Claims Department Randy Savage

Transcription

1 Claims Department Randy Savage Image courtesy Cedric Bacon -

2 Macho Man Randy Savage. The name rings 1980s, doesn t it? Macho was at it s peak in the 1970s, the song Macho Man was a hit in The persona of Macho Man Randy Savage was as flamboyant as the song, with pastel purple tights, sequined robes and bedazzled sunglasses. When he spoke, his voice was gravely like a 99-year old smoker. HE was athletically build, though he bulked up towards the end of his career, Randy was lithe, some might even call him skinny, when he started, and by the end he was a behemoth. All the while, he was an athlete. He wasn t the first flying heavyweight, that concept dated back to the 1950s, but he was one of the best, certainly for his era. When he was motivated, there was none better, but as time went by, he was less-and-less motivated. He had some classic matches: Lawler, Steamboat, Flair, Hogan, DDP and more. He was also a shockingly big figure with the world outside of wrestling. He was given the ball and while he never eclipsed Hogan, he was certainly a close second to him for much of his career as the biggest name in wrestling. Sadly, Randy Savage passed away after suffering a heart attack while driving in Florida. He made it to 58, an age much older than many of those who have already passed in his generation of wrestling superstar.he wasn t too often on the list of those who were next, so it was a surprise. A Heart Attack, the kind of thing that plagues guys who lived hard, traveled 200+ days a year and often had to use a variety of drugs like somas and booze just to keep themselves able to wake up in the morning. Was Savage a steroid user? Who knows, but looking at his physique, it s likely at least for part of his career. Randy Savage was an important part of my journey towards becoming a wrestling fan. While never my favorite, he was always one I knew would put on an impressive show. Over the years, he had moments that amazed, and infuriated a younger Chris Garcia. Much like the legendary Mitsuharu Misawa, Randy Savage could be seen as the best example of what wrestling could be, but in a very different way.

3 Randy Savage and Leapin Lanny Poffo vs. The Rock n Roll Express Memphis, June 25th, 1984 I hadn t started reading the wrestling magazines that appeared monthly at my local Safeway in I wasn t yet a fan of the level I would be just a year later. It was only by chance that I saw a snippet of a match on a late-night television programme that covered wrestling from the previous few weeks. I want to see it was called Matwatch, but I so can t remember. I would watch it once in a while, this was the peak of the 1980s wrestling boom when you, right around the time of the legendary Hogan vs. Piper match from MSG that was seen on MTV and the Cindi Lauper angle with Capt. Lou Albano and Wendi Richter. The show didn t show any WWF stuff, just stuff from the smaller territories that were still around. The one that they showed most frequently was Memphis, where the King was Jerry Lawler. I had seen one or two of his matches, including at least one with Randy Savage. It was a different match that really drove home the point that Randy Savage was a bad, bad man. There was a feud going on between The Rock n Roll Express, the hottest tag team in the NWA at the time, and the Poffo Brothers, who went by the names Randy Savage and Leapin Lanny. Savage had been feuding with Lawler, and at the time, he was seen as the hottest commodity in wrestling. Who wasn t signed to one of the big federations. Even I, as a kid of ten, knew that Savage was blacklisted. He had worked for his father s ICW promotion in and around Louisville. Savage was the star, there s a site about Randy in ICW at randysworld.htm that shows some great material. Savage was a big deal, but since he had gone to work with ICW, a group that ran in opposition to the strongest alliance of promoters in the world at that time, the National Wrestling Alliance, or the NWA. The NWA had ties with all but a few major promoters, so Savage couldn t find work in almost any of the territories, save for Memphis, which had worked a bit with Poffo Ss ICW. That led to the feud with Lawler, and then later for a feud with the brothers vs. the Rock n Roll Express, Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson. Now, I didn t see the whole match, which when I finally did see it years later, I was amazed at how forward it was. It looked like 1990s ECW, a wild brawl around the ringside area and work that was faster than almost anything you were seeing at that point. The ropes had a lot more slack than they did even two years later. The impressive thing was Savage with his moves off the top rope. Well, that was the second most impressive thing. The most impressive thing was the

