Raiden posted a BLOG item almost 2 years ago

Remembering Randy Savage [Part 1]

Randy Savage will always be my favorite professional wrestler of all time. 25 years ago, I started watching wrestling on a regular basis. The reason for that was a man aptly named the “Macho Man”.
I caught a few minutes of pro wrestling every now and then as I was flipping channels on a given Saturday morning. Even caught a little of those SATURDAY NIGHT’S MAIN EVENTs they used to show on late night NBC. But it never really captured my full attention until a few years later. It was during the early part of summer 1986. I was flipping through the cable channels [3 at the time] and stopped on the Showtime channel. They were replaying the WRESTLEMANIA 2 broadcast from a few months earlier. One match, in particular, caught my attention and it was for the World Wrestling Federation Intercontinental Championship Title. In one corner, you have George “The Animal” Steele a bald-headed beast that could fool you into thinking his back hair was a thin sweater. The other participant was this wild man running around the ring, usually away from Steele. What really caught my eye was his beautiful manager, his cool looking Championship belt and the fact his name wasn’t Hulk Hogan [Even the little I knew about Hogan at the time, I knew I didn’t like him]. Needless to say, I was intrigued and began to look for this WWF programming on a weekly basis. And so, it begins…
SUPERSTARS, WRESTLING CHALLENGE, SNME, TUESDAY NIGHT TITANS, PRIME TIME WRESTLING…you name it, I started watching as much as I could to find more about this character Randy Savage. Once I began to watch his matches, I quickly realized what an incredible athlete he was. Then I started watching his interview segments which really blew my mind. He had these hilarious mannerisms too, everything from raising his arm and shaking his hand to sticking out his tongue in what TV GUIDE referred to him looking like a “psychotic lizard”. To me, my favorite part of the 1986-1987 Randy Savage was what a freaking coward he was. I’m not sure who exactly came up with this persona but it was total genius. And all of it wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t for his gorgeous valet, Miss Elizabeth.
Call them what you want, “Beauty & the Beast”, the original “Hot Chick with Douchebag”, whatever it was, it worked. Here you have this beautiful woman, who for some odd reason would support this crazy man who basically treated her like crap. At the snap of his finger, he could get a kiss on the cheek. Merely pointing to one of the 4 corners, he could get her to move there within seconds. And if a baby face [good guy] was chasing Savage around the ring, he wouldn’t hesitate for a second to hide behind Liz [because of course, a good guy would never strike a lady].
Besides all of the cowardly acts during his matches, it was rather easy to see that Randy Savage was a very talented performer. I remember being in absolute awe every time he went to that top rope and delivered that double axe handle to some poor soul on the OUTSIDE of the ring. Several wrestlers back in the day would perform moves off that tope rope but Savage was the only one in WWF at the time who would do it falling to the outside of the ring on a regular basis. He knew his fair share of technical moves but could brawl with the best of them. He even created his own moves; my favorite could only be described as grabbing his opponent’s hair, running to one of the ropes with one hand jumping over the top rope and draping the opponents head over the rope, clotheslining him back into the ring. Then there was the flying elbow smash off the top rope. Usually set up by a body slam that puts his opponent on his back in the ring. Savage would gracefully climb to the top rope, with both hands point to the sky, and deliver the best flying elbow ever done in this business. It’s a move that actually looked like it could hurt and unless you were an untalented muscle-bound oaf, it usually meant victory for Savage.
His interview segments, especially with commentator Mean Gene Okerlund, were pure gold. Probably Savage himself was the only one who truly understood what he was talking about. He could ramble on about his opponent one minute and then seem to have a case of OCD a few minutes later. In a business where A LOT of the talent seemed to have the same interview each time [just switch up names for the opponent], Savage’s interviews were always different and, to me, always entertaining. Enter Elizabeth again when he interviews and it gets even better. Savage or Okerlund would always ask Liz something and before she could get one or two words out, Savage ALWAYS cut her off and it was hilarious. Again, it was just brilliant writing.
I was re-watching the MACHO MADNESS DVD [released 2009] the other day, in particular his debut WWF match. His opponent was “Quick Draw” Rick McGraw and it was held at the famed Madison Square Garden in New York. Prior to the DVD, I had never seen this match in its entirety. It seemed to me that most of the crowd at the Garden had no idea who Savage was as he paraded around in his robe and basically stalled the beginning of the match. Within 5 minutes of the match, people were actually throwing stuff at him in the ring, which he played the reaction perfectly. But backstage, you know he had to be proud of himself to get a rise out of the audience during his very first match. He would work that crowd to perfection during the remainder of his storied career. Randy Savage was one of the very few wrestlers on a very short list [Steve Austin, Rock, and Bret Hart] who would have that crowd [as a baby face or a heel/bad guy] in the palm of his hand.

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