Titus O’Neil was surprised that Hulk Hogan was heavily booed at WrestleMania 37

Last month’s WrestleMania 37 event was WWE’s first ticketed show with live fans in over a year.

In an effort to create some hype for the two night event, WWE announced that the official hosts for WrestleMania 37 were Titus O’Neil and Hulk Hogan. Yes, they were both from the local area around Tampa Bay, but it was a tone deaf decision. Titus was among Hogan’s harshest critics after Hulk was once recorded saying “I’m a racist to a point, y’know, fucking ******s.”

The hosting decision came off like WWE was trying to use Titus’ presence to suggest that the locker room was cool with Hogan after years of mostly terrible apologies for his racist tirade.

The end result is that Hogan received some very loud boos at WrestleMania 37, particularly on night two. And Titus had to stand there and share that awkward moment with him.

Speaking with Mark Henry on Busted Open Radio, O’Neil said he was really caught off guard by the heavy booing that Hogan received:

Henry: “As good as a performer as you are, and as good as an actor and entertainer, your face could not hide when they booed Hogan...I laughed my ass off. I was like, poor Titus. Poor Titus got to stand there and live through that. Oh my god.”

O’Neil: “It really caught me by surprise. I really didn’t expect...I expected some boos, but I didn’t expect it to be at that level. But to Hulk’s credit, he took it in stride and kept going...it was definitely different.”

Yeah, it was different alright. Maybe next time WWE should think twice before calling Hogan’s number for something like this.