Hulk Hogan appeared on The Bubba The Love Sponge radio show Tuesday morning and discussed the shock jock’s altercation with Awesome Kong the previous day. Courtesy of www.angrymarks.com, here is a transcript of the discussion:
BUBBA: She was wearing wrestling gear, and she came in on me and sucker punched me right on my left cheek, and I was like, what’s going on… then she came out me again, hit me again in the mouth, and she goes, “This if for Haiti! This is for Haiti!†and I’m like “What is going on?†Then she hits me again… Finally I put my left hand out and push her away from me, and she comes at me again and I just cover up, because I cannot fight back on a woman. Not only will I be fired from TNA, which I probably am, but my radio career is gone if I take a woman out!
HOGAN: I tell you what, though, after what happened, if you had clocked her you’d have got away with it.
BUBBA: Maybe on the streets I’d have gotten away with it, but, how would the media have spun that had I clocked her?
HOGAN: What nobody knows, and this is the real truth, that there were certain people there, y’know, and of course they have to run it by me and Dixie… she should get off the property, she should be fired immediately, that’s it. It was so violent. You could have actually lost an eye, you could have had your teeth knocked out. But, to give you your creedo, you are the one who said no, don’t fire her.
BUBBA: No, I don’t want you to fire her.
MANSON: Now, I’m confused. Does Hogan think that this is a funny incident?
BUBBA: No, no he’s not. He knows how serious it is. He was being a dick earlier… but I don’t think he agrees with it. And, you know what, they said we were going to fire her and I said no, don’t fire her. Now, if she’s done other stuff, I can’t help what happens to her on other situations, but don’t fire her for sucker punching me, I don’t want to cost anybody their job.
HOGAN: I think this is really just the beginning of a match made in heaven.
BUBBA: No, that’s fine… that’s fine. But I tell you one thing, Hogan. If you… you better not call it pro wrestling, you might as well put the cage up and make it MMA because I will not work, I promise you that. You’re not going to embarrass me like that, and be that much of a loose cannon in this industry…
MANSON: Oh now you’re gonna kick her ass? I don’t think you want a piece of her in the cage.
BUBBA: Let me ask you, you’re the only person who has a cool head. Had I defended myself, and not covered up, and just blocked what the remaining of what she put in. Had I actually fought her, and done well, what would I be facing right now?
HOGAN: Well, first off, you’d have killed her. She’s real good at throwing a sucker punch, but the way she was swinging at you, and everything, you could have shot right between her arms and knocked her out. It wouldn’t have been cool, y’know, there would be all kind of heat… You did the right thing, y’know, because you did not hit her back, and she was swinging wild and she’s out of her mind… you did the right thing, but at the end of the day it comes back to you and me hanging out together. You know you’re going to get heat, I told you this a long time ago. BUT, don’t put this one on me, because you stirred that up.
BUBBA: How did I? I’m not putting this on you, but you lead by example… I’m gonna be honest, man, nobody there likes me. And they think, hold on, Hogan, they think I’m in there… I’m not a wrestler, I’m not going to take anybody’s job, I’m not gonna take anybody’s backstage announcing gig. I’m there to help you and try to get the TNA product going and working. I’m not a boss, I’m not a agent, I’m not nothing there and everybody… a lot of the old dudes, but AJ Styles gives me dirty looks…
HOGAN: Well the word I got on the street last night was that Russo stirred this up, and Russo put her up to it.
BUBBA: I don’t agree with that.
HOGAN: It’s true! I heard it!
MANSON: Now, did she give you a finishing move, because she’s known for a body avalanche, a gorilla press slam…
BUBBA: No, no…
HOGAN: She shoulda pushed Bubba over her head, splashed Bubba, and then just bounced off the wall and done two or three belly splashes…
MANSON: Awesome Kong, she’s so awesome…
BUBBA: Wait until my lawyers call Dixie up today.
HOGAN: I just think you should get there early today, and just like she sucker punched you, I think because Russo set this up, you should just knock his assout.
BUBBA: Well, I dunno… I don’t think Russo did this…
HOGAN: He did it, I’m telling you as your friend! I wouldn’t lie to you!
BUBBA: Hogan, I love you to death, but you’re the biggest worker… hold on. You’re taking something that really did happen and trying to make it an angle And the bottom line is, y’know what? All the wrestling sheets, you should know this is real because I didn’t talk about it, and I was upset so bad last night. Hogan, I mean, God, Dixie cannot want to deal with all this Bubba drama…
HOGAN: No, this is just your chance to even the score, straighten this out. You just go right up to Russo when he’s not looking and you just sucker punch him like she sucker punched you.
BUBBA: It will be more of a fight between Russo and I, he’s a pretty big dude, than me and Kong, but that isn’t going to be fair.
HOGAN: You can beat Russo up! Especially if you sucker punch him!
BUBBA: Manson, let me tell you about this Awesome Kong chick. She put three of them on my right cheek that you wouldn’t believe. If you look at my forearms they’re all scratched up. And she’s all, like it’s Braveheart, “HAAAITIII! HAAAIIITI!†And I’m like what… and there’s a woman named Mandy who saw it all… and then she took a glass container and threw it down.
MANSON: That’s why a camera should be on you at all times. That’s priceless footage.
