SANTA CLARA, CALIFORNIA // Hulk Hogan is in not in action at WrestleMania 31 on Sunday as his role will be inducting Randy Savage into the WWE’s Hall of Fame. But the six-time WWE world champion told Graham Caygill he still has hopes of returning to the ring one more time in his career.
On the biggest WrestleMania match he regrets not having
“WrestleMania 25, I was supposed to take on John Cena. But my back blew out. I was in the middle of my fifth or sixth back surgery and I was supposed to wrestle John. That was the most disappointing one, not being there.”
On the possibility of one more match in his career
Hogan last wrestled in the WWE in 2006, and he said: “I don’t know. Today, maybe it’s the weather, it is a little rough for me today, but I think it’s got to do with being 61 years old and inheriting all this arthritis from my mum and dad. I am still in really good shape. If you put me in the ring right now with someone’s that over, and when I mean over I mean we just look at each other like the Rock and the crowd starts rumbling. If you put me in the ring right now with Roman Reigns, Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock or John Cena’ I could tear it down right now. The thing is getting everybody else talked into letting me do that! Vince McMahon [the WWE chairman] had his last match when he was 66 or 67 and I am only 61 years old. I am a lot younger than him’ and Vince is the guy who says never say never. So I am going to hang on to that for a while.”
On dealing with getting older
“It hit me about 15 years ago when I realised they could take out a whole knee joint, throw it away and put a piece of metal in there, so I thought wow, this stuff really does wind down. Then they took the other knee and threw that away, then they took both hips and threw them away and I had nine back surgeries and I was like ‘wow, this mortality thing is for real,’ But because of the WWE Network I get to live forever. But it is tough. The hardest thing being here and not wrestling. It is hard to explain, but it just hard to be around all these guys, watching all these matches ... sitting back and going ‘if you only did that, only did this instead, or when the guy slammed you, why did you get up before he got up. I mean come on.’ It is hard to watch without getting into it so it is tough, so the mortality thing can get to you a little bit.”
On what he is looking forward to at WrestleMania 31
There is a couple of things. The whole thing with Roman Reigns and Brock [Lesnar] has got me really interested. Roman has a lot of potential, he reminds me a lot of his father [former wrestler Sika Anoa’i] His dad saved me when I was lost and got me going in the right direction a long time ago. And then there is the whole thing with the Undertaker. I ran into the Undertaker last night, my God is he in good shape. Compared to last year, and nothing personal ‘Taker, wherever he is at, but the guy is in crazy shape all of a sudden. I hear he has been training really hard. I know how good Bray Wyatt is in the ring, so I know they are going to tear it down.”
Inducting Randy Savage into the WWE Hall of Fame
Savage, the two-time WWE world champion, died in May 2011 of a heart attack at the age of 58, and he will be inducted posthumously into the WWE’s Hall of Fame on Sunday by Hogan. Of Savage, Hogan said: “The guy was the consummate professional and he lived hard, he worked hard in the ring, he was really intense. When Randy and I first hooked up, our wives started to worry about us as we were together 24 hours a day and were the best of friends. He was right down the beach from me. We were really good friends and then we had this crazy blow-up. There was a lot of things going down with his split with Liz [Miss Elizabeth, Savage’s first wife] and the whole thing went bad. But then we got back together. Lanny, his brother, helped a lot, and we got back together then. To have Randy have a heart attack and pass on was a tough one, so inducting him into the Hall of Fame is a special deal for me.”
gcaygill@thenational.ae
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