10 Toxic Real-Life Wrestling Relationships
7. Hulk Hogan & Macho Man Randy Savage
The love/hate relationship between Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage had all the narrative beats of a traditional wrestling storyline with the exception of a happy ending that never arrived before the Macho Man's untimely 2011 death.
Having briefly worked together in 1985, the two became a wrestling supergroup in 1987, when the recently-turned Savage found himself on the wrong end of a three-on-one attack by the Honky Tonk Man and the Hart Foundation.
The duo were constantly featured as a unit from that point, leading up to Randy's emotional WWE Title win at WrestleMania IV. A spectacular one year storyline saw Savage become gradually jealous of Hogan's platonic relationship with Miss Elizabeth, with their evocative unravelling occurring in time for box office thunderbolt WrestleMania V.
Hogan's eventual departure from the company in 1993 left behind bad blood, as Savage spoke on air of his disdain for the 'Hulkster', privately blaming him and wife Linda for the real-life breakdown of his marriage with Elizabeth.
Money sealed old wounds in 1994 though, as Savage joined Hulk in WCW, where the two would work as partners and foes repeatedly for a creatively dire but financially fruitful six years before respective contract disputes saw both head for the exit.
Randy's mid-life crisis 2003 hip hop album 'Be A Man' was an unapologetic public call-out of Hogan, but Savage seemed less keen when the two briefly crossed paths in TNA in 2004. Hogan posthumously inducted the Macho Man into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2015, closing the book on their fractious association.