Author Jon Finkel has written a new, comprehensive biography on wrestling icon Macho Man Randy Savage. “Macho Man: The Untamed, Unbelievable Life of Randy Savage,” comes out April 2 via ECW Press.
Finkel gave an extensive interview to Web Is Jericho on all things Macho Man and the book ahead of its release. He also revealed what he thinks is the most overlooked aspect of Savage’s personality and how he used it to hide his size when working next to the often-larger wrestlers of the ’80s and early ’90s.
“He was very smart,” Finkel said. “It’s easy to look at the neon costumes and the cowboy hats and the spinning and twirling, the cut shirts and everything we love, frankly. All the pomp and circumstance of him — on purpose, by the way — was all calculated.”
“He was an honor roll student in high school. Lanny and some of the other guys have stories of how he just cleaned out these guys in the minor leagues playing poker. He wasn’t a bonus baby. Meaning he wasn’t drafted by a team, so he made almost no money, a couple hundred bucks a week playing minor league ball. And Lanny told me while most of the guys in his shoes were calling home for money or seeing how could they make money on the side, Macho was just taking their money in cards, and he never needed money on the side.”
Turns out Savage was also a hell of a hand when it came to chess. “Hacksaw Jim Duggan was also telling me that Randy was surprisingly an excellent chess player,” Finkel said. “They had these long-running chess games where Hacksaw would just get destroyed. He was very cerebral, and when you understand the pivots of why he went from Randy Poffo to Randy Savage to Macho Man, everything was calculated. He was just so smart.”
Savage used his smarts to create the illusion that he was bigger in the ring than he actually was.
“He was smaller, and even when he got up to 230, 240, he was still small by wrestling standards,” Finkel explained. “So how can he look bigger? He puts on giant capes and gowns and hats. And you watch him, he’s really walking on tippy-toes half the time, and he really never stands still. All of it is to kind of hide the fact that he’s not Hulk Hogan’s size.”
Read the full interview with Finkel here, and pre-order the book via ECW Press.
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