Scott,
I don't think any one person in particular started it, and I know it wasn't around as a rumor until well after he was retired.
The "Randy Savage banged Stephanie McMahon" thing has become a bit of an urban legend in internet circles, but do you know where the story originated? Is it something that just sort of took on its own life as a rumor, or did a specific person/story start the whole thing?
As a random Macho-related bonus, what do you think was Randy's last great match?
I'd call the Flair cage match at Superbrawl 6 his last great one, although the DDP matches in 97 were really really good. We'll just go with the DDP one. Everything after that was pretty worthless, especially once he got into the Macho Pimp era and couldn't hit the flying elbow without breaking his opponent's ribs.
What no love for his last match ever? The final in-ring match of his career ends with a knockout punch to block a sunset flip attempt by Jeff Jarret leading to the last pinfall victory of his illustrious career.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Scott its gotta be one of the '97 battles with DDP. It's amazing how far and quickly he deterioated especially in '99. He was truly a shell of his former self.
Yeah I'd say his match with DDP at Havoc 97 was his last truly great match. Can't think of anything he did in 98, and especially 99, that was remotely good.
ReplyDeleteAnd how sad is it his last televised one on one WCW match was against Dennis fucking Rodman of all people? I think he worked a few house shows in early 2000 and of course his last WCW appearance was the May 2000 Thunder battle royal.
His last great match was against Spider-Man. Made the rookie look like a million bucks.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost entirely because he roided up again. He went from the slim and trim Macho that lasted from about 91 to 98, to all of a sudden looking like Bagwell and Steiner. He apparently hit a mid-life crisis, between bulking up to obscene proportions and getting a girlfriend less than half his age who was clearly a gold digger.
ReplyDeleteI actually met Savage in the summer of '99 just before he won his last World title at Bash at the Beach. He was seriously jacked at that point. He couldn't have been friendlier, but I hadn't ever seen him bigger than he was at that point.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame he decided to bulk up like he did. It really limited just about everything and anything he could do in the ring. All of his matches became punch-kick affairs followed by legitimate rib crushing flying elbow.
Don't forget the hair plugs and then pulling it all back in a way too tight slicked mini-pony tail
ReplyDeleteThat Thunder battle royal was such an odd appearance. Savage hadn't been on WCW TV since the fall of '99...I'm thinking October. Then out of the blue during the Russo-Bischoff reboot he shows up on Thunder of all places...knocks some heads and that's the last anyone heard up him until he showed up in TNA briefly.
ReplyDeletePoor Mach. By the time he reached WCW almost all his matches went the same way: getting beat down, brief comeback, bodyslam, big elbow.
ReplyDeleteI forget: did he just retire, or was there an injury involved there? The last time I remember seeing him in WCW was Spring Stampede '99, when he reffed the 4-way match and dropped the elbow on Flair. I switched over to WWF permanently shortly after, so I didn't see the end of his career. 1996 and 1997 Savage was pretty awesome, though, especially the DDP and Flair matches, and the piledriver on Mark Curtis.
ReplyDeleteIf I remember correctly he had an injury in '98 that kept him out until his return for Spring Stampede in '99. During the recovery he hit the juice pretty hard and came back bigger than I ever remember seeing him. Due to his massive size and age at that point he never really returned as the Macho Man of old. He had several bad matches in WCW during '99 with his last being a horrible garbage match at Road Wild. He made a brief appearance in 2000 for the battle royal that's been mentioned and then had maybe 2 appearances in TNA in 2004.
ReplyDeleteApparently one night Stephanie showed up at Vince's hotel room door with a tear in her hymen and ohhhhhhkayyyy, I'm outta here.
ReplyDeleteIs this in referance to the Macho-Stephanie rumor or Macho's last great match?
ReplyDeleteMaybe Steph had a Slim Jim fetish when she was younger... that gradually got replaced with a sledgehammer fetish!
ReplyDeleteI hear that snapping your Slim Jim can cause permanent damage. Ouch!
