

The last few years have been pretty crazy for Hulk Hogan. You would think a retired, 64-year-old former wrestler would live a quiet life in Florida out of the spotlight, but with the Hulkster it’s never easy, brother.

Two years ago, Hogan was released from his deal with World Wrestling Entertainment because of a tape from the mid-2000s that was released without his consent where he used racist remarks when talking about a black man that was dating his daughter at the time. Last year, Hogan won a lot of money from Gawker in the sex tape scandal that he was involved in with his former best friend’s ex-wife, which also involved Peter Thiel as a guy that backed Hogan in the lawsuit.

Since his departure from WWE, his friends in the business like Scott Hall and Jerry Lawler have said they think Hogan will be back with WWE. Even Hulk’s daughter Brooke claimed last year that Hulk was going back to WWE for this year’s WrestleMania, but that didn’t happen.

A lot of wrestling fans are wondering when the Hulkster will retain to the WWE family. While nothing is set in stone yet, the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer reports that Hulk Hogan’s “return is being revisited.” The feeling in WWE is whether or not their sponsors will be okay with Hogan returning considering his past racist comments. If WWE brings him back and a sponsor says that they can’t support a show that has Hulk Hogan on it then that’s going to alter WWE business.

That’s why WWE would be hesitant to bring him back.

While a Hogan return would be interesting to see, obviously he’s not going to wrestle anymore at his age after numerous surgeries to his back and knees. Hogan’s role would be to appear once in a while on television and make public appearances. It would be a role similar to guys like Ric Flair (when he was healthier), Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels and other legends that appear on WWE TV on special occasions.

It was also mentioned by Meltzer that Hogan was recently in talks about returning to wrestling and claimed it would be a huge deal, but Meltzer added that it didn’t make economic sense. No word on if it had anything to do with Hogan saying earlier this year that he wanted to join the Bullet Club.

While there’s no set date for when Hogan may return to WWE, the obvious date that makes sense is January 22 at the Raw 25th birthday edition of Monday Night Raw in Brooklyn and New York City. They have already advertised legends like The Undertaker, Shawn Michaels and Kevin Nash, so having Hogan show up as a surprise would be pretty cool. That could also lead to a Hogan appearance at WrestleMania as well. Let’s forget that at WrestleMania 30 in New Orleans in 2014 (same venue as WrestleMania 34 in 2018), Hogan was the “host” of the show and called it the Silverdome instead of the Superdome, which led to some laughs.

For now, it’s just chatter about Hogan, but as we know in wrestling, where there’s smoke there’s fire. Don’t be too surprised if you hear “Real American” on WWE TV in the next few months.