The Sun has been leading an anti-steroid abuse campaign since wrestler Chris Benoit murdered his wife and seven-year-old son before committing suicide in June. A handful of former stars have already spoken out and prompted US politicians to start investigating the industry.

But many in the WWE, the world’s biggest fight franchise, deny there is a problem and have blasted their ex-colleagues as bitter failures who haven’t wrestled in years. They cannot same the same about Hogan, wrestling’s equivalent of Pele or Muhammad Ali who was fighting for them just 12 months ago.

In an exclusive Sun interview, he said: “Are steroids a problem in wrestling? Oh God yeah. They have always been a part of the business. It’s prevalent. “But there’s not some big mystery to it. Just open your eyes and it’s there. You can look at a wrestler and pretty much tell.

“They will be above their weight range, with these big veins. My body weight is around 285lb, depending on how much junk I eat. Even if I was 25 and clean, I could probably only carry 300lb. “Yet when I was wrestling I weighed anywhere between 320 and 340lb, because my body was full of water weight.

“My face was puffy, my arms were so bulky I couldn’t touch my shoulders. You could take one look at me and know I was on something. “Steroids have been around for ever in other sports too, but if we have to pick on somebody now then let’s pick on wrestling.

“I’m glad the business is in the spotlight because they’re probably the only ones smart enough, after being able to dodge it for so long, to know how to fix it.” NOW CLEAN … obscene muscles have gone

The Hulkster added: “I remember up until the early 1990s any wrestler could walk into a doctor and they’d write you a prescription for steroids. “Then there was a huge trial where WWE boss Vince McMahon was unfairly accused and rightly acquitted of distributing the drugs to his workers.

“This ushered in the era of wrestlers playing ‘hide and seek’. “If they can get away with things then they will. But now I think we’re at the 11th hour.

“We can’t have hide and seek being played any more. “The WWE say they are drug testing, but if they are then it’s not good enough. Because these guys have to stop dying.”

Despite going on TV at the time to deny it, Hogan has since confessed he regularly used steroids between 1975 and 1991. In that period he helped turn the WWE, then known as the WWF, from a New York-based wrestling group into a global entertainment brand.

In 1984 he won their world heavyweight championship, holding it on and off for the best part of the next seven years and starring in the main event at six of their first seven WrestleMania extravaganzas. But behind his superhero mystique lay a dirty secret.

In his 2003 autobiography Hogan admitted: “I would tell kids to train, say their prayers and take their vitamins. But it wasn’t just vitamins I was taking. “But at that time every wrestler I knew was on steroids. They were part of my generation. I’m not making excuses but they were everywhere. And a lot of that had to do with what we knew about them, which obviously wasn’t enough.

“The most commonly prescribed were testosterone, Deca-Durabolin and Dianabol. I never had a question about whether I would take them. “It was part of my daily regimen. Did you take a shower? Yeah. Did you brush your teeth? Yeah. Did you take your steroids? Yeah.

“That was the deal. It was how I lived.” Alongside steroids, experts also blame painkillers and recreational drug abuse for the high number of deaths among young wrestlers.

Again it is something Hogan witnessed and he is pleased to say the industry has made progress on the latter. He said: “There’s definitely much less of a party scene and cocaine use today.

“When I went back to the WWE, I’d go down to the Marriott bar after the show – and all you would see is Ric Flair there with a Jack Daniels and Hulk Hogan drinking a beer. “In the old days EVERY wrestler would be in the bar and then they’d go out and stay out all night.

“But now they are all upstairs on their computers. “Maybe they’re not playing games up there, but it certainly seems a lot better.

“As for painkillers, like steroids, they have always been around. I was naïve when I first entered wrestling and didn’t even know what they were. “But there was a point later on where I got hurt and found out… pretty quickly!

“I used them but not to the point of abusing and to the levels of the horror stories I’ve heard. “I always knew my limitations and had regular blood tests and physicals.

“During the years when I would hear of these massive doses of pills some guys would take, I remember thinking they would laugh at me if they knew what I was involved in. I would be a big joke.” Hogan is currently in talks to start his own promotion, in which the focus will be firmly taken off those with superhuman physiques.

