He’s a “Real American” in the worst possible way.

I’m not going to lie. Hulk Hogan always rubbed me the wrong way.

In professional wrestling, he was the good guy, or “babyface” that you hoped would get beaten to a pulp by the bad guy, or “heel.” And when he turned heel later on in his career, his persona just completely sucked the life out of whatever wrestling match was on the card that day.

Don’t get me wrong, there were great cool “heels” in pro wrestling – Ric Flair, for instance, and CM Punk in his later years – but the only way you could create a five-star Hulk Hogan wrestling match is if you found five Hulk Hogan wrestling matches and knotted them together and added up the cumulative score.

And this brings me to last night. WWE has moved their flagship television show, “Monday Night Raw,” from its longtime home on the USA Network to a slot on Netflix. And among all the superstars who came back for this inaugural broadcast – oh look, there’s The Rock; oh look, there’s the Undertaker – Hulk Hogan took his own bows on stage.

And the fans booed him like crazy.

Not booing him as in “I hate you, you’re a cool heel” booing. No, we’re talking the kind of booing that equates to “Get out of the ring and get out of the building, you’re a terrible person, go away, go away” booing.

Don’t believe me?

Look at this.

Oh, and if you’re wondering about that “Real American Beer” T-shirt, yeah, Hogan’s got a vanity beer company, and WWE owns a portion of it. So after you say your prayers and eat your vitamins, does that also include washing them down with a cold one?

Yeah. Hulk Hogan right now is more toxic than that orange bronzer he wore during his championship years. Let’s see what has happened with ol’ Terry Bollea in the past few years. Sex tape with Bubba the Love Sponge’s wife? Check. Creepy comments about his daughter’s body? Check. Using a six-letter word that starts with N and rhymes with bigger? Check.

Oh yeah, and there’s this. Hulk Hogan’s most recent tag-team partner.

Ugh. No wonder Hogan got booed out of the arena last night. This man is not worth my time, and I’m sorry I even wasted a blog post on his bloviating.

Guys like Hulk Hogan are the reason I watch AEW wrestling instead. And if you get booed out of the building on an AEW show, you find a way to turn that into an angle and make it work for you in the future (see Jericho, Chris).

But yeah. Hulk Hogan’s time was 40 years ago, back when the professional wrestling landscape was a way different scene. On the same Wrestlemania III card that Hulk Hogan defeated Andre the Giant, there was a match where 500-pound King Kong Bundy squashed a midget wrestler like a pancake. Yeah, that was back in the day. Fun times.

As far as I’m concerned, Hulk Hogan can take his beer and his MAGA worship and his “Real American” jingoism and waltz on out of here. And I’d be totally fine with that.

And if I want to watch a “cool heel” nowadays …

I’ll wait for Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite telecast and see if Jon Moxley and his Death Riders stable plans on evincing more carnage against the likes of Orange Cassidy and Mark Briscoe and Hangman Adam Page.

Whatcha gonna do about that, bruddah?