Here's How Much Slim Jim Paid Randy Savage For Those Commercials
Even when Randy Savage was at the height of his wrestling career, he still didn't earn nearly as much money from it as you'd think for a Hall of Famer who's still a household name 10 years after his death. According to the payroll data released by Chris Harrington, Savage's top-earning year with the WCW, 1997, netted him just under $2 million. Not bad, but when you consider that golfer Greg Norman earned over $29 mil that same year, a motorcycle racer named Mick Doohan raked in $8 mil, and even some dude named Mark Philippoussis (who?) pulled down nearly $3 mil for playing tennis (via Top End Sports), well ... you'd think the Macho Man would have done a little better out of his career in the ring.
Still, Savage wasn't exactly living in poverty when he met his untimely death, as he left an estate estimated at around $8 million (via Celebrity Net Worth). Was he just really good at banking his earnings? Well, maybe, but it also helped that he had a pretty sweet side gig: Slim Jim spokesman from 1993 through 2000.
Slim Jim kept Savage's wrestling career going
While Slim Jim apparently hasn't made public the exact amount paid to their best-known pitchman, he was evidently worth a great deal to them. As Eric Bischoff told 411Mania, when Savage left the WWF in 1996 to go wrestle for the WCW, at that time "it [was] close to $1 million a year in revenue that just walked through the door along with Randy Savage." Slim Jim remained a major sponsor of WCW, at that time WWF's biggest competitor, throughout Savage's run with the company, as this promo for WCW Halloween Havoc 1997 (via YouTube) clearly shows. In fact, the Macho Man even riffs off his commercial catchphrase, as he can be heard saying, "Snap into the madness!"
Not only was Slim Jim paying Savage generously (one presumes) for the commercials, as well as generating big bucks for the WCW brand, but they actually covered his paycheck for the first year he wrestled with WCW. As Eric Bischoff admitted on his 83 Weeks YouTube show (via Sportskeeda), "Randy's first contract was completely subsidized by Slim Jim." Going back to Chris Harrington's data, we see that in 1996 Savage was paid nearly $750K, so that was a pretty decent little perk. Even though the Macho Man is long gone to that squared circle in the sky (breaking his harp over the Ultimate Warrior's head, no doubt) those Savage Sticks that bear his likeness mean he's still one of the most successful sponsors for the brand.