Few people understand success in professional wrestling more than Hulk Hogan. For many people, he was and still is the quintessential professional wrestler. He was instrumental in WWE’s expansion into popular culture and the start of the company’s first golden age.
A key part of Hogan’s success was his mastery of wrestling as storytelling and understanding of character. Hogan had an iconic cadence, personality, and vocabulary as a wrestler. He wasn’t one to have scriptwriters give him lines to regurgitate or to have his matches planned out so meticulously.
Hogan’s ability to ad-lib and call matches on the fly are what he considers central to the art of professional wrestling. As such, Hogan sees Roman Reigns doing these same things and thinks Reigns deserves praise for doing so.
Hulk Hogan praises Roman Reigns for not being scripted or choreographed
Speaking with Forbes, Hulk Hogan explained why Roman Reigns doing things so differently from everyone else in WWE is what makes Reigns so important to WWE and pro wrestling as a whole.
“I’ve got a soft spot in my heart for Roman, but I think he’s one of the only main event guys that’s keeping the art form alive.
“He can go out there and wing it, he doesn’t need a writer to tell him what to say. I can tell by the way he wrestles, he’s not following some choreographed pattern. He is really good with placement and physicality and knowing where he is at all the time in the ring.
“I see that in Roman. He’s got a feel, he’s got an instinct. He is keeping the art form alive. So I’m excited to see where he ends up with this thing.”
Hulk Hogan recently said that he wants to step into the ring one last time to have a retirement match against Stone Cold Steve Austin, which was supposed to happen once upon a time but never panned out.
h/t WrestleTalk for the transcription