ReplyDeleteAt this point, I'm thinking Antonio Cesaro banged Stephanie.
ReplyDeleteDid anyone consider that maybe it wasn't that Macho banged Stepahnie that got him blacklisted from the WWE, but rather that he turned her down when her daddy offered her to him?
ReplyDelete"Randy, if you just give her a try I know you'll stick with me. I should know, I've sampled the goods..."
Wasn't there also the thing about him presenting his protege or something?
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of it has to do with guys being out with an injury and having nothing else to do but train and rehab. Plus steroids can help an injury heel faster.
ReplyDeleteWasn't he in negotiations to return to the WWF in 1996? It was rumored but I've never heard any specifics on it to suggest it was anything more than a rumor.
ReplyDeleteI thought he was wasted in the nWo, outside of the DDP feud. He really didn't do too much aside from that. But I really liked his out of control character in the spring of 98, leading to the Wolf-Pac. It's too bad he got hurt before it went anywhere.
He was on Nitro, during the Russo era, still as the pimp Macho Man, announcing he was looking for an apprentice or something. It didn't lead to anything.
ReplyDeleteYep. I think it was during the early part of Russo's takeover of WCW creative. Savage showed up and said he was passing the torch or something and then he didn't show up again until that battle royal.
ReplyDeleteWow someone else has actually seen this match. I stumbled onto that match on youtube several months ago. Unfortunately its horrible.
ReplyDeleteHe injured his knee in a dark match main event vs. Sting in April 98 (in Madison, WI; I was there). Despite that, he still wrestled and beat Sting at the next ppv (Spring Stampede) for the belt, then lost it to Hogan the next f'in night. He hung around a little longer and was briefly in The Wolfpac. There- more info than anyone could possible want on Macho's 98 whereabouts!
ReplyDeleteReading this thread i'm thinking what if Savage came back to WWE with the nWo and fought Austin at WM 18.. Couldn't have been any worse than Hall vs Austin, and Savage matches up well size wise. The insane promos in the lead up would have been amazing.
ReplyDeleteI seem to recall that he asked for a huge money contract right after Spider Man came out. Like a Brock Lesnar type of contract and Vince turned it down.
ReplyDeleteSavage was and is one of my all time favorites and its disappointing he never made it back to the WWE for a big sendoff. It would've been great if he could've gotten back into form and competed at Wrestlemania 18 in front of such a large crowd.
ReplyDeleteHe actually jobs to Rick Steiner, after Steiner blows the finish falling off the top rope. Terrible.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think he lasted another month after the knee injury. They had Hogan run him over to explain the knee injury and then Hogan and Bret mess him up during a match against Bret at Slamboree to write him out.
ReplyDeleteHaving been a lurker on various boards and sites since the late 90's I can tell you that this rumour almost definitely came from the infamous DVDR sleaze thread in 2004. Prior to that, I had never heard this particular story. To be honest, I think a number of 'facts' came from that one thread. I copied it at the time (very bored one day at the office) and found the original post:
ReplyDeleteG Gordon Liddy Posted: Sep 16 2004, 03:01 PM
Macho had his way with Stephanie (she was about 14 then) back in 94/95 and that Vince found out and that was the true ending for Macho Man in WWF. Makes sense as the gent never was asked back or has been really showcased in those nostalgia video
packages they do from time to time.
So blame G. Gordon Liddy...
That was most of the matches during his first WWF title reign too. He had plenty of good matches in WCW.
ReplyDeleteSavage banged Antonio Cesaro?
ReplyDeleteYeah, that thread was 85% BS and yet so many "legit" rumors started from it.
ReplyDeleteThe Savage/Steph rumour is the worst thing to originate on the internet since Zack Ryder.
ReplyDeleteWhy would you want your injury to turn heel on you?
ReplyDeletethe real GGL?
ReplyDeletedon't think this necessarily deserves to be downvoted, but what's going on with the people who upvoted it? They like imagining that scenario?
