25 Years Ago: Never Underestimate the “Mega” Power of a Woman

Randy Savage, Miss Elizabeth, and Hulk Hogan From John Cannon: Yeah, while I know the web address is georgiawrestlinghistory.com...

Randy Savage, Miss Elizabeth, and Hulk Hogan

From John Cannon:

Yeah, while I know the web address is georgiawrestlinghistory.com, but I also know that this here ultra-cool website reports on more than just Georgia, so the concentration is, well … a bit southern. After all, Georgia is in the deep south, and unless you lived in the most central points of the state in the territorial days, a lot of wrestling fans could see wrestling from multiple promotions, which is why we focus on more than just Georgia. The grass may be greener in your own back yard, but that doesn’t mean the grass on the other side is anything to scoff at.

Depending on where you lived, in addition to Georgia Championship Wrestling from Atlanta, you were able to watch Championship Wrestling from Florida (Tampa), Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling (Charlotte), Southeastern Championship Wrestling (Dothan), Macon Championship Wrestling, Columbus Championship Wrestling, and whatever other cool wrestling appeared on your local television screen. In the old days, wrestling was perfect for TV and even was part of the reason for television’s early rise in popularity. Oddly enough, what wrestling did for television, cable television ended up doing for wrestling.

Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth

Once cable television was more readily available for us common folk it was pretty cool. Now instead of wiggling the rabbit ears on the TV to try and pick up ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, and a few local independent UHF channels, you could now pick up other cool stations more clearly. Two of my faves were WTBS – home of World Championship Wrestling and other programs that started five minutes after the hour – and the USA Network. USA carried some cool shows, including a pair that I would go on to really love – Kung Fu Theater and WWF All-American Wrestling – both on Sunday mornings! For some of us who were teens in the 1980s in the south, WWF programming on USA was also a part of our wrestling education.

By the tail end of the decade, I was married with a super cute nearly two-year old daughter, and like most adults, I was just trying to make ends meet, but I still loved watching wrestling on television … only now with my kid. She would eventually become a Sting fan and wear her homemade Stinger mask in the early 1990s at a televised WCW event filmed in Augusta. As much as I admired the ruthlessness of WCW wrestlers, she loved the colorful ensembles of the WWF wrestlers. No one in wrestling was more colorful than the “Macho Man”, Randy Savage, who was perhaps more loved by kids than Hulk Hogan, and more looked up to by girls than Miss Elizabeth. When Savage’s music would hit, my daughter would yell Miss Elizabeth! like it was Elizabeth herself who was coming out to wrestle. That’s no weirder than the fact that she called the TV show Full House by a different name – Michelle.

Miss Elizabeth

So imagine if you will my daughter Alexis and I hunkered down on the sofa on February 3, 1989, watching the second ever edition of WWF’s the Main Event and getting ready to see if anything crazy was gonna happen that might affect the upcoming WrestleMania. Oh boy, did it! On this night, the Mega Powers – Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage, with Miss Elizabeth by their side – were set to take on the Twin Towers (Akeem and the Big Boss Man, with that annoying skinny manager Slick), and we were certain that whatever happened would lead up to the Mega Powers taking on Demolition for the tag title. If only Macho could keep his slowly simmering temper under wraps.

As history would go on to show, Elizabeth would become injured after accidentally being hit by Savage, who was thrown out of the ring by Akeem. Savage’s ever valiant tag team partner Hogan did what any good friend would do, and carried Miss Elizabeth to safety before returning to the ring to find a rather irate Savage, who tagged Hogan across the face before leaving. In classic fashion, the Hulkster continued the now lopsided match, eventually getting the win with a pin on Akeem. Now Miss Elizabeth was safe, and our heroes won the match, so all is hunky dory, right? Wrong!

After the match, Hogan headed backstage to check on Elizabeth, where he was accused by Savage of trying to pry her from the arms of the Macho Man – oooh, yeah! – and then hit with Macho’s WWF championship belt. And, just like that, the Mega Powers had imploded … over a woman no less, so no tag team title run … but wait … does that mean?

Yup – Hulk Hogan to challenge “Macho Man” Randy Savage at WrestleMania V for the WWF Title, where Hogan would end Savage’s WrestleMania to WrestleMania title run with one of his own.