Oooh, Yeah! Macho mania lives in music

By By Will Bardwell / staff writer
Oct. 16, 2003
Macho Man Randy Savage has put out a rap album. I kid you not.
I first saw the commercial for it a few nights ago and thought it was a joke, but I assure you it is not. It has all these young, hard, angry thug-types, and then you've got Grandpa Savage rapping while he struts around with a chain. I'm pretty sure he yells a derogatory remark about Hulk Hogan at the end of the TV spot, but I couldn't clearly hear MC Randy over my own screams of horror.
Never in my life have I wanted something so stupid, but I must have that CD.
What kind of career progression has this guy put together? Even if you're not addicted to pro wrestling (I've been sober for almost two years now, thank you), you will probably remember the Macho Man's signature "OOOH YEAH!" either from his days in the WWF or Ted Turner's WCW.
Well, no man can wrestle forever. Savage fought valiantly against the receding hair line and wrinkles, but once he started using a walker to make it to ringside, I guess the fans stopped taking him seriously. So of course the natural step after retirement was to do endorsements for beef jerkey.
Soon, Savage was on my TV no less than 300 times a day exclaiming, "Snap into a Slim Jim, OOOH YEAH!"
I suppose one can only snap into so many Slim Jims, though. Maybe the big fella got downsized in the sluggish economy. Whatever happened, Savage fell off the face of the earth until last week.
Apparently during the down time, Savage was learning to express himself creatively through angry, violent rap music. He also made some interesting friends who appear with him in the commercial. The walker was nowhere to be seen, presumably melted down into the aforementioned chain.
While, sadly, I haven't been able to get my hands on a copy of the album, "Be a Man," I was able to find some lyrics on the internet. Savage describes the collection as a musical autobiography, but looking over the lyrics, it reads more like "The Berenstein Bears."
The CD's title track is a gauntlet thrown down to Hulk Hogan. What's the deal with these guys? At one point they were tag team partners, and even though that was 10 years ago, they still have plenty in common steroids, hair dye, and the list goes on.
But I digress. In the Macho Man's defining song, he insults and challenges Hogan with the words, "You've been running from Macho like I got a disease."
Powerful words.
Sends chills up your spine or maybe just your semi-digested breakfast back up your esophagus. Whatever.
Not that I'm confusing pro wrestling for a sport, but why in the world do athletes always want to get into music? You're rich. Your job is to play a game. Do you really have to clutter the $4.95 music section at Wal-Mart with your drivel?
Remember Shaquille O'Neal's rap albums from about 10 years ago? "Shaq Diesel" and "Shaq Fu" were actually pretty big hits. Heck, the latter album even had a video game created about it.
O'Neal treated us to such melodic delights as "I'm Outstanding" and "I Know I Got Skillz."
Allen Iverson put out an album a few years ago too, and the charges of anti-gay lyrics didn't help his popularity very much. Even the Hulkster himself had a self-titled album called "Hulk Hogan and the Wrestling Boot Band," which included such ground-breaking classics as "Hulk's the One," "Hulkster in Heaven," and "Beach Patrol."
To put the popularity of Hogan's album into context, consider the following. Amazon.com, one of the internet's biggest music stores where you can find a limitless supply of almost anything, has only three copies of Hogan's CD left.
Not 300. Not 30. Not even 13. Three.
It looks like the crowd is still going wild for Hogan's music after all if they've gobbled up all but a handful of his records.
You know who's really to blame for this? The Chicago Bears. If not for Walter Payton, Jim McMahon and The Fridge recording that "Super Bowl Shuffle" garbage, the would-be singers of the sporting world wouldn't have even considered a singing career.
I suppose the franchise is paying for its sins now with one of the worst teams in the NFL, but that doesn't change the fact that their blunder has led to Randy Savage pimping his own rap album pimping it so well, in fact, that I've got to have it.
At least in a few months it'll only be $4.95.