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| Savage in the Tokyo Dome before wrestling Rick Steiner |
Using my normal sources Cage Match and The History of WWE plus a few other places I was surprised what I discovered about the Macho Man's finals days in the ring.
His last match in 1999 was on August 14th at the Road Wild PPV when he defeated Dennis Rodman in a hardcore match. On October 25th he appeared on Nitro in Phoenix, Arizona cutting a promo on Vince Russo and the new blood, saying what they did to Hogan and Flair they could never do to him because he wasn't a punk bitch. Talk about being a world champion in WWF & WCW and that he was looking to pass the torch to someone. Savage was 47 years old at this point.
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| Savage vs. Rodman from Road Wild 1999 |
His next match was also filling in for an injured Goldberg, this time against Sid Vicious at a WCW House show on January 14, 2000 in Charleston, West Virginia and was pinned by Sid after a powerbomb. This would end up being the final singles match of Savages career.
His next WCW TV appearance was on the May 2, 2000 episode of Thunder from this historic Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, Tennessee. During the main event number 1 contender Battle Royal Savage made a surprise appearance 20 minutes into the 23 minute match that Ric Flair would go on to win. This was also Randy's final WCW appearance.
We wouldn't see the Macho Man in a wrestling ring again until late 2004 in TNA. Well technically he did appear in a wrestling ring on the season 1 episode 14 of Nikki a wrestling situational comedy where he played James "Pretty Boy" Carter and as Bonesaw McGraw in 2002 for Sam Raimi's Spider-Man. He looked awesome in both.
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| Savage on Nikki |
He appeared on the November 19th and 26th episodes of Impact confronting Jarrett, Scott Hall, & Kevin Nash building towards a six man tag team match at the next TNA PPV. At Turning Point on December 5th, Savage teamed with AJ Styles and Jeff Hardy defeating Jarrett, Nash, & Hall in a six man tag team match.
I wouldn't say Savage looked bad in the match but he wasn't the Savage of old. He'd lost a lot of muscle mass and even covered himself wearing a long sleeve shirt and loose pants. Earlier in the evening Savage was attack in the back and stuffed in the trunk of a car that sped away after. With a three on 2 advantage Jarrett, Nash, & Hall got the best of Hardy and Styles for over 15 minutes before Savage walked to the ring.
I've read that this was supposed to lead to Savage defeating Jarrett for the championship at the January Final Resolution PPV and losing it back to Jarrett at the February Against All Odd PPV. Image Randy Savages name in the history books as a former NWA World Champion. He and Flair would then be the only ones to hold the WWF, NWA, & WCW World Championships.
Before anyone says but Kurt Angle the answer is no. Kurt Angle was the first ever TNA World Champion, yes he held the NWA Championship up after defeating Sting and Christian Cage at Sacrifice however, the NWA had stripped Cage and Team 3D of their NWA Championships earlier that day. Also when Kurt Angle won the WCW Championship, it was in namesake only as World Championship Wrestling had ceased to exist.
It's odd to me that Savage didn't wrestle during that time between WCW & TNA. Perhaps he had one of those Time Warner contracts that prevented him. I always think it's sad when a wrestler, especially the one the caliber or Randy Savage, doesn't get the big send off that I feel they deserve.
It's nice that he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2015, but it would have been better if he could have been there himself to accept it.
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