Cultureshark Remembers Randy Savage

R.I.P. Randy "Macho Man" Savage, dead at 58 after reportedly suffering a fatal heart attack then crashing his car. Savage is one of the all-time biggies in pro wrestling, a massive star in both the heady days of 1980s WWF and a key player in the 1990s Monday Night Wars era, when the WWF and rival WCW were making tons of money while running their flagship programs head to head each week. He was a big enough mainstream star to merit a segment on "Sportscenter" yesterday and to star in ads such as his notable Slim Jims campaign.

Savage was not someone I considered my favorite wrestler at any given time, but because he was pitted against some of the performers I most detested watching--Hulk Hogan and Ultimate Warrior--in key feuds and matches, I did root for the guy a lot and get emotionally invested in his work. Plus I always appreciated his ability; in a WWF in which stars often coasted due to organizational pressures, ridiculous travel schedules, and the pressure to not upstage Hogan, Savage stood out for possessing both the tremendous charisma one looks for in a professional wrestling superstar AND the athletic ability and "workrate," as it's known, to deliver inside the ring.

On a personal level, I remember Savage for starring in two pivotal moments in my wrestling fandom. I first started watching in 1985, and the arrival of the Macho Man in the WWF was a big deal. He had cool moves and was an exciting guy to watch, but he was also involved in what I believe to be the first big "angle" (storyline) outside the ring that really captivated me. The WWF treated him as a big deal immediately, and the big question that played out over his initial weeks of television appearances was who would be his manager?

Established heel (villain) managers like Bobby Heenan and Mr. Fuji were shown vying for the right to guide the career of this new superstar, and when the announcement was made and an attractive but timid-looking woman, Miss Elizabeth, emerged as the "winner," it was a real stunner...but an intriguing one. The Beauty and the Beast act became one of the biggest things going in the WWF, and things took off from there.

I remember missing the show on which the news broke, but my aunt's then-boyfriend was over at our house, and we exchanged a little pro wrestling talk when I mentioned I watched it. I think I mentioned the ongoing saga about Savage's manager, and he said, "Oh, yeah, they showed that." "Who? Who was it?" I asked with youthful impatience. "Some CHICK," he replied. "Some hot chick."

I can remember puzzling over that one--who the heck was he talking about?--and also being a little amused, even as young as I was, at his terminology. But, hey, I was INTO that story, and that was the moment when I knew I really didn't want to miss the weekly TV. I had to keep up with this stuff!

The next key moment in my evolution as a pro wrestling fan was Savage's win of the Intercontinental title over Tito Santana. The heel Savage used a "foreign object" to injure and then pin Santana, and I was outraged that the decision stood. Oh, I understood that it was "fake," but even on the storyline level, I thought it was ridiculous that A) the referee missed it and that B) nothing could be done to correct the injustice because "the referee's decision was final." Even in those days before instant replay was so pervasive in professional sports, I thought that was an absurd policy, and I wasted way too much energy in frustration over how illogical pro wrestling was in its depiction of rules. I quickly realized I had to accept some of the conventions of the business--things like stupid referees being blind at convenient points in a match even though it strained credibility--or else I wouldn't be able to enjoy it at all.

As "smart" as I was to the business, though, I was still enough of a "mark" to get wrapped up in things and lose myself in the moment. One memorable moment, and as far as I can remember the last time I kind of had a vague doubt in the back of my head--is this stuff real sometimes?--was when Savage "ruptured the larynx" of Ricky "the Dragon" Steamboat as part of their televised Intercontinental match on syndicated TV in Fall 1986.

Fortunately for me, I can relive this, one of my all-time favorite angles, through the magic of Dailymotion. Click here to see the match and memorable post-match attack the Macho Man executed on Steamboat's throat with the timekeeper's bell. Nowadays, Steamboat's animated selling of the injury might seem a little over the top, but when I watched this, I was blown away by how intense the whole thing was. Yeah, part of me wondered, hey, maybe this time it IS real!

That's the last time I thought that. It's sad in a way that I lost my innocence so early, but I was able to enjoy the spectacle of pro wrestling in many varieties--not just the WWF product--for years. Many of the action I enjoyed included Randy "Macho Man" Savage, who thrived as a superstar in the industry well into the late 1990s. Savage was a complex guy, and there are a lot of fascinating threads of his life, not all of them positive, but my most vivid memories today are of these 3 moments, a trio of incidents that helped shape my progression as a professional wrestling fan.