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Randy Savage


Grimmas

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One of the most dynamic and charismatic wrestlers of all-time. If his pre-Memphis stuff is as great as it probably was there would be a case for him number one.

 

Great as a babyface or heel, as an underdog or favourite the guy did it all in the ring. Some great brawls and awesome technical displays.

 

He's going to be anywhere from 5-25.

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What "awesome technical displays" did Savage produce? I'm not trying to be a smartass, I legitimately can't recall a single match where he worked the mat for any length of time. I saw a house show match vs. Bret where he kind of did, but that's it.

 

Technical only means matwork? Steamboat-Savage at Mania 3 is a technical match that is awesome.

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I don't know that I could point to any excellent technical or matwork from Savage. I always loved his punches, his athleticism and how it translated into a pretty neat highspots for a guy of his size in in late 80s / early 90s WWF/WCW. But he could also slow things down quite a bit and may very well be someone who wrestled to the level of his opponent. How many top matches did he have against people not named Flair, Steamboat or Lawler? I'm sure there are some I'd come up with if I go through his various runs but that's what springs to mind. The work never clicked for me on the level of the character.

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I don't know that I could point to any excellent technical or matwork from Savage. I always loved his punches, his athleticism and how it translated into a pretty neat highspots for a guy of his size in in late 80s / early 90s WWF/WCW. But he could also slow things down quite a bit and may very well be someone who wrestled to the level of his opponent. How many top matches did he have against people not named Flair, Steamboat or Lawler? I'm sure there are some I'd come up with if I go through his various runs but that's what springs to mind. The work never clicked for me on the level of the character.

 

He produced two of the Ultimate Warrior's greatest matches. He had a great match with Dennis Rodman. He made DDP look like gold.

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Might be the most complete U.S. wrestler of all time. Not sure that makes him #1 overall or anything, but if you think of someone as a five-tool guy, not sure anyone other than Savage works. Which is awesome considering he played baseball before becoming a pro wrestler. He's not the best in one thing, but he's damn sure great in a lot.

 

Easy Top 50, possible Top 25.

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I knew I was blanking on something. The Warrior matches were awesome so put a definite feather in his cap on those. Not sure how I overlooked them. No comment on Rodman. The DDP series was fine, but DDP was delivering solid matches with most folks during that period. The Savage series didn't rise above any of those for me. But yeah, Warrior. Whoops!

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Savage was my favorite wrestler as a kid. He just had a unique way of moving around the ring that pulled me in from almost the first time I saw him. Great at projecting his character into his work, made a fairly basic offensive package seem bigger than it was, delivered huge in big matches. I don't see him as a top 10 candidate because his volume of great stuff was limited compared to the best of the best. But he'll fall in the 30-50 range.

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He is in my Memphis category. Had memorable performances in every company he was in. He was a legend. He also presents a dilemma that I face with guys like Steamboat. Savage, Steamboat, Dibiase... these are guys I have personal attachment to even though I know there are better guys out there. Do I ignore these guys who gave me hours of entertainment from my youth?

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I don't know that I could point to any excellent technical or matwork from Savage. I always loved his punches, his athleticism and how it translated into a pretty neat highspots for a guy of his size in in late 80s / early 90s WWF/WCW. But he could also slow things down quite a bit and may very well be someone who wrestled to the level of his opponent. How many top matches did he have against people not named Flair, Steamboat or Lawler? I'm sure there are some I'd come up with if I go through his various runs but that's what springs to mind. The work never clicked for me on the level of the character.

He had great matches with Tito Santana, Bret Hart, Ronnie Garvin, Jake Roberts and others that other people have mentioned.

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I've always thought he was overrated as hell. I don't understand why nobody holds it against him for mostly being shit post-1992 even while getting pushed as a main event guy for most of that time. What I've seen of his "great" 80's WWF matches doesn't hold up well when you compare it to things outside the context of an otherwise mostly horrible product. People here like to bash on KENTA and Marufuji matches for being overly cooperative but last I watched Savage/Steamboat at Wrestlemania it seemed way worse in terms of lacking struggle and being obviously planned out.

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For me his greatness is perfectly captured in a match he had against Rick McGraw, June 1985 at MSG. He had already debuted on TV, but this was his first appearance at the most hallowed arena in wrestling. Within minutes he is so over as a heel that a fan throws a drink at him. He has the New York crowd that had never seen him before in the palm of his hand from start to finish. Amazing to watch.

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The guy had a final year (a final two years actually, as 1998 was also pretty brutal) which ended his career on a major whimper. He was trying to recreate a rivalry with Hogan that was long past its expiration date and produced some actively bad matches. He had something decent with Bret once and that's about all he has for the two years his career continued after the Page feud ended.

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To be fair, my buddy Tony pointed out to me that Savage had the most amazing ring attire ever for his 1/4/00 NJ Dome match, easily one of the bets entrances of Savage's career. If you factor in ring attire, Flair had long since passed the expiration point of WTF ring attire. Savage was killing it in one of his last matches ever...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqqX1LeE_yE

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