Hulk Hogan is attempting the legal equivalent of a smackdown in his $100 million sex-tape suit against Gawker.
The exiled World Wrestling Entertainment star says the snark site not only ran a highlight reel from his sex tape — it also leaked a recording of a racist rant to damage his case.
In an emergency motion filed Thursday, Hogan (real name Terry Bollea) accused Gawker of releasing confidential information that destroyed his 38-year career “in the blink of an eye.”
That information included racist and homophobic rants, which were caught on tape and published in the National Enquirer.
“His relationship with WWE ended immediately — and the WWE scrubbed all mention of — Hulk Hogan from its Web site,” the motion says of snippets that were to have remained in sealed discovery.
A hearing on the motion filed in Florida state court is scheduled for Friday.
Hogan’s search for culprits doesn’t extend beyond the defendant in the $100 million suit filed in 2012 after the publication of the wrestler having sex with the then-wife of his then-best friend.
Discovery in the case unearthed tapes other than the sex video, but the court ruled them inadmissible as evidence.
“Thus, the only value Gawker defendants could squeeze out of the materials provided by the United States government was if these materials went public — and in the process publicly destroyed Mr. Bollea,” the motion says.
Hogan claims Gawker orchestrated the leak to divert attention from its own public-relations nightmare — one caused by its posting, and then removing, a story about a married publishing executive’s attempt to engage a gay male escort.
When Gawker founder Nick Denton had the post removed, the motion charges, “a ‘civil war’ erupted which included the resignations of the executive editor … and the editor-in-chief of Gawker.com.”
It then claims the resulting brouhaha exposed Denton’s “hypocrisy” in removing one post while asserting the Hulk’s sex-tape post was legitimate.
Not so, Gawker said in response: “Hulk Hogan has only one person to blame for what he said, and no one from Gawker had any role in leaking that information.”
Friday’s hearing expedites one slated for Oct. 20. The trial was supposed to start earlier this month but was delayed.