Viceland’s telling of Macho Man-Elizabeth relationship is accurate, tragic

Viceland’s Dark Side of the Ring tells the stories of some of pro wrestling’s darkest and most complicated chapters. Episode 1, “The Match Made in Heaven,” focuses on the real-life and professional relationship between “Macho Man” Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth.

For decades, “Macho Man” Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth have been known to the world as one of professional wrestling’s most popular power couples. Episode 1 of Viceland’s new series, The Dark Side of the Ring, highlight the ups and downs of their turbulent, rollercoaster relationship, focusing on their love and loss through a series of interviews from workers who were close to the two.

A series of vignettes, and snippets of interviews from different superstars and backstage workers who worked with Savage and Elizabeth Hulette make for a colourful show opening and stretch to the episode’s final minutes. “The Match Made in Heaven” is full of interviews which include stories told from the perspectives of Bruce Pritchard, Jake Roberts, Scott Hall, Lanny Poffo, Linda Hogan, Jimmy Hart and Scott Hall.

Their life stories, although finally reaching the morose and morbid final destination of their grave-sites, comes alive in this episode of the six-part series that, as the show’s title says, tell the tale of the darker corners of the industry’s history.

Savage started in the wrestling industry suited up in glamorous and over-the-top colorful robes, bandanas and shades while delivering interviews and working the ring for his father, Angelo Poffo who went from being a wrestler himself to a promoter in Tennessee, Kentucky and Arkansas. The outlaw wrestling territory known as International Championship Wrestling gave Savage a place to give birth to his Macho Man gimmick.

Elizabeth soon found herself draped within Savage’s glamorous capes, first meeting at a gym where Savage was working out and Elizabeth was working at. Their binary opposition of hyper- masculinity and subdued femininity captivated audiences at the arenas and those who watched WWF television at home. Savage and Elizabeth’s popularity inspired Vince McMahon to pair up his company’s two huge babyfaces, Hulk Hogan and Savage, to create the explosive force known as The Mega Powers.

Savage’s jealousy and suspicion over a secret relationship would soon boil over with Hogan into a feud of epic proportions. The crowd hated to see the way that Savage would control Elizabeth, but despite his paranoiac jealousy he was faithful and that split the audience. Life imitating art, and art imitating life blurred the lines between fiction and reality as their relationship received so much television coverage. Savage’s watchful male gaze did not allow Elizabeth to have any sort of freedom, making her like an isolated flower that was still somehow able to blossom. They would eventually tie the knot on live television on August 26, 1991, despite being married for several years before their television marriage.

Savage’s raw psychosis, both on camera and off made it difficult for him to trust other professional wrestlers, including Roberts who he confronted over the status of Roberts’ python snake being fixed, and whether it was still poisonous or not. Pure madness was what Savage was all about.

Elizabeth briefly left Randy, staying near Linda and Hulk Hogan’s residence. It didn’t take Savage very long to arrive via airplane after telephoning Linda. Elizabeth left again, driving her red convertible Cadillac to Miami, Florida, finally splitting with a tormented Savage, who would soon after join Ted Turner’s World Championship Wrestling promotion.

Elizabeth and Lex Luger eventually met in WCW (after Savage brought her into the company despite their dissolved marriage), and their working relationship “soon evolved into a secret love affair”. Luger had his own family, and while others did not witness Elizabeth doing drugs it was apparent to some workers from WCW that Elizabeth was abusing drugs, in quantities that large, 300-pound wrestlers would take. Pill popping, and heavily drinking vodka left Elizabeth unconscious and in need of first responders. Elizabeth had succumbed to her substance abuse, and tragically died at the age of 42 in 2003. Though left with a heavy heart, Savage would find love again, marrying Barbara Lynn Poffo.

Savage later had a heart attack, crashing his vehicle into a tree, and died. He never had kids, although others recall him being great around children and estimate that he would have loved to have children with Elizabeth, or later, Barbara Lynn.

Savage and Elizabeth’s iconic relationship and the memories that they left with fans of an over-the-top, fiery tempered, larger-than-life wrestler and his feminine, gentle, beautiful manager are incomparable to other duos in the professional wrestling world. Viceland did justice to their relationship, the ugly parts and all. While clearly some of the key figures who commented have their own agendas at play, it was a fair and accurate telling of one of the most iconic, but misunderstood, relationships in pro wrestling history.