Hulk Hogan trial date set

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Hulk Hogan trial date set

Hulk Hogan's $100 million lawsuit against Gawker won't go to trial until next year.

The 61-year-old wrestler has taken out an invasion of privacy complaint against the website for leaking a sex tape of him and Heather Clem in 2012 but Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court Judge Pamela Campbell scheduled the court case for March next year in a hearing this morning (07.30.15).

Hogan's lawyer, David Houston, told FOX411: "We had hoped to receive a trial date sooner than March 2016 but we understand the court has a very busy docket and we will work with it."

Hogan - whose real name is Terry Bollea - has recently been at the centre of a race row following the release of transcripts from the unauthorised recording which claim he used the 'N-word' while discussing his daughter Brooke's apparent boyfriend, and his legal team filed a motion yesterday (07.29.15) to establish whether Gawker was behind the leak of the controversial audio.

The matter was also discussed in court today.

The wrestler's lawyer said: "As far as further discovery we have requested of Gawker, the court has taken that under consideration and we hope to hear in the near future that we will be allowed full discovery that either Gawker participated or sponsored the release directly.

"The only way we will know for sure is if we are able to complete this discovery process. It would be premature to insist that Gawker is responsible until Gawker's records have been fully vetted."

Gawker and its owner, Nick Denton, previously insisted they had the right to publish the video because Hogan had made a number of sexually explicit comments during media appearances, so had lost any expectation of privacy.