What the Non-Fan Should Know About What We Think of Hulk Hogan

Wrestling fandom is a strange beast. Most fans get really excited about the product as children and then lose interest in their late teens. But many--and more every year--either never stop being fans or return once they've figured out the world of relationships and personal finance.

But wrestling, like superhero comics, is a limited medium. There are only so many stories that can be told when it's necessary to punctuate the arc with fighting. Storylines tend to repeat with minor variations and different characters. Extended fandom requires another level of understanding.

This is where the smarks come in. The old term for the audience, true believers that wrestling was "real," is marks (coming from old carny talk). When an individual learns that the matches are predetermined, it's said that he's been smartened up. Thus, a smark is a smart mark--a fan that thinks he knows what's really going on.

What's going on backstage is usually very interesting. Because wrestling being "fake" used to be a secret, the politics in the locker room were secret as well. If sunlight is the best disinfectant, then darkness is where things get rotten.

And wrestling politics in the kayfabe era (when the feuds were promoted as being real) was definitely rotten. It created a culture of backstabbing, favoritism and industry politics that carries over today. It's this backstage maneuvering that get smarks excited. They scrutinize the product for indications of locker room attitudes. Why did they make this wrestler look like a chump when the crowd loves him? Why is that wrestler always in the running for a belt when he's terrible?

Which brings us to this Buzzfeed article, Hulk Hogan Returning To The WWE Is The Greatest Thing To Ever Happen. Hulk Hogan is the wrestler smarks love to hate.

In a nutshell, the knock against Hogan is that he's only ever in it for himself. Hogan is the one wrestler that nearly every one in the world knows. He's used that power to enhance his own image in the industry (and his paycheck), get jobs for his washed-up cronies, prop up his non-wrestling ventures and squash anyone who's a threat to his self-perception that he is the top guy. Not to mention he's a terrible wrestler.

The fact that he's returning to the WWE is less a coup for the promotion than an indication that the WWE is on an upswing. One of the axioms of the business is that its success is cyclical. The big WWE explosion of the 80s faded until the mid-90s, when competing promotion WCW became hot. The WWE parlayed that heat to develop the "Attitude Era," which was even bigger than Hogan's 80s heyday. Hogan's reputation is that he arrives on the scene just as a promotion is starting to pop, gets a big paycheck and then steals away the moment ratings start to slip. Hogan is nothing if not savvy; this way, he looks as though he's the reason for the success and his absence is the reason for the decline.

If you aren't a wrestling fan, you won't hear any more about his return. You'll see a few shallow, goofy articles like that in Buzzfeed, shrug your shoulders and move on. But, if you want some entertainment, check into the IWC's (Internet Wrestling Community) reactions.