Assuming one isn’t going off the weight Hogan was listed as playing Thunderlips in “Rocky III,” (7’0, 390 lbs), a quick search for the height and weight of both men would seem to suggest the results are inconclusive. In height, the advantage would go to Hogan, who most places list at 6’7, while Ferrigno is listed at 6’5. Things are also complicated when it comes to weight; while Hogan is commonly listed at being between 290 and 302 lbs, Ferrigno’s peak weight, in 1992, has him listed at 315 lbs, though he is listed at being around 284 lbs during a bodybuilding competition in 1975. That means that, at times, Hogan weighed more, and at times, Ferrigno weighed more. As such, the only conclusion one could reasonably make from all this data is that it was a wash, and neither man was truly that much bigger than the other.

The caveat to this whole thing is that this concerns both Hulk Hogan and pro wrestling, a wrestler who loved to make up tall tales, and a business known for exaggerating both the height and weight of its competitors to make them seem larger than life. So while Hogan certainly was tall and carrying muscles on top of his muscles during his glory years, it stands to reason that he was probably not quite 6’7 or 300 lbs, and thus was probably not as big as Ferrigno. Whether he was or wasn’t didn’t seem to matter between the two, however, as Hogan and Ferrigno seemed to share a close friendship, with Ferrigno even paying tribute to Hogan after his death. As such, the curious case of whether Hogan or Ferrigno was the bigger man seems to matter more to the fans out there than it does to Ferrigno.