Hulk Hogan's death marks the end of an era that defined larger-than-life personalities of the 1980s

Hulk Hogan was billed as “The Immortal One” and the former WWE champion seemed to believe it as he bellowed in his red-and-yellow attire throughout sold-out arenas around the world in the 1980s and into this century that Hulkamania would live forever.

Hogan was the first wrestler to host “Saturday Night Live,” the only wrestler to flex his 24-inch pythons on the cover of Sports Illustrated and stood tall as the hated Thunderlips against Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa on the big screen.

One by one, Hogan took on the biggest, baddest and all the larger-than-life cartoon characters who helped skyrocket the WWE into a mainstream phenomenon in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Hogan’s death Thursday at the age of 71 made him just the latest superstar in what some fans and historians would call wrestling’s greatest era – in a time where staid Saturday morning television exploded into late-night must-see sports entertainment – to face the final 10-bell salute.

Hogan wrestled in a tag-team match at the first WrestleMania in 1985. Mr. T is the lone surviving actor from the rest of the participants that included “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff and “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. The wrestler Hogan defeated to win his first WWE championship, the hated Iron Sheik, has also died

Andre the Giant, Randy Savage, Dusty Rhodes, the Ultimate Warrior and so many headline stars that also include “Mr. Perfect” and “Ravishing” Rick Rude from an era in which personality — and yes, performance-enhancing drugs that led to a spike in super-sized bodies — reigned more than in-ring ability that dominates today's wrestling landscape.

Here's a look at some of professional wrestling's greatest performers from Hogan's era who have died.

Wearing face paint and dressed in tassels dangling from his biceps, the Ultimate Warrior sprinted to the ring when his theme music hit. He’d shake the ropes, grunt and howl, and thump his chest while the crowd went wild for the popular good guy.

In an era when the WWE targeted kids as its primary audience, Warrior was a perfect fit with a spastic entrance, blood-pumping music, flowing locks and always dressed in electric colors from head to boots.

His rambling, incoherent promos both energized and confused fans, and Warrior would often stare down at his hands as he spoke, as if he was summoning magical powers out of his fingertips.

The Ultimate Warrior became the first wrestler to defeat Hogan in a WrestleMania match in 1990 when he used his finishing running splash for the pin. He won the championship in front of 67,678 fans at Toronto’s SkyDome in a match billed as “The Ultimate Challenge.”

Warrior died in 2014 at 54.

Piper trash talked his way to the main event of the first WrestleMania and later found movie stardom.

Piper and Hogan battled for years and headlined some of the biggest matches during the 1980s. Hogan and Mr. T defeated Piper and Orndorff on March 31, 1985, at the first WrestleMania at Madison Square Garden.

Piper was a villain for the early portion of his career, once cracking a coconut over the skull of Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka. He later starred in the movie “They Live.”

Piper died in 2105 at 61.

Snap into it!

Savage, a former minor league baseball catcher, was known for his raspy voice, the sunglasses and bandanas he wore in the ring and the young woman named Miss Elizabeth who often accompanied him.

Savage defined the larger-than-life personalities of the 1980s World Wrestling Federation. He wore sequined robes bejeweled with “Macho Man” on the back, rainbow-colored cowboy hats and oversized sunglasses, part of a unique look that helped build the WWF into a mainstream phenomenon.

He spent years as a pitchman for Slim Jim and barked “snap into it!” on commercials that air to this day.

The WWF made Savage their champion after a win over Ted DiBiase in the main event at WrestleMania in 1988. He lost the championship at the next year's WrestleMania to Hogan.

Savage died in 2011 at 58.

Dusty Rhodes, known better as the “The American Dream,” was a member of the WWE Hall of Fame, and held the NWA championship three times. He became famous during the height of wrestling’s popularity in the 1970s and 1980 with his long-running feud with Ric Flair, now wrestling's greatest living legend.

Throughout his several decades in the ring, the Austin, Texas, native endeared himself to fans as an everyman with a less than stellar physique, but a gregarious gift of gab behind a microphone.

