Welcome back humanoids!! Hope you all had a good holiday weekend, and now back to it!! So when we last left off, Hogan and Savage had just stumbled upon a new alliance if you will. Their alliance solidified Savage’s change into a fan favorite, which had been brewing for weeks as fan support grew for him. Later that night, during a backstage interview with “Mean Gene” Okerlund, Savage and Hogan shook hands again and Savage referred to themselves for the first time as the Mega Powers. Hogan stated that “the combination of ‘Hulkamania’ and ‘Macho Madness’ may become the most powerful force in WWF history”.
Over the next four months, Hogan and Savage would team up several times. The first being at a house show in Vancouver on November 10, 1987. It was a six-man tag team match with Hogan and Savage teaming with Hacksaw Jim Duggan to defeat the team of King Kong Bundy, “Ravishing” Rick Rude and King Harley Race. Their second tag team match was held in Huntsville, Alabama on January 5, 1988. It was a dark match at a television taping where Hogan and Savage defeated the team of Honky Tonk Man and the Hart Foundation in a handicap match. Another six-man tag team match was held in Montreal on February 8, 1988 with Hogan and Savage teaming up with Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat to defeat the Honky Tonk Man and the Hart Foundation.
On the March 12, 1988 episode of Saturday Night’s Main Event, Savage wrestled “The Million Dollar” Man Ted DiBiase in a singles match. DiBiase was accompanied by Virgil and André The Giant. Halfway through the match the referee ejected Virgil from ringside for outside interference. The match ended when Andre took advantage of the referee being incapacitated and rammed Savage into the ringpost. When the referee came to he counted Savage out of the ring. Following the match, Virgil returned to the ring and joined DiBiase and Andre in a 3-on-1 beating of Savage. Elizabeth ran away from ringside and when she returned she was with Hulk Hogan, who ran into the ring carrying a steel chair. Hogan saved Randy from any further attacks by chasing the trio out of the ring. Afterwards, Hogan helped Savage back to his feet.
At Wrestlemania 4, a tournament was made to decide a new WWF World Heavyweight Champion after Hogan “lost” the title to André the Giant at The Main Event on February 5, 1988. André immediately surrendered the belt to “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase. It was revealed that DiBiase had hired referee Dave Hebner’s twin brother, Earl, to pretend to be Dave and give Hogan a bogus three count when Hulk’s shoulder was clearly off the mat before the count of three. Between the referee cheating Hogan, André forfeiting the title and DiBiase’s illegal attempt to buy the title, this caused WWF President Jack Tunney to declare the championship vacant.
Hogan and André were both given byes in the first round of the tournament, but fought to a double-disqualification in the quarterfinals. This had the side effect of giving Ted DiBiase a bye in the semifinals. Ultimately, Savage and DiBiase met in the final match of the tournament. The “Million Dollar Man” did all that he could to take out Savage (including the constant interference of André, who was acting as DiBiase’s second for this match), but he couldn’t keep him down. Savage eventually went to Elizabeth, whispering something to her. She ran backstage, as the fans were trying to figure out what was going on.
A few minutes later, Elizabeth re-emerged with Hogan. André and DiBiase seemed shocked by the turn of events. Hogan got revenge on DiBiase by hitting him in the back with a steel chair while André had distracted the referee by preventing Savage from getting to the ropes while locked in DiBiase’s Million Dollar Dream. Savage was able to hit his diving elbow drop finisher and got the three count. After the match, they celebrated as a group.
A few months later, with Hogan on leave of absence from the WWF and Savage feuding with DiBiase over the title, DiBiase and André attacked Savage during an interview segment prompting Savage to challenge the two to a tag team match against him and a partner of his choosing, which was accepted. Savage then revealed that his partner would be the returning Hogan. They let the fans know that they would meet André and DiBiase at SummerSlam.
Their official televised debut match as a tag team was at SummerSlam ’88. They went against André the Giant and “The Million Dollar Man” Ted DiBiase in a match billed as “The Mega Powers versus the Mega Bucks”. Jesse “The Body” Ventura, a longtime supporter of Savage’s but a longtime adversary of Hogan’s, served as referee for this match. The match didn’t go as planned for the Mega Bucks. Elizabeth exposed her assets in skimpy panties after stripping off her skirt to the heels, resulting in the Mega Powers coming back to win the match. Ventura counted but stopped at two because he hesitated, so Savage forced the three-count.
