Big thumbs up from me. As a big fan of the exuberance of Macho Man, I knew this was going to be good! I might’ve been watching wrestling since I was small, but this still taught me loads. This made me laugh, made me cry a little and just was the perfect end to my 2023 reading. More wrestling biographies please!

This book was sooooo good, until the minute Randy started wrestling professionally. When he started wrestling, it became the usual play by play of matches and storylines, with zero insight into the person. I had so many questions about Randy’s life that didn’t get answered. Where was Angelo during the WWF era? He shows up for a minute in the WCW time, but all the years before that, invisible. What was his life with Elizabeth like offstage? When did he find time to read? Anything besides wrestling.

I love Randy and Lanny and it bothers me that Randy got a bio that was filled with stuff I can see on YouTube and get more details on “Dark Side Of The Ring”.

This had great potential, but there was no depth at all. If you like this kind of book, you’ll like it, but it wasn’t enough for me.

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

🟡Macho Man: The Life of Randy Savage🟣
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
This book was absolutely amazing and had me hooked for the introduction. Jon Finkel did an extraordinary job traversing Randy Savage’s life starting as young boy traveling with his family during his father’s pro wrestling days, to the events leading up to his attempts at reaching his dream of becoming and nearly succeeding in becoming a major league ball player.

Next up were his wrestling days, from the ICW, to the WWF, into the WCW, Jon does a fantastic job of touching on major moments in Randy’s wrestling career, while still adding some really intricate and interesting details. He did a great job of touching on the highest of highs, along with some of the darker moments of his career. As a wrestling fan in the 1990’s, this book brought back a wave of memories in the best way possible, that had me reminiscing about some of the names that popped up as I was reading.

I received this book as an ARC in exchange for an honest review, but I can say with 100% honesty that I will be picking up a physical copy when it hits shelves in early April of 2024.

Growing up in the 1980's I watched professional wrestling on the WWF. I loved it all. The pageantry, the rivalries, the characters.

When I saw someone write a book about Macho Man Randy Savage, I was hopeful. I wanted to know so much about Randy. His life, his loves, his career, his thoughts.

This book tackles a few of my wants. It talked about his early life. It talked about baseball, his family, and some of his career.

HOWEVER, as I was reading this book, I watched Vice's The Dark Side of the Ring about Randy and Elizabeth. This book began to quote that TV show VERBATIM!

I learned only a few new things from the book, that I didn't get from the Vice show. 1. Macho Man was in SpiderMan and 2. How he met his second wife.

I thought that Vice did a better job at portraying Randy's career then this book.
This book did a better job of documenting Randy's early life and baseball career.

Overall I was left disappointed with this book, it was a rehashing of what VICE covered and lots of novelization of matches that I had watched 40 years ago.

I didn't learn about the charities that Randy supported, I didn't learn about second wife, I didn't learn about Randy's thoughts on the business and how it changed over the years....it was just blah.

I got this book from Netgalley so I can read and review it before it’s published.

I have already read two books by Jon Finkel (1996 and Hoops Heist) last year, and really enjoyed them and his style of writing. So, when I saw this book he wrote about the Macho Man, I didn’t have to think twice about downloading it.

Before I begin, I do need to point out that I knew who he was as I watched wrestling when I was younger. I was at the heyday of the wrestling age in the mid 80’s to early 90’s. I watched him along with most of the other wrestlers mentioned in the book. I did find myself watching YouTube videos of the Macho Man quite often throughout the book. I think it was the fun and entertainment of it and I never did try any of the moves at home on may older brother or parents. Did I know it was fake? I don’t remember.

I even had some of the thumb wrestlers action figures, and a friend of the family made me a small wrestling ring so those action figures can get some action.

