Hulk Hogan recently spoke with Sports Illustrated about the circumstances of his release after the racist comments on the sex tape scandal:
On Triple H telling him that he needed to resign:
“I never talked to Vince. The only person I talked to was Triple H. I called him and told him there was some old news coming out from when TMZ first reported the tape and there were some racial slurs on it. Triple H said, ‘OK, thanks for calling. Let me talk to Vince.’ He called me back a half hour later and he goes, ‘I’ve got some news and it isn’t good. Vince said that you need to resign.’ I never heard from Vince or talked to Vince. In the middle of the night, they just fired me.”
on WWE’s reaction:
“They had to do what was best for business. Triple H was telling me the USA Network was reacting very badly, and they had to make a quick decision, and that was to put me out to pasture. They were under heavy fire and they were scrambling.”
On Vince McMahon refusing to meet with him and his attorney afterwards:
“That’s not characteristic of what the WWE does. Vince McMahon reaches out and helps people. If you’re a drug abuser or you abuse alcohol, Vince McMahon and the WWE reach out and help people. So what’s so uncommon about this was they took the symptoms, said, ‘Oh my god, there’s a symptom of being a racist,’ and threw me away. They usually go to the source. They’ve known me for over 30 years and they know I’m not a racist, so they should have went to the source. I don’t use the word, ever, except for in that moment of anger, so I wish WWE went to the source instead of the symptoms. I could have explained I’ve tried every day since then to be a better man.”
On wanting to return to WWE:
“The only place for me to be would be the WWE. That’s where my home is. I thought I’d go step-by-step, crawling uphill with WWE, to explain how wrong I was, but that opportunity wasn’t there. I’d love to sit down and connect with Vince. A lot of people make mistakes. If we were all judged by our weakest moment, it would be a sad world. If I had a chance to work with Vince and help people, we could help fix a lot of things together.”