After SummerSlam, The Mega Powers were on top of the wrestling world. However, the two had an uneasy relationship, particularly when it became obvious Hogan would act friendly and/or protective toward Elizabeth. On two occasions on Saturday Night’s Main Event, Hogan was insistent on Elizabeth appearing at ringside for his matches versus King Haku and Akeem. In the latter instance, Elizabeth’s was endangered by Akeem and his allies, Slick and The Big Boss Man when Big Boss Man grabbed Elizabeth and placed her in handcuffs; before Big Boss Man could use his nightstick to strike Elizabeth, Savage ran out and made the save. While Savage showed concern for Elizabeth, he disregarded Hogan, who was still reeling from being attacked by The Big Boss Man and Akeem.
At the 1988 Survivor Series, Hogan and Savage captained a team that faced a five-member squad headed by Big Boss Man and Akeem (who by now were being billed as the Twin Towers). Hogan and Savage eventually won the match (last eliminating Haku; Big Boss Man and Akeem had been counted out and disqualified, respectively); during the post-match posing, Hogan again began acting friendly toward Elizabeth, visibly annoying Savage. In a post-match interview, pro-heel commentator Jesse Ventura interviewed Savage, playing up Savage’s growing anger regarding Hogan’s behavior toward Elizabeth. However, Elizabeth was not the only reason Hogan and Savage had issues with each other during their stint as a team. At the 1989 Royal Rumble, Hogan accidentally eliminated Savage in the Royal Rumble match when he went to put out Bad News Brown (with whom Savage was having a concurrent feud). The two appeared to make amends at the behest of their manager, but Savage was clearly upset after the event (which was ultimately won by Big John Studd).
Things came to a full boil on NBC’s prime-time special, The Main Event in 1989, when the two wrestled The Twin Towers. During the match, Akeem threw Savage out of the ring. Savage was thrown onto Elizabeth, knocking her unconscious. Hogan saw what happened and carried Elizabeth from the ring to the medical area. When Elizabeth was revived, she implored a distraught Hogan to return to the ring to help Savage, who had been left to fight the two gargantuans on his own for several minutes. Hogan eventually called for the tag, but Savage, who was furious with being abandoned during the match, slapped Hogan in the face. After some choice words to a confused Hogan, he took his world championship belt, and stormed back to the locker room. Hogan defeated The Twin Towers by himself. After the match, Hogan went to check on Elizabeth. Savage was back there too, who was caught in mid-tirade yelling to Elizabeth that as world champion he was tired of taking a backseat to both Hogan and Elizabeth in the Mega Powers pecking order.
Upon Hogan’s arrival, Savage turned his frustration to him, accused Hogan of trying to steal Elizabeth from him, and manipulate the belt away from him. Hogan implored Elizabeth to try and talk some sense into him before Savage attacked him by hitting him in the face with the title belt, sealing the end to their partnership and beginning their feud.
Hogan’s first response to Savage’s actions was to challenge him at WrestleMania for the WWF Championship, which Savage eventually accepted. Most of the leadup to the match involved two things: the first being Savage showing (heavily edited and out of context) footage to prove that Hogan “lusted after” Elizabeth, after which Hogan would respond by showing the footage in its proper context and with explanation; and the question of whose corner would Elizabeth be in. Elizabeth ultimately announced she would be in a neutral corner.
On April 2, 1989, Hulk Hogan and “Macho Man” Randy Savage decided to settle the score at WrestleMania V for the WWF Championship. Although Elizabeth was stationed in her “neutral corner” for the match, she was eventually ejected from ringside after too many complications were caused by her attempting to assist both men at different points in the match. After an even match between both, Hogan eventually prevailed after kicking out of a Savage’s diving elbow drop before “hulking up” and executing the leg drop to become WWF Champion for the second time.
The two would continue their feud in the months following WrestleMania. Savage eventually replaced Elizabeth as his manager with Sensational Sherri and aligned himself with Hogan’s co-star from the movie No Holds Barred, Tiny Lister (who appeared in character as Zeus, his role in the film). This extension of the angle would culminate at SummerSlam when Hogan and Brutus “the Barber” Beefcake (with a return appearance by Elizabeth) would defeat Savage and Zeus in the main event, and a December 1989 cage match between the two teams during a pay-per-view event entitled No Holds Barred: The Match, The Movie.
Savage and Hogan would meet one last time for a WrestleMania V rematch on the February 23, 1990 edition The Main Event with Heavyweight Boxing Champion James “Buster” Douglas as the guest referee. Hogan would come out victorious yet again with Savage knocked out by Douglas post-match. By this time, Savage had become the “Macho King”, with Sherri as his Queen, after having defeated Hacksaw Jim Duggan for his King of the Ring crown. That’s all for today peeps, catch you again next time.
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