Hulk Hogan, who died Thursday at age 71, had roots that ran deep in late-night television, going all the way back to a 1982 appearance on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. Over the years, he guested everywhere from The Late Show with Joan Rivers, The Arsenio Hall Show, and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to Late Night with Conan O’Brien and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. He even co-hosted a 1985 episode of Saturday Night Live with Mr T.
But arguably Hogan’s wildest late-night run-in came in 1998—when he didn’t sit down for an interview, but instead laced up his boots for a tag-team wrestling match against Jay Leno.
In a storyline that could only have been born in professional wrestling’s Monday Night Wars era, Leno left the comfort of his Burbank studio and entered the world of steel chairs and suplexes, teaming with Diamond Dallas Page at WCW’s Road Wild to take on Hogan and WCW boss Eric Bischoff.
The idea came courtesy of Gary Considine, Leno’s executive producer, who reached out to Bischoff with a surprising message: Jay wanted in.
Bischoff dropped everything and flew to Los Angeles to meet with Leno. “Jay was so down to earth, the nicest guy you ever, ever wanna meet,” Bischoff recalled in a 2020 episode of his 83 Weeks podcast. “The minute he walked into the room, you felt like you’ve known him your whole life.”
With less than six weeks until the Road Wild event that August in Sturgis, South Dakota, Bischoff pitched a fast-track storyline: What if Hogan and Bischoff hijacked The Tonight Show? Leno was in.
The bit played out across two nights of The Tonight Show, with Bischoff first insulting Leno on WCW Monday Nitro, Leno clapping back on his show by mocking Hogan with a tiny lookalike, and the real Hogan eventually storming the set and throwing Leno and bandleader Kevin Eubanks off stage. Leno returned with Diamond Dallas Page and security in tow, setting up the match.
“We told Jay, don’t smile, don’t wink at the camera,” Bischoff recalled. “Play it completely straight or the whole thing falls apart.”
As the event neared, Leno took a crash course in wrestling. Wearing a tucked-in T-shirt and sweatpants, he managed a low blow, some turnbuckle bashing, and—yes—a pin over Bischoff. Goldberg ran in to join the post-match celebration, belt and all.
Alas, the gimmick match didn’t pay off as hoped. The pay-per-view event drew just 360,000 buys, underwhelming for a company then at its commercial peak. (By comparison, WCW’s biggest event, Starrcade 1997, drew 700,000.)
With the passing of Hulk Hogan, this oddball chapter in late-night and wrestling history takes on new resonance. For one brief, sweat-soaked summer night, Jay Leno traded denim for dropkicks and proved he was game for just about anything—even a feud with the Hulkster.
