By the time that Hulk Hogan returned to WWE in early 2002, he was already nearly at the end of his career, at least in theory.
Hogan had been one of the biggest names in wrestling since the mid-1980s and but the wear and tear of the industry had caught up with him. After his legendary WrestleMania 18 showdown with The Rock, Hogan headed to SmackDown where he featured regularly until August when he was written off television following a match with Brock Lesnar.
The veteran didn’t return until early 2003 when he picked up his feud with The Rock, who was making his own return to WWE. This resulted in a match at No Way Out, which fell some way short of their bout at WrestleMania almost a year earlier.
On a recent episode of his podcast, The Kurt Angle Show, Angle looked back at No Way Out 2003. During the episode, Angle discussed his own time sharing the ring with Hogan, and their match at King of the Ring 2002. The Olympic Hero said that while Hogan was fairly limited, he was still “pretty good” and never complained about Angle using his famous German Suplexes during their bout.
“You know what, I will tell you this. Hogan when I wrestled him, he was fairly limited. He was in his mid, late 50s and he wasn’t quite the same, but he was still pretty good. I mean, he could still go, and he never complained when I hit him with German suplexes. Of course, I didn’t do as many Germans on Hogan as I would with Chris Benoit, or Rey Mysterio. But you know, Hogan was pretty cool about that.”
Hulk Hogan Struggling With Health Issues?
Hulk Hogan made his most recent WWE appearance on the 30th anniversary of Monday Night Raw back in January. After the show, Kurt Angle said on his podcast that Hogan had undergone back surgery which had left him struggling to walk and without any feeling in parts of his body.
However, a spokesperson for Hogan later denied he was in poor health, commenting that “everything is ok.”
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