The L.A. crowd's vocal displeasure with Hulk Hogan on the Netflix premiere of WWE "Raw" had the same name on everyone's lips. The Iron Sheik has perhaps made Hogan humble one more time.
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00:00The L.A. crowd's vocal displeasure with Hulk Hogan on the Netflix premiere of WWE Raw had
00:05the same name on everyone's lips. The Iron Sheik has perhaps made Hogan humble one more
00:11time.
00:12Netflix and WWE couldn't have been happier with the numbers that came out of the January
00:166, 2025 premiere of Raw on the streaming service. Variety reported that the show got 4.9 million
00:23views globally, with 2.6 million of those in the U.S. That's well over double the number
00:28that had been watching on the USA Network every week.
00:31What that also means is that nearly 5 million people heard the crowd of more than 17,000
00:36at the Intuit Dome boo Hulk Hogan out of the building. Hogan came out to the stage to deliver
00:41a promo for his beer brand, Real American Beer, which is now a WWE sponsor. The boos
00:47rained down almost the moment he started speaking. Hogan rushed through his remarks, did his
00:52trademark shirt tear to reveal a WWE and Netflix shirt, and got out of there in a hurry.
00:58Many of the viewers who took to social media after the segment seemed to have the same
01:01thought — that Iron Sheik would have loved it. Most variations of the joke involved the
01:06late wrestler, real name Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri, looking down on Hogan's segment from
01:12the afterlife, laughing at his longtime enemy's misfortune.
01:16Though he died in 2023, the official ex-account of the Iron Sheik is still going strong, with
01:20several inflammatory posts aimed at Hogan over the following days. One read,
01:25Through thick and thin, Hulk Hogan, go f— yourself.
01:29Fans got in on the action, too. One wrote,
01:31The Iron Sheik hated Hulk so much that he tweeted from beyond the grave, a generational
01:36hatred that transcends death.
01:39Another noted,
01:40The ghost of the Iron Sheik is already in the running for the biggest hater of 2025
01:43award.
01:44Some fans' fantasy — and we do mean fantasy — booked a match between Hogan and the Sheik's
01:49ghost. Others dug back into the Sheik's account and shared old posts that took shots at Hogan.
01:55Of course, we have to note here that the Iron Sheik almost certainly did not actually run
01:58his own ex-account, even when he was alive. But the account was definitely crafted to
02:03emulate his distinctive voice and manner of speech, which could be heard in interviews
02:07up until his death.
02:08The Sheik wouldn't hesitate to express his hatred for Hogan in person, either.
02:12Hulk Hogan is a two-faced, no-good son of a b—
02:16One could argue that it was the Iron Sheik himself who kickstarted Hulkamania, though.
02:21Hogan won his first-ever WWF title from him at Madison Square Garden in 1984, skyrocketing
02:26the Hulkster to superstardom.
02:29The Iron Sheik maintained in interviews that AWA promoter Vern Gagne offered to pay him
02:34to break Hogan's leg in the match as retaliation for Hogan walking out on the promotion. However,
02:39the match went according to plan, and the rest is history.
02:42It isn't entirely clear why the fans in Los Angeles were so averse to Hogan's presence,
02:46though many have theorized that it stems back to a racist 2007 rant that came to light
02:52during Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker in 2015.
02:54Whatever led to the collective rejection of the Hulkster, maybe the Sheik's spirit really
02:58did get some joy out of his misery.