Review of My Life Outside the Ring by Hulk Hogan

My Life Outside the Ring is Hulk Hogan's second autobiography. Whereas his first one is geared towards wrestling fans and mostly focuses on Hulk Hogan's career, this one, as the title implies, focuses on the life of Terry Bollea. While Hulk Hogan has been involved in some of the most famous stories in the wrestling business, none of his scripted drama can compare to the real-life drama he has dealt with outside of the ring. Fans of both professional wrestling and supermarket tabloids will enjoy this book.

Even though I am a Hulkamaniac, I have to admit that his first autobiography was one of the worst wrestling books I've read. I was a little wary when I first got this book that I was going to experience a bad case of déjà vu. However, I'm glad to say that this book is significantly better than his first one was.

In his first book, he tried to recreate the myth of Hulk Hogan onto the written page. This time around, he succeeded in his book by making himself appear to be a regular person that just happened to have a flamboyant job.

Hulk isn't afraid to share his flaws with the audience in this book as he candidly discusses almost killing himself, his use of steroids, and his adultery. He also discusses his family's dark secrets, from Linda's alleged issues with alcohol to his brother overdosing on drugs.

While a portion of the book discusses his wrestling career, it is less of a career retrospective than his prior book was. He only covered the major parts of it and commented on it mostly from a perspective of how the big moments in his career impacted his life outside of it. The most in-depth he goes about in discussing his career is the troubles he went through to become a professional wrestler.

The majority of the book covers his life before and after wrestling. The obvious selling point of this book is the recent Hogan family drama. While we saw some of the turmoil his family was going through on Hogan Knows Best, the tales that the producers of the show left on the cutting room floor were the real reality of his pseudo-reality program.

Once the filming of that show ended, Hulk's life began to spiral out of control. Between his divorce and Nick's car crash, Hulk found himself lower than he ever was. The stories he tells about Linda and her family are just shocking and unbelievable. I'm just curious what her reaction is going to be to this book and whether she has one planned to rebut everything he has said about her.

Anyone that has ever seen a Hulk Hogan match knows that when he appears at his lowest and about to lose a match, he Hulk's up and ends up on top. The book ends with his divorce being finalized, having a good relationship with his children, a happy relationship with his girlfriend, and a bad person going to jail for hiring a hit man. Ironically, the mantra of training, prayers, and vitamins he used to preach but didn't practice to the little Hulkamaniacs has wound up saving his life.