I really don’t know where to start. It’s Hulk Hogan. There might not be a bigger star in wrestling history as he is often going to be the person fans think of when wrestling is brought up. He absolutely revolutionized wrestling with the title win (January 23, 1984) over the Iron Sheik as it changed the way the business worked. That’s not something you see very often and Hogan ran with that thing for the better part of a decade.

Then you have the heel turn, which managed to put WCW firmly in front of the WWF for a good while. That’s even before he came back and won the WWF Title (last WWF Champion before the change over to WWE, which feels so appropriate) and have the awesome match with Rock at Wrestlemania. Outside of McMahon himself, there is no one who had a bigger impact on the company’s ascension, which is about as important as it gets.

There are all kinds of things that can be criticized about Hogan and a lot of them took place in the last few years, but we’ll save those for another time. This one hurts in a different way, as Hogan is the kind of person I couldn’t imagine ever actually being gone. It’s going to take me awhile to get my mind around this and I can’t imagine the tributes that are going to roll in from WWE. Hogan might not have the most spotless record in recent years, but he absolutely deserves the sendoff he’ll be receiving.

Favorite Hulk matches/moments/ridiculously nonsense stories?

Egads man.  This has been a rough year few weeks for wrestling.

Neidhart was a good tag wrestler and formed a perfect combination with Bret Hart in the Hart Foundation.  The infectious laugh always helped too and his promos helped carry the team.  How can you not love a beard like that?

http://wrestlingrumors.net/wwe-legend-passes-away-mere-weeks-murder-trial/

You kind of had to know this one was coming.  I don’t know what you think about his legal issues of late but he was a huge star and there’s no other way around it.

http://www.wrestlezone.com/news/642185-wwe-hall-of-famer-and-pro-wrestling-legend-nick-bockwinkel-dies-at-the-age-of-80

I know he’s not for everyone but Bockwinkel was one of the first intelligent heels and influenced a lot of people, including HHH.

Landel was an interesting case as he was a self proclaimed Ric Flair tribute wrestler, down to the same look (plus about 50lbs), style, robes and finishing move.  However, he had a lot of drug issues over the years which stopped his pushes several times.  He was talented enough to be a solid midcard guy though and had some solid matches and runs back in the 80s.

Early word says that it was a car accident which Landel came home from, but was later found unresponsive.

At age 54 due to unknown causes.  The Fantastics were my favorite NWA tag team (aside from the Road Warriors of course) and Tommy is the first person I’ve ever heard of using the move that would become the Killswitch/Unprettier (Tomikaze).

I’m sure you’ve probably heard about this by now and I’m no expert on lucha libre by any means but this deserves a mention.  From what I can tell, Aguayo was in a match with Rey Mysterio where Rey dropkicked him in the back to set up the 619.  Aguayo hit the ropes throat first and something happened with his throat/neck which led to his death.  Aquayo was 35 and the top heel of the promotion.

There’s nothing you can say about something like this http://onhealthy.net/product-category/anti-inflammatories/ other than it’s a tragedy and a freak accident.  I haven’t and won’t be watching the video of it but people who have seen it have called it a standard spot that Rey has done hundreds of times.  That’s the scary thing about wrestling or anything in life actually: you can do something time after times but freak accidents are always possible.  This is never easy to read about and it’s saddening even though I’ve only seen a handful of his matches.

Not entirely sure on the cause but I’ve heard massive heart attack, which really isn’t all that surprising given how he looked during his career.

Always sad to hear.

http://www.wwe.com/inside/paul-bearer-passes-26096670

That’s rather sad.  No word on what happened yet.  He was 58 years old.