Now approaching his 62nd birthday and after almost four decades in the spotlight, that man has learned it’s not enough to “talk the talk” of morality and heroism – he must also “walk the walk” if he is to learn from the problems of his past and forge a better future.

“That Hulk Hogan character saved me, too,” he admits, tearing up slightly as he speaks. “When we came up with that character, it was up here,” he says, raising one enormous hand above his head, “and the man was down there,” he adds, dropping his other hand toward the floor.

“Through all these things in my life that happened, these worst-case scenarios, all these setbacks, I needed to take that character and find out who I was really supposed to be – someone who’s better than I thought I was, the better person I was meant to be.”

At the start of any World Wrestling Entertainment television program, a disclaimer is shown. “WWE characters are fictitious and do not reflect the personal lives of the actors portraying them,” it says. “Viewer discretion is advised.”

There were no disclaimers in the 1980s. As far as wrestling fans knew, Hulk Hogan was the man he appeared to be on screen. Sure, they understood “Hulk” was a nickname coined after a late-night talk show appearance proved his muscles were bigger than those of Incredible Hulk star Lou Ferrigno. Other than that, they believed their larger-than-life hero was a blonde, bandana-wearing wrestler from Venice Beach, California.

Years would pass before they’d learn of Terry Gene Bollea, the boy from Augusta, Georgia, who’d played bass guitar and worked the docks before trying his hand at wrestling. They didn’t understand his trademark style – absorbing tremendous amounts of punishment before feeding off the roar of the crowd, rallying and taking the victory – had been devised by grappling genius Verne Gagne. They had no idea the Hulk Hogan that exploded onto their TV sets was a manufactured identity, a performer in a pre-determined simulation of combat sports.

Had they known, chances are they wouldn’t have cared. Hogan’s showmanship, presence and charisma made wrestling a mainstream phenomenon. He was the first wrestler to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. He was in a Rocky movie. Everyone wore his t-shirts and collected his action figures. He starred in commercials with Mr T, appeared on MTV with singer Cyndi Lauper and stood in the ring with Muhammad Ali at the first WrestleMania, in 1985. Two years later, 93,173 people packed a stadium in Michigan to watch him battle Andre the Giant – setting an all-time North American indoor attendance record that stands to this day.

The frenzy for wrestling was dubbed “Hulkamania” and, as the man himself often said, it was “running wild”. Thanks to Hogan and the savvy of WWE’s owner, Vince McMahon, the genre moved from simulated sport to dramatic stories of good and evil, dignity and betrayal, love and vengeance. Wrestling transformed into what is now known as “sports entertainment” and WWE evolved into a global corporation. Today it boasts a $725 million annual turnover, 13 million viewers in 145 countries and its own live-streaming, 24-hour internet subscription channel.

“It was amazing because we set the bar, then we raised the bar, then we created the standard for all WrestleManias,” Hogan says of that golden age. “And you know, I had a run-in with Vince McMahon after the last WrestleMania. I saw him in the lobby and said: ‘I know what’s going on. Next year, WrestleMania is in Dallas and you’re going to try to break my attendance record. Let me tell you something, brother, there’s no way you’re running that show next year without me on the card! Whether it’s for my last hurrah, my retirement match, my next run, or to beat whoever the champion is and be champion again!’ Vince shook my hand and said ‘I look forward to it’.”

Behind the scenes, Hogan’s relationship with McMahon was fraught. By 1993, the promoter felt his champion’s popularity had dwindled and a younger performer should top the card. Hogan disagreed and the duo parted ways. A year later he made his debut for rival company World Championship Wrestling. Granted creative control over his storylines – something he’d not had with WWE – Hogan started by beating his new company’s number-one hero, Ric Flair, for the championship.

“For so long there were two teams: Team Hogan and Team Flair,” Hogan remembers. “You stayed with your team and you didn’t really cross over.”

It was a canny move. McMahon had miscalculated the power of Hogan’s brand and, thanks to his victory, WCW flourished. The defection had changed the wrestling industry – and, Hogan concedes, his new employer’s backstage environment. “Even though I wrestled Flair, I didn’t spend time with him,” he remembers. “I didn’t know him. I didn’t get to know him for years.”

The second coming of Hulkamania took an unimaginable detour when, just two years later, Hogan stunned the world. In a bid to out-muscle WWE, he turned away from the training, the prayers and the vitamins and became a bad guy. Donning black and white and gathering a stable of ne’er-do-well followers called the New World Order, an egotistical Hogan declared he was “bigger than the sport of professional wrestling”.

Though a risky concept – akin to having Superman spit on the American flag – the story met with instant acclaim. The children of the 1980s were the teenagers of the 1990s, and Hogan’s foul-mouthed rebellion mirrored their own. He was the biggest anti-hero of them all, and every bit as popular as he’d been in his heyday. For 88 straight weeks, WCW beat WWE in ratings, ticket sales and merchandising, recording an estimated $64.6 million profit.

But McMahon had not built an empire just to watch it crumble. He shifted his programming toward edgier, sexually explicit storylines centred on younger performers. Two of those highlighted were Shawn Michaels and Paul “Triple H” Levesque, the latter of whom had worked briefly in WCW.

