Hulk Hogan is currently embroiled in a feud with Gawker Media that threatens to have far more serious repercussions than any dispute the wrestler had with Rowdy Roddy Piper or Andre the Giant during his celebrated career.
Hogan (whose real name is Terry Bollea) had already leveled a $100 million lawsuit against Gawker for publishing clips of a 2012 sex tape he made with the wife of one of his friends. That put the future of Nick Denton’s media empire in serious jeopardy (and almost assuredly played a role in Denton’s decision to pull a controversial story that led to the resignation of top editors Tommy Craggs and Max Read).
In Hogan’s view, that makes Gawker likely to have played a role in the leak of an interview in which the wrestler spewed a racist rant in which he uttered the n-word several times. That led to WWE severing ties with its former marquee star and wiping all traces of their relationship from the company’s website.
As reported by TMZ, according to new documents filed as part of the lawsuit against Gawker, Hogan and his lawyers call for an investigation into Denton and former executive editor A.J. Daulerio to prove that they leaked details from the sex tape video that were supposed to remain confidential and kept from the public — notably the n-word filled rant.
Hogan contends that Gawker leaked the racist rant to another media outlet (in this case, the National Enquirer) in an attempt to embarrass Hogan and presumably get him to drop the lawsuit. The new documents call for Denton and Daulerio to be jailed if it’s proven they leaked the video, and ask the judge to subsequently declare him the winner in the $100 million lawsuit.
“His relationship with WWE ended immediately — and the WWE scrubbed all mention of — Hulk Hogan from its Web site,” the motion reads, according to the New York Post.
“Thus, the only value Gawker defendants could squeeze out of the materials provided by the United States government was if these materials went public — and in the process publicly destroyed Mr. Bollea.”
As you might expect, Gawker is disputing Hogan’s allegations. “Hulk Hogan has only one person to blame for what he said and no one from Gawker had any role in leaking that information,” Heather Dietrick, Gawker president and general counsel told TMZ.
A hearing on this new motion is scheduled for Friday (July 31) in Florida state court.
[TMZ]