WWE fires Hulk Hogan

Hulk Hogan has been fired from the WWE, the company announced Friday morning.

It comes after his profile page was abruptly removed from WWE.com and his merchandise was taken out of the online shop late Thursday night. 

The WWE put a statement which implied it has to do with unspecified racist comments made by Hogan:

"WWE terminated its contract with Terry Bollea (aka Hulk Hogan). WWE is committed to embracing and celebrating individuals from all backgrounds as demonstrated by the diversity of our employees, performers and fans worldwide."

After references to Hogan were scrubbed from the WWE website, there was widespread speculation that it had to do with the imminent release of an audio recording on which Hogan reportedly makes racist comments.

RadarOnline, along with the tabloid the National Enquirer, reported on Friday that Hogan was caught "spewing foul-mouthed racial slurs - including the N-word" on an unauthroized sex tape.

Pro Wrestling Torch's Wade Keller notes that Hogan is also no longer listed as a judge for the show "Tough Enough."

Here's what Hogan's biography page looks like:

A cached version of the page from July 17 looked like this:

After his pages were taken down, Hogan put out this cryptic tweet:

There's widespread speculation that this is a preemptive move in anticipation of the release of an offensive audio recording. That rumor hasn't been confirmed. We've reached out to Hogan through his lawyer and marketing company for further details. We'll update this post when we hear back.