Many wrestlers have come, gone, come back again, retired, unretired, and even changed their personalities and identities in the twenty-five years that I’ve been watching professional wrestling. I’ve seen Hulk Hogan be the All-American good guy, the heel leader of the nWo, and even don a cape and mask the colors of the American flag. The Undertaker has been a dead man, the American bad ass, a cult leader, and drifted back to the land of the dead. Ed Leslie has been known as Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake, the Booty Man, Zodiac, and was even almost unrecognizable as the Disciple. Wrestlers go through extreme changes and can become a different person every couple months. Randy Savage may have gone by different names such as “Macho Man” or “Macho King” and also changed from good guy to bad guy and back again, but one thing about him stayed constant throughout his entire career the madness.
Randy “Macho Man” Savage is one of those wrestlers that you didn’t just love or hate, but sometimes you just couldn’t understand him enough to know which way you should exactly feel about him. When the word “madness” is said to represent him; that is by no means an understatement but one hundred percent truth. The guy was always on the extreme side of things with every one of his antics whether it was jumping over the top rope with someone’s head in his hands to clothesline them or flying through the air to land the patented elbow drop. Savage’s promos were always kind of strange because they were filled with so much energy, so much passion, so much hate, so much excitement, so much anger, and just so much batshit crazy that it was hard not to laugh at him yet take him so seriously. Randy Savage has always truly been one of a kind.
Even though he may have been a tad off his rocker and seemingly insane; when it came time for action in the ring, he knew exactly what to do. There haven’t been many people in wrestling history that could tell such a wonderful story in the ring as Savage could no matter who he was paired up with. As times got rough and he was being beaten down, you truly believed that was the end for him and he was in tremendous pain. When the chips were down and he’d catch a lucky break? You just knew that Savage would pounce on the opportunity to gain an advantage to make momentum swing back in his favor. But it wasn’t just him looking for his moment, but it was his immense talent and wrestling knowledge that helped him achieve the top levels he had reached so many times throughout his career.
Macho Madness is another great collection dedicated to a specific wrestler that the WWE has been doing wonders with over the past couple years, but there is a problem this time around. Sure the matches are great additions to any DVD collection but it’s the full story of the individual that really gets my interest up. Interviews with past opponents, peers, announcers, and even the star themselves really get you behind the scenes and let you know some of the secrets and thoughts that went on during their careers. Macho Madness kind of falls off the deep end here because the main feature is filled with matches mixed in with comments from our two hosts, Matt Striker and Maria. Wait Matt Striker and Maria??? I understand that Savage and the WWE aren’t on the best of terms in recent years so I wouldn’t have expected him to lend comments and stories, but why not some of those he faced before? Shawn Michaels or Ric Flair or Ricky Steamboat or Ted Dibiase or the Honky Tonk Man? All that we get is a little bit of random information from Striker and Maria, but hardly any background and certainly no personal tidbits to tide us over.
~ Prime Time Wrestling July 9, 1985: WWE Debut – Randy “Macho Man” Savage Vs. Rick McGraw
~ Savage’s Choice For A New Manager
~ December 7, 1985: Randy “Macho Man” Savage Vs. Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat
~ One Of The Most Hated Men In Wrestling
~ December 30, 1985: WWE Championship Match Hulk Hogan Vs. Randy “Macho Man” Savage
~ Setting His Sights On A Different Title
~ February 8, 1986: Intercontinental Championship Match – Randy “Macho Man” Savage Vs. Tito Santana
~ Old Generation Meets New Generation
~ January 3, 1987: Intercontinental Championship Match – Randy “Macho Man” Savage Vs. Bruno Sammartino
~ The Greatest Match In WrestleMania History
~ WrestleMania III March 29, 1987: Intercontinental Championship Match – Randy “Macho Man” Savage Vs. Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat
~ Attempt To Regain The Intercontinental Championship
~ The Main Event February 5, 1988: Intercontinental Championship Match Honky Tonk Man Vs. Randy “Macho Man” Savage
~ The Road To The WWE Title
~ WrestleMania IV March 27, 1988: WWE Championship Tournament Final Match – Randy “Macho Man” Savage Vs. “Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiase
~ The Return Bout
~ June 25, 1988: Steel Cage Match for the WWE Championship: Randy “Macho Man” Savage Vs. “Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiase
~ Megapowers Unite
~ SummerSlam August 29, 1988: Randy “Macho Man” Savage & Hulk Hogan Vs. Andre The Giant & “Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiase
