Hulk Hogan Nearly Killed Kurt Fuller Filming No Holds Barred
Hulk Hogan forgot to fake ramming check down Kurt Fuller's throat while filming No Holds Barred
Hulk Hogan made his name in the WWE, but after over four years as champion, Hollywood was calling, and he set out to make his movie debut in No Holds Barred. In an interview with Comicbook.com, prolific character actor Kurt Fuller revealed how Hogan didn’t realize he was supposed to fake a scene and, instead, almost accidentally murdered his co-star. During a scene in which Fuller’s corrupt network executive tries to steal Hogan’s Rip Thomas away, the Hulkster jammed a check down Fuller’s throat, blocking the windpipe and almost killing the future Psych coroner.
As Kurt Fuller explained in the interview, “He shoved the check down my throat and I almost died. I mean, it was stuck in my windpipe and they had to go in and pull it out and, and he went, ‘Oh, sorry, man, I didn’t know we were supposed to fake that.’
In the scene, Fuller is supposed to “swallow” the check, leading to Hulk Hogan dropping the one-liner, “I won’t be around when this check clears.” No one but Hogan knows how he thought a human being was supposed to actually swallow the check being force-fed by a man with 24-inch pythons. Over his years working in a WWE ring, the former champion had a reputation for being easy to work with and almost never injured any of his opponents, which makes it all the more strange that on a Hollywood set, he nearly killed a co-star.
No Holds Barred, which was bankrolled by Vince McMahon and heavily promoted on WWE programming, including hijacking the main event of Summerslam 1989, was a box office bomb that nearly tanked Hulk Hogan’s acting career before it ever began. Hogan starred as Rip Thomas, the coveted champion of the WWF pursued by Kurt Fuller’s Tom Brell, and when the bribe is refused, Brell vows revenge. That revenge takes the form of Zeus, played by Tony Lister, facing off against Rip in a match in which none of the holds are barred, not even the arm bar or the three-handled moss-covered family credenza.
Following the dismal failure of the movie, which debuted in second place for the weekend behind Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade with slightly under $5 million in sales, Vince McMahon decided to stage a strange Pay-Per-View, showing the film No Holds Barred followed by an actual match between Hulk Hogan and Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake against “Macho Man” Randy Savage and Tony Lister, in character as Zeus. Trying to get exact numbers out of a wrestling promoter during the 80s was impossible, but wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer reported that McMahon broke even “at best” considering the millions he had invested in the production.
Today, Hulk Hogan is retired from in-ring competition and hasn’t starred in a film since 2009’s Little Hercules in 3-D, though he has done plenty of voice roles, notably in the video game Saint’s Row The Third and as The Dean in China, IL. After surviving having a check rammed down his throat, Kurt Fuller went on to star in nearly every series ever aired since 1992. One of those “that guy” actors everyone recognizes but no one knows his name; Fuller has appeared in Supernatural, The Good Wife, Bull, Desperate Housewives, CSI, and My Name Is Earl, along with hundreds of others.
