I'm not going to say he was a great human being. He wasn't. But, being 9 years old in 1985 and watching his battles with the likes of Rowdy Roddy Piper and King Kong Bundy created an indelible childhood memory.
I wish that he never got all the attention he did. If he would have just been a wrestler that came in and wrestled and then went home it would have been better for everyone. I hate how much the WWE excuses all of his revisionist wrestling history, all of his lies that broke up marriages, all of his shitty attitude about the dude his kid paralyzed, all of his racist rants etc. Yet Chyna is still not worthy in their eyes of the accolades she deserves because she did a few porn videos.
I love that the last time he was on TV for WWE he got booed off the stage by fans.
How I feel, too. I'm pushing 50, and I can still remember attending birthday party sleepovers when I was a child, and we would rent wrestlemania three on VHS and watch it over and over and over again. Hulk Hogan was larger than life.
I heard a quote about Hulk Hogan that sums up my feelings rather well. "I'm not sad that he died. I'm sad that the person I thought he was never really lived."
As a kid, I was a huge Hulkamaniac, but then as an adult I learned what a bigoted, coke fueled, egomaniacal, lying piece of shit he was. Good riddance, Terry. The world is better off without you in it.