4 finish. Ricky Morton was the greatest Face in Peril ever. He d be the one getting beat-on for however many minutes, he d be kept from making tags for long periods of time and then he d finally tag the much less-talented Gibson who d come in like a house-on-fire and that d usually lead to the finish. Morton was so good at it, no one sold a beating like Ricky Morton, and few folks had his charisma for tag teaming. He was never much of anything as a singles wrestler, though. The match was on the outside, I believe it had ended in a no contest or a countout, and then the insane happened. Savage took Ricky onto one of the ringside tables. That wasn t normal, but then he did the unthinkable. He gave him a piledriver. The Piledriver is the coolest-looking maneuver in the world circa You pick a guy up with his head between your knees and then you drop into a sitting position. It looks like his head is being driven into the mat, which it would be if the guy who is upside down doesn t shrug his shoulders and push up with his arms. When it is botched, like when Owen Hart did it to Stone Cold Steve Austin in the late 1990s, it can seriously derail a career. So, when he put Ricky in position to Piledrive him on the table, it was incredible. Savage protected him greatly. He kept his legs somewhat bent so that his head never came away near contacting the wood, but none of us had seen anything like that. In the olden days, typically in cities with like Tupelo, Mississippi, you would set a table up against the ringposts and then the guy would be thrown into it. This was new. This looked chaotic and they said that this had led to Ricky Morton being seriously injured and out of action. I believe that he was just leaving the territory for a while to do a tour somewhere else, but it certainly made Savage in my mind. This was the match where Randy Savage lived up to his last name. This was unbelievable. I guess that was the first time I knew I was a fan of the wild Southern brawling, and when I started watching ECW in 1995, I knew what they were going for. This match, which is up at is one of the all-time great Memphis wrestling moments.

5 Savage on Tuesday Night Titans Randy Savage debuted in 1985, and after a couple of appearances on the WWF s syndicated shows, he showed up on Tuesday Night Titans, aka TNT, a talk show formatted wrestling show that featured some wrestling matches. Some of the worst skits in the history of wrestling were on TNT, but I loved it. It was whacky and had some strange stuff (like George The Animal Steele becoming lucid and talking about a disk being put into his tongue) to the awesome. The most awesome was the night when it was all the managers fighting over who would get to manage The Macho Man Randy Savage. At the time, the WWF had the greatest collections of managers ever assembled. There was Bobby The Brain Heenan, probably the greatest manager who ever lived. His Heenan family was legendary with some great wrestlers, like Paul Orndorff, King Kong Bundy and Hercules) and Heenan was just amazing at doing his interviews and bumping like a mad man for the faces who would give him a punch. He seriously messed up his back taking giant bumps for The Crippler and Dick the Buiser in the 1970s. Classy Freddie Blassie, the greatest man who ever walked the face of the Earth, who was managing the tag team Champions, The Iron Sheik & Nicolai Volvoff. Mr. Fuji was around with Don The Rock Muraco, and I believe Luscious Johnny V was also in the running. In the end, he chose Miss Elizabeth as his manager. My Ghod was she beautiful. Of all the women in the history of wrestling, only Miss Elizabeth was that gorgeous. She didn t have to talk, she never had to say a thing, and instantly you wanted her to be happy. She had some sort of strange power that instantly made you want to see her protected. I ve never figured out what it was. She was Beauty and he was The Beast. Savage was always treatin her mean, grabbin her and dragging off towards the ring, grabbing the mic for himself when Mean Gene Okerlund tried to get her to talk on interviews. She was every vision of peace, light and beauty. She was part of the reason that Savage got over so big as a villain, and why he got over so big as a good guy because he started treating Elizabeth nice. When he got to be a bad guy again, he simply had to start treating Liz bad again. It was a simple formula. It was the best episode of TNT, by far, and it was a very smart way to introduce a big time character. It was obvious that Savage was going to be the biggest thing in years, and since every bad guy manager wanted him in their stable, it was obvious that he was Big Deal.

