In 2023, professional wrestling is more inclusive than at any other point in modern history; terms like cruiserweight have been thrown out to promote inclusivity, female performers headline Pay-Per-Views with steady frequency, and even WWE will book a mixed-gender tag team match from time to time, even if their version of the contest is a shadow of what promotions like GCW routinely put on Fite.

And yet, in the opinion of some, specifically wrestling enthusiasts of an older generation, that isn't necessarily a good thing.

Sitting down for an appearance on the Full Send Podcast, Hulk Hogan opined for the days of old, when locker rooms were filled with 300-pound men who looked like “serial killers.”

“It wasn’t the WWE, it was the wrestling business. It was, when I got in, man, when I walked in a dressing room, there were like six guys sitting there. There all 300-pounders. I was a medium-sized guy, and I weighed 300-plus. When I got in, if you wanted to be a wrestler, okay, there’s a guy there. He’s got two big cauliflower ears, his nose is broken, his teeth are knocked out, he’s got four kids at home. This next guy over here was an NCAA Champion. He’s got a steel plate in his forearm, his name’s Harley Race. Good luck with him. Then the other two guys, they look like serial killers, and if you wanted to be a wrestler, you gotta take their job and take the food out of their family’s mouth. That’s the difference,” Hogan said via Fightful.

“Everybody I wrestled looked like monster-sized men. Nowadays, there’s a lot of guys that look like wrestlers, there’s a lot of guys that don’t. A lot of guys who look like wrestlers and a lot of guys who look like they should be bagging my groceries. So the difference is how athletic the guys are. Smaller guys can do all kinds of crazy stuff. They do so much stuff, so much impressive stuff in one match, I wouldn’t do that much in a year. What does it mean?”

What does it mean? Well, to some, a lot, but in a way, the way modern matches are booked and the way modern wrestlers opt to utilize their offense is, at least in the opinion of Hogan, part of a larger issue that sits just under the surface: that in 2023 wrestling promotions are the attraction, not the stars in the ring.

Hulk Hogan believes WWE has made itself the attraction, not its Superstars.

Touching on the situation further, Hulk Hogan discussed how, back in the day, fans would come out to see the biggest star, be that himself, Andre the Giant, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, or whoever was at the top at the time, whereas now, fans instead go to see a WWE show, even if they are huge fans of the performers in the ring.

“I think the main thing with the product is that it has had an attraction, like a Hulk Hogan, who you could put with this guy or that guy or him or you or One Man Gang or that guy, and just sell out anything. Instead of having that one attraction, like a Hulk Hogan or a Rock or an Andre the Giant or a Stone Cold Steve Austin, instead of having that one guy that’s really the attraction, I think the star now is the production of the show,” Hogan said.

“I see the guys wrestle, and if one guys is hurt, there’s another one from the Performance Center that slides right in and takes his place, and they’re all the same size and pretty much have the same color hair and their clothes are made by the same seamstress and they learn how to wrestle from the same group of trainers. When I got in the business, we all learned from wrestling every night and being in the ring and getting your ass beat and getting hurt. We learned that way, where we weren’t doing forward rolls with helmets on and the doctors and massagers and trainers. If you hurt your thumb, they go put you in the X-ray machine and ‘You gotta take four weeks off, you broke your nail.’ It’s different now. Back in the day, it was get in the car, shut the hell up, and you’re opening the beers, I’m driving.”

Unfortunately for Hogan, WWE's decision to make the brand the attraction instead of the wrestlers is almost by design, as the promotion wants to continue to set record gates and make billions of dollars – literally – whether or not Roman Reigns is on every single show or only shows up once every month or two. By making WWE the attraction, the promotion has become Marvel, a brand in and of itself that can sell tickets on its own merit instead of the name under the title on the marquee, which is good news for the bottom line but bad news for the Superstars breaking their backs in the ring.