HOGAN: I thought it was great!
BUBBA: But, hey, Hogan, what you don’t realize that they have “eyes in the sky†there, did you know that? They have … that whole entire building has surveillance on it. I’m gonna go get that tape.
HOGAN: Well I can’t wait to see it because I can’t believe how quick she dropped your ass!
BUBBA: She happened to meet me right there, where you guys… just outside the door, you know where it happened, right? I was going to go talk to Val Venis about something, I was heading to Catering, and she met me just down that hallway a little bit before you go down to Eric’s office. She was by herself and she was coming to find me. Just minutes before that, I was in that little office area where you and Eric did that shoot, talking to Hall and Nash and Sixx-Pac. So she was coming to find me, regardless where I was. And what if she had done it right there? She’d have got an ass-whipping by the boys!
HOGAN: By the boys? There’d have been nobody around. The only reason you covered up is because everybody was watching, and you knew you had to behave. I think if you had been by herself you would have counter clocked her ass.
BUBBA: Yeah, but she happened to catch me kinda in a dead area. What if we were shooting and she came in and did that, I mean, she was going to find me regardless of where I was.
HOGAN: Oh, yeah, she was on the hunt! I’ve been around this business for a long time, and I’ve seen Dirty Dan Spivey just destroy Adrian Adonis to the point where we had to stop that. I’ve seen Paul Orndorff, naked, with a pair of shower shoes, kick Vader’s head in. But, without a doubt, when she hit you in your mouth, I thought she broke your jaw, I thought that was one of the hardest sucker punches I’ve ever seen thrown in this business, where it connected.
BUBBA: But it didn’t drop me!
HOGAN: All joking aside, I’m really proud of you for not knocking her out, bro, because that wouldn’t be cool.
BUBBA: I’m gonna be honest with you, Hogan. After her third punch to me, in my mind I’m like, do I take her down with a double-leg, and then just pummel her. Or do I try to bring my right around… and in my head in the quarter-second I had to think about I was like, “You’re done, you’re over! You’ll be off the radio!†Women’s right will get you, look what happened when I barbecued a hog…
HOGAN: If you had hit her, you might have killed her. I’m serious, because the way you were stiff-arming her, she was flailing, she was so out of her mind, if you had sucker punched her between the eyes you might have killed her. I’m proud of you for not doing it, BUT… but what happened, she deserved it.
BUBBA: Dixie has a nice work environment… don’t I, have a talent there, have a right to walk around and not get beat up?
HOGAN: You didn’t get beat up, you just got beat on!
BUBBA: And it was a triple Lindy, three of them connected boom-boom-boom. And then I was like, man… and then, on the third one, I got my left hand out, and I’m keeping her off, my hand’s on like her collarbone area, and at that point she was wailing around, and I was like, do I drop her, do I shoot a double or single leg, or do I get down on a knee and cover up…
HOGAN: Oh, she’d have kicked your brains in if you had got down on your knee.
BUBBA: I know… but, do I just … hopefully somebody gets her off me, so if I don’t defend myself I can’t get in trouble. I was worried about lawsuits, women’s activists and getting in trouble if I had fought back and dropped her, or tried, or even attempted to..
HOGAN: When you Hulked up… and you could see that your eyeballs were rolling back like a shark, and you were going to knock her out. .. but all the sudden you had presence of mind just to cover up and to do the rope-a-dope which was the way to go…
BUBBA: Which makes me look like a pussy…
HOGAN: No, it didn’t make you look like a pussy. If you had hurt that woman, it wouldn’t have been cool. Even though you could have gotten away with it, it still wouldn’t have been cool.
BUBBA: Brent, what’s your spin on it? By the way, I will tell you this, on the way home I called Brent, he’s my confidant, I’m like, Brent, I’m really tore up with this. Brent, you wern’t happy about it, were you?
BRENT: No, I’m still not happy about it. If I were you, and I’m shooting now, I’m being 100% serious, I’d never work another day in my life, and the only correspondence that they would get from me would be through Carlson and Wisner.
HOGAN: Oh, please!
BUBBA: Well, I’m just sayin’… to each their own.
BRENT: Hostile work environment. It’s all day…slam dunk!
BUBBA: Well, it is, it is all day, but… I dunno.
HOGAN: You did the right thing, it’s all good, man. It ain’t no big deal.
BUBBA: It’s no big deal to you, you’re not the one whose getting punked out when you go to work today.
HOGAN: I thought it was awesome. AWESOME KONG RULES!
BUBBA: Go ahead and put her over, Hogan. It’s called lack of leadership, my friend, she obviously has the mindset that you ain’t shit and you don’t care. She went after your number one guy, and what are you going to do about it, old timer? You’re all bark and no bite there, buddy!
HOGAN: I’m going to book you and Russo together, because he’s the one who set it up.
BUBBA: Or the fact that he set it up and you’re not doing anything.
HOGAN: I’m setting it up!
BUBBA: You’re not even sticking up for me on this.
HOGAN: Oh, Jesus Christ, it was a girl, a 350-pound girl, calm down!… I was just worried about your shoulder, I knew you had hurt your shoulder trying to hold that monster off.
BUBBA: Oh, my shoulder is amped…
