Hulk Hogan's Presidential Run

With the 2016 election heating up, there is no better time to look back on the presidential campaign that was truly ahead of its time. If all you need now is celebrity status and a willingness to say and do stupid things, there was one candidate who was ready before all the rest. That candidate? The Immortal (and possibly racist) Hulk Hogan. I mean, just imagine if Donald Trump would have said what Hogan got in so much trouble for, we wouldn't have batted an eye, and there would have been plenty of Backwoods Iowans ready to say, "He's just saying what we're all thinking." But alas, Hogan tried to run for President in 2000 instead of 2016, and that was truly his biggest mistake. Still, let's take a look back on the greatest presidential candidate that the United States has ever seen.

In 1998, Hulk Hogan knew his career was over and decided to announce his retirement. There was no better time and place to do this than Thanksgiving Night on the Jay Leno show.

When Leno asked Hulk what he was going to announce, Hulk responded, "The big announcement is, since it's Thanksgiving and everyone's at home watching, I kind of come to the crossroads here and I've accomplished everything I wanted to do in wrestling. My family's secure, I've had a great career, and I wanted to officially announce my retirement."

Let's quickly break down the most ridiculous things from this short response.

3. "Since it's Thanksgiving and everyone's at home watching"
Wait, is that a thing? Is this a tradition that we celebrate to honor Native Americans? Like, we stole their land and infested them with disease, so we will watch late night talk shows to pay our respects? I don't remember that being a thing.

2. "I've accomplished everything I wanted to do in wrestling...I wanted to officially announce my retirement"
Hulk Hogan wrestled for another FIFTEEN years, and he has still been squawking about getting one more match in the WWE.

1. "My family's secure"
And the reason Hulk Hogan is still trying to wrestle is because he's still trying to make money. Your wife filing divorce, trying to support your daughter's musical career, and your son paralyzing someone has a way to drain your assets rather quickly. Hence, a lot more wrestling, plenty of public appearances, and racism, although the racism doesn't seem to be paying off.

But the Hulkster still had plenty to say about his potential Presidency, and Jay Leno was asking the tough questions:

Jay: But have you had any experience at all in this field?
Hulk: Well, I've been making decisions all my life.

The man has a point, and try to prove him wrong...you can't. He'd been making decisions his whole life, so how was he not ready to be president?

Jay: I'm glad you're not coming into comedy. Now what about your past? Any secrets? Cause they invesitgate you.

Hulk: We all make mistakes, and thank God we learn from those mistakes. I mean, I'm beyond this mid-life crisis that Clinton is going through now.

This is probably my favorite line from Hogan's brief Presidential run. He's beyond a mid-life crisis. The last twenty years of Hulk Hogan's life has been one giant mid-life crisis. He calls out Clinton for cheating on his wife, but this is a man who had sex with his friend's wife, which is...uh, better? This doesn't even bring up the much weirder aspect of his mid-life crisis. He has a weird obsession with his daughter to the point that he is now married to a woman who looks EXACTLY like his daughter.

And they both look like him, which does not help his case, but hey, to each their own. As for his policies, all he said was that he wanted to go into Iraq and take out Saddam Hussein (although he couldn't pronounce it right), which is dumb, and he wanted a flat tax which is somehow even dumber.

But did anyone take this seriously? Well, CBS News reported it, so yeah, people did take it seriously.

Hulk Hogan was ready to save America through training, prayers, and eating vitamins. Unfortunately, a larger mission was on the horizon.

Yes, just six weeks after Hulk Hogan announced his bid for the Presidency, and on the night he had planned on letting the world know who his Vice President would be, he gave it all up to save WCW (and also to call Bill Goldberg a sexual deviant).

What was so big that Hulk had to come back to wrestling? Well, a shot at Kevin Nash and the WCW title, which of course led to this:

THE FINGERPOKE OF DOOM!

When I began writing this piece, I imagined how much better the world would be if Hulk would have spent eight great years in the White House. We'd have no debt, there would be no childhood obesity, and terrorists would no longer exist as they would have long ago converted to Hulkamania. But we also wouldn't have The Fingerpoke of Doom, and quite frankly, that's not a world I want to live in.

You made the right choice, Hulk.