In The Ring with Hulk Hogan

My brother, Pretty Boy Floyd as he's called in the inner autograph circles, was a big fan during the WWF era while I personally have never been a huge wrestling fan, but Hulk Hogan is definitely one of the best of the best so we certainly wanted to meet him. The two of us are probably one of the few who actually thought the movie Suburban Commando was a good film, so for that reason as well we headed down to a public signing with the Hulkster.

It wasn’t much of a surprise that the place was absolutely jam packed, especially considering he was signing free of charge. We were easily a couple hundred deep in the line upon our arrival, but nonetheless decided to wait it out since it should be a guarantee. Our main objective was to have a picture taken with him with autographs secondary on our priority list. The line moved extremely slow and our portion of the line was still outside the building where the event was being held. The signing session was underway, but we weren’t even inside yet.

Once we finally walked through the entrance we saw Hogan sitting down at a table and our worries subsided about taking a picture with him because Hulk was gladly posing for the guests. When we were merely a dozen or so people away from our opportunity to meet Hogan, one of the employees surrounding him shouts out to everyone that there will be no more pictures taken in hopes to move the line along quicker. This was truly ridiculous, to this point my brother and I had invested over two hours simply waiting in the line, so I spoke to the employee saying that all we wanted was the picture, yet he could care less.

I was the first between the two of us to approach Hogan and I quickly told him of our little dilemma here. As soon as I said that, a different employee near him said “Just shake his hand and move on.” Wow. Really? So I’m supposed to spend all my time here just to shake his hand, I don’t think so. Hulk graciously told me, “Go ahead and take the picture, brother.” So I leaned across the table and was able to snap a pic. My brother handed me the camera, now for his chance to get a picture, but the employees had other ideas. They almost immediately began pushing him aside saying there is no time for pictures. Have these people gone mad? The mindset to herd people like cattle through these public signing events has reached a sad point where it has gotten way out of hand.

Hogan reached across the table and grabbed my brother’s arm and sternly said to the employees, “I’m taking a picture with this guy!” I snapped the shot and we thanked him before heading out the door. The funny part is we didn’t hold the line up at all, this all occurred in a mere minute or two, so for the employees to go ballistic was just way out of line and truly disrespectful to us and the people patiently waiting. I give alot of credit to Hogan because he recognized the situation and truly wanted to please his fans as we both were able to get a picture with him and still managed to get a few autographs as well. Thanks brother!