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Hulk Hogan called into the Bubba the Love Sponge Show radio program Tuesday morning to respond to comments that his ex-wife, Linda Hogan, 52, made on The Today Show the same day.

Linda claimed Hulk used steroids and physically abused her during their 25-year marriage. Hulk said on the show:

    "The stuff she said about me is a total, blatant lie. I never laid a hand on her. … She’s still riding on the Hulk Hogan name."


On Today to promote her autobiography Wrestling the Hulk - My Life against the Ropes, Linda said, "I was afraid he would kill me in a drug rage."

Linda told Matt Lauer that on one occasion Hulk pinned her to their bed with his hands around her throat. "I did not want to end up a statistic, like Nicole Simpson," Linda said, referring to OJ Simpson's wife. Linda filed for divorce in 2007.

She describes the world of wrestling and steroids as she knew it:

    "'Wrestlers had a reason to do every kind of drug and narcotic around and help numb them from the pain of what they were doing ... a lot of them did take steroids ... I was quiet and afraid to say anything. Had I said something the carpet would have been pulled from under his career. But it was scary. I did not know how far he would go."


Since splitting with Hulk, Linda has been dating a man 30 years her junior, who was a friend of her children -- Brooke and Nick. The Hogan family was depicted on the reality show Hogan Knows Best from 2005 to 2007.

Hulk, 57, is a 12-time world champion wrestler from the WWF. He also told Bubba that while he and Linda were married, his then-wife would constantly threaten that she would leave him for a younger man.