by Nelson
My grandparents were obsessed with professional wrestling. They’d load my dad and his siblings, all five of them, into the family Fury (my grandfather’s absolute favorite vehicle model ever) and set out from Castleberry into Dothan and Montgomery and, on occasion, sometimes even Pensacola to follow the antics of Bobby “Star” Fields and his brother Lee as they battled against the villainous Mario Galento, a textbook old school heel who, for reasons known only to him, would drop his act entirely at the sight of my dad’s youngest sister and lift her up on his shoulder. Despite this almost unheard of breach of professional wrestling etiquette, my grandparents and all their children were fully invested in the spectacle and, throughout the decades, never stopped following it.
On the other side of the family, my mother and her siblings were hardly burning up the roads to catch professional wrestling. When he was still alive, my grandfather was a truck driver and rarely home, and, once he passed away while my mother was still young, my grandmother had enough on her plate taking care of the kids still living at home with her (by the time, two of my mom’s sisters were adults). Driving miles and miles to attend wrestling matches wasn’t remotely on the agenda. Not that it mattered much, as thanks to her exposure to “Cowboy” Bob Kelly and his tendency to wrestle in cowboy boots and jeans cut into wrestling trunks, my mother officially viewed pro-wrestling as “goofy” and “fake,” pretty much the polar opposite of how my father saw it.
It’s the guy’s fault my mother wouldn’t let me watch wrestling sooner
The impact this had on me was tremendous. Though he never stopped following it, I was forbidden to sit in the living room and watch the golden era of late 80s pro-wrestling with my dad. Beyond once hearing the Ultimate Warrior shouting and snorting at someone all the way in my bedroom and being utterly terrified, I don’t really have any childhood memories of Hulkamania running wild or “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes battling The Four Horsemen. My mother wouldn’t allow it.
As I got older, I’d catch more and more glimpses of guys like Sting, Cactus Jack, Sid Vicious, and Davey Boy Smith on the TV in the living room, getting more and more interested in just what the hell was going on before my mother would usher me out of the room, reminding me that I didn’t want to watch that goofy fake junk.
Finally, the first week of summer vacation in 1993, I managed to talk Mom into letting me stay in the living room and watch wrestling. Specifically, I’d get a later bed time every Monday night just to stay up for Monday Night Raw. Yes I had bed times during summer vacation. In case you haven’t noticed by now, my parents could be a little wacky. But I didn’t care. Because I was finally going to see what this wrestling stuff was all about, with my dad, the smartest guy I’d ever known, right by my side to guide me through.
I didn’t know or even care that, popularity wise, wrestling was in a slump. Things like that didn’t matter to me. What did matter is that, on my very first episode of Raw, I was immediately fixated on one guy, in particular. Oddly enough, he wasn’t a guy who was wrestling in the ring. Instead, he was calling the action at ringside. Wearing a neon cowboy hat and sunglasses that caused me to seriously ponder how he was able to even see the action he was calling, “Macho Man” Randy Savage absolutely commanded my young attention from the moment I was able to put a face to that unique, gravely voice.
“He used to be a wrestler,” my dad observed. “A good one. Now he mostly does the commentary, though.”
“You mean he never wrestles…..ever?”
“Oh every now and then he’ll have a match, but he’s not as active as he used to be.”
A few weeks later, “every now and then” would become a reality, as I’d get to live through my first ever Randy Savage pro-wrestling feud; though, I suppose the term “mini-feud” would be more appropriate. After exposing the treacherous antics of the evil Doink the Clown, the Macho Man was scheduled to main event Raw in a face-off with the dastardly trickster. I’ll never forget it. What was more than likely another in a series of forgettable early 90s wrestling television matches to many was an epic showdown that I would not and could not sit down for. I threw couch cushions across the room when Doink had the advantage, and I squealed with delight when The Macho Midget made a surprise appearance to even the odds and assist his larger counterpart in gaining the victory. I raised my arms in triumph with Savage, mimicking his unique gestures and amusing the hell out of my dad.
Randy Savage was my favorite wrestler, bar none.
As I got older and began to understand wrestling a little better, my admiration for Savage never waned. In fact, it only increased. A consummate professional with an attention for detail that was second to none, Randy “Macho Man” Savage wasn’t just one of the greatest wrestlers of all time, he was one of the hardest working and most committed people the business had ever seen. As a kid, I was drawn in by his larger than life character. As an adult, I admire the man behind the character for various reasons.
Randy Savage passed away in 2011, seemingly while on the verge of making a return to public light. Since then, his legacy as one of the all-time pro-wrestling greats has been fairly well recognized. He was inducted, posthumously, into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2015, and many modern day performers speak frequently about his influence on their craft. Since his death, three significant documentaries have been released covering Savage’s life and legacy, one produced entirely by WWE, one produced as an episode of Vice TV’s “Dark Side of the Ring,” and, most recently, a co-production between A&E and WWE as a part of a series set to cover several major names in the wrestling world including The Ultimate Warrior, Steve Austin, and Shawn Michaels, among others.
