Everyone knows who “Macho Man” Randy Savage is, right? Even if you aren’t a fan of pro wrestling, those damn Slim Jim commercials still resonate within our souls today. “Snap into a Slim Jim, YEEEEAAAAH!” made that crappy processed meat treat sound somewhat desirable thanks to the oddity known as Randy Savage. He was as captivating as he was peculiar. An aberration to the norm, everything about him demanded your attention.
As for fans who grew up watching pro wrestling, Savage was the bad guy you loved to hate and the good guy you adored. The funny thing about Savage is that whether he was a face or a heel, he was always the same exact character. Whether he was in or out of the ring, he was the same guy. You never caught Savage breaking character because Savage probably never believed he was a character.
It is not known if, at some point in his life, Randy Mario Poffo became Randy Savage or if the “Savage” was simply a personality trait that was suppressed through his younger years and found comfort in the eccentricities of professional wrestling.
Before the days of social media and the ever seeing eye of the internet, there was a lingering feeling that who Savage was when he was wrestling was the exact same person he was when he wasn’t. He always appeared to take everything seriously. Which is why when he decided to release a rap album, it felt like we weren’t supposed to laugh out loud in fear that he would hear us and drop that signature elbow drop on our chest cavity.
It’s not like wrestlers haven’t found themselves in the studio before. But they treated making music much like they did their in-ring persona. You didn’t take Vince McMahon’s “Stand Back” seriously, nor did you ever think that Koko B Ware was really considering a music career when he sang lead on “Piledriver.” When wrestlers did make music, it was to serve the sole purpose of becoming their entrance theme and/or to exist in a fictional wrestling universe where everyone is hip to the game (Hulk Hogan made an album too, but that deserves it’s own column).
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