6 The Wrestling Classic November 7th, 1985 The big deal was Hulk Hogan vs. Rowdy Roddy Piper. Piper was the biggest heel in the world at that point, the loud-mouthed braggart who was not the biggest dog in a fight, but was the only one who had other dogs willing to do his dirty work. I was really excited to see that match. The Undercard was a tournament. There weren t a lot of tournaments in the WWF, though there were a few in the various NWA territories. This was a 16 man tourney and it was full of quick matches with screwy endings, except for a few special matches. There was a great Davey Boy Smith vs. Ricky The Dragon Steamboat match. It was a lot of fun and one of the first matches where you noticed that Davey Boy was a great worker. I loved The British Bulldogs, and Ricky The Dragon Steamboat was one of my favorites. Going into the tourney, I was expecting that Steamboat would win, but then he came up against Randy Savage in the Quarterfinals. The two, who would go on to have a legendary feud over the next two years, had a decent little four minute match. It was pretty good, as Steamboat is one of the best storytelling wrestlers of the last fifty years and Savage was an awesome worker when he wanted to be. This night was his coming out party, so Savage went out of his way to make it a good night of working. The ref was distracted by The Lovely Miss Elizabeth and that allowed Savage to get the win. He had a fine match with The Dynamite Kid in the Semifinals and then it was Junkyard Dog in the finals. JYD was a great character, but he wasn t much of a worker. Savage bumped all over the place and it was fine for a final match. Savage got backdropped over the top rope and it ended up with a countout. That was the finish. A countout finish is a way of protecting a guy so that he can go ahead and get his heat. I remember waiting for The Wrestling Classic to come out on video tape. In those days, six months was pretty typical to have to wait for the tape. I think this was more like a year, as I don t think I got it until after I d watched WrestleMania 2 on Showtime that December. I loved it. I watched it a dozen times before I returned it at the end of the weekend. I loved that Rangoon Video used to have three day rentals, even though it was 5 dollars a video. I wouldn t watch it again until the mid-1990s when I was at my peak viewing (I d watch a video a night and every show that was on USA and Turner s Networks) and it wasn t much to watch. Even a year later the wrestling from the WWF had increased in quality as far as the work goes, but while some of the storytelling was awesome (like Terry Funk pleading I don t wanna fight Moondog Spot! ) and getting to see Piper vs. Hogan was a great thing. I rewatched The Wrestling Classic a few months ago. It was a great document of 1980s wrestling. This was the coming out party for Savage, even if Junkyard Dog won the tourney. The Dog got a big push as the winner, but Savage became the bigger star with the push he got coming out of it. He would quickly move further up the chain than Dog would ever get.

7 Tito Santana vs. Randy Savage Saturday Night s Main Event November 2nd, 1985 I watched a lot of Saturday Night Live, so I was used to staying up until all hours of a Saturday night. The WWF started doing Saturday Night s Main Event in 1985, and the third edition featured Randy Savage challenging for the Intercontinental Championship. That was the number two title in the WWF and Savage was exactly the kind of guy that you d want to put that belt on. I loved the match, though I haven t watched it since the time that it showed on NBC originally. I always thought that Randy Savage was nuts. I m scared of heights, I hate standing high above things, so everytime that Savage would go to the top and then come off onto a guy on the outside with the Double Sledge, I was shocked. Nowadays, that s not at all a special move. Guys jump off the top and over the top rope all the time, but no one did that in I watched it and I remember practically jumping up and down on the couch. I m betting that anyone who didn t watch wrestling pre-1990 would think that it was anything near great, but to the young me, it was amazing. That it ended in a double count-out wasn t the point. It was the match that moved me. Tito Santana was a hero to me, one of the best wrestlers in the WWF in my eyes, a fast and wiry wrestler who had good matches and was very charismatic. The fact that he was Mexican was also muy awesome. I always cheered for him. I loved watching his matches and this one was great. At least to the just recently 11 year old Christopher J Garcia. Randy Savage vs. George The Animal Steele WrestleMania 2 April 2nd, 1986 I ve told the story so many times that I can t remember where I ve told it. The night that changed my life was sometime in late December Showtime was re-running WrestleMania 2 all month. I watched it once and then watched it two more times. That was the night that turned me forever. There was no looking back from that. I had watched a few shows every now and again, but after I was thrown into everything by WrestleMania 2. I watched hundreds of hours of wrestling just riding the wave from this one showing. The match I remembered most was the King Kong Bundy vs. Hulk Hogan cage match, a match that a lot of my friends in college said was the best cage match they ever saw. I didn t love it, I love the British Bulldogs vs. The Dream Team. The match I was most interested in? That was Randy Savage vs. George The Animal Steele. The two were feuding because The Animal had built a crush on Miss Elizabeth. Randy was in the peak of his dickishness. This was Savage s first WrestleMania match, and while it wasn t great. It was George The Animal Steele vs. Randy Savage. I loved George The Animal Steele, he wasn t a good worker, but he was a personality and he was fun. He also had one of the great finishing submissions of the era: The Flying Hammerlock. It was impressive, just hoisting a guy up in the hammerlock position. It looked great! Savage was the master athlete who flew through the air. George Steele was the freaky guy who bit the turnbuckle. The match wasn t great. But it was a part of the event that changed my life. The show that made me forever a wrestling fan of the deepest stripe, and Randy Savage was on that show.