“It was like it was with Flair – I didn’t get to know Triple H,” Hogan says. “And I heard he was running with Shawn Michaels [in WWE] and they were all shit-disturbers and troublemakers. I didn’t pay it all that much attention.” He sighs, recalling his attitude at the time. “It was WCW – I had my head so far up my ass in those days that I couldn’t think straight.”

Inattention led to ruin for WCW. Its continued reliance upon Hogan and the stars of the 1980s, coupled with nonsensical storylines, began to bore viewers. They voted with their remote controls, preferring Michaels, Levesque and their M-rated shenanigans. WCW tumbled from atop the ratings mountain, never to recover. By 2001 the company was out of business. Gallingly, McMahon stepped in and purchased its assets for just $300,000.

In February 2002, Hogan and McMahon buried the hatchet and got back to work. Though he returned to WWE as a villain, with the New World Order by his side, Hogan was roundly cheered by fans. The message was clear: they wanted the red-and-yellow back. In a highly promoted storyline, Hogan turned his back on his wicked comrades, renounced the evil he had done, atoned for his sins and became a hero once more.

He also defeated Levesque – the young, hot, rising star – for the WWE Championship.

Hulkamania was running wild for a third time, but Hogan was running into the same old problems. He and McMahon clashed over money and scripts. Wary of relying on 80s nostalgia, the promoter looked for younger talent to lead the company. He chose John Cena, a clean-cut former bodybuilder poured from the same mould as Hogan himself. He wanted the original hero to pass the torch. Hogan was not convinced his time was up. He pointed to the success of his reality TV show, Hogan Knows Best, and expressed his fear a younger generation wouldn’t draw crowds the way he did. Something had to give.

“I don’t know if you’re religious or spiritual, but I think stress goes into your body in different places,” Hogan muses. “All the tension and pressure went right to my lower back, right when we were talking about this last series of matches. We were going to do me and John Cena, brother. My back actually went out on me when I was on the phone to Vince McMahon about it.” He winces and shifts as if the pain were still raw. “We were talking and all of a sudden I went ‘oh, f**k, my f**king back!’ and I was rushed into surgery the next day.”

Hogan found himself in a living nightmare. Over the course of 19 months he would undergo six spinal operations but any relief, any return of mobility, would be only temporary. His relationship with McMahon and WWE soured and ended. Hogan tried working for smaller, rival promotions but was unable to repeat his WCW success. The hero of millions became, by his own admission, bitter.

“Vince McMahon wrestled until he was 65, Verne Gagne into his late 60s, [wrestling legend] Lou Thesz until his late 60s,” he says. “Because in this business it doesn’t matter how old you are, or how bald you are – nobody cares as long as you’re selling out arenas. But instead of having that last series of matches that would be really memorable, all of a sudden my body shut down and I ran into a perfect storm of personal trauma.”

In 2007, Hogan’s son Nick seriously injured the passenger in the car he was driving. Though he was just 17, Nick was charged as an adult and spent six months in jail. At the same time, Hogan’s wife of 24 years, Linda, filed for divorce. Hogan would lose all but 30 per cent of the former couple’s assets in the resulting court proceedings.

The combination of injury and tragedy left Hogan unable to perform to the peak of his abilities. He was trapped in the worst of all worlds – as an athlete he had been crippled, as an actor he had lost his stage and, as a long-running TV character, he had been robbed of his finale. He tried to make the best of things by hosting shows like American Gladiators, but the passion wasn’t there.

“That last, final moment in the ring – that moment that would have ended the story – was taken away,” he says softly. “I was having a real hard time, I felt like everything had been taken away from me so fast.”

Salvation comes in many forms. For Hulk Hogan, it came through new love and an unexpected offer.

In early 2008, Hogan met Jennifer McDaniel. A 20-year age difference proved no barrier to romance – they were engaged a year later and married in December 2010. Jennifer stood by her man as he weathered the final lashes of that “perfect storm”, including a lawsuit against the doctors who had operated on his spine.

In 2014, Hogan received a phone call from Levesque. The performer had married McMahon’s daughter and become an executive within WWE. An apt student of the game with a fan’s love for the genre, Levesque had made it his mission to secure the future – by creating a world-class, Florida-based training facility for rookie wrestlers – while paying tribute to the past by rebuilding bridges with former talent.

Levesque wanted Hogan to come home. Not to wrestle against younger guys or participate in a championship storyline but to serve as WWE’s global ambassador. It would be his task to promote the company outside of the US and draw viewers to the 24-hour network. After all, so much of that content came from the first era of Hulkamania.

“The thing with Triple H is there’s no ego for him,” Hogan says. “There’s no agenda. He has respect for the old guys and wants to make sure the young guys are in a great position. There’s something about him that’s going to transcend and make him a great leader for this business. This ambassador position means I can still be a part of the big show, and I thank Triple H for that. If not for him, this thing between Vince McMahon and I – this heat – would still be bad.”

