“Say Your Prayers, Eat Your Vitamins” — Remembering Hulk Hogan Through the Eyes of a Kid Who Believed in Wrestling Heroes

I don’t know how to start this.

Hulk Hogan is gone.

And it feels like my childhood just got body slammed.

I didn’t grow up watching wrestling casually. I lived it. My bedroom was a mini WrestleMania. Action figures littered the floor, my voice hoarse from doing commentary with a toy microphone. Every couch cushion was a turnbuckle. Every doorway was the entrance ramp. And front and center — always — was the man in the red and yellow.

Hulk Hogan.

To me, he wasn’t just a wrestler. He was the wrestler. He wasn’t playing a character — he was the character. Larger than life, muscles bulging like comic book pages come to life, tearing his shirt in half like paper and dropping that atomic leg like it meant something more than just a move. He was the good guy. The hero. The one who always came back. No matter what.

I remember seeing him stand across the ring from Andre the Giant at WrestleMania III. I was too young to understand the gravity of that moment at the time, but even through the grainy VHS copy and the plastic-covered TV screen, I felt it. He picked up a damn giant and slammed him. The roof blew off the Silverdome, and it might’ve taken mine with it.

That’s what Hogan did. He made you believe the impossible was possible.

He told us to train hard. Say our prayers. Eat our vitamins. And somehow, in a world that felt full of chaos and unfairness, that simple mantra stuck with me. Even when I got older and the world pulled back the curtain — showed us the flaws, the politics, the business side of wrestling — that kid version of me never stopped believing in Hulk Hogan.

During a time when "good guys" were simply clean-cut, amateur wrestlers in singlets who had turned professional, Hogan — with his tan, oiled-up physique, superhero-like persona, and ability to slam giants — introduced rock & roll and the aura of a larger-than-life American hero. He infused color and bravery into our living rooms and provided us with a hero to cheer for.

And now he’s gone.

And yeah, I know the internet will be filled with thinkpieces, and debates, and reminders of everything that complicated his legacy. But today? This ain’t about that.

This is about Terry Bollea becoming something more than a man.

He became Hulkamania.

He became the reason a million kids got into wrestling.

He became the soundtrack to our Saturday mornings.

He was the reason our voices cracked while screaming at the screen.

He was our first hero in tights.

And now, just like that, another one of those wrestling gods has ascended into legend. But the thing about legends is… they never really die. They live on in VHS tapes, in action figures, in tattered lunchboxes, in old t-shirts buried in the back of drawers, in jokes we make on the podcast, and in every “Whatcha gonna do, brother?!” we yell when someone tries to square up.

So tonight, I’ll raise a cold one to the sky, maybe put on “Real American” just one more time, and let that red and yellow flag wave in my heart.

Rest easy, Hulkster.

You body slammed our hearts — in the best way.

And we’ll never stop believing in the power of the 24-inch pythons.

— Nick, The Group Chat Podcast