While all three productions have all been guilty of this to a certain extent, it was this recent one with A&E that really went above and beyond to present a narrative about Randy Savage’s life that, in my opinion, is bizarrely unfair.
I’m sure that, if you’ve read this far into my ramble about wrestling, you’re probably already familiar with what I’m talking about. If not, though, it’s easy enough to sum up. While there’s not a single documentary that tries to dispute the in-ring talents of Savage, the narrative always tends to fall back on Savage being a domineering presence towards his former wife and longtime pro-wrestling manager, Elizabeth. Their eight-year marriage, which ended years before their professional relationship would cease, always ends up being a major focus, with one talking head after the other relaying stories of Savage being fiercely over-protective of his wife backstage, insisting that she keep to herself and admonishing guys for so much as looking at her too long.
I’m not saying that any of that is untrue, and I’m not trying to rationalize the actions of a man I did not know personally or to understand a relationship that I was never a part of. But I am saying that there’s a certain context to these accounts that is frequently lost, particularly in A&E’s most recent effort. In the 80s, the WWF backstage area that Miss Elizabeth would have been a part of was anything but tame. There are more than enough accounts to reasonably assume that sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll lifestyles were abundantly present. Given that fact, it certainly seems at least slightly reasonable that Randy Savage may have wanted to shield his wife from these issues. He was, after all, incredibly protective of the people he was closest to. Not only was Elizabeth brought into the WWF at Savage’s behest shortly after he debuted with the promotion, prior to even agreeing to join Vince McMahon’s company, Randy implored that his brother, Lanny Poffo, be signed as well. Later, he lobbied to get his father, Angelo, booked in a legends battle royal at a non-televised WWF show and became infuriated when it failed to materialize. Even later, when he suspected that Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake had gone off-script and cut his brother’s hair against his will during a match, Savage waited backstage, ready to confront Beefcake and make him pay for taking liberties on his younger sibling.
Sure, Randy Savage was absolutely protective of his wife. But, you don’t have to look too hard into the man to find that this protectiveness did not just extend to Elizabeth. Savage was a man who valued family. For years, his name was left out of the WWE Hall of Fame, each year the omission being more and more glaring, with fans suspecting that WWE, and McMahon in particular, must’ve had some grudge, some personal issue with Savage. What else could explain why such a significant name in wrestling history was constantly passed over for the likes of Koko B. Ware or “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan, guys who’d never even held the WWF World Title, much less main evented Wrestlemania?
It turns out that the actual hold out was Savage, himself, refusing to be inducted as a solo act and, instead, insisting that he only go in alongside his brother and father as The Poffo Family. Savage got the idea after seeing WWE induct the entirety of the Von Erich wrestling clan and refused to waver on his demand. Some could see it as unreasonable. It’s certainly no argument that Randy Savage’s status in pro-wrestling far exceeds that of his younger brother or his father. But, Savage honed his iconic character while working in a wrestling territory owned and operated by his father, a territory created for the express purpose of Angelo giving his sons opportunities that he felt other promoters would deny them. Without the work he did alongside his father and brother, the character that became a worldwide icon may have never existed. Randy Savage never forgot that and desperately wanted to share his career achievement spotlight with the two men who helped make his career a reality.
If you ask me, there’s something to admire in that.
But I understand that the more compelling narrative is that Savage was an over-protective bully who made his wife’s life a living hell.
It’s just strange to me that things like documented instances of a wrestler beating his wife can be glossed over by the same production team that seems content to pester Lanny Poffo to the point of annoyance in an effort to get him to say that his brother took issue with Elizabeth’s untimely and tragic death while she was living with Lex Luger, a guy who, by all accounts, was very well liked by Savage.
It’s strange to me that guys who refused to be beaten in scripted fights because their egos couldn’t handle it can be glorified, but a guy like Macho Man, who put as much work into his losing efforts as his winning ones, is rarely recognized for his willingness to “do business.” It’s ridiculous that I’m asked to embrace the narrative that a man who was openly homophobic, racist, and full of venom was an inspirational champion and a testament to the power of believing in yourself, but A&E can’t even mention how many times Savage read “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” at the Children’s Hospital, how much work he did with the Special Olympics, or how devoted he was to taking care of his father when Angelo was battling dementia in his final days. Why was someone like Bubba “The Love Sponge” Clem deemed suitable to be a part of a production on Savage when the only connection he has to the man is the fact that he trolled him, mercilessly, on Tampa radio after Savage’s attempt to put together yet another encounter between himself and Hulk Hogan, this time for charity, fell apart? Was a guy like Arsenio Hall, who enjoyed having Macho Man as a guest on his show so much that he specifically requested him over and over again, not willing, not available, or just not deemed as relevant a voice on the legacy of Savage as the damned Love Sponge?
When it comes to “Macho Man” Randy Savage, I realize that I’m pretty biased. I realize that I’m just a fan who never knew the man behind the character. But I also can’t help but think that, objectively speaking, Randy deserved a little better than what he got from A&E, and the same search for sensationalism is not rearing its head in other productions, despite the grounds being far more fertile.
Doubtfire 