ReplyDeleteThat was one of the most epic and bizarre threads ever
ReplyDeleteYeah, I remember Lanny Poffo giving an interview to the same effect after he died, I'll see if I can find it.
ReplyDeleteHere's a clip of Dave Meltzer talking about it.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsey9lagnwU
Rodman/Savage was awesome.
ReplyDeleteIf there is any truth to this rumor, the description needs to change from "banged" to "raped." I really really really hope it's not true.
ReplyDeleteThe port a potty was the highlight
ReplyDeleteAll the Poffo interviews I've seen have him saying the diplomatic "I never had the balls to ask him that" line.
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking about his match with HBK and how much I always enjoyed it. Being a big Savage and HBK fan made this a real highlight for me. Granted HBK hadn't hit his prime yet and Savage was clearly on his way down, but I still thought it was good.
ReplyDeleteI honestly didn't think it would garner this much attention, but I think Fuj nailed it here.
ReplyDeleteOliver Humperdink?
ReplyDeleteSavage looked fantastic around the time he filmed Spiderman. Everyone else got to come back, makes no sense a ripped long bearded Macho Man fresh off of Spiderman (a huge blockbuster) wouldn't get a final run.
ReplyDeleteThis was his last great match http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E0oiKjLzTc
ReplyDeleteBonesaw IS READDYYY
I can't find it, it was very cryptic though -- certainly not a direct implication.
ReplyDeleteThe interviewer asked him why Randy Savage had a fallout with the WWE and why he wasn't in the HOF and Poffo's response was:
"If you're a wrestling fan on the internet, you know the reason."
So yeah, that could be anything really.
My thoughts exactly.
ReplyDeleteYup, actually I think they had two matches on that tour that made releases. I know one of them was on the WWF World Tour 1992 VHS. It may also be duplicated on a DVD more recently, but I can't remember.
ReplyDeleteThe other match was on the Savage set though and had both Sherri and Elizabeth at ringside (in her final WWF appearance and like only a few days before her and Savage would become unofficially separated).
There was also a tag match around this time with Savage and Bret against HBK and Flair. I can't remember if it was any good. I'll have to try and locate it again.
ReplyDeleteI always thought it was late '96 to early '97. Savage had that big Halloween Havoc match with Hogan and then disappeared for a while. I assumed it was due to negotiations.
ReplyDeleteYup that sounds right, it was prior to mid-January 1997, because they worked things out for that big United Center angle.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, that's a fun one too. It's a little bit of a "house show effort" at times as I recall, but it's a very solid match. Talk about a dream match.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah definitely. Arguably 4 of the greatest. What was cool is that it had 2 greats from the 80's and 2 future greats from the 90's.
ReplyDeleteThat was kind of a unique thing to have a match like that in 1992 too, the greats of the last decade against the best of the next. Neither the WWE or WCW ever seemed to do a lot of those types of matches for whatever reason.
ReplyDeleteYes I agree. It might be nostalgia since '92 was the year I become a devoted wrestling fan but I've always argued the WWF roster of 1992 was te best all around roster. You had big names of the 80's and many of the big names of the 90's.
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, it's at least in the running for sure
ReplyDeleteUnless he didn't want one.
ReplyDeletemidCard 4 life!
ReplyDeleteBy midcard you mean WORLD title, right?
ReplyDeleteYeah, but this board is usually better than that. Blame the lurkers?
ReplyDeleteIt's not, the rumor started on the DVD forums in a fake rumor thread.
ReplyDeleteHe snapped into that. Oh yeah. Dig it.
ReplyDeleteHe was heavily rumored to be the mystery partner at Survivor Series 1996. His contract with WCW was up in October. It was rumored on the internet that he was a free agent and had chosen to stay with WCW but there were never any specifics about how close he came to returning, why he didn't, etc. I don't know if it was ever confirmed he talked to them.
ReplyDeleteThat might be. By the time you read this I will have already googled the answer, but I recall there being some angle where Piper/Savage were going to fight each-other after Savage's match. And the Slamboree match would have set that up - so I'm going to say you're right about that.
