Despite being a child of the 80’s, I’ve never really gotten into professional wrestling. I never understood the appeal of watching a sport that was completely fabricated and full of ridiculous characters. If that’s your bag, no harm meant — it’s just not for me.

And in the five-plus years I’ve been writing in this space, I never once imagined that I’d be writing about Hulk Hogan either.

But life is funny sometimes.

If you hadn’t heard — I hadn’t — long-time WWE star Hulk Hogan has been in the news lately for a racist tirade caught in a recently sex tape that was leaked online. The fallout from the slurs has been swift and strong, including all references to Hogan being removed from the WWE website and his name being removed from the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame. And all of this comes on the heals of a long checkered history involving abuse charges and being alienated from his kids.

Obviously desperate to resuscitate his flagging career, the Hulk — not to be confused with the Brazilian attacker plying his trade for not-at-all racist Zenit St. Petersburg — has taken to social media to not only apologize, but also attempt to explain how not racist he actually is.

That always goes really well, doesn’t it?

In his urgent efforts to prove this, Hogan has started retweeting anyone who shows him signs of support. In particular, if someone of a minority background posts a picture, he’s been especially keen to let his followers know that he’s got fans of every color. Here’s a screen shot of two of those RT’s…

In the top picture, you see two “mates” who know Hogan isn’t racist. And below are two more friends with silly hair that are “life long hulkamaniacs”. But for those with sharp vision, you might have noticed something odd about the guys in those pictures. The tweet from “Ethan Morley” looks an awful lot like Arsenal teammates Danny Welbeck and Jack Wilshire. And the bottom picture, former Gunners Andrey Arshavin and Emmanuel Eboue.

Wait… that actually is those guys.

And now you see why I’m writing about Hulk Hogan’s Twitter feed on my soccer blog. In his haste to prove how PC he actually is, the Hulkster was duped by a bunch of British internet trolls. And it didn’t stop there.

Yup, that’s Belgian international Romelu Lukaku from a dude named Joe at @WHU_Boulcott.

And what about this picture of supposed father and son Hulk Hogan fans? Arsenal legend Martin Keown and current player Mathieu Flamini.And this one appears to be like 12% of the West Ham squad.

But the best of the bunch had to be another supposed father-son tandem…

Yeah, that’s Rio Ferdinand — a man who isn’t exactly known for being lenient to those who have expressed racist behavior — and his “son”, rapper Drake. I literally fell on the floor and died of laughter upon seeing that one.

Really, it’s kind of sad seeing Hulk Hogan attempting to right wrongs with the old “See I have black friends!” effort that we’ve seen so many celebrities and politicians try and fail with in the past. But it’s not so sad that I wouldn’t screencap them on the off-chance that the Hulk (or his advisers) wises up to his duping.

And really, when you look at that top picture in this article, are you really going to try to tell me a guy with a dyed blonde handlebar mustache isn’t racist?