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#04 Randy "The Macho Man" Savage
Ring Performance - 8 OOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh! That's right, the Macho Man is here, could there be a list of the 10 best wrestlers of all time with him...no way. He started his career in the WWF in 1985. He was signed by Vince McMahon to be the top heel in the WWF. He chose the lovely Miss Elizabeth to be his manager and thus ushered in the era of having attractive women as managers. It may have been done before but she and Savage were able to popularize this practice, they had a great on-screen dynamic and it worked well. We now have to deal with brainless whores on screen because of this but at the time it was great. As an eight year old I had a serious crush on her...she was classic 1980s hot! I will confess that I am a bit young to remember The Macho Man as an in-ring wrestler. Most of his best matches were in the mid 1980s and at that point I was not knowledgeable about execution and technical ability. I do know that his match with Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat at Wrestlemania III is known as one of the great matches in history. The match was choreographed prior, Savage wanted the match to be perfect so him and Steamboat worked through all the details in the pre-match buildup. Savage also teamed with Hogan as the "Mega Powers", needless to say these two legends went on to win the WWF tag team belts very quickly. Hogan and Savage were the two lead wrestlers in the golden era that brought everyone reading this into professional wrestling (1985-1990) The interplay between Savage and Hogan was always interesting. You could almost see the big brother, little brother relationship complete with brutal sibling rivalry. Hogan and Savage were friends until, allegedly, Hogan slept with Elizabeth leading to Savage and Liz getting divorced in 1992. Everyone knew that Hogan was the cash cow of the WWF but you could always see that Savage was trying to take that position for himself and he came damn close to doing it. If it were not for the blind faith in Hogan by Vince McMahon, Savage would have been the biggest star in the WWF Savage held the WWF Championship for one calendar year, an impossibility in modern wrestling due to the younger generation's inability to pay attention to anything. Too much fucking Ritalin. Ok, back on subject. He was one of the first wrestlers to use a high-flying maneuver (top turn buckle flying elbow) as his finishing moves. That, of course, is significant because every wrestler now uses some sort of top of the ring flying technique. One of his biggest rivals in the WWF and the WCW was the Nature Boy Ric Flair. In fact they are the only wrestlers to have won and lost the WWF and WCW belts to one another. The main point of their feud was of course Miss Elizabeth. Ric Flair was a legendary womanizer, on and off-screen, and was constantly hitting on Elizabeth and claimed on many occasions to have banged her. This would drive the Macho Man nuts and they would fight and have matches and basically call each other out of months at a time, it was one of the great rivalries in a sport full of them. I am not sure how this fits in but I will do my best. Savage left the WWF in 1994 rather abruptly. It was always rumored that he left because Hogan did and that could have had something to do with it but the prevalent story now is that he was fired because he had sex with Stephanie McMahon, the then 14 year old daughter of Vince McMahon. Now we do not condone statutory rape here Arthur's Hall but you have to admit banging the Boss's 14 year old daughter is pretty manly...a sociopathic form manliness but manliness nonetheless. It is said that the name "randy savage" is not to be uttered in the presence of Vince to this day. The Macho Man is, even to this day, one of the most famous names in wrestling history. When you say "The Macho Man" everyone thinks Ooooooooohhhhhh Yeeeeeahhhhhhh, I can only imagine him saying that after he was done with Stephanie!! Ha, Ha. He was a charismatic speaker, his trademark deep, raspy voice is a voice that I would bet that all of us tried to imitate at some point in our youth. His character was able to translate as a face and a heel. He has gone on to the be the spokesman for Slim Jim and it has been an effective ad campaign... when I see a Slim Jim all I can think about is "Snap into a Slim Jim... Ooooohhhhhh Yeeeeahhhhh". He finished out his career as a lunatic in the WCW and I don't blame him for that, it was nearly impossible for the WCW to promote any of its wrestlers (even the great Bret Hart was a mere second card guy in his term in the WCW). The Macho Man is every bit as ubiquitous with professional wrestling as the Hulk Hogan and Hulkamania. That is why his impact is a 10...he and Hogan created the sport that we loved growing up. I would pay money to see him bust out a "Oohhhhh Yeahhhhh" one more time in the ring. That lasting impact is what this list is all about, fleeting stars and gimmicks are everywhere in the annals of professional wrestling but characters like The Macho Man will live forever. |
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