The night I tried to throw Vitamins at Hulk Hogan

When I was 18, I decided I had to grow up. I gave up two things.  Comics and watching wrestling.  Giving up on wrestling wasn't that hard.  I didn't have cable, and my favorite wrestler, Hulk Hogan had started a semi-retirement.  This lasted for all of 4 1/2 years.  A month after I was married, I found myself and some friends watching a WCW PPV.  (pay per view)  I was aghast.  Hulk Hogan was a bad guy.  I had always loved Hogan, and it just destroyed me.  I really didn't know any of the other members of his crew, but I knew Hulk going bad was just wrong.  Now before you ask, yes, I did know wrestling was fake.  However so many things were not going the way I thought they should in my life I was channeling my resentment and anger into wrestling.  The only thing that was probably going right was my marriage. I was flunking out of school, working in a factory, and frankly thought I was headed to nowhere. 

Fast forward about 6 to 8 months and WCW Nitro was coming to Nashville.  It was held in the old arena.  We had great seats.  We were on the first row, off the floor.  If I looked left I was maybe 50 feet from the ring, and if I looked right I was maybe 20 feet from the entrance stage.  It was wonderful, until Jimmy Hendrick's Voodoo Child hit.  Out came Hogan and something in me snapped.  In my pocket was a bottle of vitamins.  No one knew I had them, but luckily David Wilhelm saw me pulling them out, and apparently so did Kevin Rogers.  They leaped at me and was holding me back.  Now imagine this, me half crazed with my arm cocked back trying to throw vitamins and two other guys trying to stop me and "disarm me" all while I was yelling the following, "SCREW YOU HOGAN!!!!  I TOOK MY VITAMINS, SAID MY PRAYERS, AND YOU TURNED YOUR SORRY BACK ON ME!!!!!!  SCREW YOU!!!!!!!  Now I have no idea if the man heard me or not.  But about that time he took off his glasses and looked directly in my direction.  Both Kevin and David were holding me back while I yelled and screamed.  (They had taken the vitamins away from me.)  Kevin kept telling me, Dude it's all fake, it's all fake.  I kept yelling at him, I supported every thing he ever did and he turned his back on me!!!  (If you'll notice during this point in my life it was how everyone had done me wrong.  This was a common occurrence for a good 10 years.)

I was exhausted the rest of the night.  It was an awesome evening in all, and it lead to the announcement of Lex Luger vs Hogan at Hog Wild for the belt.  Sting was in the rafters and I was happy. 

I look back on it now, and I'm lucky those two stopped me.  I look back on many of the things I did with regret, and this was one of them.  Hogan was playing a part, and played it so well.  I just was at such a bad place in my life with all the things I mentioned before and my sleep apnea(I'll discuss it in a future post) that I did something monumentally stupid.  Add in the fact I was 22, and well, the whole thing's not that surprising. 

Hogan returned to the WWE years later to face the Rock, and once again I was the only one of my group rooting him on.  I'm sure if he did see me that night he doesn't remember and he probably saw a lot worse during his nWo days.  It doesn't change the fact I acted like a nitwit.  Here is my favorite all time performer right in front of me and I'm trying to hit him in the head with a bottle of wal-mart vitamins.  Jeez. 

Ok, that's all I got for this time.  Til next time . . . whenever that is . . BROTHER . .. :)

"Chuck"