Back to the book…

I had no idea his dad and brother were wrestlers. I had no idea that he played minor league baseball. His dad actually built a wrestling ring in the basement along with a weight room, and outside, he built a batting cage.
His baseball career ended because of an injury, so Randy took up wrestling. This book shares how Randy Poffo becomes Randy Savage becomes Macho Man Randy Savage along with a lot of quick insight to some of his key matches and influences besides his dad.

For every match, Savage had everything written out on what will happen. Even his wife got to be his manager and that itself was a show within a show.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one.

‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage deserves an excellent biography. Jon Finkel has, somehow, managed to achieve that. Finkel captures the Macho Man’s soul in this biography. A portrait of a complicated man is painted; Savage was far more than the larger-than-life character is portrayed to the world. Finkel has clearly done his homework and countless interviews, intertwined with many memorable moments, are lovingly laid before the reader.
The biography is a must for any wrestling fan. It also will appeal to lapsed wrestling fans, of which I count myself as one, and taps into the zeitgeist of the mid-80s and early ‘90s in the World Wrestling Foundation. No, “taps” is the wrong word. The reader is hit by an elbow off the top turnbuckle regularly throughout this excellent biography.
Finkel tries to capture Savage as best a biographer can when the subject has passed. The Savage he presents is a nuanced, flawed, determined individual. Savage was motivated almost to a fault. Whether it was his fledgling baseball career or his years at the wrestling pinnacle, Savage had a habit of trying too hard. What this did produce was an individual who strove for greatness and Finkel presents many examples within the pages.
One theme that runs throughout this book is love. Love for Savage and from Savage himself is abundant. There are many anecdotes from other wrestling greats that punctuate how Savage was seen by his peers. Savage’s brother, Lanny, is a constant voice in the biography. This provides a sympathetic appraisal, but further enhances Finkel’s storytelling.
If you are unsure whether to read this book, I can only steal from the great man himself and say, “Oooooh yeeeah!”.

This was one of the most underwhelming wrestling bios in a long time. It felt like it was written by a fan who had no journalist experience and without an editor.

Ohhhh yeah! This is the biography of one of the best wrestlers of all time and that wrestler is the Macho Man Randy Savage, dig it!

I hated Randy Savage with a passion as a kid for what he did to Ricky Steamboat leading up to their showdown at Wrestlemania III. I eventually softened and enjoyed his matches, even though he seemed genuinely crazy a lot of the time. When the ARC of this became available, I jumped on it.

This was pretty bad ass, even though it failed my usual wrestling book test by taking 20% to get to the wrestling bits. With Macho Man, I had to make an exception because Macho Man's obsession with baseball and his insane dedication to be a pro adds a lot to the rest of the tale.

Finkel covers Savage's life and career from beginning to end. He goes pretty deep into the pre-WWF stuff, which is what I was most interested in. The book feels a little lopsided, though. I think I was around 60% at Wrestlemania III with 15 or so years left to cover. WCW is given a brief account and the aborted TNA run isn't even mentioned. The rest of the book is excellent, though. Very thorough. There's a lot of stuff I've never heard before, like Savage making Jake Roberts take the bite from the cobra first and a lot of the ICW and Memphis stuff was new to me.

This is an ARC so I wasn't too harsh but I noticed a couple errors. The championship Angelo Poffo beat Wilbur Snyder for was the NWA United States Championship, not the NWA Championship. Also, Tito Santana's finisher was the Flying Burrito, not the Flying Jalapeno. There was also a sentence in the Ric Flair angle that 'Ric' was used instead of 'Randy' talking about baseball.

Errors and not going into Savage's later career as much as I would like, this was a fantastic wrestling book. 4.5 out of 5 stars. So Snap into it!

I grew up watching WWE so it was great to be able to learn more about the Macho Man we knew as Randy Savage.

This book is a fantastic tribute to Macho Man Randy Savage. Jon Finkel gets the tone completely right as he documents the life story of one of the greatest ever wrestlers. It includes many enjoyable anecdotes from Macho's friends and foes, and delivers a heartfelt, absorbing read.