ReplyDeleteSavage in front of that Toronto crowd would've gotten a Hogan-like response. Austin would've found himself in front of a hostile a crowd as the Rock faced.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Vince found out until well after Randy left for WCW.
ReplyDeleteHere is what I could find as far as timeline:
ReplyDelete- Savage misses a
house show on October 23, 1996 in the midst of renegotiating his
contract with WCW which expires in November 1996.
- He appears
on a Chicago radio show in late October 1996 and is very complimentary
of the WWF, including the "Nacho Man" skits and mentions bumping into
Vince at an airport and having a long conversation with him
- He
works the house shows the first week of November, but had not yet
resigned. The same week, Hogan re-neogiates his WCW deal (and
reportedly claims that the WWF offered him a win over Shawn Michaels at
WrestleMania and a USA Network series). Bischoff is reportedly lukewarm
over keeping Savage, since he already got the Savage/Hogan match at
Havoc.
From what I could find with a Google search, it's Oliver Copp,
ReplyDelete"a prominent German wrestling & MMA announcer/writer/public relations specialist/jack of all
trades who normally tries to get over on forums by showing off his insider knowledge.
After the episode of Copp's MMA podcast that immediately followed this,
he gave these replies to posters on Meltzer's message board who asked
for Randy Savage stories:
Not going to happen, sorry
You can drug me and I won't talk about it. Let it go. Please.
No, not cryptic. Just let it go. Nothing to see here.
For what it's worth, Savage's last German tour for the WWF was a few weeks before he left the company."
This year, after Savage's father Angelo Poffo passed away, Meltzer wrote this in the Observer:
In the Breaking Kayfabe shoot, Poffo gave the exact moment when Savage's WWF loyalty supposedly died. It involved a battle royale...
ReplyDeleteRandy wore her panties as a bandana on Nitro.
ReplyDeleteI think that's the one where Bret had to carry the entire match because Randy was high, Flair was drunk and Shawn was gay.
ReplyDeleteYou know it.
ReplyDeleteSo there's really no confirmation that he even negotiated with Vince in 1996? JR seems to have shot it down right away.
ReplyDeleteI like imaging exaggerated Vince in ridiculous situations which might be very close to how he's acted in situations he's found himself in. Then my imagination took me to Vince doing the commentary while Randy snapped into his daughter. "He came, he came, it's over he came all over....wait, wait, no he didn't."
ReplyDeleteI thought Savage was somewhere between crippled and dead from Wrestlemania 8 until Survivor Series 1992. He couldn't walk and seemed to get the shit kicked out of him every time I saw him. He sure liked to sell.
ReplyDeleteHe had Stephanie for THREE MINUTES! THREE MINUTES OF PLAYTIME!
ReplyDeleteYup, it would appear so. No confirmed meetings at all between Vince and Savage, except their airport encounter. Keller said there were reports (not from typically reliable places) in early December that the whole tension between them was a work between Bischoff and Savage to begin with.
ReplyDeleteYeah he was definitely banged up but IIRC, he was specifically selling the knee injury from WrestleMania for the Flair house show matches for the figure-four spots to help make a title change seem imminent.
ReplyDeleteThey did the same deal again post Summer Slam 1992 to move the title to Flair. Not sure about after that though, maybe it was a mix of fact and fiction with his knees at the time. Wouldn't surprise me though, he put a LOT of mileage on those knees.
I believe he also got her in the danger zone and showed her the tower of power, too sweet to be sour!
ReplyDeleteThat needs an upvote lol
ReplyDeleteAfterward, he felt LIKE A MILLION PERCENT! THAT IS BETTER THAN A HUNDRED PERCENT!
ReplyDeleteLet's be honest, would anyone put it past Vince to do that?
ReplyDeleteDude, you're ruining my boner.
ReplyDeleteIf I pay you, will you write some fanfiction for me?
