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 HoganExpy; in reality, he was a skilled wrestler and a charismatic entertainer (and arguably a better one than Hogan himself).A 2x WWE World Heavyweight Champion and 4x WCW World Heavyweight Champion, Savage would go on to wrestle Spider-Man, provide the voiceof an intergalactic wrestler, hawk beef jerkyandmake 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: after suffering a sudden, massive heart attack while driving, he lost control of his Jeep Wrangler and crashed into a tree. Initial reports of his death indicated that he had been killed in the collision, when in fact he and his wife had been wearing seatbelts and suffered only minor physical injuries in the crash. 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.
OOOOOH YEAH! Snap into these tropes, associated with the MACHO MAN RANDY SAVAGE!:
Actor Allusion: In Spider-Man Savage was cast as a wrestler who wrestles Spiderman. For those unaware, Savage's very first gimmick was The Spider, who was similar to Spiderman.
The Dial M for Monkey episode "Rasslor" cast Savage as an intergalactic wrestling champion by the same name. The final line of the episode is delivered by Rasslor: "OOOOH, YEAAAAAH!"
Affectionate Parody: "Black Machismo" Jay Lethal in TNA (and in RingSide Collectibles promotional skits for Randy Savage action figures).
According to Hogan, they were in the process of mending their friendship when he died.
Jerry Lawler, and not just in the ring. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Poffos (Angelo, Lanny and Randy) were running International Championship Wrestling in Lexington, KY, which was an outlaw (runs in the same territorial areas as an established promotion in opposition) promotion against the Continental Wrestling Association in Memphis, TN run by Jerry Jarrett and Jerry "The King" Lawler. ICW's TV announcers would give away the real names of CWA wrestlers, issue challenges on the air, and Savage even once attacked CWA wrestler "Superstar" Bill Dundee at the CWA's gym. ICW closed in 1984, leading to the Poffos going to Memphis to actually feud with Lawler and co. Many of these dirty tricks would be recycled during the Monday Night Wars, except for the part about attacking guys at the gym.
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?
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 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.
Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Many of his promos didn't make any sense. This did not stop them from being awesome, however.
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.note It was a Falls-Count-Anywhere match in pre-hardcore WWE, so that was the rule. Notable in that John Cena would practically homage this by using a similar methodto beatBatista in their Last Man Standing match in 2010.
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: 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."
Hidden Depths: Despite his boisterous, spontaneous personality, he was well known as a perfectionist when it came to his matches, meticulously mapping out every detail with his opponent before the match.
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. Justifiable, because a wrestler's first instinct is to go for the pinfall, since those are the standard rules.
Subverted in the previous year's Rumble. Savage threw Jake Roberts out, but made what looked like a big mistake by 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. (Someone did- Ric Flair.)
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.
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.
Team Dad: Mellowed a bit by the early 1990's and became this to the up and coming stars of the "New Generation era".
Unperson: For years, Savage was treated like this by Vince McMahon and WWE, for reasons known only to Savage and McMahon. Savage got one of the best sendoffs in the company in 1994, and remained on good terms with McMahon quite a while afterwards, entering contract talks with him in 1996 and 2000. After that, McMahon was extremely negative on Savage, and would turn down any plans involving even mentioning him. This while bringing back many ex-WWF wrestlers who had been much more acrimonious towards him, and even in some cases sued him. 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 (this deal was brokered by THQ with the WWE's permission but no contact between the two sides). Yeeeeah.
Unfortunately it looks like his death may have opened the door for his acknowledgement by WWE.
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. This was cited as one of the reasons Gordon Solie quit WCW shortly after.
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. He and Elizabeth were married in Real Life from around 1984 to 1992.
and 4x WCW World Heavyweight Champion
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