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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Hard times outside the ring

Hulk Hogan (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

A divorce attorney for Hulk Hogan’s wife got into a verbal sparring match with the former WWE star – asking if Hogan was going to wrestle him.

It started when Ray Rafool was answering reporters’ questions Thursday after a hearing in which a judge granted the release of $225,000 in frozen assets for Hogan.

While Rafool spoke, the towering Hogan tried to interject a comment from behind a row of cameras and reporters.

“Are you gonna wrestle with me here?” Rafool said loudly. “Are you gonna come across the cameras? Then be quiet.”

The attorney – who recently accepted an autograph from Hogan for his son – then told him: “You’re an actor. You’re acting now.”

“I hope your son enjoys the autograph,” Hogan said. “Thank you Hulkamaniac brother.”

Later Rafool said: “It got much more heated than I would have preferred. Some of it was a little tongue-in-cheek about the wrestling. He was smiling and laughing. I was, too.”

His lawyer said Hogan worries he won’t be able to help a young man who was seriously injured in a crash caused by Hogan’s son.

She’s a tolerant lady

Tom Jones is singing about his reputation as a ladies man – and how grateful he is that his wife stuck by him for 52 years.

Jones, who for the first time co-wrote some of the songs on his latest CD, sings on “The Road” that “I have felt weakness when I was strong, felt sweetness when I was wrong.”

But Jones also sings to his wife Linda that “the road always leads back to you.”

She didn’t ask a lot of questions about what he did on tour, he says, saying she’d be satisfied “as long as you come home to me, as long as you don’t go running off with somebody.”

Finally off the leash

On-again, off-again couple John Mayer and Jennifer Aniston are apparently off for good.

“They had some disagreements and decided to not continue to see each other,” a source told People magazine, which reported an end to the high-profile relationship – for the second time.

Another source told the magazine that Mayer cooled off the romance after Aniston returned from Europe, where she’d been promoting her dog movie “Marley & Me.”

Call him the oath utterer

Speaking of canines, Cesar Millan, Mexican-born star of National Geographic Channel’s “Dog Whisperer,” was sworn in as a U.S. citizen Thursday.

Millan has been a U.S. resident since 2000.

“This is the ultimate culmination of living the American dream,” he said.

Brits go wacko for Jacko

Tickets for Michael Jackson’s 50 London concerts sold out within hours of becoming available, organizers said Friday.

The shows are scheduled to kick off in July and stretch into February. The pop singer has said the series, titled “This is It,” will be his last in the British capital.

The birthday bunch

Actor Michael Caine is 76. Composer-conductor Quincy Jones is 76. Comedian Billy Crystal is 61. Actress Tamara Tunie (“Law and Order: SVU”) is 50. Singer Kristian Bush (Sugarland) is 39. Musician Taylor Hanson (Hanson) is 26.