Hogan parlayed his wrestling fame into a less successful career in Hollywood

International News via Reuters:

Hulk Hogan, the American sports and entertainment star who made professional wrestling a global phenomenon and loudly supported Donald Trump for president, has died at the age of 71, World Wrestling Entertainment said on Thursday.

“WWE is saddened to learn WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan has passed away. One of pop culture’s most recognizable figures, Hogan helped WWE achieve global recognition in the 1980s,” WWE said on X. It gave no cause of death.

The bleach-blond, mahogany-tanned behemoth became the face of professional wrestling in the 1980s, helping transform the mock combat from a seedy spectacle into family-friendly entertainment worth billions of dollars.

A key moment in that evolution came at the WrestleMania III extravaganza in 1987, when Hogan hoisted fellow wrestler André the Giant before a sold-out Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan for a thunderous body slam of the Frenchman.

Hogan parlayed his wrestling fame into a less successful career in Hollywood, starring in films like “Rocky III” and “Santa With Muscles,” but kept returning to the ring as long as his body would allow.

In 2024, he appeared at the Republican National Convention to endorse the presidential bid of Trump, who in the 1980s had played host to Hulk-headlined WrestleManias. Hogan said he made the decision to support the Republican candidate after seeing his combative, fist-pumping reaction to an attempted assassination on the campaign trail.

“Let Trumpamania run wild, brother!” Hogan bellowed to a cheering crowd, ripping off his shirt to reveal a Trump tank top. “Let Trumpamania rule again!”

BECOMING ‘HULK’

Born Terry Gene Bollea in Augusta, Georgia, on Aug. 11, 1953, the future Hulk and his family soon moved to the Tampa, Florida area. After high school, he played bass guitar for area rock bands, but felt a pull to the red-hot wrestling scene in Florida in the 1970s.

Many of the details of his career were showbusiness exaggerations, representative of the blurred lines between fact and fiction in wrestling.

His first trainer reportedly broke Hogan’s leg to dissuade him from entering the business, but he kept at wrestling, weight training, and – he later admitted – anabolic steroids. He gained in notoriety as his biceps turned into what he dubbed the “24-inch pythons.”

The “Hulk” moniker came from comparisons to the comic-book hero portrayed on TV at the time. He would end up paying royalties to Marvel Comics for years. “Hogan” was the invention of promoter Vincent J. McMahon, the owner of the World Wrestling Federation (WWF), who wanted Irish representation among his stable of stars.

His appearance as wrestler Thunderlips in “Rocky III,” where he dwarfed leading man Sylvester Stallone, rocketed Hogan to the mainstream. Upon a return to the WWF, now controlled by McMahon’s son Vincent K., he defeated the Iron Sheik in 1984 to claim the world championship, a belt he would hold for four years.

Hogan became a household name, appearing on the cover of magazine Sports Illustrated and performing alongside pop culture stars like Mr. T. The WWF came to dominate wrestling, anchored by its annual WrestleMania pay-per-view events.

FACING ‘THE ROCK’

Later, he joined competitor World Championship Wrestling, swapping his trademark yellow tights for black and taking on a persona as the villainous “Hollywood” Hogan, the head of a gang of rulebreakers known as the New World Order. The gimmick reinvigorated his career.

Hogan eventually returned to the WWF, now known as WWE, and faced Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson at WrestleMania in 2002.

“I’m in better shape than him,” Hogan told Reuters at the time, five months shy of his 50th birthday. “I’ll stand next to The Rock and pose down with him if he wants to.” The Rock ultimately won the match.

Hogan was inducted twice into the WWE Hall of Fame, and referred to himself as the “Babe Ruth” of wrestling – after the New York Yankees’ famed baseball player.

But Hogan’s support of Trump in 2024 did not go down well with all wrestling fans, and he also faced other controversies. Gossip website Gawker was shuttered after it posted parts of a sex tape between him and a friend’s wife and Hogan sued on privacy grounds, winning a $140 million judgment.

In 2015, he was suspended by the WWE after another surreptitious recording revealed that Hogan had used a racial slur. He was reinstated in 2018.

He was married three times and had two children, who starred alongside him and first wife Linda in a 2005-2007 reality TV show, “Hogan Knows Best.”

Reporting by Rocky Swift in Tokyo, additional reporting by Bhargav Acharya and Ryan Patrick Jones in Toronto, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien and Olivier Holmey

The ECB cut its policy rate to 2% last month, half its level of a year earlier

International News via Reuters:

The European Central Bank left interest rates unchanged on Thursday after cutting eight times in a year, biding its time while Brussels and Washington try to negotiate a trade deal that could ease persistent uncertainty over tariffs.

Financial markets scaled back bets on future easing, however as ECB President Christine Lagarde delivered what was viewed as an overall upbeat assessment of the region’s economic outlook.

The ECB cut its policy rate to 2% last month, half its level of a year earlier, after taming a surge in prices that followed the end of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

With inflation now back at the ECB’s 2% goal and expected to stay there, policymakers chose to stay put on Thursday, just as trade talks between the European Union and United States appeared to be in their final stretch. Reports have suggested a possible deal based on a 15% tariff on U.S. imports of EU goods.

“We are attentive to where the negotiations are heading (but) we take the news one day at a time,” Lagarde told a press conference.

“The sooner this trade uncertainty is resolved, the less uncertainty we will have to deal with and that will be welcomed by many economic actors including ourselves.”

While the White House has dismissed the reports as speculation, 15% tariffs would be roughly halfway between the ECB’s baseline and severe scenarios for the euro zone economy, presented last month, but milder than Trump’s threatened 30%.

The ECB’s June estimate showed that higher U.S. tariffs would result in lower growth and – depending on any EU retaliation – lower medium-term inflation in the euro zone.

Even the ECB’s baseline projection from June, which incorporates 10% tariffs from the United States, saw price growth below 2% over the next 18 months.

Lagarde acknowledged that scenario did include the possibility of a temporary undershooting of the inflation target but said it was not a cause for concern.

“We are in a good place because our projections point to inflation stabilising at targets in the medium term,” she said, noting that supply bottlenecks and trade disruption caused by tariffs could also emerge as inflationary.

That upbeat assessment pushed short-dated German bond yields to their largest daily rise in two months as traders took it as a signal that another series of rate cuts next year might be unlikely.

Underlining the uncertainty, economists commenting on the meeting’s outcome offered markedly divergent views on the way forward, with some seeing scope for further cuts and others suggesting the ECB’s next move could even be a hike.

The euro zone economy is showing some tentative signs of acceleration but growth remains modest. Companies, while still optimistic about an upturn ahead, report starting to feel the pinch from tariffs on their profits.

On the bright side, euro zone banks have seen rising loan demand and policy uncertainty has not yet translated into an economic or market downturn.

After a short-lived selloff in April, investors have taken the trade turmoil in their stride, with European equity indices close to new highs, thanks also to Germany’s newly found appetite for spending.

In fact, erratic policy-making in the United States, including Trump’s relentless criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, has lured foreign investors to euro zone assets. That briefly pushed the euro to its highest level against the dollar since September 2021 – $1.1829 – earlier this month.

ECB board member and outspoken hawk Isabel Schnabel has even said the central bank should watch out for price hikes caused by tariffs and that the bar for further cuts was “very high”.

But the euro’s appreciation has unnerved other policymakers, who fear a stronger currency would make European exports less competitive and contribute to pushing down inflation.

Lagarde on Thursday repeated the ECB’s official line that it monitors the exchange rate closely but does not target a level for the euro.

Editing by Toby Chopra, Tomasz Janowski and Catherine Evans