Author Jon Finkel chats to The 42 about his new book on ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage.
‘ Macho Man ”s rise to superstardom coincided with a boom in popularity in professional wrestling and the World Wrestling Federation in particular.
“He was very focused on baseball for almost all of his childhood. He was not an outgoing, outspoken kid. And so many people who knew him growing up referred to the ‘Macho Man’ as ‘the other guy’ because that was not who they grew up with.” “He loved baseball with every fibre of his being,” says Finkel. “It was what he wanted to do with his life.”
“And then he famously had to teach himself to throw with his opposite arm, which is an incredible feat, anyone who’s ever thrown anything with their dominant arm can imagine when you’re playing baseball, the level of which you need to throw a baseball, 90 miles an hour. He had spent his entire childhood planning for a career in the sport and suddenly, this ambition was no longer feasible with no teams willing to take him on.
“And he pulls into his house, shatters all of his bats against the tree in front of his house, says ‘I’m done with them’ and from what everyone in his family said, the very next morning, he dedicated himself to wrestling. With his father acting as a mentor, Savage seamlessly rose through the ranks of the industry. He joined the WWF in 1985 and was soon elevated to main-event status, winning the world title in 1988 and again in 1992.
However, once the drug became illegal and some of the side-effects such as rage, acne and liver disease became widely known, Savage insists he stopped taking them. Savage was portrayed in storylines as jealous and paranoid about Elizabeth around other men — issues with more than a ring of truth. “They were both travelling 300 days a year, there was no normalcy, no settling down, there was a time when she had mentioned she wanted a family, but that was never going to happen with them being on the roster at the same time.“They were having their real-life play out in front of everybody in wrestling. They’re creating all these angles with Hulk Hogan and obviously, every angle that works the best has a little hint of real life.
“But there was also a genuine rivalry there. I mean, the whole time ‘Macho Man’ became a champion, Hulk was in the ring. He had his moment and was the standard bearer, but he only had it when it was very much Hulk’s time. There was no Macho era.”Savage left the WWF in 1994. Around that period, he had taken some time off to heal both physical and mental wounds — the former from years of wrestling relentlessly and the latter owing to his divorce from Elizabeth.
Savage subsequently had a relatively successful run in WCW but by the end of his six years there, it was clear the ageing star was a shadow of the athlete that had wowed fans at his peak. “He hung around a little bit in TNA but at that point, as much as I hate to say it as someone who revered him, he was kind of just like an old man shouting.”
Savage still worked out regularly in this period and could make plenty of time for his elderly parents, which had been impossible at the height of his fame. His father passed away in 2010 aged 84 just over a year before Savage’s death, while his mother outlived them both, dying at 90 in 2017. His brother Lanny, a key figure assisting Finkel with the biography, died of heart failure last year at 68.
Paramedics found the 58-year-old dead at the scene while his wife, who was in the passenger seat, only received minor injuries.
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