WWE Hall Of Famer Jim Ross Recalls Contentious Backstage Relationship With Randy Savage

WWE Hall of Famer Jim Ross spent a total of 23 years with the promotion from 1993 until 2019, and came in at a time when the “Macho Man” Randy Savage was one of the company’s top stars. But, by his own admission, JR had a strained working relationship with Savage, as he would discuss during the “Grilling JR” podcast. Ross recalled a backstage dispute with Savage after advertising him for a spate of commercials. Savage took issue with the fact he had been placed in commercial breaks in non-live event markets. “I told him, I said, ‘You’re a star. It adds to the value of the program, that’s why,'” said JR. But Savage did not trust this, and, as JR would recall, accused him of trying to bury him. 

“I couldn’t even relate to that,” he said, “Why would I wanna bury you? … It makes no sense. But that’s the words of a very insecure guy.”

JR and Randy Savage would only work together until Savage departed in 1994 for WCW. The commentator recalled WWE not being interested in bringing Savage back to the company in 2003, but he affirmed that he would never let his perception of him get in the way of decision-making. He said that it was known that Savage was a star and had great name identity, maintaining that it didn’t matter if they didn’t see eye-to-eye but elaborating on why that was the case. 

“He was a little bit of a bully and unpredictable, and maybe that’s what made him a star. If it did, more power to him,” he said. 

Randy Savage retired from wrestling in 2004, leaving TNA after just one match over creative issues surrounding a proposed bout for Jeff Jarrett’s NWA World Heavyweight Championship. In 2011, Savage suffered a heart attack and died at the age of 58. He was posthumously inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2015.

Why WWE Hall Of Famer Kevin Nash Said To Stick With Randy Savage For Slim Jim Ads

Kevin Nash has revealed that he told WWE executives to use “Macho Man” Randy Savage in the Slim Jim commercial. 

On a recent edition of the “Kliq This” podcast, co-host Sean Oliver informed Nash that Savage’s brother, Lanny Poffo, had told him that one of the reasons Vince McMahon was unhappy with Savage was due to the late star taking the Slim Jim account with him to WCW. 

Nash stated that he may have had something to do with the Savage-Slim Jim deal as he disclosed that he was the one to advise WWE management to book the “Macho Man” for Slim Jim commercials. “Big Daddy Cool” filmed the commercial when he was WWE Champion, but told WWE to use Savage for the commercials.

“They came to me because I was a champion and we did a Slim Jim commercial,” began Nash. “When we were kind of wrapping things up, I was talking to the execs, I said, ‘Man, I’m not the guy. This is synonymous with Randy. You should stick with Randy.’ I said, ‘You should stay with Randy.'”

When the late star left WWE he took along with him the Slim Jim deal, which former WCW executive Eric Bischoff later revealed that Savage’s first WCW contract was paid for by Slim Jim. Nash, when told that the Slim Jim deal may have caused heat between McMahon and Savage, had this to say: “Oops! I thought I was doing Mach [Savage] a favor.” 

WWE recently revived its relationship with Slim Jim, with this year’s SummerSlam featuring a Slim Jim-branded battle royal, won by LA Knight. The beef jerky brand was reportedly ecstatic with Knight’s involvement in the match.

Jake The Snake Roberts Laments WWF Storyline That Got Cut Short

During a recent episode of “The Snake Pit,” WWE Hall of Famer Jake “The Snake” Roberts was asked if he had one match or storyline in mind that he would go back and change. With little hesitation, Roberts named his brief rivalry with “Macho Man” Randy Savage at the end of 1991.

“Yeah, Savage and me,” Roberts said. “That whole storyline was so good and it was cut so short. They hadn’t even touched the tip of that. All of a sudden, they snapped it off and that was it, which made me sick because, hell, we didn’t even go all the way around. For it to be cut that short, it was just disgusting. But what I am? I don’t know. That’s the one that sticks out.”

Co-host Marcus DeAngelo mentioned that it seemed like a prime opportunity to have Roberts face Savage at WrestleMania VIII in 1992 a few months later, however, that didn’t pan out.

“Absolutely,” Roberts said. “That’s what I expected. For it to be cut short, once again, I got the shaft on that one.”

WrestleMania VIII ultimately saw Roberts lose to The Undertaker, while Savage beat Ric Flair to win the WWF Championship. However, the history books could’ve read a little differently had Roberts not slapped Miss Elizabeth.

“Yeah, that was a part of it because her family, they revolted, man,” Roberts admitted. “They went psycho on Randy. Randy was no longer allowed at the house. He had promised the family that Liz would never get hurt because, unfortunately, Randy and Liz had never smartened them up to the business. So when I slapped her, that was the end of the ship, brother.”

Shane McMahon Really, REALLY Didn’t Like ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage

Former WWE magazine writer/editor Brian Solomon was a recent guest on the 6:05 Superpodcast with Brian Last, using the appearance to unpack a bizarre story suggesting that Shane McMahon wasn’t ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage’s biggest fan.

Solomon, who was with WWE from 2000 to 2007, explained how people within the promotion explained to him that Savage was a persona non grata. He had conducted an interview with Randy about his rap album, ‘Be A Man’, and ended up publishing it without consulting the company’s higher-ups, though his cohorts wouldn’t explain why Savage was blacklisted (h/t WrestlingNews.co):

“Nobody ever said why. I have to be honest without getting into all that. I never knew any of that while I was working there. I found out years later at least whatever rumors there were. I can tell you it was definitely a name that you can’t bring up. Among the jobber crew of us working there, you can say whatever you want. Among certain people, you definitely didn’t want to bring that name up.”

Solomon continued, unpacking the brutal, unrelenting beatdown that Shane McMahon unleashed upon a Savage poster while he was working under the former ‘Best in the World’:

“We were such marks in that magazine. That division of the company was definitely composed of people who loved wrestling so we would do markish things. We would have wrestling posters on the wall. We had a Randy Savage one up. I remember at one time I was working for Shane McMahon. He was the head of our department for a little while. I remember he came out of his office. He saw the Randy Savage poster tacked to the wall. He walked over to it. He literally poked it as hard as he could with his fingers repeatedly until it fell off the wall, then he stepped on it, and walked back into his office.”

Savage was infamously blacklisted by WWE after departing for WCW in late 1994. He didn’t truly return to the company’s good graces until long after he had passed away in 2004, with WWE producing a documentary – Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story – in 2014, then inducting Savage into the Hall of Fame the following year.

Randy Savage a Possible Headliner for 2015 WWE Hall of Fame? More Details on Upcoming “Macho Man” DVD Release

WWE has a new DVD and Blu-ray set coming out November 18 called “Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story” that will include a full-length documentary on the former world champion, complete with interviews from both Lanny and Judy Poffo, his youngest brother and mother, respectively.

For years, Lanny Poffo has been incredibly critical of the WWE, to the point where Randy Savage wasn’t put into the Hall of Fame because of a dispute that he wanted the entire Poffo family to go in collectively. According to the new Wrestling Observer Newsletter, there is a “strong feeling” that this partnership between the two sides is a precursor to the “Macho Man” finally being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, most likely as a headline to the 2015 class.