Ooooooooooh Noooooooo! Macho Man is Dead

Yesterday morning, Randy “Macho Man” Savage beat “The Rapture” by driving his car into a tree, which his flying elbow smash and all the Slim Jims in the world couldn’t save him because he died on impact.  Word is Poffo (surprisingly Savage wasn’t his real last name), was driving his jeep with his old lady on a Tampa street and suffered a heart attack and smashed head on into a palm tree.

As many jokes as I can make here, I’m doing my best to refrain, at least until the body gets cold.

As a kid Macho Man was one of my favorite wrestlers (next to Iron Mike Sharpe and Barry Horowitz), but only when he was a bad guy.  Once he became a good guy and sported the cowboy hat (which Bret Michaels totally ripped off), I soured on him.  When he first came into the WWF he would walk down the aisle with Miss Elizabeth (who is also dead due to a drug and alcohol cocktail gone wrong).

I really liked Savage when he first joined the WWF and wasn’t a heavyweight and had his beef with the likes of Tito (AKA Chico) Santana and Jake “The Snake” Roberts.  I will never forget when he won the WWF Intercontinental Championship by beating Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat by flying off the top rope and crushing his larynx with the bell.   Randy later lost the belt to Steamboat at Wrestlemania III, when George “The Animal” Steele topped Savage from using a bell again and knocked him off the top rope.  God I loved wrestling when I was a kid.

After losing Miss Elizabeth to Hulk Hogan, Savage left the WWF and joined WCW, where he would be a founding member of “NWO” (embarrassingly so, I did own an NWO tee shirt), before making millions peddling Slim Jims.

Little known facts about Savage:

-          Prior to his wrestling career, he played minor league baseball in the Cardinals, White Sox, and Reds organizations.

-          His original wrestling name was “The Spider Friend”, a blatant rip-off of Spiderman.

-          He was Jewish.

-          He was married to Miss Elizabeth but they divorced in 1992.  Then she shacked up with Lex Luger.

On a total somewhat related note, Slim Jim is in a panic and is already in talks with Leaping Lanny Poffo to be their new spokesman.

Macho Man, may you rest in peace.  All of us at The Riot! Send our condolences to all your loved ones.