ReplyDeleteWhat interests me about this urban legend isn't so much where it came from-all it takes is one guy making something up and posting it to some forum-but why it's spread. Like most urban legends targeting celebrities, it's spread the way it has because it confirms exactly what most fans would like to believe about the parties involved:
ReplyDeleteRandy Savage--Remembered fondly by most fans, would like to see him as the crazy badass rebel who screwed the boss's daughter.
Vince McMahon--Funny to think of Mr. McMahon reacting to Daddy's Little Girl having been violated by the mad Macho Man.
Stephanie--Note that this rumour started to spread during the early 2000s when fan-hatred of Steph was peaking.
Triple H--Again, the rumour dates from the lowest point of Triple H's popularity with fans. The whole idea that Savage had his wife years ago, thus cuckolding Triple H in a sense strongly appealed to those fans. Is the rumour true? Probably not. Does it satisfy a strong emotional need for the fans that spread it? Absolutely.
I'd say the rumour of Brock and Vince double teaming Sable is worse.
ReplyDelete"Fantastic" in this case means roided to the gills. Keep in mind Macho was pretty much insane and on the IWC "hate list" around this time for the end of his WCW run where he couldn't work and was just taking up TV time with his own ego-driven angle. I don't think the WWF/E wanted a crazy roid-addict joining a company with several already, especially when this one was old.
ReplyDeleteBut yes, Savage seemed to be happy in retirement anyways. And Vince would've hired him anyways, given the nature of how WWE brings back EVERYBODY at some point.
The problem with wrestling rumors is that the industry is so steeped in bullshit ALREADY, that the FANS adding their own bullshit into things just doubles the amount of lies and stories going around. Similar to how wrestlers spread stories about how strong or sturdy Andre the Giant was, or how Haku's tales of bad-assness grow with each telling (the number of cops in that one story grows each time), wrestlers catch wind of these fake rumors, and just dogpile on them with "oh, well that might make sense then".
ReplyDeleteI remember Scott pointing this out when Matt Bourne commented on getting a WWF Title run, but then correcting that oh no, he'd only heard about a possible run from ANOTHER guy. Happens all the time, especially in an industry that's based around "working" people.
Good points, there- it's an easy one to spread since the fans actually WANTED to believe it.
ReplyDeleteI still find it bizarre just HOW MUCH the fans hated Steph at that point. But she was truly one of the most awful on-screen characters ever. She was a PERFECT villainess at times- shrill and shriek and often got her comeuppance the way her daddy did... but when they started pushing her as a FACE, and she got put over repeatedly on TV (Hyatte had the great comment that the entire force of the WWF was designed to get Steph over), and then it turned out she was the head writer during some of the worst booking periods EVER, the fans were done with her.
Didn't they take her off TV after some fan announced that he would pay money to anyone who legit jumped her at a show? Not sure if they're related (I recall some writer going on about this), so don't go spreading that like it's a rumor and start ANOTHER Steph one.
Vince's dialogue in the youtube video posted below is of a guy who is talking to someone he considers a great friend. I don't recall many people Vince has publicly talked about in that manner (maybe I'm wrong...I don't think there are many).
ReplyDeletePeople talk about Vince taking Hogan back, taking Bischoff in, but refusing to work with Savage. Savage is around the age where Vince could conceivably look at him as a peer or even a brother.
In a situation like that, if one of the parties feel betrayed, it can often be like a bad breakup where one or both of the parties simply refuse to talk to each other. It could've been Savage calling Vince and reaming him out on the phone (as was rumored as well), it could've been the licensing issues, it could have been *anything*. Sure, the Steph thing is a possibility but I feel like people have latched onto the craziest story because that's the only way people can imagine why Randy never came back even when Hogan did, Bischoff joined, etc. etc.
A lot of guys get away with dicking over Vince and him forgiving them because he doesn't view that dicking over as a personal betrayal...he views it as business. But given the whole "I'm Macho's #1 fan" thing, I get the feeling that Savage was held to a different standard than most other people; how often has Vince expressed that kind of admiration for someone publicly? When two best friends have a falling out, it's often like a bad breakup with one or both of the parties simply refusing to talk to each other.