Rhodes was also the father of two other famous professional wrestlers: one son known as Goldust, still a champion in the rival All Elite Wrestling, and one of WWE’s biggest stars, “The American Nightmare” Cody Rhodes, who will face John Cena next month in the main event of SummerSlam.

Rhodes died in 2015 at 69.

FILE - Hulk Hogan poses during the MTV Video Music Awards Forum at Radio City Music Hall, Aug. 30, 2006, in New York. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow, File)

FILE - Basketball star Dennis Rodman, center, helps his wrestling tag team back to the ring, March 16, 1997, at the World Championship Wrestling pay-per-view event at the North Charleston Coliseum in Charleston, S.C. At left is Randy "Macho Man" Savage, and at right is his partner Hulk Hogan. (AP Photo/Paula Illingworth, File)

FILE - World Wrestling Federation heavyweight champion Hulk Hogan, left, and Mr. T. appear at a news conference on March 18, 1985, in New York's Madison Square Garden. (AP Photo/Corey Struller, File)

FILE - Hulk Hogan fires up the crowd between matches at WrestleMania 21 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, April 3, 2005. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson, File)

FILE - Actor Hulk Hogan poses on his float during the Krewe of Bacchus Mardi Gras parade in New Orlean, Feb. 3, 2008, the weekend before Fat Tuesday. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump said Sunday he believes both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin truly want peace, as he welcomed the “brave” Ukrainian leader for talks at his Florida resort.

“The two leaders want it to end,” Trump said at the outset of the meeting at Mar-a-Lago. Before Zelenskyy arrived, Trump spoke with Putin by phone for more than an hour, and planned to speak with him again soon after.

Greeting Zelenskyy at Mar-a-Lago, Trump said of him: “This gentleman has worked very hard, and is very brave, and his people are very brave."

Zelenskyy, by Trump's side, said he’d discuss issues of territorial concessions with Trump, which have so far been a red line for his country. He said his negotiators and Trump’s “have discussed how to move step by step and bring peace closer” and would continue to do so in the meeting.

Russia intensified its attacks on Ukraine’s capital in the days before the meeting.

Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov, said the call was initiated by the U.S. side, lasted over an hour, and was “friendly, benevolent, and businesslike.” Ushakov said Trump and Putin agreed to speak again “promptly” after Trump’s meeting with Zelenskyy.

Trump and Zelenskyy met at Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, where the U.S. president is spending the holidays. Zelenskyy, who arrived in Miami in the morning, said the two planned to discuss security and economic agreements in their early afternoon meeting. He said he will raise “territorial issues” as Moscow and Kyiv remain fiercely at odds over the fate of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.

In overnight developments, three guided aerial bombs launched by Russia struck private homes in the eastern city of Sloviansk, according to the head of the local military administration, Vadym Lakh. Three people were injured and one man died, Lakh said in a post on the Telegram messenger app.

The strike came the day after Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital with ballistic missiles and drones on Saturday, killing at least one person and wounding 27, a day before planned talks between the leaders of Ukraine and the United States, Ukrainian authorities said. Explosions boomed across Kyiv as the attack began in the early morning and continued for hours.

In advance of his meeting with Trump, Zelenskyy said Sunday that he spoke on the phone with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, filling him in “on the situation on the frontline and on the consequences of Russian strikes.” He posted on X: “Thank you, Keir, for the constant coordination!" Zelenskyy's office said he will speak by phone with allies after the meeting with Trump.

Trump, on Truth Social, said he and Zelenskyy will meet in the main dining room of Mar-a-Lago and the news media will be allowed in.

In a meeting Saturday with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Zelenskyy said the key to peace is “pressure on Russia and sufficient, strong support for Ukraine.” To that end, Carney announced more economic assistance from his government to help Ukraine rebuild.

Denouncing the “barbarism” of Russia’s latest attacks on Kyiv, Carney credited both Zelenskyy and Trump with creating the conditions for a “just and lasting peace” at a crucial moment.

“Ukraine is willing to do whatever it takes to stop this war,” Zelenskyy posted Saturday. “We need to be strong at the negotiating table.”

