10 Meanest Backstage Wrestling Feuds
5. Randy Savage Vs. Hulk Hogan
‘The Macho Man’ Randy Savage had long exhibited neurotic behaviour when it came to his onscreen valet and real life wife Elizabeth Hulette. When the time came for a split from his tag team partnership with Hulk Hogan - the Mega Powers - the WWF elected to play off Savage’s well known protective instincts, and have him become irrationally jealous of Hogan’s friendship with his wife.
In this case, real life imitated art. Sometime in 1992, when Savage and Hulette were either separated or actually divorced - but certainly after the couple had split - Hogan and his then-wife Linda had invited Elizabeth to go on vacation with them to Miami. Hogan didn’t tell Savage his ex was joining them on holiday, let alone tell him that she was bringing her new boyfriend.
Like all unreasonably jealous men, Savage went off the deep end when he found out about the ‘deception’, turning up at their hotel to confront Elizabeth and blaming Hogan for not informing him. For his part, Hogan (who wasn’t really in the wrong until this point) abdicated any kind of responsibility, pretending he hadn’t known that she was there with anyone else.
Savage never forgave Hogan for the lapse, and over the following years developed an intense personal dislike of the man stemming from his supposed cowardice and double-dealing attitude.
While it’s a murky grey area as to whether any kind of wrestlers’ ‘bro code’ genuinely obligated Hogan to keep Savage updated as to the comings and goings of his ex-wife, Savage wasn’t actually wrong about him: Hogan was and still is notorious for his two-faced attitude, his lies and his manipulation of the people around him.
For years, Savage despised Hogan, even after retiring from the ring. Shortly after Savage passed away in 2011, Hogan began surfacing telling everyone how devastated he was, and that he and Savage had reconciled only months before the heart attack that killed him.
No one believed Hogan, of course - by this point, he’d been caught out in so many bare-faced lies in interviews designed to make himself more sympathetic that very few people ever believed Hogan about anything. That’s why it was considered the height of bad taste that Hogan was selected to induct Savage into the WWE Hall Of Fame four years later: people simply didn’t believe that Savage had ever forgiven him.
In fact, this was one of the few occasions where Hogan had been telling the truth - or, at least, a version of it. In fact, he and Savage had buried the hatchet, when bumping into one another at a hospital appointment. Of course, that didn’t stop him mocking Savage in fan Q&As weeks before Savage’s death, playing their falling out for laughs aimed squarely at his supposed friend… but that’s Hulk Hogan for you.