8 Randy Savage vs. Ricky The Dragon Steamboat WrestleMania 3, March 29th, 1987 The greatest match in history. That was what I thought. I watch Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat (the three matches they had in 1989) and I still thought that Savage Steamboat was the Greatest Singles Match in History. I watched the Guerrero vs. Malenko classics, the Hart vs. Steve Austin WrestleMania 13 match, the legendary 1993 Kobashi matches against Steve Dr. Death Williams and Stan The Lariat Hansen. Still, Savage vs. Steamboat was the Greatest Singles Match in History. It wasn t until I saw Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi from 1997 that anything topped it. And it wasn t until 2003 that I saw another match better than Savage vs. Steamboat, and that was another Kobashi vs. Misawa classic. After all the wrestling I ve watched in all the promotions, there s only two matches that have topped Savage vs. Steamboat, though neither of them do I love more than Savage vs. Steamboat. To me, Savage vs. Steamboat is the base, it is what every match is measured against. There have been a couple of incredible tag matches that might have topped it (I m thinking the Akira Taue/Toshiaki Kawada vs. Misawa/Kobashi) and some gimmick matches (The Starrcade 1984 I Quit match between Magnum TA and Tully Blanchard) but none of them effected me to the point where it s my favorite match. Savage vs. Steamboat is my all-time favorite match. Period. Why? Watch it and you ll understand. I saw it the first time live on Closed Circuit at the Flint Centre in Cupertino on a giant screen with a thousand or so other folks. It was a great scene and I remember watching the story play out. George The Animal Steele was in Steamboat s corner and he pushed Savage off the top, which allowed Steamboat the chance to get the small package and get the pin. It was amazing. Steamboat was the technician and Savage was the athletic brawler-type. They told a story, largely centered around the fact that Savage had injured Steamboat s throat by ramming the ringbell into his throat. It was a legendary angle and it s what made this match such a big deal. Image courtesy Cedric Bacon -

9 I ve watched this match a hundred times at least, but I only own it on VHS and I don t have a VHS deck right now. When I heard that Savage had passed away, I instantly ran out to find a DVD of the match, but none of the three places I went to had it. I ve already ordered it on two different compilations (one of WrestleMania III and one of Randy Savage s career) and I will almost undoubtedly get back to the feeling I had watching it on that big screen when I was 12. The Megapowers (Hulk Hogan & Randy Savage) vs. Andre the Giant & Ted DiBiase They understood storylines in the 1980s WWF. There was a plan, usually set in motion subtly months in advance. The concepts were usually simple, and almost always there were strings that effected other programmes. The big deal here was that Jesse The Body Ventura was announced as the referee and since DiBiase was the opponent, and The Million Dollar Man, he had paid off Ventura who was gonna call it their way. This was one of Andre s last matches, as he could barely move. HE was once a pretty agile guy, there s a famous photo of him giving a dropkick to Antonio Inoki, I think. It s arguable that DiBiase and Savage were two of the best wrestlers in the US at the time, both easily top ten guys. Andre and Hogan? Well, they were there to draw the people to Summer- Slam. I remember this match being crap. It was just plain awful except when DiBiase and Savage were in together. Even as a kid, not knowing what a good match was supposed to entail, I could tell that this wasn t one. There was a great story here that was unfolding. The story was that Savage and Hogan, while teaming, were having difficulties. Savage was obviously getting jealous of Hogan s attentions towards Miss Elizabeth. It was subtle, but it was there. The match was almost secondary, hence why it could be ungood, but the ending was awesome! You see, The Body was calling it all for DiBiase and Andre, and it looked like the Megapowers were about to be beaten when Miss Elizabeth got up on the ring apron and when she was up there, she whipped off the bottom portion of her dress, revealing her shapely legs. OK, I ve written of the profound effect that 9-to-5 had on my sexual awakening over and over. I know, you re sick of it. Miss Elizabeth dropping her dress was something very different. Even as a 13 year old, I knew that I thought of Elizabeth as something of a Saint. She was Goodness and Light and Sweetness and Beauty and Perfection and All Good Things. When she did that, she become an object of Attraction, Lust, Desire. That moment, more than anything else I had ever seen, taught me a message that I carry with me to this day that it can all change, that the way we view a person is based on what we see of them. Elizabeth dropping her dress changed who she was, from a Symbol of Goodness to a Symbol of Desire. It was an important part of the growth of Christopher J Garcia, and it would become more important as time went by to wrestling. Perhaps it was that moment that I realized that sexiness could be a weapon... Randy Savage vs. Hulk Hogan WrestleMania VI What happens when you have the two biggest stars of an era collide? This was that moment, 1989, WrestleMania V. It was the biggest match of its type in WWF history. True, it would be eclipsed just a year later when Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior met, but still, it was a HUGE deal to a Christopher J Garcia of 14. I never got to watch WrestleMania as a kid, save for number III, because they stopped doing Closed Circuit and we didn t have pay-per-view. I saw it for the first time on video tape ages later. The match was pretty good, though I can barely remember any of it now. Well, hardly any of it except for one thing

