The sporting legend - who died in July 2025 aged 71 after suffering a heart attack - became reliant on the prescription medication during his time with TNA (Total Nonstop Wrestling) because it had quickly become apparent he wasn't in the right physical shape to compete in the ring at the highest level.
Hulk had signed up to fight with the organisation aged 58 when he "hit rock-bottom" after he gave "everything" to first wife Linda Hogan when they divorced in 2009 and he needed the cash. But he soon turned to the opioid to get by.
Speaking in new Netflix docuseries Hulk Hogan: Real American - in what was his final interview before his death - Hulk said: "I was taking 80-milligram fentanyls, two in the morning, stuffing them under my gums here ... I had two 300mg patches of fentanyl on my legs and they gave me six 1500mg fentanyl lollipops to eat.
"I went to the pharmacy, he goes, 'You should be dead. We have never seen a human being take this much fentanyl.'"
Hulk was struggling with so much pain, he resorted to sleeping in a chair.
He said: "If I just twitched my finger like that, my whole back would spasm and torque."
Elsewhere in the series, Hulk admitted he contemplated taking his own life following a public backlash after his divorce.
"I went home, I started drinking and started eating pills, and I just went down this rabbit hole for a couple of days," he said.
"Next thing I know, I'm sitting in front of my bathroom with a gun in my mouth and not knowing what I was doing, you know?"
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