Dave Meltzer Accuses Hulk Hogan Of Never Being Sincere, Did Hogan Misread The WWE Locker Room?

Dave Meltzer recently took to his Wrestling Observer Radio show and spoke out on the controversial Hulk Hogan WWE Hall of Fame reinstatement. Hogan was released by the WWE in 2014 and removed from the company’s Hall of Fame after making racist remarks while being unknowingly filmed for a sex tape. The company reinstated Hogan to its Hall of Fame just last Sunday amid a great wave of controversy in the professional wrestling world.

Meltzer believes that Hulk Hogan misread the WWE locker room. Meltzer believes that Hogan’s backstage speech focused more on being careful about what one says and lacked true contrition over the racist remarks he made 12 years ago.

According to Meltzer,

Hogan was there talking about he didn’t know he was being recorded and they felt what he should be talking about is not an excuse for that; but, why he said what he said. Hogan completely misread the situation. I think that he thought, ‘I’m Hulk Hogan and the boys are the boys and the boys are gonna stick together.’

Meltzer continued,

He didn’t act like he was trying to atone. He was making excuses saying I didn’t know I was being filmed. Forget about whether you’re filmed or not. You were filmed, ok? The story here is you said these things that were horrible….you need to apologize to them and say you’re remorseful and how stupid you were as opposed to I didn’t know I was being filmed.

Meltzer talked about a divided locker room:

Different people throw out different percentages. Mark Henry said 50% of the African Americans were unhappy on the roster. The numbers I got were well over 50% of the wrestlers, the performers were unhappy; but, nobody made a fuss of it.

Meltzer claims that no one made mention of Hogan backstage on Monday’s RAW because if the wrong thing was said, Superstars may have feared possible repercussions. Meltzer also described the silent aftermath of Hogan’s resurgence as, “Eerie.”

Meltzer on a perceived lack of sincerity from Hogan:

I think people had an open mind to do so [forgive] if he was contrite…the other problem is also that this is a situation that is supposed to be real; but, unfortunately for Hogan, Hulk Hogan is a person that lives in a working world. It’s Hulk Hogan. It’s not better. It’s not worse. That’s the world he’s been in his entire adult life. This working con-world and everything is just the work, the work, the work. It’s hard in a situation to know if he’s sincere because he’s never sincere.

Meltzer on a lack of consideration for the WWE Superstars in bring Hogan back:

This is the business and you think of the sponsors, fan backlash, the media. You don’t think of your own guys because you think your own guys are gonna line up behind you no matter what you say because if they’re unhappy, they’re not gonna tell anyone they’re unhappy. That’s the way the WWE operates: we’re all a big happy family.

Meltzer goes on to say that he was told the majority of the roster feels the same way The New Day does & gave credit to Titus O’ Neil whom, Meltzer believes, took great risks in speaking out, as the WWE could easily write him off television entirely.

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