Hulk Hogan, as big a star as professional wrestling had ever spawned, had reached the end. For days he sat in his empty mansion, mixing rum and Xanax, shattered by an impending divorce and a family tragedy, holding a gun to his head and thinking about how little force it would take to pull the trigger and end it all.
Hogan’s friends and fellow stars of a revival of “American Gladiators” knew he was depressed and called him to see if he was all right. He lied and said he was, even as he moved closer to a final exit. That’s when his “Gladiators” co-star, Laila Ali, came to the rescue.