Terry Bollea, or as most people know and remember him, Hulk Hogan, died Thursday at the age of 71. Bigger than life, bigger than any wrestling star, and just plain big, Hogan was a cultural icon throughout the 1980s, appearing in movies, constantly on television, body slamming Andre The Giant, and it continued into the 1990s and well into the 2000s.
But the Hulk Hogan that showed up in Rocky III and in the WWF (now the WWE) started smaller as wrestling fans in the Twin Cities know well. Bollea became “Hulk Hogan” thanks to longtime WWE promoter Vince McMahon, but he grew to embody “Hulk Hogan” in Minnesota.
Hogan was born in August, Georgia and grew up mainly in Tampa-St. Pete, Florida. His stature – all six-foot-seven of him – drew the eye of local wrestling promoters. He started to wrestle across the south before heading to the northeast U.S. and wrestling for McMahon’s early WWF shows. He also wrestled in Japan, where the “sport” was a massive draw…