10 Things I Learned Watching Dark Side of the Ring: The Match Made in Heaven

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In professional wrestling there are a wrestlers that end up having a relationship working in the business together. One of the most memorable wrestling couples is with Macho Man Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth. There relationship was often labeled as The Match in Heaven when they Kayfabed got married ay SummerSlam 1991 (They were already married since 1984). However the relationship was not all great and they unfortunately split in 1992.

So I watched Vice’s Dark Side of the Ring documentary on Savage and Elizabeth. There are many things that I did not know about them. So, I thought why not give a list of the 10 things in this documentary that I learned while watching it.

10. How Randy Savage met Elizabeth

This is a cool story that was mentioned early on. Randy Savage and Elizebeth both met at a gym. Randy was working out at a gym early in the morning and Elizabeth was the receptionist. When Randy walked in and Elizabeth was just attracted to Savage. While she was complementing Savage’s eyes, the line that hooked her to want to be with was when Savage said “You should see them from this side”. Scott Hall was surprised when Elizebeth told him this and I would be too.

9. Elizabeth helped edit and announce at International Championship Wrestling

International Championship Wrestling (ICW) was a promotion that was run by Angelo Poffo. Angelo Poffo is of course Randy Savage’s father and Savage was the big star in ICW. Like Lanny Poffo (aka The Genius) said “It was all hands on deck and Elizabeth stepped up and helped with the editing along with being an announcer.”. I knew that Elizabeth was the announcer to ICW as there was plenty of film I saw of her interviewing and announcing wrestlers. What I did not know is that she had a big hand in editing the film of that promotion. I got to say, she did an excellent job with how she edited the promotion, it is just a shame the promotion ended in 1984.

8. Randy Savage would only Join WWF/WWE if they had a role for Elizabeth

Before WrestleMania 1 hit Vince McMahon was planning to take over the entire wrestling world. He had an eye on a lot of wrestlers throughout the industry and of course Macho Man Randy Savage was one of them. WWE wanted to bring him in and wanted to put a manager with him. Savage of course agreed, but to the one condition that that role or any wrestling role would go to his wife Elizabeth. Savage was very loyal to his family and wanted to do everything in his power to take care of them. Elizabeth was one as he wanted to take her on the road during his wrestling journey. WWE would agreed to Savage’s terms and put Elizabeth as his manager.

7. Linda Hogan was one of the few people allowed to hang out with Elizabeth in the locker room

Elizabeth mainly stayed in Savage’s locker room throughout his time with the WWE and rarely got to ever hang out with a lot of people. Well there were a few exceptions and one of them was Linda Hogan. Linda Hogan was the wife of Hulk Hogan and she was one of very few people in wrestling that really got to know Elizabeth. Both actually met when Elizabeth was having trouble making her hair look good. Savage would go into Hogan’s locker room trying to find Linda to help out and well she along with Elizabeth got along. They even lived close with each other in the Tampa Bay area and on off days in wrestling both would go out with each other. Linda and Elizabeth became close friends with each other.

6. Randy controlled Elizabeth both in and out of the ring

Randy Savage was very paranoid with Elizabeth as he wanted to protect her from the bad side of the business. Like I mentioned earlier Savage mainly kept Elizabeth hidden in his locker room to avoid interacting with others. Especially as being out on the road, especially in these days was very brutal. Savage would often tape her dresses and would only allow her to enter the ring a certain way due to his fear of a wardrobe malfunction. Point is that he would often control Elizabeth at all times which surely had an effect on there marriage long term.

5. Some of the crude humor wrestlers used while being on the road

Going on the road for professional wrestling can be very brutal for any pro wrestlers. So in order for it to be less misery, many pro wrestlers would make jokes and do pranks on the road. These were not light hearted jokes at all and were very crude.

There was even one stories where wresters would go to the bathroom in suitcases and did it for a joke. Doing that in anybody’s suitcase does not make anyone look funny, it just makes them look like a jerk. Keep in mind as well that a lot of the wrestlers would experiment with drugs as well and use them on people as well for a joke. There was no boundaries at all when on the road I don’t blame Randy Savage at all for wanting to protect Elizebeth from all of that.

