Hulk Hogan, the theatrical former professional wrestler, teed up Donald J. Trump on Thursday at the Republican National Convention with a rousing speech in which he ripped off his suit jacket and shirt, revealing a red Trump-Vance tank top to raucous cheers.
The retired wrestler, whose real name is Terry G. Bollea, called Mr. Trump his “hero” and said the former president would bring “America back together, one real American at a time.”
“As an entertainer, I try to stay out of politics,” said Mr. Bollea, who wore a red bandanna and had a pair of dark sunglasses propped above his head. “But after everything that’s happened to our country over the past four years, and everything that happened last weekend, I can no longer stay silent.”
Mr. Bollea had once shied away speaking about this year’s election. Just last month, he said he had not yet decided whom he would support.
“I just don’t know,” Mr. Bollea said in an interview with NewsNation. He added, “I just want the best man to win.”
That changed after the assassination attempt on Mr. Trump last Saturday.
“When I saw him stand up with that fist in the air and the blood on his face — as a warrior, as a leader — I realized that’s what America needs,” Mr. Bollea said on Fox News on Thursday night.
He was rewarded with a prime-time spot on the final night of the Republican convention, serving as one of the last speakers before Mr. Trump takes the stage.
Mr. Trump has had close ties to wrestling entertainment for decades, and directly participated in several W.W.E. events. He was inducted into the W.W.E. Hall of Fame in 2013, eight years after Mr. Bollea entered the hall. And Mr. Trump made Linda McMahon, the former chief executive of W.W.E., the head of the Small Business Administration when he was in the White House.
Ms. McMahon also spoke on Thursday, and Dana White, the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, is set to speak after Mr. Bollea.
Mr. Trump has sought to project an aura of toughness after the rally shooting, which bloodied his right ear. He has worn a bandage over his ear during his appearances at the convention this week, and his supporters have made some of the first words he said after rising from the ground — “fight! fight! fight!” — a rallying cry.
Mr. Bollea, a physically towering 70-year-old performer with a gravelly voice and a recognizable handlebar mustache, has sometimes compared pro wrestling to politics. He has also contemplated running for office.
His own politics are somewhat opaque. He has supported both former President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
But Mr. Bollea has other high-profile ties to Republican politics. Peter Thiel, the billionaire entrepreneur and Republican megadonor, was said to have bankrolled a legal fight that Mr. Bollea waged against Gawker Media after the news website published a video of him having sex with the wife of a radio host.
Mr. Bollea won the case and a Florida jury ordered Gawker to pay him $140 million. The media company filed for bankruptcy and shut down.
Mr. Thiel was one of Mr. Trump’s top donors in 2016, though their relationship later soured somewhat. But he remains influential in the Republican Party.
Mr. Thiel is said to have placed calls encouraging Mr. Trump to select J.D. Vance, who once worked at one of Mr. Thiel’s investment firms, as his running mate. Mr. Vance, a senator from Ohio whose best-selling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” fueled his political rise, accepted the vice-presidential nomination on Wednesday.
Mr. Bollea, whose reputation was damaged in 2015 after it was reported that he had used a racial slur on videotape, has suggested that he would like to be vice president someday.
“You never know,” he said in the NewsNation interview. “Right now, I’d make a great vice president, brother, because I do have common sense. I do know right from wrong.”
But on Thursday, he threw his support behind Mr. Vance.
Standing on the Republican convention stage and pointing toward Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance, Mr. Bollea declared that he saw “the greatest tag team of my life.”
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