Watch Hulk Hogan Cut a Promo on Donald Trump … in 1988, at Wrestlemania 4

Wrestling Video Hulk Hogan
Watch Hulk Hogan Cut a Promo on Donald Trump … in 1988, at Wrestlemania 4

Note: You can turn off the “annotations” in the above video by clicking on the gear-shaped “settings” button.

Everyone knows about the love affair between Donald Trump and Vince McMahon, and all wrestling fans know that Trump properties have played host to several important WWE pay-per-views … but did you know that Hulk Hogan once cut a crazed, frothing-at-the-mouth Donald Trump promo? Because he totally did, at Wrestlemania 4 in 1988, with the future president in attendance in the stands.

The WWE refers to Wrestlemania 4 as having emanated from “Trump Plaza” in Atlantic City, New Jersey, despite the fact that it was actually hosted at Historic Atlantic City Convention Hall. The adjacent casino hotel was indeed Trump’s, and because it served as the event’s primary sponsor, the company was generous enough to rearrange space and time in order to make it the “official” site of the event. The event card was dominated by an unusual, 14-man tournament to claim the vacant WWF Championship—if you’re wondering how a 14-man tournament works, it’s because Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant were both given first-round byes. The tournament was eventually won by “Macho Man” Randy Savage, with the help of Hogan, which both kicked off Savage’s first-ever world title reign and the formation of “The Mega Powers” as a duo.

But enough about that! Let us dive head-first into the densely packed mound of cocaine that is this Hogan promo.

We meet The Hulkster backstage, where he’s awkwardly standing with his hands outward like Frankenstein’s monster, preparing to be interviewed by Mean Gene. Even by Hogan standards, we can see that he’s greasier and more hopped up on horse tranquilizers than usual. He cuts loose against arch-rival Andre the Giant, who he’s still been feuding with ever since their iconic meeting a year earlier at Wrestlemania 3, promising THE LITTLE HULKAMANIACS that he’ll prove he can beat the giant ANYWHERE, ANY TIME!

This is when things start to go off the rails, around the 1:15 mark of the embedded video above. Hulk posits that when he slams Andre, the resulting seismic event will be so intense that the “fault line” between New York and Florida will be severed entirely, deattaching the East Coast of the United States and doubtlessly resulting in the deaths of millions of innocents. Thankfully, Donald Trump will NOT be among those deaths, because as a true Hulkamaniac, he will be welcome to grab onto “the largest back in the world” with his family while Hogan personally swims them back to shore. Or to quote:

But as Donald Trump hangs on to the top of the Trump Plaza, with his family under his other arm, as they sink to the bottom of the sea, THANK GOD DONALD TRUMP’S A HULKAMANIAC! He’ll know enough to let go of his materialistic possessions, hang on to the wife and kids, dog-paddle with his life all the way to safety! But Donald; if something happens, you run out of gas, and all those little Hulkamaniacs run out of gas, just hang on to the LARGEST BACK IN THE WORLD, and I’ll dog-paddle us, backstroke us all to safety!

Alas, it is now 2017, Donald Trump is President of the United States, and we can see the unfortunate errors in Hulk Hogan’s abilities as a prognosticator. Clearly, Trump at no point got around to letting go of his “materialistic possessions,” and he did an even worse job of “hanging on to the wife,” considering that he’s been divorced not once but twice since the Wrestlemania broadcast. Who would ever imagine that the great seer, Hulkstradamus, could fail so profoundly?

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