Hogan and McMahon have patched things over once more, and this time for good. “Vince made me feel so welcome when he explained to me I’m the glue that bonds the father, the son and the grandson that watch wrestling,” he says.

And so Hogan is once again the face of WWE, albeit in an all-new way. In April last year he hosted WrestleMania 30, marking the grand anniversary of the show he helped create. In March this year he visited Melbourne to promote WWE’s upcoming Australian tour. More than 40 hours of flights across the US and over the Pacific Ocean could not dim his energy.

“I’m not just here for the publicity, I’m going to be the official General Manager for the Australian tour,” he told a packed press conference. “I guarantee, every single night, I’m going to make sure it gets really crazy out there. And you know, maniacs, never say never. If one of these young WWE Superstars gets out of line, guess who’s going to be out there then? That’s right, Hulkamania is going to run wild!”

The mere thought of Hogan returning to the ring whipped the fans in attendance into that old frenzy. It’s a feeling their hero shares. “It’s been very, very hard for me to sit back and be into the moment of watching these young guys compete when I’m ready to jump out of my seat and say ‘you can do it better’ or ‘your timing is off’ or ‘that was really good’,” he says. “It just feels like my spirit wants to jump out of my body. But you have to look in the mirror and say ‘you’re 61, you’ve had surgeries, it’s not your time’. It’s been hard for me to accept that. It’s coloured my principles. But I’ve found peace, I’ve found a lot of happiness, in the fact that I’ve been offered a job as the ambassador.”

Recently, Hogan has signed on for a second WWE job. In June, he took up a role as one of the judges of Tough Enough, an America’s Next Top Model-style reality TV series looking to cast the next sports entertainment superstar. It’s a challenge he relishes. “I’m the biggest wrestling fan ever,” he grins. “I record everything, watch it two or three times over. I’ve loved this business forever.”

Hogan is also certain, finally, that the future of the business he helped build is in good hands. He lauds John Cena as his successor and praises his ability to connect with children and new fans. “I think he’s a great role model, inside and outside the business, he says. “A lot of times you’ll hear performers complain ‘my back hurts’ or ‘I don’t have a first-class ticket’. Not John Cena. He’s WWE 24 hours a day. He’s about this business 24 hours a day. And,” Hogan adds, with no small amount of pride, “he started out as a little Hulkamaniac when he was a kid.”

He considers Cena’s latest opponent, WWE newcomer Kevin Owens, a talent to watch. “I’m high on this kid,” he beams, genuinely excited. “He’s not some bodybuilder, he’s not too fat, he’s not too big – he’s a crunching, meat-grinding beat-up-all-comers type wrestler. And when I started watching Kevin Owens doing his thing it made me believe again. When I had the honour of meeting him at WrestleMania, when I shook his hand, I thanked him for making me believe again.”

Belief is very much the mantra for the reborn Hulk Hogan. Belief in his fans, in his peers, in his company, in the future. And, most importantly, belief in himself.

“I get asked a lot ‘why do people support you?’ and I don’t really have a specific answer for it,” he says. “I think it’s because people have seen me for so long – I started wrestling in 1978 – that they feel like they know me. They’ve followed me through the good and the bad, the highs and the lows. They know I’m for real, that I’ve tried as hard as I could – whether I’ve made mistakes or everything is going good.

“People realise I’m a husband, a father of kids, I have problems with stuff like…” he coughs theatrically, “the ex-wife. They know I’m consistent. Whether they’re saying ‘Hulk did well’ or ‘Hulk screwed up’, they know I’ll own up to it.” He smiles. “I like to think that if I went to the ring in my red-and-yellow wheelchair at 80 years old, brother, the fans would still be on my side.”

Undoubtedly, they would be. The children of the 80s, the first-gen Hulkamaniacs, are now men and women in their late 30s. They approach Hogan in airports and restaurants, often with their own kids in tow, to share stories of how he bettered their lives. Theirs are tales of resisting peer pressure, of staying off drugs or away from gangs, of conquering fears and standing up to bullies. Because they trained, said their prayers and ate their vitamins. Because Hulk Hogan taught them to believe in themselves.

Hogan is always humbled, always grateful, to hear these stories. He listens intently, offering a handshake and a hug, thanking the person for letting him into their life. But he also knows they were responding to Hulk Hogan the character, not Terry Bollea the man. Just as he knows he too must walk the red-and-yellow brick road paved by his on-screen persona if he is to learn from his turbulent past.

“That Hulk Hogan character saved me, too,” Hogan says again. “It made me realise all those ‘worst things that could ever happen to me’ were all just a set-up for growth. I had to go through all that bullshit, all that crap, and instead of it being a setback, the character made me realise it was a set-up for greatness.

“The Hulk Hogan character told people ‘you can do it, you’re valuable’. It told me ‘that’s not who you are, but it’s who you really want to be’. I needed that character to become the better person I was meant to be. The Hulk Hogan character helps me a lot, now, every day. It’s in my DNA.”

• WWE’s 2015 Australian Tour, featuring Hulk Hogan, will be in Brisbane on August 6, Melbourne on August 7 and Sydney on August 8. Tickets available from Ticketek.