RIP Hulk Hogan

Ozzy didn't get this much attention.

 

and your point is what

 

That makes sense. At least in terms of pop culture (and maybe limited to the U.S., not sure as I didn’t live overseas when either was at their peak fame), I think Hogan was a good bit more famous than Ozzy. Hulkamania was pretty much inescapable in the 80s and 90s.

 

Black Sabbath peaked in the 1970’s.
Not sure what this says about their “peak fame” since Osborne probably made a bunch of $$$ from reality TV bs, but at their deaths Ozzie was reportedly worth $220 million and Hogan $25million.

 

I’m not sure how much wealth is actually indicative of fame here for a couple of reasons.

For one, Ozzy’s business continued to make money passively after he stopped performing a lot better than professional wrestling does (royalties, sales, Ozzfest profits, etc.). For another, Ozzy was married to his wife of 45 years (who was contributing fairly substantial earnings of her own to that sum), while Hogan got divorced twice in the past 16 years (and his divorce from Linda cost him 70% of his liquid assets, 40% of his companies, and a multi-million dollar real estate settlement payment - Hogan was on record describing that divorce as nearly bankrupting him).

 

Maybe so, I was just pushing back on the idea Hulk was “a good bit more famous” and I thought the wealth disparity was an interesting data point. Both seemed similarly famous to me regardless of their earnings disparity, most people probably vaguely know who they both are I’m sure. I can see people who actually know Ozzy from reality TV or his current wife without knowing much of Black Sabbath or the history of metal. So in a strange way Osborne had two almost totally separate runs at “fame”. Hogan also had a reality show of his own apparantly. I just think you are overestimating the mindshare of wrestling a bit, yeah “Hulkmania” generated more TV ads and action figures and whatnot. I think certainly for boys that were in that 10-15 yo demographic in the 80’s you are correct, otherwise… eh.

 

Ozzy, a much more controversial character than Hogan, got less responses, because he was appreciated by both sides more than Hogan.

Ozzy was Ozzy. Who he was as a man was the same as who he was as a character.

Hogan wasn’t. Who he was as a man; is horrific. Racism, sexism, adultery, union busting as Terry. While being one of, if not the best, humans as the character of Hulk Hogan.

 

Quite the twist in the rationale, but let’s just stop right here. Objectively, this is a weak argument. Oz was a global cult figure. Hulk was not. I ain’t spitting on his grave, he was fun in the Rocky movie.

 

You can’t possibly be a sports fan and not know Crazy Train.

 

But nobody gave Ozzy $100M for having sex

 

Those were the good ole days..

 

Those who didn't live in the late 60s and early 70s can't truly appreciate how much great music was on the airwaves and stereos back then. Really .... who had time to listen to Black Sabbath when there were so many other fantastic artists and groups producing new "classic music", almost daily. Thank goodness an LP only cost $3-$4 in the early '70s. And cutouts were even cheaper!!

 

He is a talented musician and an icon in the history of rock. Yet somehow, to those on this board, he doesn't seem nearly as important as someone with a sketchy past who only pretended to fight for a living. Obviously they both had their fans, but one was a perceived tough guy, and the other an artist whose songs will live on long after he's gone. But whatever. Back to your hulky memory lane.

 

To be fair, I think pretty much everyone else in Black Sabbath had more talent and musicianship than Ozzy. Tony Iommi for example wrote most (all?) of those famous guitar riffs, I had to look up if Ozzy even played guitar. Apparently only just barely. Ozzy was a character, maybe at one time had a unique voice, but even on the original records the vocals were very processed sounding. Not knocking him, he was certainly an icon and his solo career showed he could write some classic tunes in his own right. But Black Sabbath with the original lineup including Ozzy was something special imo. Classic rock. I say that as someone not even a fan of most modern heavy metal music (if that even exists in any real sense), or that would even despise most bands that would be featured at OzFest.

 

I had a very healthy album collection and much of it came from the cut-out bins.

 

I think you’re missing at least my point. He’s not getting talked about more because he was “more important,” he’s getting talked about more because he was more recognizable and ubiquitous in pop culture.

If you didn’t listen to rock radio in the 70s or 80s (or classic rock radio later), weren’t attuned to the Southern Baptist Convention accusing him of trying to convert kids to satanism, or didn’t watch MTV’s reality programming in the early 2000’s to know him as the mumbling guy who couldn’t hear, it was possible to not really have any meaningful exposure to Ozzy.

But there was a period in the late 80s and early 90s where it was effectively impossible to not know who Hulk Hogan was, whether you watched wrestling or not. He was in a Rocky movie, he got a number of his own movies, he guest starred in a laundry list of TV shows, he had his own (awful) action show in Rolling Thunder, he had a Saturday morning cartoon, he was the advertising face of Right Guard and Honey Nut Cheerios, etc. And he had the trademark look.

That’s what I was getting at - not to compare the merits of Ozzy and Hogan as a person, or the relative value of what each did, but just to note that I think part of why Hogan is getting talked about so much is because for a number of years he was in that small group of people (the Pope, Michael Jackson, Tyson, etc.) where literally everyone knew who Hulk Hogan was, and I’m not sure Ozzy ever had quite that broad of a profile.