COLUMN: Macon bobsledder Chip Minton remembers the late Hulk Hogan

Chip Minton is 56 years old, with a Heinz 57 portfolio.

His resume is a little of this and a lot of that. The Macon-born athlete is a potluck of life experiences.

In the 33 years I have known him, he has had careers as a body builder, corrections officer, vitamin and protein supplement salesman, motivational speaker, environmental rapid responder and a two-time member of the U.S. Olympic bobsled team.

And, oh yeah, a professional wrestler.

That’s why I figured Minton could tell me a Hulk Hogan story. Or maybe two or three.  

He labored five years in the ring as “Mr. World Class” for World Championship Wrestling. Minton was part of an entourage of aspiring young wrestlers who tagged along behind the headliner  Hogan for the Monday Nitro and Thursday Night Thunder bouts. 

They were part of the undercard, opening acts for the main attraction. Hulk was the one with the star on his dressing room door. The rest of the cast could only keep their distance, try to make a name for themselves and wait for their shot at the bigtime … if it ever came.

Minton is a grandfather now. He lives on a mountain near Fort Payne, Alabama. Five years ago, he and his wife, Audra, renovated a house on 10 acres. It’s not far from DeSoto State Park, where they often go hiking.

Fort Payne was once known as the “Sock Capital of the World.’’ One of every eight socks on the planet was manufactured there. It is also where the legendary country music band, Alabama, was formed in 1969, the same year Minton was born. Minton has become fast friends with Teddy Gentry, one of the band’s
cofounders. Gentry co-owns the Buffalo Nickel Coin Shop in downtown Fort Payne, and Minton often goes there to buy silver.

Minton was on the road last week when his daughter, Taylor Jones, called him from Macon.

Had he heard the news? Hulk Hogan had died, three weeks shy of his 72nd
birthday.

Minton paused to reflect and remember, to roll back his up-and-down memories of the late 1990s when Hogan was a thread that ran through them.

One came 30 years ago this fall, when Minton was wrestling in his hometown at the Macon Coliseum in November 1995. On the sidelines backstage, he watched Hogan reach out to a young man in a wheelchair who had been waiting to meet him.

“People were always wanting to be around him, to talk to him, to touch him, to get his autograph or get a picture,’’ Minton said. “He loved the attention, but he couldn’t just go somewhere. People would recognize him. He was under the spotlight 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

 “He was bigger than life, really. He changed the sport of wrestling as it crossed over to mainstream entertainment. He was a big deal.’’

Minton always felt a kindred connection with the veteran Hogan, who was a household name long before Minton arrived on the wrestling scene like a body slam from the top of a mountain.

Minton had become somewhat of a media darling at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. After all, he had come out of nowhere – a Horation Alger from the Deep South, where it rarely snowed – to become an improbable member of the Olympic bobsled team.

Showing a willingness to talk some Southern smack, he said in a television interview that he hoped to wrestle for the WCW to stay in shape for another run at the Olympic bobsled team in 1998.

He admitted he had no background or experience, but that he had been a novice at bobsledding, too. 

He never dreamed champion wrestler Ric “Nature Boy” Flair would see the interview and fire off a fax to the Olympic Village, inviting him to climb aboard.

“I saw you ‘stylin and profilin’ during a recent interview,’’ Flair wrote. “You said that some day you aspired to be among the great professional wrestlers at World Championship Wrestling. Well, brother, I know one thing – anyone with the guts and fortitude that you have shown is welcome anytime!”

The wheels of the plane had no sooner touched down back in Georgia when Minton found himself meeting with WCW officials at the CNN Center in Atlanta to sign a developmental deal.

“I told them that I wasn’t a huge wrestling fan, but I thanked them for giving me an opportunity,’’ Minton said. “I was big on opportunities. I made the Olympic team because I believed in opportunities.’’

Eric Bischoff, who would later become president of the WCW, invited Minton to go with him to tour the Power Plant, the organization’s training school. (Minton would later compare the brutal regimen to Navy SEAL training. On his first day of training, he suffered a concussion, cracked his ribs and broke his thumb.) 

They climbed into Bischoff’s black Corvette for the 20-minute ride to the training site. Minton didn’t say much. Bischoff did all the talking.

“He was excited, and I kept thinking he can’t be this excited about me,’’ Minton said. “I was uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to say or do. I just tried to let him talk and answer his questions.

“Then he said he had some good news, maybe the best news he had ever had in his life. He said he couldn’t tell anyone because of the litigation process and the contracts. He said he wasn’t even supposed to be talking about it with anyone, but that he had to tell somebody.’’

Minton was the closest ear in the room, so to speak. Bischoff confided in him,
assuring him it would be OK to let him in on the secret because he “didn’t know anyone.’’ Minton wasn’t sure if that was an insult or a compliment. 

“He said they had just signed Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan) to a three-year deal,’’ Minton said. “Nobody knew about it. Hogan had been filming ‘Thunder in Paradise’ down in Orlando.  Of course, I couldn’t tell anyone either. It was awesome that I got to see that whole thing play out. I was one of the first he (Bischoff) told, and I have told only a few people that story until now.’’ 

For that reason, Minton has always felt he had been privy to a front-row seat in the timeline of Hulk history.  

At the end of Hogan’s life, they shared something else in common.

Hogan made a career of ripping off his shirt and baring his chest, including during an emotionally charged speech at the Republican National Convention last year.

Minton had his shirt ripped, too. Only it was by others who rushed to save his life after he lay crumpled on stage following a cardiac episode in 2018.

 Hogan’s cause of death was listed as cardiac arrest on July 24. Minton went into cardiac arrest while doing a Team Impact program for 700 children attending a summer program at the First Baptist Church in Opelika, Alabama, in June 2018.

While performing “feats of strength” as part of his speech, Minton blew up a hot water bottle, then grabbed a steel bar to bend it. His heart took off racing. He fell to his knees, and his arms began to shake before he passed out.

Medical personnel in the audience rushed to the stage and administered CPR. An automated external defibrillator (AED) was applied and, after several shocks, he regained consciousness. 

He was later told he had been “dead for two minutes with no pulse and no heartbeat.’’ The device, which had been purchased by the church only a month earlier, put his heart back into rhythm.

Hulk was one of those iconic sports figures who come along once in a generation. Thousands of wrestling fans never needed to idolize Superman, Spiderman, Batman or any of the other superheroes. They had the flesh-and-blood Hulk Hogan.

 “I know he went through some struggles,’’ Minton said. “But he loved the part that he played in this life.  He did what he was supposed to do in this world.’’

Ed Grisamore is a columnist for The Macon Melody. He has been a journalist in Macon and Middle Georgia for more than 45 years. He received the 2024 John Holliman Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.