I don’t know what the consensus is on “The Total Package” Lex Luger in the online wrestling discourse anymore, but I have always been a huge fan. “Macho Man” Randy Savage has always been held in high regard so his status is far less divisive.
This match crossed my social media feed today so I gave it a look. When it started I did not recall that this was the infamous Halloween Havoc where The Giant was apparently “compromised to a permanent end” after his Sumo Monster Truck match with Hulk Hogan atop the Cobo Hall in Detroit, Michigan.
Macho Man and Luger have a fun little sprint here in their second matches of the night as Savage previously defeated The Zodiac, and Luger bested Meng. I’m a sucker for any match that ends with shenanigans backfiring on someone. From what I recall and what they seem to suggest during this one, Luger wasn’t officially associated with “The Mouth of the South” Jimmy Hart at the time, and Jimmy still jams up Luger.
Luger fails to get the victory via dirty pin, followed by knocking heads with Jimmy, and eating a patented Macho Man Elbow Drop is just beautiful professional wrestling in my eyes. As conflicted as the crowd seemed earlier in the match, they pop big for Macho Man’s victory. I’ve always thought he was a better “culture fit” in WCW than Hogan.
Honestly though, this match is really about all the other nonsense going on and that revolves around Tony Schiavone and Bobby “The Brain” Heenan’s reaction to The Giant’s well-being. It’s comical listening to Heenan, rightly, fretting about how The Giant is after apparently FALLING OFF OF A BUILDING earlier in the night, while Tony tsk tsks him for not focusing on the match at hand.
This is an example of the beautiful absurdity of our beloved World Championship Wrestling.
****
As an aside, one thing that got me here was seeing 51 year old Jimmy Hart for the first time in a while. As ageless as he is now at 82 years old, watching this footage was akin to seeing Henry Winkler in Scream (1996) or Al Pacino in any of his 90s films. You get accustomed to seeing these gentlemen either much older or much younger, and their middle aged eras are a bit peculiar looking back. Wrestling legend “Nature Boy” Ric Flair also triggers this phenomenon for me as well. For whatever reason, Flair and Pacino kind of remind me of each other, and I’m not entirely sure why.
40+ years old and grew up on Saturdays at 6:05 on TBS and Joe Pedicino’s wrestling block in Atlanta, Georgia. Collects toys and talks all types of pop culture in a variety of places. Husband and father of 2.