Hulk Hogan and Chuck Mangione -- a professional wrestling icon and a jazz musician -- were both in the news yesterday because they both died, and I don't know what cosmic meaning to attach to that. Perhaps the Hulkster needed a house band to soundtrack the Sturm-und-Drang of him leaping off the top rope onto the Iron Sheik.
Whatever. In any event, it continued a bad week for entertainers, brother, as Hulk would say. Hogan and Mangione and Ozzy Osbourne and, most tragically, Malcolm Jamal Warner, aka Theo from the old Cosby show. The latter drowned in Costa Rica while on a family vacation, a perfectly awful thing.
The Hulkster, on the other hand, died of a heart attack at 71, plunging into mourning anyone who grew up in the 1980s and remembers big hair, Pearl Jam and Molly Ringwald. Hulk Hogan was right smack in the gob of all that, arguably the biggest, most outlandish icon in a decade of big, outlandish icons. Pro wrestling went Hollywood -- lights, camera, plotlines! -- during that time, and the Hulkster was the Hollywood-iest of them all.
Who could forget him taking down the Iron Sheik to win the world championship n '84? Or his legendary ability to take a licking and keep on ticking? Or that time he squared off against Andre the Giant?
Andre of course is gone now, as are a bunch of them: The Sheik and Rowdy Roddy and Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff, and of course The Macho Man, Randy Savage. Now the brightest star in their firmament has joined them in the firmament, which can only mean a heavenly Royal Rumble is about to commence.
Or perhaps a celestial rematch, Hulk vs. Andre.
In which Rowdy Roddy hits Hulk from behind with a folding chair, the sneaky little jerk. And the Macho Man leaps into the ring to defend the honor of Miss Elizabeth. And Andre flings Macho Man over the ropes and onto a card table, and Hulk, unfazed by the folding chair, drags Rowdy Roddy into the ring and beats the mortal crap out of him.
The good Lord would love it. You know He would, brother.
No comments:
Post a Comment