10 Hogan kicked out of the Flying Elbow. The 1980s were the decade where moves off the top rope were rare. We d started to see The Great Muta who did the Moonsault off the Top Rope. Jimmy Superfly Snuka had the Superfly Splash off the top since the late 1970s. Most wrestlers in the Heavyweights still didn t fly off the top, so Randy Savage doing the beautiful Flying Elbow off the top rope was akin to man taking flight. It was unbelievable. Everyone who had taken it to that point had been pinned. It was an unbeatable move. And when Savage went to the top, we all figured it was about to be over. Then he hit it and he hit it perfectly. It was amazing how awesome he looked. I d seen Savage hit the elbow probably a hundred times and this one was the most perfect, the most beautiful. His positioning was fantastic, his in-air posture totally there. It landed perfectly. It was over. Only Hogan kicked out. That never happen. Savage looked shocked and that led to the Hulking-up, which was what led to the finale in just about every Hogan match. Hogan slammed Savage, dropped the Big Legdrop and he got the win. But it was Savage s elbow, the one that didn t get the pin, that I remembered from that day. Randy Savage Gets Bitten By A Cobra October 21, 1991 This was the most visceral moment I had ever witnessed with my own eyes. In later years, when I would defend wrestling against allegations of fakery, I would point to this moment. Randy Savage had married Miss Elizabeth in the ceremony at Summerslam No matter that it was well-known that they d been married for years already. They did the angle and at the reception, they had Jake the Snake Roberts attack and give them a gift with a poisonous snake in it. It was a great moment, but nothing like what was to come. Roberts and Savage feuded and they had a match, I believe on a TV taping. Savage did an interview, I think on The Funeral Parlor, the old Undertaker chat bit. They had Jake Roberts come in and he somehow ended up tying Savage in the ropes so that he couldn t free himself. I think Elizabeth was looking on. Jake then went and got his snake, an 8 foot cobra. He then picked the cobra up and pointed it at Savage, held it close. This is the point where another wrestler would come out, where someone would make the save. Nope, not this time. Jake then put the snake right onto Savage s arm, and it bit and bit hard. I was watching it, 10pm on a Monday and nearly screaming! It was unthinkable. We all knew that the snake would

11 have been devenomized, but still, there was a snake, a real snake, chomping on Randy Savage s arm. It was a real snake, they showed a bunch of different camera angles to get that fact over. I saw it on Prime Time Wrestling, where they showed it uncut. On the syndicated shows, they had an X over the arm so you couldn t see it, but you knew it was happening. This was the most violent thing I d ever seen. I d never seen a guy gnawed on by a snake. It was unbelievable. The trick to it? Well, it was devenomed, but Randy Savage let a freakin cobra chomp on his arm. Apparently Jake, who is an experienced snake-handler, had difficulty getting it off so it was on far longer than they expected. Randy was bleeding from two puncture wounds. If that does prove that Randy was a stud, nothing does. Randy Savage vs. Ric Flair WrestleMania VIII April 2nd, 1992 This was an interesting match because 1) it was fairly amazing and 2) it was the match that technically breached Flair s contract, allowing Flair to leave in early 1993 back for WCW. This was a great match and when Savage got the win and the belt, and the match was not in the position of the Main Event when Hogan was working with Sycho Sid, that went against a significant clause in the contract of Flair and that was what allowed him to return to the WCW. The match was great, Flair was Flair, which is always good, and Savage was on his game. Savage had had a string of weaker matches in 1991 and 92, but this was not one of them. Watch it sometime and what you ll see is Flair working the leg and Savage finding brief openings and having his offense. He rolled up Flair and got the pin and there was a great celebration. It was wonderful. This was the last major match where I d say that Savage was the cutting edge. We were already starting to get guys like Jushin Liger to show us the high flying craziness, and Shawn Michaels had just turned and was certainly a better worker headed towards the top of the card. Savage turned 40 in 1992, so he was at that point where he was the legend and no longer the innovator. It happens to all those who live ahead of the curve, and after this, Savage was still good, could still go, but wasn t the star who was setting the trends.

