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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: August 26, 1991
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: WWF SummerSlam 1991
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: Professional wrestling, especially the brand of pro wrestling produced by Vince McMahon’s WWE, has always been a testosterone-infused soap opera. The major organizing principle behind at least a third of a greatest feuds in wrestling history has been the betrayal of a partnership. During the heyday of the then-WWF’s 1980s run, champion Hulk Hogan took on two kinds of challengers: evil foreigners out to destroy America (the Iron Sheik from Iran; Nikolai Volkov from the Soviet Union; hell, Rowdy Roddy Piper was from Scotland) and former friends whose ambition and jealousy led them to betray him (Andre the Giant; “Macho Man” Randy Savage). This is obviously the stuff of well-plotted soaps. Which is why it shouldn’t be a surprise that the WWE has been host to a handful of weddings. Now, most of those weddings go horribly wrong. The groom gets attacked or the bride proves to be a treacherous jezebel or, in one particular case, it turns out the bride-to-be and daughter of the boss got drugged and married her dad’s arch-rival in a drive-through chapel in Vegas (only to be revealed later that she was in on the plan all along). For example.
What makes the wedding at SummerSlam 1991 different, special even, is that it was played completely straight. Because the wedding at SummerSlam ’91 was the culmination of the greatest love story in pro wrestling history. Dubbed the “Match Made in Heaven and the Match Made in Hell,” SummerSlam ’91 featured a double main event: a tag-team match featuring Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate warrior facing American turncoat Sergeant Slaughter and his team of Iraqi sympathizers; and in the second half … a wedding.
[Low-key best thing about SummerSlam ’91? Vince McMahon’s intro that begins with a reference to Porgy & Bess.]
The legend of the “Macho Man” Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth is as well known as any. Elizabeth was Savage’s valet when he hit it big in the WWF in the mid-’80s. Their dynamic was pretty uncomfortable: she showed him near-silent devotion, holding the ring ropes open for him as he entered, holding his robes, clapping for him and looking distressed when he was losing. In return, he would treat her brusquely at best, often berating her when things would go wrong. As commentator Gorilla Monsoon might have said, he took her for granted. This was great when it came to wrestling angles. A big, hairy mook like George “The Animal” Steele could beef with Savage just by showing Elizabeth some kindness.
The Savage/Elizabeth dynamic came to a head when Savage and Hulk Hogan’s partnership blew up. Hogan treated Elizabeth so much more nicely; Savage got jealous of this (and more). He attacked Hogan, and when Elizabeth wouldn’t choose sides at WrestleMania V, he abandoned her, turning full heel and graduating to a far more wicked manager in Sensational Sherri. [That Savage, Elizabeth, and Sherri are all now dead is unspeakably sad.]
At Wrestlemania VII, Savage lost a loser-must-retire match to the Ultimate Warrior, and after it was finished, Sherri attacked him for losing her (another Gorilla Monsoon special) “meal ticket.” And then, in a moment that could not have been scripted better by the most talented Hollywood screenwriter, Elizabeth emerged from the crowd — after two years in obscurity — to save her man.
In the months that followed, the Macho Man and Miss Elizabeth went on a kind of reunion tour around the various WWF TV shows. It was all leading up to an on-screen wedding at the next pay-per-view, SummerSlam, in August. In reality, Randy and Elizabeth were married in 1984; they would get divorced in 1992, marking the SummerSlam wedding as the beginning of the end, in a weird way.
The wedding itself was, as mentioned before, played completely straight, with flower girls and everything. Randy and Elizabeth were the only wrestling personalities involved. It was a “take a seat, guys” kind of moment, though at least half of the men in Madison Square Garden that day were as riveted as the women.
Of course, after SummerSlam was finished, the “wedding reception” was crashed by Jake “The Snake” Roberts and the Undertaker, in a segment taped for use on WWF TV the following week. The Randy/Elizabeth marriage quickly became more fodder for wrestling feuds (some of the best of Savage’s WWF career, with Roberts and later with Ric Flair). But for that one moment in August of 1991, the World Wrestling Federation was all about romance.
