Randy Savage
Need a little excitement? Snap into a Slim Jim! OHHH YEEEEAH!
Randall Mario Poffo, best known as "Macho Man" Randy Savage, was one of the most notable names of Professional Wrestling during The Eighties and a good portion of The Nineties. Managed for much of his career by his late wife Miss Elizabeth, Savage - on the surface - could be seen as a Hulk Hogan Expy; in reality, he was a skilled wrestler and a charismatic entertainer (and arguably a better one than Hogan himself).
A six-time World Heavyweight Champion, Savage would go on to wrestle Spider-Man, provide the voice of an intergalactic wrestler, hawk beef jerky and make a rap CD (they can't all be winners, folks).
Snippets of some of his quotes have been used to open up each installment of Maffew's Botchamania blooper series, usually his more bizarre ones ("I don't even know what that words means! Is that a bird!?").
Savage passed away on May 20th 2011 at the age of 58; he was killed in a car accident after losing control of the wheel due to suffering a heart attack. Rather ironically, on the same day, Slim Jim's factory in North Carolina closed down, as well.
For more on Savage, go to That Other Wiki for a detailed article on his career and life.
- Affectionate Parody: "Black Machismo" Jay Lethal in TNA
- As well in The Spoony Experiment (which, awkwardly, killed him in his cameo a day or so before he died), and in Epic Rap Battles of History
- Arch Enemy / Vitriolic Best Buds: Hulk Hogan (in the ring and in Real Life).
- According to Hogan, they were in the process of mending their friendship when he died.
- Artistic License Geography: "I've been in the danger zone — yeah! — I've been in the danger zone east of the Pacific Ocean, west of London England, south of Mars, and north of Hell! Yeah!" Taken from Botchamania 22.
- Which just means that he's in America.
- I guess some of it has to depend on the exact location of Hell?
- It's in Michigan. So... He's in Canada?
- Which just means that he's in America.
- Badass Beard
- Badass Grandpa
- Botchamania: The first 140 or so episodes opens with a madcap, out-of-context line from Macho Man (before the series got an opening that spoofed the WWE's intro). Brought back one more time after his death for BM 173 ("OOHHH YEAH, YOU WANNA FIND ME UNDER YOUR TREE THIS HOLIDAY SEASON?!") but Maffew said that will be the last time. See also Memetic Mutation.
- The standarized Botchamania intro opens with his "I'VE BEEN IN THE DANGER ZONE!"
- Bunny Ears Lawyer: The Macho Man might have been one of the most insane people in wrestling (and that's saying a lot) but he also went to great lengths to ensure he had the best matches he could possibly make.
- Catch Phrase:
- OOOOOH, YEAH!
- DIG IT!
- MERCY, MERCY, MERCY!
- SNAP INTO A SLIM JIM! (Whereupon he does so, and something awesome happens.)
- BONESAW IS REEEEEAAADDDY (As Bonesaw in Spider-Man)
- Celebrity Endorsement: "Snap into a Slim Jim!"
- Combat Pragmatist: Knew all sorts of shortcuts. Like driving people's throats into the ropes to stun them or hogtying them so they couldn't make it back to the ring.
- He won his Wrestlemania X match against Crush by stringing him up after the out-of-the-ring pinfall to prevent him from getting back to the ring before the count of 60. Notable in that John Cena would practically homage this by using a similar method to beat Batista in their Last Man Standing match in 2010.
- Cool Shades
- Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: When the Ultimate Warrior left shortly before the 1992 Survivor Series, Savage had to get a new partner. He then lured Mr. Perfect from Team Flair, which culminated in Perfect beating Flair in a Loser Leaves the WWF match on Monday Night Raw.
- Dreadful Musician: Your Mileage May Vary, but let's just say Savage's rap album didn't sell well.
- One Amazon review described the vocals as sounding like "Nick Nolte on a whiskey and sandpaper binge."
- I mean how can you argue with this:
People wanna know if Macho's still in the ring
People wanna know if Randy's doin' his thing
Everybody's talkin' wanna know this and that
So I'm a tell ya right now Randy Savage is back!
- Hey, It's That Voice!: Savage had done several cartoon voices, mostly on shows from Cartoon Network.
- Hilarity Ensues: Whenever he "snaps into a Slim Jim" in the commercials.