12 Randy Savage vs. The Ultimate Warrior Summerslam 92 This was the last time I really cared about Randy Savage. This was a big show, a sold-out Wembley Stadium in the UK was the site for the biggest wrestling show in the UK. Savage vs. The Ultimate Warrior wasn t the match I cared about. That would be Bret Hart vs. The British Bulldog. The thing about the Ultimate Warrior is that he was the worst wrestler in the world. He had a weird charisma that drew in kids, and had a roided-out physique that was all you needed at various times in the 1980s. The only time that the Ultimate Warrior had a match that would be called good was against Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania 6 where Hogan did one of his rare jobs. Maybe one or two of his matches with Rick Rude were decent too. Randy Savage drew a good match out of Warrior, a smart match, one where Savage bumped all over the place for everything that Warrior did, and at the same time, Warrior did a lot more than he usually did, which is nice. This match was made by the storyline. Ric Flair was stirring the pot between Savage and Warrior. Warrior was just back from one of his many leavings and was hotter than anything with the crowds as a good guy. Following his retirement at WrestleMania VII and the return for the Jake Roberts feud, Randy Savage was the top face as Hogan was gone again. Flair got them fighting and the idea was that one of them would turn and join Flair. It didn t happen that way and after a good match, the two were stronger faces than ever. Good match, but for me, it was just another match on a card where I was far more interested in seeing the new guys. I d lost interest in Hogan ages before, but this was when Savage mattered less and less. Bret Hart, The British Bulldog, Shawn Michaels, Tatanka, Razor Ramon, these were the guys that were mattering to me. When RAW started in early 1993, Savage was a commentator. That was a role where I felt he did so good. He didn t need to wrestle, he was over.

13 Randy Savage vs. Crush WrestleMania X This was Savage s last WrestleMania match. It was the last time that he took a guy who was no good and turned a good match out of it. Not too long after, Savage would go to WCW and join up with Hulk Hogan. Then he d get turned on by Hulk when he joined the NwO and then he d feud against the NwO and DDP and various others for several years. It wasn t the Savage I wanted to see, and with the exception of a couple of the DDP matches and pair of great ones with Ric Flair, there weren t many Savage matches in WCW that mattered. In fact, to me, Randy Savage s career as a headliner ended when he pinned Crush at Wrestle- Mania X. There are a lot of folks who would say that Savage drew good buyrates, sold more tickets and, especially, a lot of Slim Jims while he was working for WCW, and I wouldn t disagree, but Savage wasn t the same after he left the WWF. He was less athletic (part of the whole being over-40 crowd) and he didn t have the Superstar feel to me anymore. They brought back Elizabeth and she was awesome as a heel, but Savage, well... Let s just say that there were a lot of episodes of Nitro where I watched the undercard matches fro Chris Benoit, Eddy Guerrero, Rey Misterio, Dean Malenko, La Parka, Super Calo, Konnan and co. and paid no attention to Savage, Hogan, Nash and Hall who were the headliners. The match was a Falls Count Anywhere match to end the Crush vs. Savage feud. As I understand it, this was a period where there was a lot of negotiations going on to try and lure Savage away. He contract was up shortly and this was the time. Crush had been a friend of Savages for a while, they teamed a few times I think, and he turned on Savage and left him laying. That lead to the match and it was a fun one, one of the best singles matches Crush ever had. They brawled a good bit, Savage got him to the back and tied him up so that he couldn t answer the count. It was pretty simple, but I enjoyed the hell out of it. Sadly, this was only the third best match on the show. The opener was Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart, a masterfully worked match between two legends. I always thought that it was built perfectly and it announced to the world that the first WrestleMania era was over, the Time of Hogan and Savage was done. This is what new WWF wrestling was going to be like. An hour or so later, Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon tore the roof off with a wild Ladder match that changed everything and seemed to scream even louder This is the FUTURE! Hart v. Hart was Hogan Michaels v. Ramon was Savage It s easy to see. This was probably the greatest WrestleMania ever, and it certainly had two of the best matches in WrestleMania history, but it was also the last time Randy Macho Man Savage worked on a WWF PPV. It was a decent ending.