FATP: My Top Five Wrestlers of All-Time (#5) – “Macho Man Randy Savage”

Happy Tuesday everyone and welcome to the latest edition of FATP here with yours truly. Since there’s absolutely nothing that’s entertaining me in WWE right now apart from CM Punk and Kryan (Kane & Daniel Bryan), I’ve decided that it’s time to do another one of my list columns.

The format for this is going to be slightly different though. Instead of giving you every name on the list in one go, I’m going to use the next five weeks to run down the list from 5 to 1.Before I start, I want to explain that this list is of my favourite five wrestlers of all-time. These are just the guys that I personally think are the best ever. You might agree, you might disagree, so hopefully we’ll get some chat going about this. Enough rambling, let’s get to it.

Coming in at number 5 of my top wrestlers of all-time is the man that was too hot to handle and too cold to hold, “Macho Man” Randy Savage.

The first wrestling PPV I ever watched was a tape of Wrestlemania 5 that my dad bought for me when I was 7 years old. The main-event saw Macho Man Randy Savage defending the WWF Title against Hulk Hogan. Even at that time, when I was just a kid, I was drawn more to Savage than to Hulk Hogan because he was flamboyant and flashy. I was more entertained by the Macho Man than the Hulkster. At that time, I didn’t have any clue how wrestling worked and it was real to me dammit!

I remember being absolutely gutted that Hogan won the match. I didn’t see what all the fuss was about. As far as I knew, Hogan basically punched, kicked and had the leg-drop. That was about it. Even looking back at that match now (and I watched it the other week), you can see that Savage carries Hogan to that match. He had everything. He had charisma, good mic skills and he was just a great wrestler. Probably the best of his generation.

Going back a little further, his match with Ricky Steamboat at Wrestlemania 3 is an all-time classic wrestling match, and maybe the best ever. The thing about Savage is that as I’ve grown older and understand wrestling even more, every single one of his matches tells a story. I can’t remember him having a bad match. I’m gonna stick my neck on the line and say that “Macho Man” Randy Savage was the original “Mr Wrestlemania”. Just think about it.

At WM2, he had a good match with George “The Animal” Steele. The next year, he had that classic encounter with Ricky Steamboat. At WM4, he won the WWF Title tournament by winning four matches in one night. The next year, he carried Hogan to one of the best WWF Title matches in Wrestlemania history. He had a decent mixed tag match at WM6 with Sherri against “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes & Sapphire.

WM7 saw probably Savage’s greatest challenge. He’d been tasked with carrying the Ultimate Warrior to a passable match. He did more than that. Only two men in history have carried Warrior to a 20+ minute match: Hogan and Savage. That says it all. Fast-forward a year and Savage was the centre of attention again, defeating the Nature Boy Ric Flair in an outstanding wrestling match to capture the WWF title a year after he “retired”. He didn’t appear at WM9 because he was color-commentator, but returned to the ring for WM10 in a “Falls Count Anywhere” match against Crush, which was the second-best match of the night (after the epic Bret/Owen clinic).

I think I’ve made my point pretty clear about Savage being the original “Mr Wrestlemania”. In 8 out of 9 years, Savage had the best matches at Wrestlemania, against a lot of different opponents. The result was still the same. You were talking about Macho’s matches at the end of the night. I wouldn’t be fair to him if I didn’t talk about some of his other feuds, like the one with Jake “The Snake” Roberts in 1991. You want to know who Randy Orton reminds me of? Jake. His tone, his movement in the ring, everything about the character is like Roberts in his prime. The Savage/Roberts feud was great to watch.

Savage left the WWF in the mid 90′s under controversy and nobody really knows what happened. The only two men who knew were Savage and Vince McMahon. To be honest, I don’t think we’ll ever know why they fell out and I don’t really care, unless it’s why Savage isn’t in the WWE Hall of Fame. When he went to WCW, he had a couple of very under-rated feuds with Ric Flair and DDP. If you’ve not seen them, try to find them on YouTube because they’re excellent.

The only thing that I can really say to finish this off is that, to me, Randy Savage was everything a professional wrestler should be. He had charisma, he had good mic skills, he was an outstanding wrestler and he was flashy. That’s what draws people in and what makes us watch wrestling and it’s sad that he’s not here anymore. He shouldn’t just be in the Hall of Fame, there should be a Randy Savage wing in the Hall of Fame! RIP Randy. You’re one of the best of all-time.

For this week’s Wrestling Throwback, I’ve actually cheated a little bit and chosen two Throwbacks, both as a tribute to someone I was, and still am, a massive fan of. It could only be Randy Savage. The first is his epic encounter with Ricky Steamboat from Wrestlemania 3 and the second is his tear-jerking tribute video from Raw on the Monday after he passed away.

That’ll wrap things up for this week’s FATP. As usual, feel free to leave your comments below or follow me on Twitter @george_sltd. I’m getting better at replying to comments quickly, so don’t be shy. Once again, thanks for continuing to support the site, whether it’s by reading/commenting/retweeting links to our articles. We really appreciate it! I’ll see you all back here next when we’ll find out who’s my 4th favourite wrestler of all-time! See ya next week.

Thanks for reading,

George

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