Summary

Jimmy Hart reflected on his friendship with Hulk Hogan and said two simple rules helped keep them close for more than 40 years.

According to Hart, the relationship lasted because he never borrowed money from Hogan and because he always gave him an honest answer when asked, even if he softened the delivery a little. Hart said their run together stretched from Memphis to WWE, then WCW, before ending back in WWE.

The comments add another personal note to the wave of stories surrounding Hogan's legacy, including a recent look at how Bret Hart reflected on Hulk Hogan's WrestleMania IX role in a Netflix documentary.

Quote from Jimmy Hart

"Hulk and I were friends for over 40 years. What a great run we had, all the way from Memphis, Tennessee, to New York for WWE, then a small little vacation in WCW, and we finished right back to WWE. We lasted that long because of two reasons: I never borrowed money from him and I always told him the truth when he asked me something, even though I'd always put a little bit of sugar on it."

Hart also spoke about how much Hogan still wanted to wrestle after his in-ring career had effectively wound down.

"People didn't mind that Hulk wasn't wrestling any more because they simply loved being around him, but not wrestling bothered Hulk. Hulk would say to me, 'I miss wrestling so much. I want one more match.' And I'd say, 'Hulk, it isn't going to be what you think. There isn't that Andre The Giant or 'Rowdy' Roddy Piper to wrestle. We had that, and it was beautiful. Let's ride into the sunset on what we did do.' I'd tell him the t-shirts were still flying off the wall, the action figures were still selling, you name it. He had new stores and all sorts of new projects. But none of it compared to wrestling. I can still hear him talking about how much he missed it.

"Hulk loved the wrestling more than anything. That was his true love."

What Jimmy Hart's comments say about Hulk Hogan

Hart's account makes Hogan's attachment to wrestling sound less like nostalgia and more like the part of his life he never fully replaced. That gives extra weight to Hart's description of turning him away from the idea of one more match, because it came from someone who had been alongside him across multiple eras.

It also reinforces how closely Hart and Hogan's careers stayed linked in the public imagination. When Hart talks about Memphis, WWE, and WCW in one breath, he is really tracing a shared path through some of the biggest stretches of Hogan's career.

Sources

Jimmy Hart while speaking with Justin Barrasso for Undisputed