Rumors have swirled that Hulk Hogan, one of the most popular and legendary professional wrestlers of all-time, may return to the WWE for its historic WrestleMania 30 pay-per-view April 6, but Hogan admitted that he may have never gotten the chance to return to the WWE if he went through with committing suicide--which the wrestling icon says he contemplated in 2007.
With his reality television show Hogan Knows Best ending and his marriage crumbling, Hogan admitted that it was a dark period in his life and he thought multiple times about ending it all.
"Everything got dark, everything happened at once," Hogan said this week on "Oprah: Where are they now?" according to Fox Sports. "I was drinking alcohol very heavily. It just all kept piling up, it all kept mounting and mounting I didn't know how to handle it. I always wondered how could someone possibly take their own life and so I got to that point where I said, 'You know what, maybe this would be easy. You know, maybe this would be an easy way to fix things.'"
Hogan's reality show was canceled in 2007, which was the same year that his son Nick was in a DUI car crash that left the teenager jailed for eight months. Things were falling apart all around Hogan.
Hogan said on the program that there was an experience with a fan that changed his thought process on New Year's Eve when he was feeling down and couldn't get out of his negative mental state.
"I was with my family and a bunch of my friends at a table," he said on the show, according to Fox Sports. "And there's a bunch of negativity about the food being bad, you know the champagne didn't work, even though it was all consumed. And when I walked outside, some kid ran up and hugged me and was like, 'Oh I grew up watching you. I didn't have a dad, you're like a dad to me.' And there was another person that said 'Hey Hulk, we love you.'"
Hogan said it went through his head then that his influence on others was way greater than he ever dreamed.
"And I went, 'Oh my God,' it was right then. I didn't understand what was going on, but it hit me that there's clean air and that there's dirty air," he said. "And once I walked back inside again, I realized I couldn't take it anymore. I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. I got sick and tired of the hating, the negativity, the verbal abuse, just everything that I was hearing."
Hogan, 60, who is a free agent after his contract with TNA expired in October, said something clicked after the outpouring of love from his fans.
"I now realize I had to go through all this stuff to be who I am today," he said on the program.
Hogan and Linda divorced and he later married his girlfriend Jennifer McDaniel. Hogan is hopeful to make one last appearance at WrestleMania 30 this spring.
"I would love to be at WrestleMania XXX," Hogan told Philadelphia's ABC affiliate at an autograph signing earlier this month. "I would love to have a ringside seat. But, the truth is I need a job. I quit TNA. I've just been hanging out on the beach. Never say never."
Thanks to Hogan rediscovering himself, he may very well get the chance for one more WrestleMania Moment.
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