Hulk Hogan Was Once Held At Gunpoint By Another WCW Legend, Harley Race

Highlights

• Wrestlers in the past resolved their disputes with violence, even sometimes using weapons. Hulk Hogan's popularity led to clashes with other wrestlers, including Harley Race.
• Hogan joined WWE during their national expansion, causing tension with other promoters and wrestlers like Race. Race threatened to kill Hogan and even held him at gunpoint in a confrontation.
• Despite their past conflicts, Hogan and Race eventually worked together professionally when Race joined WWE in 1986. McMahon successfully ended the territory system and transformed WWE into a lucrative national promotion.

Wrestling is a pretty violent sport. Wrestlers clash with each other on television, and while they don’t actually hate each other behind the scenes, clashes do happen when the cameras are off. This was especially true in the past since there were many wrestlers with the old-school mentality, and they preferred to fix their disputes with fists, and well, sometimes even other weapons. Hulk Hogan was the biggest pro wrestler in the world at one point, and he’s still pretty popular worldwide despite not being active in the business. Well, it turns out, not everyone liked Hogan since he was the wrestler Vince McMahon chose to run the territories out of business during WWE’s national expansion. At one point, he was even held at gunpoint by Harley Race when Hogan came to his territory.

RELATED: 5 Times Hulk Hogan Was A Complete Jerk On-Screen (& 5 Times He Was One In Real Life)

Hulk Hogan Returned To WWE After Leaving AWA

Fifty years ago, the wrestling business worked very differently than it does today. There weren’t big wrestling promotions like WWE, AEW, Impact, and NJPW. There were instead wrestling territories under the NWA umbrella and each territory had its own main star. When Hulk Hogan returned to WWE in 1983, he was already a popular name due to his appearance in Rocky III.

Hogan and AWA got into a dispute, so he left them to join Vince McMahon who pushed him as his main superstar during WWE’s national expansion. When WWE came to Kansas City for their shows, however, one guy wasn’t happy to see Hogan there, and he was the NWA World Heavyweight Champion at that time, Harley Race. The WWE expansion resulted in a ton of heat for Vince and Hogan because they were essentially breaking the trust of other promoters and killing the territory system that had been in place for decades.

Harley Race Threatened To Kill Hulk Hogan

One night before a show in 1984, Race shows up in the arena where WWE was going to do the show and burned the ring down. In some interviews, it’s said he at least attempted to do that. Hogan was told about this and warned as well that Race wanted to kill him. The Hulkster still went there after drinking some wine at Rusty Scupper. He had some stomach issues, and while he was using the bathroom, Davey Boy Smith started screaming that Race was here, and Hogan, remembering the warning from the ring crew earlier, got out of the restroom as soon as he could. When he got out, Race was waiting for him in the hallway with his 9mm, which he pointed at The Hulkster. Harley told him that he wanted to blow his kneecaps off but didn’t pull the trigger since he knew he was going to work with them in the future.

RELATED: 10 Backstage Stories About Harley Race We Can't Believe

Hogan had actually put his match low on the card instead of being the main event, hoping he’d not have this confrontation with Race. Well, that didn’t work in his favor. There are a few different variations of this story. Some say that Harley punched Hogan in the locker room and that he had a .38 Special with him. When Harley was asked about it during an interview with The Hannibal TV, he refused to comment on it. Among all the versions, one thing that’s consistent is the fact that Harley did pull out a gun on Hogan.

They Had A Feud When Harley Race Joined WWE In 1986

After this incident, they both got along, at least in the sense of not threatening each other’s safety. Hogan and Race also worked some matches together when Race joined WWE in 1986. And while they may not have been best friends, both were professional while feuding with each other. Invading territories was a risky thing to do in the 80s, but McMahon did pull it off successfully. He ended the territory system, turned WWE into a national promotion, made lots of money, and changed the wrestling industry forever. His safety was also at risk at one point since promoters were losing millions in money (Harley himself lost over $500,000 reportedly).

In the end, everything worked out for Vince and his company. He got WWE onto syndicated television and, years later, gambled everything on the first WrestleMania, which was a hit and helped WWE become the wrestling juggernaut it is today.