Human Events Daily host Jack Posobiec spoke with commentator Raw Egg Nationalist about the cultural significance of wrestling icons like Hulk Hogan and Dusty Rhodes, and their connection to broader themes of masculinity and American hardship. He also touched on Hogan’s enduring legacy, Rhodes’ famous "Hard Times" promo, and Posobiec’s experience seeing Hogan rock the building at the Republican National Convention.
Posobiec described Hogan as "a larger than life figure that you could reach out and touch." He praised Hogan’s dedication to traveling “all of those little towns and crossing the highways and byways of America. 365, or in his telling, 400 days a year, because he would wrestle in Japan across the dateline—he would show up to your town and see him and physically watch him and come and do battle with these other legendary figures.”
Raw Egg Nationalist linked the struggles in America to a failure to promote positive masculinity, saying, "The reason why America is in hard times, it’s because America hasn’t found a way, actually, to encourage positive masculinity.
"You know, Hulk Hogan was a positive role model. He was somebody who—however overblown his WWF routine was and how overblown he was on the silver screen—he was still someone people could relate to, and see in his actions the situations he got himself into, the stories he was involved in. He was playing out a positive story about the need for strong men, even if he was absurdly strong and absurdly huge, and far bigger than the vast majority of people could ever be. Nevertheless, he embodied the kind of vision of positive masculinity in service of the nation.”
Posobiec recalled the era just before Hogan’s rise, touching on legendary wrestler Dusty Rhodes’ "Hard Times" promo as an example of wrestling’s connection to real American struggles. Posobiec said, “He says this on air, he’s talking to Ric Flair, he says, ‘you put hard times on Dusty Rhodes and his family. You don’t know what hard times are. Hard times are when the textile workers are out of work, they have four or five kids, can’t pay their wages and can’t buy their food. Hard times is when the auto workers are out of work and they tell him go home, when a man has worked 30 years at a job, 30 years at a job and they give him a watch and kick him in butt and say ‘hey, a computer took your place, daddy!’ That’s hard times.’ You hear that and it resonates because here we are 40 years later and it’s the same situation.”
Raw Egg Nationalist added, “It’s the same story but it’s not a computer taking your job, it’s uncontrolled mass immigration, it’s millions flowing across the southern border, but yes it’s totally the same situation. This, I think, is why you have to understand the kind of intimate links between the wrestling world.”
Posobiec also later shared his personal experience seeing Hogan at the RNC. “The minute I heard that Hulk Hogan was gonna be in town, I said, I'm gonna lock in my seat, and the minute that the performance, or you know, the event began that evening, we sat down, and I said, I'm not moving from the seat until Hulk comes out. And the boys were there, and even though it was way past their bedtime, they stayed up, and it was easily one of the top 10 moments of my entire life. And I don't just mean career, I mean my entire life.”
He continued, “Be there, again, with my children, who at Trump's original RNC, I didn't even have children yet. And there he was, waving the flag, my little boys, my two little boys, and man, when he took that jacket off, I froze. I said, he's not gonna do it. There's no way. And then he brought his arms up to the top of his shirt, and he started pulling, and it was like a wave of energy washed over the entire crowd. My knees buckled, I'm never gonna lie, my knees buckled. Hit the wall behind me, I almost dropped my kid. I couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe it.”
Posobiec concluded, “I've never seen any depiction of this in any footage, or any of the streams that just catch and capture the sheer energy and power that was unleashed by Hogan on stage that night. That's what was needed to save America. And he came back one last time, for one last ride to make America great again.”
Posobiec described Hogan as "a larger than life figure that you could reach out and touch." He praised Hogan’s dedication to traveling “all of those little towns and crossing the highways and byways of America. 365, or in his telling, 400 days a year, because he would wrestle in Japan across the dateline—he would show up to your town and see him and physically watch him and come and do battle with these other legendary figures.”
Raw Egg Nationalist linked the struggles in America to a failure to promote positive masculinity, saying, "The reason why America is in hard times, it’s because America hasn’t found a way, actually, to encourage positive masculinity.
"You know, Hulk Hogan was a positive role model. He was somebody who—however overblown his WWF routine was and how overblown he was on the silver screen—he was still someone people could relate to, and see in his actions the situations he got himself into, the stories he was involved in. He was playing out a positive story about the need for strong men, even if he was absurdly strong and absurdly huge, and far bigger than the vast majority of people could ever be. Nevertheless, he embodied the kind of vision of positive masculinity in service of the nation.”
Posobiec recalled the era just before Hogan’s rise, touching on legendary wrestler Dusty Rhodes’ "Hard Times" promo as an example of wrestling’s connection to real American struggles. Posobiec said, “He says this on air, he’s talking to Ric Flair, he says, ‘you put hard times on Dusty Rhodes and his family. You don’t know what hard times are. Hard times are when the textile workers are out of work, they have four or five kids, can’t pay their wages and can’t buy their food. Hard times is when the auto workers are out of work and they tell him go home, when a man has worked 30 years at a job, 30 years at a job and they give him a watch and kick him in butt and say ‘hey, a computer took your place, daddy!’ That’s hard times.’ You hear that and it resonates because here we are 40 years later and it’s the same situation.”
Raw Egg Nationalist added, “It’s the same story but it’s not a computer taking your job, it’s uncontrolled mass immigration, it’s millions flowing across the southern border, but yes it’s totally the same situation. This, I think, is why you have to understand the kind of intimate links between the wrestling world.”
Posobiec also later shared his personal experience seeing Hogan at the RNC. “The minute I heard that Hulk Hogan was gonna be in town, I said, I'm gonna lock in my seat, and the minute that the performance, or you know, the event began that evening, we sat down, and I said, I'm not moving from the seat until Hulk comes out. And the boys were there, and even though it was way past their bedtime, they stayed up, and it was easily one of the top 10 moments of my entire life. And I don't just mean career, I mean my entire life.”
He continued, “Be there, again, with my children, who at Trump's original RNC, I didn't even have children yet. And there he was, waving the flag, my little boys, my two little boys, and man, when he took that jacket off, I froze. I said, he's not gonna do it. There's no way. And then he brought his arms up to the top of his shirt, and he started pulling, and it was like a wave of energy washed over the entire crowd. My knees buckled, I'm never gonna lie, my knees buckled. Hit the wall behind me, I almost dropped my kid. I couldn't believe it. Couldn't believe it.”
Posobiec concluded, “I've never seen any depiction of this in any footage, or any of the streams that just catch and capture the sheer energy and power that was unleashed by Hogan on stage that night. That's what was needed to save America. And he came back one last time, for one last ride to make America great again.”
