Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story

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Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story is a 94-minute documentary about the big moments in the career of the Macho Man. Notably absent is Macho’s later WWF career (especially vs Warrior at WM7) and they gloss over his entire WCW career besides his feud with DDP. It’s still a fun docu even if it’s quite superficial. Here’s some notes I’ve taken during it:

• Baseball career: They’re extremely complimentary about it, being picked out of highschool as a catcher for the St. Louis Cardials; he injured his right shoulder so never made it out of the minor leagues.
• The name: Randy got the nickname “Macho Man” from getting into fights in highschool (other sources say his mom heard it and told him) and “Savage” was from Ole Anderson.
• The promos: There’s a quick montage with Macho’s classic promos with Mean Gene which is the best thing about the special.
• His outfits: DDP & Macho’s seamstress chat about how they hide/project a larger size like a peacock; that he’d stand on his tip-toes to gain a few inches. Good stuff.
• Jake Roberts’ one contribution is hilarious, that Macho had “dry cleaned hair”
• Elizabeth: After getting over how pretty she is, WWE’s talking heads spend an inordinate amount of time hammering home how insanely covetist Randy was of his wife Elizabeth. Like they go back to it a few times. “Nobody had the chance to get with her because she was under lock and key” Jimmy Hart notes. It’s quite he-said-she-said but Hogan & Linda apparently ‘harboured’ Liz when they were going through difficulties and that made it worse. Only his brother Lanny defends him, rebuttling everyone else’s claims, but although I agree with him, he becomes quickly annoying.
• WrestleMania III: Ricky Steamboat mentions their match was scripted by Randy move for move. (It’s hilarious that they cut to B-roll of a written list of moves). I wonder if Steamer’s a little sad that he had no input in what’s remembered as his greatest match.
• WrestleMania IV: They say it’s an amazing 1-night performance (don’t watch this PPV! it’s a 4 hour 16-match death by time limit draws!)
• WrestleMania V: MegaPowers breakup (arguably the greatest storyline in history) just a cursory glance but hits all the right points.
• Pretty much nothing showcasing WrestleMania VI (Dusty), VII (Warrior) and little about VIII (Flair). They use WrestleMania 8’s WWF magazine Scandal pictures as B-roll for Savage & Liz, which is hilarious.
• Interestingly they show Savage’s only official mention of his divorce from WWF Magazine.
• WWE get great use of one sit-down interview in 1993, it’s the “Bischoff interview in front of the 2003 RAW set” of this docu.
• Slim Jim: A quick talking head segment with PR guys from Slim Jim, I’ve never seen some of the footage, it’s cool, showing Macho’s dedication to get things perfectly right, repeating many takes.
• Macho as a New Generation commentator: I’m still annoyed about it. Feuds with Bret, Shawn etc would’ve benefited enormously. One of Vince’s biggest mistakes. There’s two positives to having a legitimate main event draw on the team – making money on PPV and making other stars. Having him on headset did neither.
• WCW: So Randy went down South so he could wrestle & make more money. “Vince McMahon was most personally affected by macho man’s departure.” Oh fuck you!
• Nacho Man: Lanny remarks he was very upset by the “Billionaire Ted” skits that including an aged Macho Man, they mention tension with Hogan and straight into making DDP, who is extremely grateful.
• Team Madness: By 1999 Macho had athletically declined so he surrounded himself by as much gimmickry (i.e. hot women) as he could.
• Stephanie McMahon: All WWE have is a throwaway acknowledgement without any explanation “it added fuel on the fire”…. “his inexplicable banishment” and that’s it. It’s only a few seconds long.
• Elizabeth’s death: Christ, they splice in Luger’s 911 call. Bad form.
• Macho’s death: By the end, they were really hurting for b-roll, lots of stock footage and pictures – cheap and digitally put together, as opposed to when they film those framed photos in a nice studio set for other DVDs and The Monday Night Wars. They mention how he’d just remarried to this highschool sweetheart and was happy.
• They only ever mention in passing Macho Man’s on-screen and real life feuds with Hogan (they were basically only civil when money could be made). Did you know? Hogan has the last words on the Macho DVD, saying no-one will ever be as Macho as the Macho Man.

Overall: Combined with short running time, the cursory glance and power director show-reel, it makes it feel like a slap-dashed docu. A fun watch and an introduction to Macho, but don’t buy it, wait for it to come on the Network. I’d recommend the Macho Madness Ultimate Collection instead (even if there’s no docu, there’s tons of matches and some stellar promos too). Or just watch WrestleMania V instead![/vc_column_text][vc_gallery type=”flexslider_fade” interval=”10″ images=”2356,2357,2358,2359,2360,2361,2362,2363,2382,2365,2366,2383,2367,2368,2369,2370,2371,2372,2373,2374,2375,2376,2377,2378,2379,2380,2381″ onclick=”link_no” custom_links_target=”_self” img_size=”full”]tricker[/vc_gallery][/vc_column][/vc_row]