I always found it interesting the only people he lost the world titles too were either Hogan or Flair LOL my favorite moment of Macho man was in Wrestlemania 8 against Flair the man was excellent.. loved him on the mic too.
The REAL reason he is banned from the WWE Hall of Fame:
The Slim Jim situation has been brought up and has been laughed off from time to time, but it's the truth of why Randy and Vince don't speak to this day. Also this has been confirmed on Bret Harts Book as to why Vince Black listed savage. And no it has nothing to do with Stephanie. (That childish rumor needs to die)
Remember that the WWE, in 1994, was not a public company. Vince was spending his own money and relying on ad revenue from advertisers to keep his TV shows on the air. This was around the same time as the steroid trial. Vince got off, but at a price. The bad PR surrounding the company, which was family-friendly back then, was devastating. WWE was all about good guys vs. bad guys, and it was a "safe" product that the whole family could enjoy.
Don't forget that 1994 in general was a bad year for wrestling. The WWE was suffering from low buyrates and poor attendance at house shows (Bret vs. Owen in half-empty arenas, the same arenas that were sold out for Hogan vs. Flair just 2 years prior). Wrestlers' morale was down and pay cuts were all over the place, which is why Bobby Hennan, Gene Okerlund, and Jimmy Hart had all left the company earlier that year. Then the steroid trial happened and the newspapers were full of stories about steriod and coke-addled wrestlers who were coaxed into abusing these substances by McMahon, since their jobs depended on it.
True or not, it scared the hell out of the WWE's many advertisers, who started pulling out left and right. Remember all the commercials on WWE TV back then? All kid-friendly products (candy bars, toys, video games, breakfast cereal, those little Nerf footballs with the spikes at the end). One of the few remaining advertisers was Slim Jim, who had a huge celebrity sponsorship deal with Randy. Here was a company that manufactured this piece of crap beef jerky whose sales went through the roof thanks to advertising their product on WWE TV (had any of you heard of Slim Jim before the early 90s?).
Late in '94, Randy and Vince were having contract disputes. Randy still felt he had some gas left in the tank, and still wanted to wrestle (apart from his position as Slim Jim spokesman, he was relegated to ringside commentator and conducted interviews with talent, and rarely wrestled). Vince disagreed, mainly because the WWE's big marketing gimmick at the time was "New Generation", which was centered on then-young talent like Shawn Michaels, Scott Hall, Kevin Nash, with the focal point being then-WWF Champion Bret Hart. But the "New Generation" gimmick was ludicrious. Not only was Bret only 4 1/2 years younger than Randy, but his primary feud at the time was with 1970s hold-over Bob Backlund, who originally left the company in 1984, 1 YEAR before Randy even showed up!
Randy saw through this and wanted out. Around the same time, Randy's then-friend Hulk Hogan, who had just defected to WCW for a big-money contract just 8 months prior, came calling with promises of guaranteed money down South. Vince naturally assumed that Slim Jim would stay on as an advertiser for his TV programming, since the business relationship was so mutually beneficial. Through this, Vince could keep the ad revenue dollars flowing into the company, and Slim Jim could continue to enjoy their brisk sales as a result of the exposure Vince allowed them.
As for a celebrity spokesman, Vince also assumed that Slim Jim would ditch Randy as their celebrity client and snatch up any one of the other wrestlers in the company (Nash, Hall, etc.) to be the new "Snap into it!" pitchman for Slim Jim's then-ubiquitous commercials. Wrong. Before Vince could blink, Randy had already met with the top Slim Jim execs and convinced them to not only pull their ads off of WWE programming, but to follow Randy down South to WCW. Down to Ted Turner's self-owned conglomerate; a billionaire who certainly didn't need the ad revenue.
So not only had Randy scored a major business coup against Vince, but he managed to keep his celebrity spokesman job while working for the dreaded competition (Vince's obsession with Ted Turner was full-blown at the time). Vince felt betrayed by the fact that Savage ended up costing him millions of dollars. Worst of all, Vince deeply resented the fact that he was outsmarted by one of the boys, which was unheard of in all his years of running the company.
To top it all of, Randy just didn't care. He went to WCW, and while his 1997 matches didn't hold a candle to his 1987 ones, he made millions in guaranteed money working a relaxed schedule and surrounded by other WWE castaways (Hogan, Piper, Hall, Nash, Luger, Sean Waltman). Randy was also at the forefront of the NWO, when WCW was beating WWE for 2 years straight in the ratings, and Vince came close many times to going out of business.
As far as Randy was concerned, it was business, and he's living off the fruits of his labor to this day. But Vince took it personally. And there's nothing Vince hates more than ex-WWE guys who don't need him. Think about it. How many former WWE stars from the 80s and 90s ended up drug-addled, broke, and useless in the real world? How many have been sitting by the phone for the last 10 years waiting breathlessly for Vince to call and offer up $500 to come back and get humiliated on Raw? How many have spent the last 10 years calling the office every week begging and pleading for a shot, ANY shot, "Just please, Vince! Put me back on TV!"
It's more common than you think. Vince LOVES playing God to all the used-up talent he burned through from the time Reagan was President. He loves being their sole source of income (while they push carts at Walmart in the real world), which is why he's so quick to trademark their rings names and sue or issue ceast-and-desist orders to keep them from making a living outside the WWE. It's why he's so quick to sign them to non-compete deals should they ever get that one last "shot", be it on Raw or in the Hall of Fame, thereby preventing them from capitalizing on the momentum of being on national TV.
Vince's goal is to control everything about the lives of his current and former talent, even the ones he could care less about. Lord knows what strings come attached with the free rehab the company offers. But NONE of this applies to Randy. Not one iota. Unlike 90% of his 80s-90s wrestling peers, Randy is happy, massively wealthy, and enjoying life. He doesn't need Vince or his money.
Vince, meanwhile, was still trying to playing his games showing what a spoiled little baby he is. Look no further than the Legends of Wrestlemania game. Randy was NOT included in the game, and this is a guy who not only performed at 9 of them (II through X), but main-evented 2 of them (IV and V), and had arugable the greatest Wrestlemania match of all time (at III)!
But here we are, 17 years later, Randy Savage is only NOW getting his just due somewhat with his DVD set, action figures, and being in the new WWE videogame, but still no documentary or Hall of Fame induction as Vince is seemingly still intent on getting his point across by blatantly not giving Savage full credit for his vast WWE legacy, even though this project could only be financially beneficial to McMahon's already deep pockets. And yes, that is the saddest irony of all. After almost 20 years away from the WWE, Randy Savage is still costing Vince McMahon money.
However Macho Man IS in the OFFICIAL Pro-wrestling Hall of fame class of 2009
http://www.pwhf.org/halloffamers/inductees.asp
WWE hall of fame is a sham..
Randy is my favorite wrestler of all time.. he deserves better than he has gotten.