- Iconic Wrestler
- Idiot Ball: The 1993 Royal Rumble. As soon as Savage managed to take Yokozuna down, he went for the elbow drop, but instinctively went for a pinfall. One, pinfalls do not count in the Royal Rumble. Two, he was too close to the ropes. Yoko powered out of that pin, propelling the Macho Man over the top. Yokozuna went on to Wrestlemania to challenge Bret Hart while Savage did commentary with JR and Bobby Heenan.
- Averted in the previous year's Rumble. Savage threw Jake Roberts out, but made the big mistake of following up with a pescado on to Roberts, going over the top and to the floor himself. However, the official ruling was that Savage was not eliminated after all; someone else had to throw him over the top for it to count.
- Large Ham
- Leitmotif: "Pomp and Circumstance".
- Massive Multiplayer Scam: Along with the Ultimate Warrior, Savage fell for the "Perfect Plan." Leading up to the Randy Savage-Ultimate Warrior WWF Championship match at Summerslam 1992, Ric Flair and Mr. Perfect teased that one of them sold out to Team Flair. It turned out neither man had sold out; it was just a way for Flair and Perfect to attack both champion and challenger liberally just so Flair could have a clear path to his 2nd WWF title. Warrior won, but only by countout, meaning the title stayed with the Macho Man, who ended up losing it to Flair shortly after this.
- My God, What Have I Done?: The elbow off the top rope is hard on the hip, and Savage got to the point where he couldn't do it properly. One time, he severely injured another wrestler doing the move (broke several ribs), and visited his opponent in the hospital daily until he was released.
- Nice Hat: Savage had one from 1990 to 1996.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Or whatever weird color he'll be wearing, all the time, besides for in his New World Order days.
- Sanity Slippage: Back in The Eighties, he would get violently upset if he thought someone was making moves on Elizabeth. It went downhill from there.
- By the end of his career he was so paranoid that he carried a gun in his bag at all times.
- Sobriquet: "Macho Man", briefly "Macho King" before returning to the original moniker.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Basically, he was the Daffy Duck to Hulk Hogan's Bugs Bunny.
- Take That: The song "Be A Man Hogan!" off of his rap album, which is pretty much all about his Real Life feud with Hulk Hogan and his refusal to face Savage in a real wrestling match.
- Underwear of Power
- Unperson: For years, Savage was treated like this by Vince McMahon and WWE, for reasons known only to Savage and McMahon. And, no, it's not because of a certain wrestling Urban Legend[1] that many fans (and even Dave Meltzer) believes to this day. It more than likely had to do with Savage jumping to WCW. Thankfully, WWE has decided to recognize Savage's contributions to wrestling history as of late, with matches of his showing up on various DVD compilations as well as his own three-disc set, Macho Madness.
- What's overlooked was that Savage was interviewed in the inaugural issue of WWE Smackdown Magazine (formerly [and currently] WWF/WWE Magazine), released in 2003.
- Fortunately for Savage, it was not an attempt at character assassination like The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior.
- According to his brother "Leapin' Lanny" Poffo, the Slim Jim endorsement was a huge pay day, and the contract stipulated that a percentage would have gone to the WWF.
- Relations seemed to had massively improved in 2011 as the Macho Man not only appears in the WWE All Stars video game but he appeared in one of the commercials as well. Yeeeeah.
- Unfortunately it looks like his death may have opened the door for his acknowledgement by WWE.
- Verbal Tic: See Catch Phrase.
- To clarify, beside his catchphrases, the word "Yeah" was a major verbal tic of his.
- A good recent example would be his commercial for WWE All-Stars. He managed to include it at least once in every sentence along with between every sentence.
- Wag the Director: Pressured WCW execs to induct his father, Angelo Poffo, in their Hall of Fame, despite Poffo never having wrestled for WCW.
- Wrestling Family: His brother is "Leaping" Lanny Poffo, the wrestling poet (aka The Genius) and his father, Angelo Poffo, was a famous wrestler in the 1950s and 60s.
- Xanatos Speed Chess: In response to Ric Flair's Massive Multiplayer Scam and Warrior's departure from the WWF, he convinced Mr. Perfect to leave Team Flair and fill in for the Ultimate Warrior. Perfect accepted.
- Yandere
DIG IT!
- ↑ (which allegedly involved a then-18-year old Stephanie McMahon, and whether if it was rape or consensual is up to debate)