The Macho Man Randy Savage Cooking Show That Almost Existed
Macho Man Randy Savage was a one-man entertainment powerhouse. He could have single-handedly put the "E" in "WWE" (those letters stand for World Wrestling Entertainment, in case you're not up on your acronyms), except for the fact that much of his wrestling career took place in the era where that brand was still known as the WWF (standing for World Wrestling Federation – they were less anxious to break kayfabe back in the day). While his early attempt at a baseball career was kind of a bust, he was an undeniable superstar within the confines of the squared circle and was also successful in his brief foray into rap as well as his not-so-brief stint as one of the most iconic product pitchmen of all time.
There's one thing we never got to see, though, that would have been totally epic – a Randy Savage cooking show! Can you imagine if he were still around today, having him go on Hell's Kitchen and taking down Gordon Ramsay with a flying elbow drop? Or perhaps he could have thrown down with Bobby Flay by literally throwing Bobby Flay down...right though a couple of ringside seats. Well, once upon a time, back in the '90s, Savage starred in a cooking show that was so not-ready-for-prime-time that only four episodes were produced: a never-aired series called Wrestlin' Up Some Grub.
The Macho-est cooking show (n)ever
YouTuber Jim Strauser posted a short clip of the show, which featured the not-at-all-short Big Show, The Bushwhackers, Brian Knobs (one half of the Nasty Boys tag team), and of course, Savage. Unbelievably, neither the WWF (as it was then) nor Food Network wanted to air the show, nor did any other network he pitched it to. Strauser discovered a VHS tape with these priceless lost episodes while sorting through his late father's effects and said he was working to clean up the audio with the intent of posting all 4 episodes in their entirety at a later date. Since that first clip aired late in the Obama administration, it seems the lost episodes still aren't ready to come to light just yet.
What little we can see of the show, however, is pretty action-packed. It starts off with Big Show cooking up some sort of vegetable medley, but then Savage comes out in sunglasses and a black beret to deliver a Slim Jims plug, show off his dramatic meat cleaver technique, and give one of the show's chef hosts an "attitude adjustment" that involves having ground meat rubbed in his face.
Macho Man does get a shout-out in the WWE cookbook
We never actually do find out what Savage intends to cook (if he even does intend to cook anything) in his cooking show appearance, and it appears he also did not contribute a recipe to Can You Take the Heat? The WWF is Cooking!, a cookbook released in 2000 and put together by legendary ring announcer Jim Ross (via Amazon). Should he have done so, however, we've no doubt that Slim Jims would have featured prominently.
A more recent wrestling-themed cookbook, 2019's WWE: The Official Cookbook, does include a recipe created in his honor: "Macho Man's Savage Nachos" (via Simon & Schuster). (Unlike the WWF cookbook, all of the recipes here come from a single developer and have been "inspired by the WWE Universe" rather than being solicited from the wrestlers themselves as was the case with the earlier effort.) Blogger Michael Cavacini cooked up this dish, along with a side of Mick Foley Guacamole, and verified that the recipe indeed, contains chopped Slim Jims along with ground beef, cheese, chips, salsa, and all the other standard nacho accouterments. Sadly, his own version was Slim Jim-free – not because he did not want to include them, but because they were all sold out by the time he got to the store. It seems that when times get stressful (he was cooking during quarantine), the stressed get snapping – something we feel Savage would have approved. Also, we're totally adding Slim Jims to our nachos from now on. Oooh yeah!