In response to the attacks, he wrote: “We want peace, and Russia demonstrates a desire to continue the war. If the whole world — Europe and America — is on our side, together we will stop” Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump and Zelenskyy sitting down face-to-face also underscored the apparent progress made by Trump’s top negotiators in recent weeks as the sides traded draft peace plans and continued to shape a proposal to end the fighting. Zelenskyy told reporters Friday that the 20-point draft proposal negotiators have discussed is “about 90% ready” — echoing a figure, and the optimism, that U.S. officials conveyed when Trump’s chief negotiators met with Zelenskyy in Berlin earlier this month.

During the recent talks, the U.S. agreed to offer certain security guarantees to Ukraine similar to those offered to other members of NATO. The proposal came as Zelenskyy said he was prepared to drop his country’s bid to join the security alliance if Ukraine received NATO-like protection that would be designed to safeguard it against future Russian attacks.

Zelenskyy also spoke on Christmas Day with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. The Ukrainian leader said they discussed “certain substantive details" and cautioned “there is still work to be done on sensitive issues” and “the weeks ahead may also be intensive.”

The U.S. president has been working to end the war in Ukraine for much of his first year back in office, showing irritation with both Zelenskyy and Putin while publicly acknowledging the difficulty of ending the conflict. Long gone are the days when, as a candidate in 2024, he boasted that he could resolve the fighting in a day.

After hosting Zelenskyy at the White House in October, Trump demanded that both Russia and Ukraine halt fighting and “stop at the battle line,” implying that Moscow should be able to keep the territory it has seized from Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said last week that he would be willing to withdraw troops from Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end the war, if Russia also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday that the Kremlin had already been in contact with U.S.

“It was agreed upon to continue the dialogue,” he said.

Putin has publicly said he wants all the areas in four key regions that have been captured by his forces, as well as the Crimean Peninsula, illegally annexed in 2014, to be recognized as Russian territory. He also has insisted that Ukraine withdraw from some areas in eastern Ukraine that Moscow’s forces haven’t captured. Kyiv has publicly rejected all those demands.

The Kremlin also wants Ukraine to abandon its bid to join NATO. It warned that it wouldn’t accept the deployment of any troops from members of the military alliance and would view them as a “legitimate target.”

Putin also has said Ukraine must limit the size of its army and give official status to the Russian language, demands he has made from the outset of the conflict.

Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told the business daily Kommersant this month that Russian police and national guard would stay in parts of Donetsk -– one of the two major areas, along with Luhansk, that make up the Donbas region — even if they become a demilitarized zone under a prospective peace plan.

Ushakov cautioned that trying to reach a compromise could take a long time. He said U.S. proposals that took into account Russian demands had been “worsened” by alterations proposed by Ukraine and its European allies.

Trump has been somewhat receptive to Putin’s demands, making the case that the Russian president can be persuaded to end the war if Kyiv agrees to cede Ukrainian land in the Donbas region and if Western powers offer economic incentives to bring Russia back into the global economy.

Kim reported from Washington and Morton from London. Associated Press writers Illia Novikov in Kyiv and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump greets Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Mar-a-Lago club, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump greets Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Mar-a-Lago club, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump greets Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Mar-a-Lago club, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump greets Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his Mar-a-Lago club, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Karen Blake of Ft. Lauderdale, poses with a sign at the "Rally in Support of Ukraine" organized by the Ukrainian Association of Florida as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with U.S. President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in West Palm Beach, Fla., Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Jen Golbeck)

President Donald Trump waves as he departs Trump International Golf Club, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025, in West Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

A psychologist of a rescue team helps en elderly woman at the hospice which was damaged after a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine, on Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)

Rescuers put fragments of a body of the victim into a plastic bag after Russian drone hit a multi-storey apartment building during massive missile and drone attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

President Donald Trump pumps his fist at Christmas Eve dinner at his Mar-a-Lago club, Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hold a news conference in Halifax, N.S. on Saturday, Dec. 27, 2025.(Riley Smith /The Canadian Press via AP)

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speaks during a media conference at the EU Summit in Brussels, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Geert Vanden Wijngaert)