Terry Bollea, best known as "Hulk Hogan," died July 24 at 71. A towering wrestling icon, he became the face of American pop culture in the 1980s and helped catapult professional wrestling into the global mainstream. While his larger-than-life persona was known around the world, few remember that Bollea's journey to superstardom began right here on the white sands of Pensacola Beach.
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Long before the red-and-yellow spandex, WrestleMania stardom, and Hollywood cameos, Bollea was just a broke young wrestler living out of a van on Santa Rosa Island. It was 1979, and Bollea, then performing as "Terry 'The Hulk' Boulder," had just landed a gig with Southeastern Championship Wrestling, a regional promotion then based in Pensacola.
"I slept in my van for a year on Pensacola Beach," Bollea recalled in an interview earlier this year. "We weren't making any money. And, you know, I kept coming back, so I'd get it."
Wayne Farris—better known to wrestling fans as “The Honky Tonk Man”—remembers Bollea's early days in Pensacola as a study in contrasts. Broke and green, Bollea and his tag team partner Ed Leslie crashed on Farris’s couch, borrowed his car, and scraped by on shared groceries. “They weren’t making any money,” Farris said in a 2015 interview. “It was their first territory and they were scared to death… they didn’t understand the business.”
But even then, Farris could see the potential.
“Soon as I saw this guy, I knew he was made of money,” he recalled. “He had that long blonde hair. He had that Fu Manchu. He had this body. He was tan. He did all the superstar-Billy-Graham stuff in his interviews, and he was a great talker.”
Together, Bollea and Leslie wrestled in small-town gyms and VFW halls across the Gulf Coast, gradually building a reputation and honing their craft. Pensacola was the place where Bollea got his first real push, facing off against legends like Harley Race and Andre the Giant.
The rise that followed is wrestling lore: Bollea became the face of Vince McMahon's WWF in the 1980s, turning his All-American image and charisma into box office gold. He headlined sold-out stadiums, starred in family films, and even hosted "Saturday Night Live."
In the 1990s, the All-American hero famously reinvented himself as a villain in World Championship Wrestling's New World Order—a heel turn fans loved to hate. Outside the ring, though, the real-life controversies were harder to script.
In 2015, a leaked sex tape captured Bollea using racist slurs. WWE severed ties. Though he apologized and was eventually reinstated into the Hall of Fame, the scandal left lasting damage.
Then, in 2024, Bollea stepped into the political ring, delivering a primetime speech in support of Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention. For some, it was another example of his showmanship. For others, it was a final turn too far.
Here in Pensacola, as elsewhere, responses to his death have been mixed.
At Graffiti Bridge, a popular local landmark, a spray-painted tribute appeared in the days after news of Bollea's death broke. The mural depicted him mid-rip, tearing open a yellow shirt with “HULK HOGAN” emblazoned on the chest. To the right, bold letters screamed: “WHATCHA GONNA DO WHEN HULKAMANIA RUNS WILD ON YOU?”—a reference to one of his most iconic catchphrases.
Online, many greeted the mural with praise for someone they viewed as an American icon. Others felt differently.
Amelia Fuller, a Pensacola native who now lives in Texas, said she understands the desire to memorialize someone with local ties, but believes it’s important to acknowledge the full picture.
"For years he hid behind this larger-than-life hero persona," she said, "but like many saw, there was harm behind the mask. It's more than fair, I think, to acknowledge the pain that he caused alongside the fame that he enjoyed."
The mural has since been painted over, but questions about Bollea's legacy remain. In Pensacola and elsewhere, people are still deciding whether to remember him as a hero, a heel, or simply a human.
