The character of Hulk Hogan is the reason I fell in love with professional wrestling. For a lifelong Hulkamaniac like me, the yellow and red isn’t just a color scheme; it’s the visual shorthand for childhood heroism. Over the years, I’ve had the good fortune to meet the man twice—the first time at WrestleMania XXX in New Orleans, where I shook his hand and told him he was my hero, and more recently at WrestleMania 40 right here in my hometown of Philadelphia. During that second meeting, he joked with me about his body falling apart, a reminder of the physical toll the business took on him.

But after watching the Hulk Hogan: Real American documentary series on Netflix, I found myself sitting in the silence of my living room with a heavy heart and a mountain of conflicting feelings.