The world lost a legend yesterday with the death of former boxer George Foreman at the age of 76.
The two-time world champion and Olympic gold medalist retired from boxing back in 1994 with a record of 76 wins and only 5 losses, with 68 of those wins coming by knockout. He was inducted into both the World Boxing Hall of Fame and the International Boxing Hall of Fame, and is consistently ranked as one of the greatest boxers to have ever lived.
But after retiring from boxing, George Foreman became even more famous for something completely different: A grill.
Everybody knows about the George Foreman grills. At one point I’m sure you all had one in your house (I’ve still got mine). The two-sided grill that cooks from both sides and sits on a slope to “knock out the fat” was first introduced back in 1994, and has since sold over 100 MILLION units. It was once estimated that Foreman had made $200 million from putting his name on the grills, but when asked about that number, he said it was actually “much more” and that at one point he was making $8 million a month from his “lean mean fat reducing grilling machine.”
But did you know that it was almost the Hulk Hogan Grill instead?
I first learned about the wild story behind the George Foreman Grill from my friend JR the Handler over on the Tigs Bits podcast, where he mentioned that Hulk Hogan was actually the first to be offered the opportunity to endorse the then-revolutionary new grill. So I did some research, and it turns out Hogan himself has confirmed that he missed out on the million dollar idea.
Hogan was himself a superstar whose popularity had gone beyond the world of wrestling by the early 1990s. In 1993, he left WWE to sign with rival WCW, and was enjoying a career resurgence with his new persona “Hollywood” Hulk Hogan.
And there are actually two slightly different stories about how he missed out on the George Foreman grill.
According to Hogan’s friend and Avatar actor Sam Worthington, Hogan told him that his manager gave him some career advice, encouraging him to diversify his business opportunities and endorse some kitchen products.
The wrestler liked the idea, so his manager brought him some products to endorse. One was a meatball maker, which Hogan was a fan of and agreed to endorse as the Hulkamania Meatball Maker. But the manager had another potential product for Hulk to choose from too, a new indoor grill that promised to reduce fat from meat and cook twice as fast as other kitchen appliances.
Hulk instead decided to go with the meatball maker, telling his manager to give the grill to his other client – George Foreman.
Now, Worthington’s story differs a little bit from Hogan’s. Speaking on Late Night With Conan O’Brien in 2008, Hogan confirms that he did miss out on the opportunity to endorse the grill, but says that it was because he missed the call from his manager because he was picking up his kids from school:
“I missed the phone call… I went home, hit the answering machine. And it was Sam Perlmutter, the guy who handled a lot of stuff for me and George. He goes, ‘Hey Hogan, I got two things. I got a grill and a blender for you.’
So I called Sam back. He goes, ‘Well I called you, you weren’t there so George took the grill.’ And I got the blender.”
The blender Hogan was referring to was the Hulk Hogan Thunder Mixer, which Hogan describes as basically a piece of crap that didn’t make any money:
“It was a little plastic blender with a battery in it… You’d put six ounces of water, one scoop of protein, and when you’d start it it’d fart and stop.”
Yeah, can’t say I’ve heard of the Hulk Hogan blender like I have the George Foreman grill.
Regardless of how it really went down, and whether it was a meatball maker or a blender, it’s safe to say that Hulk Hogan missed out on a massive opportunity by not getting his name on the George Foreman Grill. Although who knows how successful the grill would have been without the likeable Foreman constantly on TV talking about his grill in the ’90s.
Either way, just an interesting piece of history in the incredible life of the legendary George Foreman.
