Randy "Macho Man" Savage (1952-2011)

Fridays are usually always a great day for me.  Not just because the weekend is right around the corner, but also because I get to telework from home.  Who doesn't like telework?

Well sometime around 11:30am yesterday morning, as I was just getting ready to head downstairs for "Lunch with Mariska" (yes, this is what I call my telework lunch breaks because I watch half a Law and Order:  SVU episode), I clicked over to FoxNews.com to see if anything important was going on in the world.  I was absolutely horrified to see "Former Wrestler Macho Man Killed in Car Accident."  No joke, I immediately got a huge pit in my stomach.  I thought someone was playing a cruel joke on me.

Lets go back in time.  I grew up in Westminster, MA during the 80s.  Very few of us had cable TV or video game systems.  This was back in a time where playing meant you were outside with your friends hitting each other with rocks, sticks, big red kickballs, or in my case, an elbow off the top turnbuckle.  Why an elbow off the top turnbuckle you ask?  Because my friends and I loooooooooooved professional wrestling and that was our life.

School days always started off with questions like....

"Did you see that tag team match with the Hart Foundation this weekend?" 

"Wow the Junk Yard Dog really wailed on Nikolai Volkoff last night!"  

"How amazing was that Ricky the Dragon Steamboat match against Macho Man?!?!?!"

We were obsessed.  Every one of us.  We bugged our parents to buy us rubber Big John Stud and Hillbilly Jim action figures and we would pretend they were wrestling, but that just didn't cut it.  We needed to head out to the back yard and wail on each other like our heroes did.  We all had our favorites and we pretended we were them.  My favorites were Hacksaw Jim Dugan, Rowdy Roddy Piper, Junk Yard Dog, and The Macho Man Randy Savage....but then again, all of us wanted to be Macho Man.  Why?  He was hilarious.  He'd come up with these one liners from out of nowhere and would leave you doubled over on the floor.  Stuff like...

"Hulkamania is like a single grain of sand in the Sahara desert that is Macho Madness."

"We're in space and space is the place!"

"The same fire the Dragon breathes, he shall burn by."

"You will eat my rear rockets and like it! Ohhhh yeahhh!"

"Hulk Hogan has got the biggest arms in the world.  Yeah, but these arm's aren't chopped liver.  Someone likes chopped liver out there."

and my absolute favorite..

"The tower of power, too sweet to be sour, ohhhh yeahh!"

So it is with great sadness, but fond memories, that I say thanks to Macho Man for giving us all that he had to offer.  And although his death brought great amounts of sadness to many of us, he still made us laugh as we reflected back on his life and wrestling career though the many videos of him available on Youtube.com.

I'll leave you with a few that you might want to check out.

Here's a really funny interview Macho did with Mean Gene Okerlund.

Here's Macho on Arsenio Hall with Morgan Fairchild.

A two part video of his legendary match vs. Ricky the Dragon Steamboat back at Wrestlemania III.   I watch this and I remember it like yesterday.

Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat, WM3, Part 1. by akim93

Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat, WM3, Part 2. by akim93

And we can we ever forget to snap into a Slim Jim?  "Art thou bored?!?!" 

I leave you with this great tribute video produced by WWE.

Oooooooh yeeeeaah!!!

I've transformed into Macho Man!

Cheers!
-Brent