He said: “I don’t know what the other federations can do, but I do know what I can do and it’s all part of my plan for a new wrestling idea. “It came from another person and when they told it to me it was the smartest thing I’d ever heard.

“I have been speaking to people from the American television networks and other important people in LA. In the first two weeks they raised $40million (£20million). I need about $80-100million to start it up. “If me and my partners pull it off then the wrestlers will have a more natural look and an easier schedule – all of the things people are saying the business needs.

“And then Vince McMahon and everyone else in the business will have to follow suit.” Hogan is fully aware that his stance opens him up to charges of hypocrisy.

Critics argue he was the “poster boy” for steroids throughout much of his career and other wrestlers emulated him to get the same “main event” physique. So isn’t Hulk Hogan’s plea to get steroids out of wrestling like George Bush calling for troops to leave Iraq?

The Hulkster replies: “I’m not trying to repent but I am being honest about my failings. I want youngsters to be educated. “If I was 25 right now, coming into this business, I don’t know what I’d be like in that locker room.

“But I know one thing. Wrestling needs to make sure everything is above board. “So is it hypocritical of me? Yes.

“But is it hypocritical of me now in 2007? No. I think it’s more like poetic justice. “I’ve learned from being around, surviving and watching the many mistakes I and others made.

“I thank God I’m still alive!”

MM:Is raising kids harder than wrestling?

HH:If it was me alone, I’d say yeah. But my wife, Linda, she’s pretty calm about everything. She’s more aware than me. I’ve been kicked in the head too much.

MM:Can your kids play you pretty well?

HH:Yeah, they’ll ask me something that’s totally screwed up, then tell my wife, ‘Well, Dad said we could do it.’ It gets me in a lot of trouble. I’m more liberal than my wife. But there are certain lines you don’t cross.

MM:Oh? Like what?

HH:My son trying to sneak girls in the house when he was only 14 years old. I encouraged him to chase the girls, but when he hooked ’em I had to say, ‘Wait a minute, you can’t be alone in the room with ’em.’

MM:Did the cameras ever catch you yelling at your kids like they’re the Iron Sheik?

HH:I don’t just go, ‘Hey, brother, lemme tell ya!—I go way above that. When I get pushed over the edge, I go so far above the Hulkster just to put the fear of God in everyone, from my wife to my son to my daughter.

MM:What warrants the fear of God?

HH:When my son was 13, I got a brand-new Viper pickup truck, and I found out he drove it around the beach for two hours. I definitely turned up the volume on that one.

MM:How do you spank your kids without breaking them in half?
HH:I don’t. I hit my daughter one time on the ass when she was two, and I still hear about it. She was trying to help me pack my wrestling bag; she kept takin’ my gear in and out. So I swatted her on the ass. She won’t let me forget about it.

MM:Were you a troublemaker as a kid?

HH:I was just a fat kid. I started lifting weights because I went through high school without one date. I was just eating Baby Ruths and drinkin’ Cokes. The only really bad thing I did was wreck my first car. I was showing off, and I wrapped it around a pole. My dad freaked.

MM:What advantages are there to being Hulk Jr.?

HH:My son, Nick, is friendly with some of the wrestlers. One time, though, he shot Big Show with a slingshot, so Big Show duct-taped him to a chair for three hours.

MM:What about your daughter, Brooke—what if she wanted to date a wrestler?

HH:That’d be my worst nightmare.

MM:What about a Maxim editor?

HH:If you were older than her, you’d get the yellow boot in your face as soon as you opened the door. If you survived that, we’d probably tear up the asphalt outside, along with the rest of your body. I haven’t crossed that bridge yet, where I’ve actually let her get into a car and drive off into the sunset on a date.

MM:You made sure you knew exactly where she was on her first date. The 24-inch pythons weren’t enough to scare away the teenage boys?

HH:When VH1 wanted to do Brooke’s first date, I said we can do a ‘supervised field trip’ during the day. If anything happened, I knew I had a GPS in that car, and I would know where it was instantly. Ol’ Hulk Hogan and his gun permit would find her before anybody else did.

MM:Do you ever get other wrestlers to baby-sit for you?

HH:Oh, God. I tried to take my wife out for a special occasion, and [Nasty Boy] Brian Knobbs was sitting there in my house drinkin’ beer and watching TV while the kids were driving across the golf course mooning people and blowing air horns at the golfers. He was the worst.