4. The relationship of Randy and Elizabeth really started coming to an end while Hogan was filming “Mr. Nanny”

There have been many points where people have pointed to being the moment Savage and Elizabeth relationship started to end. But it hit the boiling point while Hogan was filming Mr. Nanny. On a side I watched Mr Nanny one time, and that movie is absolutely terrible. I guess many agreed as that movie flopped in the box office along with many other Hogan movies.

So when Hogan was going to shoot the movie he had to stay in Florida for I believe it was 2-3 months. Elizabeth wanted to go just to Florida and watch the kids for Linda. Macho was unsure, but only allowed her to go only being around the kids and Linda. Well Elizabeth did go with them, but got her own room as she wanted to get some alone time with herself. So Randy now calls wanting to talk to Elizabeth and he keeps calling no answer. Linda picks up and keeps saying she is not there.

With Randy being paranoid he decides to get on a plan to go there and he specifically states to Linda to not tell her. So Randy arrives and barges into Linda’s apartment freaks out that she was not there. He goes out to find Elizabeth and threatened Linda to not tell Elizabeth. So he finds her and Randy immediately packs Elizabeth’s things in the rental car. Macho then ends things with Hogan and says party is over. Then, 5-6 weeks later Elizabeth leaves Randy Savage and they soon divorce.

3. Randy Savage never recovered from splitting with Elizabeth.

Now we get to the part of the document where they both split, and there was a notable change with Randy Savage. Scot Hall was quoted saying, “Macho made it, but there was clearly something missing with him” and it dragged on for many years including the WCW days. It was notable that he cared less about the business when the split happened. Instead of being intense, Savage became more of a laid back person and character. It is clear that the the separation clearly had a big effect on Macho Man’s work.

2. Macho Man got Elizabeth a job at WCW

Now as many know Macho man left WWE in 1994 and started to work in WCW. Elizabeth as well joined WCW in 1996 which was cool as once she left WWF/WWE in 1992 she mainly stayed out of the spotlight. A few years pass and Macho decided to give Elizabeth a call about her coming back to earn extra money at WCW. There was a ton of money that WCW would make with Elizabeth with the company and pairing her back with Macho Man either as a manager or a rivalry. So Macho got WCW to sign Elizabeth to a 250 thousand dollar contract which was a lot of money at the time. That shows that Macho still had loyalty toward Elizabeth even though they were no longer together.

1. Elizabeth had a Love Affair with Lex Luger and it was Toxic

During Elizabeth’s WCW days she would actually have a relationship with pro wrestler Lex Luger. They both started dating after a storyline and it blended into real life. A big problem with the relationship, is that Lex Luger was already married and had kids. Which, yeah is never a good look for anyone cheating on there spouse. Here is the cherry on top, Elizabeth was living in the same house that Luger’s wife was, which is double horrible.

It gets worse as this relationship was extremely toxic. There were Domestiv Violence issues betweeen both of them. The police had to be called one incident where Elizabeth got black eyes from “falling down the stairs”. Which I am not so sure is true and Linda Hogan would agree as it just does not add up.

Elizabeth even got hooked on drugs during her time with Luger. Scott Hall was quoted saying, “She took the same amount of drugs as Luger. Luger was 285 pounds and she was 85 pounds”. Which yeah was not a smart idea for her to do, taking the large amount of drugs her weight. She even combined taking drugs with Vodka, which is a terrible decision. Especially as nobody should ever take any form of medication with alcohol as it is dangerous. Unfortunately Elizabeth did and she would pass away on May 1, 2003 due to a drug overdose. This whole relationship with Luger was extremely toxic and it would end up costing Elizabeth her life.

My Thoughts on the Documentary

This was a solid documentary and I learned a bit more about the relationship between Randy Savage and Elizabeth. I wished that the documentary looked a bit more about there time together in International Championship Wrestling, but that is a nitpick.

The MVP if the documentary to me is Linda Hogan. Now, I am not a fan of Linda Hogan the person as she has said and done things that don’t paint her in a good light. However, she was solid in this documentary and was great speaking in this as she knew Elizabeth the most. Lanny Poffo Macho’s brother was also great as well in this documentary.

Overall to me this is more of a cautionary tale. The lesson here is to never be over controlling on your spouse despite the environment that a person is in. But there will never be a great wrestling/manager duo than Macho Man Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth. I wish both were still alive today as it would have been cool to have met them in real life and get there views on pro wrestling today. Rest in Peace Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth.