The amount of skeletons in the closets of many wrestling personalities is insurmountable. Many have done some pretty despicable things in the past, and not just in the WWE. Certain performers aren’t very proud of those decisions and others are shamelessly proud of them. However, for all the bad things that are known and confirmed, there is an equal amount of things that are only assumed or believed to be true with no confirmation ever present. These allegations and rumors can hurt the performers they regard or just simply become a piece of wrestling lore. It truly depends on how believable the rumor is, and when it comes to the rumor about Stephanie McMahon and “Macho Man” Randy Savage, there’s a lot to be unpacked.
UPDATE: 2023/09/21 14:30 EST BY MICHAEL CHIN
A big part of why the rumors of romantic involvement between Randy Savage and Stephanie McMahon were so intriguing and have not gone away across a period of decades comes down to each individual’s significance to the professional wrestling business. Yes, people tend to love a piece of salacious gossip. But this gossip involves a former world champion and WrestleMania main eventer who is in the conversation among the greatest pro wrestlers who ever lived. On the other side, there’s Vince McMahon’s daughter, which would be provocative enough on its own, but takes on even more meaning given everything Stephanie has done in the business over the last twenty-five years.
The Rumor Was That Randy Savage And Stephanie McMahon Were Involved Romantically
Everyone knows about early 1990s WWE, and how awful the product was becoming. They were losing viewership, losing money, and losing stars. One of the biggest stars they lost was Randy Savage, but after WCW was bought by Vince McMahon, all the top stars from the company made their debut or return to the WWE at some point. Ric Flair came by the end of that year, NWO not long after, Goldberg about a year later, and Sting almost 15 years later. However, the one person who never came back was “Macho Man” Randy Savage. There could be many reasons why he and Vince McMahon never reconciled, but one reason in particular started to rumble among fans during the Monday Night War, and more fomally took shape in 2004.
A wrestling message board called Death Valley Driver posted a prompt telling users to drop their craziest wrestling dirt they know about. After over a hundred of the wackiest posts, only one stuck in the minds of fans. It was that Stephanie McMahon and Randy Savage were hooking up in the 90s, Vince McMahon found about it, and that’s why Savage left the company. Never mind why so many people believed a random post by a random person on a random wrestling message board, but the user couldn’t even do simple math and said Stephanie was 14 years old at the time. Stephanie was born 1976, so she would’ve been 18 years old.
Randy Savage’s Ex-Girlfriend Claims The Rumor Is True
The biggest supporting claim to the rumor and the biggest reason why so many people believe that it’s true is that Randy Savage was never brought back to WWE. Bret Hart, Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior all had real issues with Vince, but they were all still brought back because Vince knows what’s best for business, so the big question was what could Savage have done so wrong that Vince never wanted him back? Well, an affair with his daughter would be a pretty good reason as to why.
Another big piece of evidence pointing towards the claim being true is that Macho Man’s ex-girlfriend, Stephanie Bellars, revealed that Savage accidentally spilled the beans to her. She claimed that they were sitting on a beach, high as a kite on ectsasy and that he admitted “everything” to her. She never went into what Savage actually said to her as her answer to the question was extremely vague.
Other small things have come out in the many years since the rumor started such as Hardcore Holly saying, in his book, that they were always friendly with each other, Dutch Mantell saying that Savage was ordered to stay away from Stephanie, and the fact that Macho Man wasn’t inducted into the Hall of Fame until four years after his death. However, perhaps the biggest thing is that no one has ever outright denied the claim. Bruce Prichard says he believes it’s not true, but never explicitly denied it.
There’s Plenty Of Evidence Showing The Rumor Is False
If that was everything this urban legend had to offer, then it’d be obvious that it was true, but it’s not everything. Conveniently, around the time that the rumor hit the message boards, Triple H did an interview where he called Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage dinosaurs. Hogan didn’t really care, but Savage took offense to those words. He then posted a video on his website where he said that Hogan was a punk, he’d slap Triple H around, and that he’d steal Triple H’s girl and “take her around the block.” An outburst like that seems like another good reason why Vince would never want Savage back in his company.
Again, other small things point towards the contrary. Bruce Prichard claimed that the WWE and Macho Man were actually in negotiations in 1996. Savage also had issues with Hogan, who was brought back in 2002. Savage did an interview for WWE Magazine in 2003, and apparently, he was actually asked to go into the Hall of Fame as early as 2010 but didn’t want to go in without his HOF-worthy brother and father.
Randy Savage And Stephanie McMahon Both Have Hall Of Fame-Worthy Legacies
Looking back to the earliest days of this rumor—emerging when Randy Savage was still alive and Stephanie McMahon was just getting started as an on-air personality for WWE during the Monday Night War–it can be remarkable to consider how much time has passed and how much has changed.
For his part, Randy Savage had already established most of his legacy by the time rumors of his relationship with McMahon started. Nonetheless, the end of his career and then his untimely passing have since bolstered his legendary status as fans appreciate how far ahead of his time he was as a high-flying main eventer and on the mic.
In regards to McMahon, she was once best known simply for being the boss’s daughter but has certainly made a name for himself. Between her on-air authority figure work, actually stepping into the ring multiple times, and perhaps most importantly her efforts as an executive behind the scenes, she has become one of the most important figures in WWE history.
The fact that this rumor even got this much support to begin with is crazy, but a rumor is all it is, and that’s all it’ll ever be until it’s substantiated by someone directly involved. Unfortunately, The Macho Man passed away in 2011, and Stephanie McMahon will probably never sully her reputation by even acknowledging this situation in any way. Therefore, as fans are left with the unknown, they’ll have to use their imaginations.