MM:What other antics can we expect on Hogan Knows Best?

HH:I didn’t want our show to be based around eating a meal or staring at a pile of dog poop or family members going into rehab—if people are entertained by that, they’d better fasten their seat belts for our show.

MM:So what do you do when Hulkamania runs wild on you, anyway?

HH:Just try to hang on. And smile as wide as you possibly can.

When you first wrestled for [promoter] Vince McMahon, he hooked you up with old-time wrestler Fred Blassie, who was Andy Kaufman’s idol.

Ever meet Andy, our own Great Neck guy?
Yeah, I did. I did. Walking backstage in Memphis. Saw him in a room with [pro wrestler] Jerry Lawlor, talking over … had planned. Y’know when he [Kaufman] saw me, it was like deer in the headlights, because he wasn’t part of this business. Jerry Lawlor brought him in because he knew the publicity he [Lawlor] would get and how much of it helped his career, so he kind of kept Andy to himself … hoarding this “Andy Kaufman, superstar” in the corner. He used to come to the matches in Memphis, and he’d sit way at the top of the nosebleed section at Mid-South Coliseum. So that was weird, too.

I heard you twisted your ankle filming the [upcoming] movie “Little Hercules in 3-D.” What would you have done if somebody had said, “C’mon you big baby, walk it off”?
Well, I did keep going; I didn’t miss any days or anything. I was actually working with a buddy of mine that’s 525 pounds The Big Show. I played – what part did I play?

Zeus. Thank you. And Paul played Marduk, god of Babylon. I was sitting in the makeup chair, and he walked by and stepped on the side of my foot, and I went, “You — !” I’m barefoot, in my toga, and he’s steppin’ on my — foot! I got it X-rayed and it wasn’t broken; it was what they call a real bad sprain. But it took almost three months to get over that. Let me know if anyone’s ever dared tell you this joke: What do you call a guy who hangs out with rock bands? A guy that hangs out with rock bands? No idea.

The bass player.
Ooo-oooh. That’s cool, that’s cool. Yeah, that’s kinda getting kicked to the curb. Hah! Stop. Yer killin’ me.

NEW YORK — The similarities between Ozzy Osbourne’s family and Terry “Hulk” Hogan’s bleached-blond brood are as striking as the wrestling legend’s leg drop finishing move.

Hogan, 51, is the only seasoned celebrity among his family of four, just like Ozzy. Daughter Brooke, 16, is an aspiring music star, just like Kelly. Son Nick, 14, is rebellious and slightly apathetic, just like Jack. And wife Linda seems to be the true ringleader of the household, just like — you guessed it — Sharon.

Of course, the tanned and rowdy Hogan family, stars of the VH1 reality show “Hogan Knows Best,” would like to think otherwise.

“Our intensity isn’t madness,” insists Hogan, clad in his trademark do-rag while sitting with his family in a conference room above Times Square. “We are a united front here.”

Before fatherhood, Hogan often advised little Hulkamaniacs to say their prayers and take their vitamins. With his own kids, curfews are enforced, drugs are a no-no and dating is off-limits.

Despite the strictness, Linda and Hulk are supportive of Nick and Brooke. Nick’s into cars. Brooke’s into being a star. She wants to ride her dad’s do-rag tails to Britneydom. After going through what Hogan calls a “boot camp” with boy-band impresario Lou Pearlman, Brooke ditched the producer and is recording a debut album on her own.

Using his fame, Hulk is giving Brooke a big push. The pair popped up at this year’s Grammys and starred in the VH1 special “Hulk Hogan, Stage Dad,” the precursor to “Hogan Knows Best.” Hulk is afraid of Brooke receiving the Lindsay Lohan tabloid treatment, but it’s all part of the job.

“I know I can handle it,” says the bubbly Brooke.

Although Hulk is the star of “Hogan Knows Best,” which airs at 10 p.m. Sundays, boosting Brooke’s pop career was the main motivation for allowing producers and camera crews to invade their 18,000-square-foot home in Belleair, Fla.

“Terry and I knew about the reality side of having a reality TV show,” says Linda. “It’s in your face. It’s four months of having no privacy.”

Credit to http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/