10 Rare Wrestling Contract Clauses You Never Knew
8. Randy Savage Makes WCW Sign His Brother
Fans remember Lanny Poffo most for his crowd-pleasing run in the WWF in the ‘80s as Leaping Lanny and then (after he stopped chucking frisbees to the audience) turning heel and becoming The Genius with his cap and gown and showboating poems. He was an entertaining midcarder but would forever be in the shadow of his more famous brother Randy ‘Macho Man’ Savage.
But Randy looked out for his brother who he was very close to, so when he inked a deal with WCW in 1994 one of the conditions of him coming in was that WCW had to hire Lanny too. Poffo has spoken of what Randy had in mind for him when he signed with WCW, commenting “Randy had an idea to make me Gorgeous George. I bleached my hair and got extensions. Randy kept up with me, he wanted me to tan every day, and work out every day. He’d always check on me and say ‘When that phone rings you better be ready’, and the phone never rang.”
The phone never rang because WCW had zero plans for Lanny, signing him solely to appease his brother. He sat at home for four years collecting cheque after cheque without being used on TV or house shows much to the discouragement of other wrestlers in the organisation like Chris Jericho.