rather if she was going to f*ck some n*gger, I’d rather have her marry an 8-foot-tall n*gger worth a hundred million dollars! Like a basketball player!

“I guess we’re all a little racist. Fucking n*gger.”

The report notes that the transcripts of the conversation were filed in a Florida court under seal, but a news probe uncovered five independent sources that provided the information to the National Enquirer and Radar Online.

WWE took action quickly this morning as well by releasing this statement through the press:

“WWE terminated its contract with Terry Bollea (aka Hulk Hogan) WWE is committed to embracing and celebrating individuals from all backgrounds as demonstrated by the diversity of our employees, performers and fans worldwide.”

Hogan’s recent role in WWE was as a judge on Tough Enough, but that’s not going to happen anymore. If you go to WWE.com, you won’t see him with other WWE Hall of Famers and a lot of others references to him have been removed including photo galleries, videos and other things like that.

Here’s more info from the Wrestling Observer:

The dropping of Hogan was entirely due to the content on the sex tape with Heather Clem, believed to be from 2006, who at the time was the wife of Bubba the Love Sponge.

Although only one sex tape had surfaced, in 2012, which led to Hogan’s $100 million lawsuit against Gawker Media, which showed excerpts from the tape, an FBI investigation showed three additional DVDs of Hogan and Clem.

Those close to he situation indicated that other speculated reasons over the last day had nothing to do with the decision, including a 2012 radio interview that had been talked about in many circles as the possible reason.

At this point Hogan has not been removed from historical content on the WWE Network. But he won’t be involved in anything current or going forward.

Hogan tweeted at 1:17am, which was around the time when the story was first starting to get some traction late last night. That could have been around the time when WWE told him that they knew what happened and were going to release him. This morning, Hogan did a tweet thanking a fan that was praying for him.

TJR Reaction: It’s a sad story because Hogan’s a beloved figure and arguably the most popular wrestler ever, but it’s easy to understand why WWE cut ties with him. What he said was very bad even though it was in a private setting and he didn’t know he was being recorded. Believe me I’m not defending the guy. I think what he said is disgusting. It’s awful that he said what he said and it’s really going to be tough for him to try to get his image back after this.

From WWE’s point of view, they must be furious because Hogan was featured prominently on Tough Enough and was a goodwill ambassador for the company of sorts. Now he’s gone. It’s not like they are going to explain it on Tough Enough either. They can probably slot Chris Jericho, The Miz or Booker T in his judges slot on the show and just never mention him anymore. WWE has also changed Curtis Axel’s profile to remove the “AxelMania” reference and just call him Curtis Axel again.

If you go to WWE.com right now (as of 10:30amET) there’s no statement on the site about him. They haven’t said anything on Facebook or Twitter either. Triple H did a tweet about a NXT live event and hasn’t mentioned Hogan yet.

The legacy of one of WWE’s biggest stars ever is forever tarnished. Hogan was once a hero to millions around the world and now the company will likely want nothing to do with him ever again. What a crazy story. There’s probably more to it too, so we’ll update when we can.