On the debut episode of his new podcast, The Apter Chat, longtime pro wrestling journalist Bill Apter welcomed recently reinstated WWE Hall Of Famer Hulk Hogan to the show to talk at length about his recent apology to the WWE locker room and how it was received by various WWE Superstars.
On initially being told he was going to apologize to black stars in WWE but ending up apologizing to everyone: “One of the things that we agreed upon was…Triple H and Vince, I talked to both of them, they said, ‘Well, the first thing that we want to do is bring you back and we want you to talk to the black athletes, and I said no, I’m not gonna do it. If I come back, I want to talk to everybody. Because what I did not only hurt the business, it hurt white, black, every athlete you have. Japanese. Everybody that’s involved and loves this business. What I said hurt this business. It kind of like, dropped us all down a notch. And so I want to come back and talk with everybody. So, that’s kind of how it happened.”
On how his apology was received: “A lot of people accepted my apology, and a lot of people heard what they wanted to hear, and a lot of the narrative that came out of the meeting was on point. A lot of the narrative was really different. I was surprised to hear some people interpreted what I said, you know, that I was just sorry I got caught on camera or whatever they interpreted, but I never said that.”
On the brotherhood in the business getting back to what it used to be: “I just hope the brotherhood can get back to the way it was. Because when you’re in the ring and somebody is bodyslamming somebody or piledriving somebody, you protect your brother. And you make sure physically they’re safe. And outside the ring, you’re supposed to protect your brother. In this case, it’s a situation where 75, 80, 90 percent of the wrestlers are protecting me and they’re giving me another chance to move forward. There’s just a few wrestlers that kinda like don’t understand the bond and the brotherhood of wrestling. If someone makes a mistake, you need to forgive them and move on and try to let them prove themselves.”
Check out part one of Bill Apter’s interview with Hulk Hogan on his new podcast, ‘The Apter Chat,’ at Stitcher.com. Visit the official website of the podcast at TheApterChat.com.