Johnny Swinger never had any bad interactions backstage with Hulk Hogan in WCW or WWE.
IMPACT Wrestling‘s Johnny Swinger was a recent guest on The Ten Count with Steve Fall to discuss a wide variety of subjects. When asked about interacting with Hulk Hogan backstage at WCW, Swinger said he wasn’t very accessible in the back but was always very cordial when they interacted with one another.
“He wasn’t that accessible in the back. I never changed in the same room as him. I think he always had his own dressing room,” Johnny Swinger said. “But when I would see him in the hallway, I of course go up to him, and I would initiate, ‘Hey, Hulk, how you doing?’ Shake his hand, and he’s always very cordial.
“And I saw him he was in WWE in 2005 when I was there, same thing. Just one of the boys, I never seen him act out or give anyone a hard time or raise his voice or anything like that. And whenever I said hello to him or anything, he said hello back. And I had some small conversations with him. Actually, there was a company called XWF that came out after WCW closed, and he was involved with that and actually talked to him a little bit there about his son and all that, and he was always a cool guy.
“I never had any kind of — of course; I was in awe of him because this was the guy when I was a kid, you know what I mean? That he was wrestling when I was wanting to get into it, you know what I mean? So it’s like being on stage with Elvis or something. Like geez, if he even makes eye contact with you and says hello, and once again, how many people can say that? Yeah, I’m rubbing elbows with Hulk Hogan. I’m trying to be a wrestler, and I’m in the dressing room with Hulk Hogan. Well, I think that’s pretty good.”
When asked about being part of WCW during such a pivotal time in the company, Swinger spoke about how over the nWo was as both babyfaces and heels. He also mentioned how he wishes WCW was still around as a company today.
“I was at a lot of Nitros where the nWo go in the ring that people are throwing stuff at them. It was just like, they wanted to kill them,” Johnny Swinger recalled. “They hated them so much for just being the anti-heroes, and this was before they got so bad that they got good, and then people really started cheering them as the good guys. And they hated Hogan and those guys for the longest time; then they realized there was no way Sting and Lex could overcome them, so that’s when they started to really explode as good guys.
“But yeah, like you said, United Center, Chicago, sold out. Miami arena, all these huge venues just sold out for wrestling. And for me to even be the first match on there. I mean, what an unbelievable opportunity, and I’ll never forget it. And gosh, we had seven to eight million people watching those shows. Even the WCW Saturday night show on TBS, two million people were watching.
“None of these shows were slouches as far as ratings; they had a lot of eyes on it. And once again, I wish it was still there today. There is AEW, and it’s very similar, but just that lineage of the NWA into WCW. It was really like WWF to WWE. I wish it was still an entity because they would get a lot of people opportunities to make a big career.”
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