What Real American Won’t Say About Hulk Hogan
From his late-life support for Donald Trump to playing a key role in destroying Gawker, the Netflix documentary series Real American keeps its distance from substantive questions about Hulk Hogan’s legacy.
At its peak, Hulkamania captured the imaginations of millions of Americans. But Hulk Hogan’s legacy includes union busting and destroying journalistic institutions — episodes that a new Netflix documentary series barely touches. (Netflix)
In 1991, I sat in front of the television and wept as Sgt Slaughter beat Hulk Hogan with a chair. My brother and I had watched in horror for months as Slaughter and his cronies brutalized Hogan in the lead-up to WrestleMania VII, unwilling to accept my dad’s attempts at consolation. We were kids, and like millions of other Americans, Hulkamaniacs.
Thirty-four years later, my son Sebastian, who had just turned seven, stood beside me at WWE SmackDown in Cleveland on July 25, 2025. We watched grown men and women weep as the bell tolled ten times to commemorate Hogan, a day after his death. The moment was surreal. I was grieving the figure who had defined a piece of my childhood, and I was thinking, even then, about what I had spent the better part of a decade trying not to think about: the man behind the character, and what that man had done.
Netflix’s new four-part documentary, Real American, takes a partial accounting. But like most documentaries produced in association with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), it ducks the questions that matter most. Watching it didn’t resolve my dissonance.
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