~ Year Long Reign
~ WrestleMania V April 2, 1989: WWE Championship Match – Randy “Macho Man” Savage Vs. Hulk Hogan
~ Macho King & Queen Sherri
~ The Main Event February 23, 1990: WWE Championship match Hulk Hogan Vs. Randy “Macho King” Savage
~ Intergender Mayhem
~ WrestleMania VI April 1, 1990: Mixed Tag Team Match – Randy “Macho King” Savage & Queen Sherri Vs. Dusty Rhodes & Sapphire
~ Career On The Line
~ WrestleMania VII March 24, 1991: Retirement Match – Randy “Macho King” Savage Vs. Ultimate Warrior
~ Love Bites
~ This Tuesday In Texas December 3, 1991: Randy “Macho Man” Savage Vs. Jake “The Snake” Roberts
~ Falsely Accused
~ WrestleMania VIII April 5, 1992: WWE Championship Match – Randy “Macho Man” Savage Vs. Ric Flair
~ Back On Top
~ April 19, 1992: WWE Championship Match – Randy “Macho Man” Savage Vs. Shawn Michaels
~ Popularity On The Rise
~ July 20, 1992: Randy “Macho Man” Savage & Bret “Hit Man” Hart Vs. Ric Flair & Shawn Michaels
~ Behind The Mic
~ Monday Night Raw February 28, 1994: Yokozuna Vs. Randy “Macho Man” Savage
~ A Change Of Scenery
~ Bash At The Beach July 16, 1995: Lifeguard Match – Randy “Macho Man” Savage Vs. Ric Flair
~ Rivalry Renewed
~ Monday Nitro January 22, 1996: WCW Championship Match – Randy “Macho Man” Savage Vs. Ric Flair
~ The Rise Of The nWo
~ The Great American Bash June 15, 1997: Falls Count Anywhere Match – Randy “Macho Man” Savage Vs. Diamond Dallas Page
~ Team Madness
~ Bash At The Beach July 11, 1999: WCW Championship Match Kevin Nash & Sting Vs. Randy “Macho Man” Savage & Sid Vicious
The event is shown in 1.33:1 Full Screen format and the DVD releases from WWE continue to be over-the-top excellent. Even the older footage looks great and has been touched up to not show any age or bad spots. Very well done and nicely taken care of.
The event is heard in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and it also sounds perfect except for the few changes in music. Often times the contractual rights for some songs disappear from the WWE’s grasp and they can no longer display them on their releases. The obvious dubbed over songs aren’t awful but very noticeable. Everything else sounds great.
A Match Made in Heaven: The Wedding of Randy “Macho Man” Savage and Elizabeth – A handful of managers were in the ring hoping to win over the services of Savage and become his mentor, but he decided to go in a different direction and introduce the lovely Miss Elizabeth. (3:55)
Elizabeth’s Debut – Savage sits in the ring to become the “Macho King” along with Sherri who would become his queen. Among all the other heel wrestlers in the ring; the Genius lays a wonderful poem upon us. (3:09)
The Coronation of the Macho King – This is an awesome look inside everything leading up to the marriage of Savage and Miss Elizabeth at SummerSlam back in 1991. Included is Savage’s “Elizabet ELIZABET will you marry me?” proposal. It’s a fun feature even though the actual wedding ceremony drags a bit and the awesome attack from the Undertaker and Jake Roberts wasn’t included, but worth checking out again for a nostalgic feeling. (16:51)
Vignettes – Disc three of the collection has seventeen vignettes, interviews, and other short moments from throughout the career of the Macho Man ranging back as far as 1985 and stretching through to his time in the nWo in 1997. All of them are rather short but great looks at different bouts and messages of madness from Savage.
Trailers – Greatest Stars Of The 90s and Best Of Saturday Night’s Main Event
More awesome matches then you could shake a golden scepter at. Title matches that bring about so much excitement and entertainment (including perhaps the greatest match of all time Savage/Steamboat at WrestleMania III) that you may just want to bow down and kiss his royal feet for being involved in them. Moments from Savage’s time in the WWE, WCW, and nWo allowing us to check him out throughout all the moments of his phenomenal career. Macho Madness is an excellent compilation of matches and big time events in Savage’s history, but that is actually all it is. Not that that’s bad or anything, but having Striker and Maria host this DVD release just doesn’t sit well with me because the documentary portion that brings about the greatest parts of these WWE releases is almost nonexistent. Perhaps the future will see a reconciliation of Savage and the WWE making a great argument to put out Macho Madness Part Two or Macho Kingdom or something like that, but with Savage narrating the whole damn thing. Wrestling fans need to grab this set no matter but, but we can only hope that one day we hear the life and career of one of the greatest wrestling entertainers ever through his own scratchy and throaty voice. Ooooooooooooo YEAH! DIG IT!
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WWE Home Video presents Macho Madness: The Randy Savage Ultimate Collection. Featuring: Randy Savage, Tito Santana, Honky Tonk Man, Ted Dibiase, Hulk Hogan, Dusty Rhodes, Jake Roberts, Ric Flair, and more. Running time: 540 minutes on 3 discs. Rating: PG. Released on DVD: June 9, 2009. Available at Amazon.com
