His match with André the Giant on WWF The Main Event on February 5, 1988, still holds American television viewership records for wrestling with a 15.2 Nielsen rating and 33 million viewers.

Impressed by Hogan's physical stature, the Brisco brothers asked Hiro Matsuda—the man who trained wrestlers working for Championship Wrestling from Florida (CWF)—to make him a potential trainee.

The storyline shortcut was necessary because less than three weeks later on January 23, Hogan won his first WWF World Heavyweight Championship, pinning The Iron Sheik (who had Blassie in his corner) in Madison Square Garden.

The majority of Hogan's matches during this time involved him wrestling heels who had been booked as unstoppable monsters, using a format which became near-routine: He delivered steady offense, but eventually lose momentum, seemingly nearing defeat.

He was featured on the covers of Sports Illustrated (the first and as of 2013[update], only professional wrestler to do so), TV Guide, and People magazines, while also appearing on The Tonight Show and having his own CBS Saturday morning cartoon titled Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n' Wrestling.

Throughout 1986, Hogan made successful title defenses against challengers such as Terry Funk,[70] Don Muraco,[71] King Kong Bundy (in a steel cage match at WrestleMania 2),[72] Paul Orndorff,[73] and Hercules Hernandez.

[84] At WrestleMania IV, Hogan participated in a tournament for the vacant WWF World Heavyweight Championship to regain it; he and André were given a bye into quarter-finals, but their match resulted in a double disqualification.

[85] Later that night in the main event, Hogan came to ringside to stop André interfering which helped "Macho Man" Randy Savage defeat Ted DiBiase to win the title.

[87] After Savage became WWF World Heavyweight Champion at WrestleMania IV, they feuded with The Mega Bucks (André the Giant and Ted DiBiase) and defeated them at the main event of the first SummerSlam.

[106] At this time, news sources began to allege that Dr. George Zahorian III, a doctor for the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission, had been selling steroids illegally to wrestlers in general and Hogan in particular.

[107] Hogan returned to the WWF in February 1993, helping out his friend Brutus Beefcake in his feud with Money Inc. (Irwin R. Schyster and "The Million Dollar Man" Ted DiBiase), and officially renaming themselves The Mega-Maniacs, taking on Money Inc.'s former manager "The Mouth of the South" Jimmy Hart (a long-time friend of Hogan's outside of wrestling) as their manager in what was the first time WWF audiences had seen Hart as a fan favorite.

[129] Savage took the WCW World Heavyweight Championship from Sting at Spring Stampede on April 19, while Hogan teamed with Kevin Nash to take on Roddy Piper and The Giant in the first-ever bat match.

[135] On the Thanksgiving episode of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Hogan officially announced his retirement from professional wrestling, as well as his candidacy for President of the United States.

[2][138] Later, Hogan was severely injured in a Texas tornado match for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship featuring him, Diamond Dallas Page, Flair, and Sting at Spring Stampede.

[139] On the July 12 episode of Nitro, Hogan made his return as a face for the first time in three years and accepted an open challenge from Savage, who had won the WCW World Heavyweight Championship at Bash at the Beach the night before in a tag team match by pinning Kevin Nash.

As a test, Hogan worked a match in Orlando, Florida on November 14, for the Xcitement Wrestling Federation (XWF) promotion run by his longtime manager Jimmy Hart.

[4] Returning as leader of the original nWo with Scott Hall and Kevin Nash, the three got into a confrontation with The Rock[146] and cost Stone Cold Steve Austin a chance at becoming the Undisputed WWF Champion against Chris Jericho in the main event.

[citation needed] Hogan battled The Rock (who had turned heel) once again at No Way Out on February 23 and lost[154] and defeated Mr. McMahon at WrestleMania XIX on March 30 in a street fight billed as "twenty years in the making".

On November 21, 24, 26 and 28, Hogan performed with a group of wrestlers including Spartan-3000, Heidenreich, Eugene, Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake and Orlando Jordan across Australia in a tour titled Hulkamania: Let The Battle Begin.

[176] On the January 4 episode of Impact!, Hogan debuted, reuniting briefly with former nWo partners Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and Sean Waltman, the latter two of whom made their returns to the company.

He refused to join them for a full-fledged reunion of their group claiming, "it's a different time", and stuck to his business relations with Bischoff, who made his appearance to declare that, the two of them would "flip the company upside down" and everyone would have to earn their spot.

[184][185][186] Hogan was set to wrestle with Jarrett and Joe against Sting, Nash and D'Angelo Dinero at Bound for Glory, but was forced to miss the event due to a back surgery.

[196][197][198] On the September 15 episode of Impact Wrestling, Sting defeated Immortal member Ric Flair to earn the right to face Hogan at Bound for Glory on October 16.

On March 28, the night before WrestleMania, Hogan posthumously inducted longtime partner and rival "Macho Man" Randy Savage into the WWE Hall of Fame class of 2015.

The next night at WrestleMania 31, Hogan reunited with Hall and Nash to reform the nWo, appearing in Sting's corner in his match against Triple H, who himself was joined by D-Generation X (DX) members Billy Gunn, X-Pac, Road Dogg, and Shawn Michaels.

[265] Hogan's match with Andre the Giant at The Main Event on February 5, 1988, holds American television records for a wrestling audience with a 15.2 Nielsen rating and 33 million viewers.

[268][269] Fellow WWE Hall of Fame member Bret Hart has been repeatedly critical of Hogan's wrestling abilities, including in 2021 saying that he "didn't know a headlock from a headlamp", and that he was "very limited".

[309] In 1997, Hogan starred in the TNT original movie Assault on Devil's Island, as the leader of a commando unit featuring fellow genre veterans Carl Weathers and Shannon Tweed.

Hogan then joined Gawker in the ongoing action against Heather Clem in state court in Florida, alleging invasion of privacy, negligent and intentional infliction of emotional distress and seeking $100 million in damages.

[339] Hogan has been accused multiple times of fabricating elements of his past, including that he was one of the last people to see Kerry Von Erich prior to his death, that an experience with a terminally ill child through the Make-A-Wish Foundation at SummerSlam in 1992 inspired the songs on his Hulk Rules album (despite the fact that he never made an appearance at the event and was not working for the WWF at the time), that he was scouted by MLB teams prior to having suffered an elbow injury, that he played in the Little League World Series and finished with a batting average of .714 (despite Little League Baseball having no record of him having played at any of those events), that The Undertaker injured his neck at the Survivor Series in 1991, that Elvis Presley was a fan of his (despite having died two years before Hogan's debut), that both The Rolling Stones and Metallica wanted him to play bass for their bands, that André the Giant weighed over 600 pounds at the time of their match at WrestleMania III, and that he was offered the starring role in the film The Wrestler but turned it down.