At What Point Did Hulk Hogan Stop Being Bigger Than The Wrestling Business?
Wrestling has shifted to the fringes, once in the mid-90s (quickly resurgent in the late 90s) and once again in the early 2000s. If you look at Hogan's filmography, he's getting cast in major TV appearances during the 80s, before he's cast as a leading man in a few films in the early 90s, before he leaves WWF and then his film career is b-movies and television from there on out.
You can definitely make the case that leaving WWF in 1994 was the start of him being no longer bigger than the business, but what does that even mean? In the late 90s Hogan was playing a villain on TV, which was huge for wrestling but may have been damaging to Hogan's endeavours out of wrestling.
If someone is bigger than the business then they're recognizable outside the context of wrestling and have marketable ventures outside of wrestling. There's only one person who fits that model: Dwayne Johnson.
The moment The Rock was billed as Dwayne Johnson for a film was the moment that he truly became bigger than wrestling. Rock showed up to talk shows and they talked to him about his films and acting, not being a wrestler and being an actor.
Hogan never left wrestling, and if not for the eventual break down and decay of human bodies - we'd still be seeing Hogan in a wrestling ring. If not for his racist tirade, we'd still being seeing him on WWE TV. He may have even been an onscreen authority figure if not for that leaked audio, we could be seeing Hogan weekly right now.
Someone else brought up Jericho, who has left wrestling multiple times to pursue other non-wrestling endeavours. Jericho isn't known for his non-wrestling pursuits. You ask a non-wrestling fan who Chris Jericho is, they'll probably say "who?" or "that wrestler" or "that wrestler from dancing with the stars." They're not going to say the guy from Fozzy, because Fozzy isn't really a mainstream band.
Ask someone who Dwayne Johnson is, they'll say the actor or The Fast and The Furious. Hogan will always be the wrestler. Jericho will always be the wrestler who did other things, kind of like Hogan to a lesser extent.
Hogan is a pop culture icon. So is The Rock, but I don't think Chris Jericho really is. He's a massive icon in the wrestling world - he's a GD legend - but you're not likely to see him on a kitschy t-shirt.
Hogan became bigger than wrestling when wrestling was bigger than itself. Hogan isn't the only pop culture icon to come out of that era. Andre the Giant is an instantly recognizable pop culture icon - from the Princess Bride to Obey stickers. Andre is arguably bigger than the business bother literally and figuratively. Macho Man too, instantly recognizable.
Hogan is often compared to John Cena, though it's really more the other way around. Cena is meme (and his name is John Cena/you can't see me) and he's starting to get film and television work. Is John Cena therefore bigger than wrestling? Or is John Cena wrestling's biggest star? What about Brock? Does his UFC experience make him bigger than wrestling? Is Brock bigger than combat sports?
Hogan was the biggest star in the business during a time when wrestling something discussed around the dinner table. His popularity swells and shrinks with wrestlings own growths and contractions. Hogan always runs back to wrestling, whereas wrestling runs back to someone like Dwayne Johnson.
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