9. Be a Man (Part 1)

We’ve made it, friends. It’s the titular track of Macho Man Randy Savage’s 2003 debut rap album, Be a Man.

The song is a diss track, crosshairs shakily pointed to Savage’s pro-wrestling counterpart, friend-turned-enemy both in and out of the ring, Hulk Hogan. There’s a lot to say here.

In this installment, let’s take a razor blade to Macho’s lyrical takedown of pro wrestling’s biggest star. Does he score a pinfall, or is this a self-inflicted wound in Macho’s lifelong battle with the decidedly bigger, richer, more famous, and more alive Hogan?

Huh

Hulk Hogan,¹ Hollywood Hulkster,² whatever they call you,

I'm comin after you, you coward.³

Hot diggity damn, Hulk,

Afraid you set it off (set it off).

Used to be hard Hulk, now ya done turned soft.

Doin' telephone commercials, I seen ya,⁴

Dancin' in tights as a ballerina.⁵

I knew all along you had those tendencies,

'Cause you've been runnin' from Macho like I got a disease.

Dude, please, your Pay-Per-View event was a joke.

You're avoidin' Randy Savage 'cause you know you'll get smoked.

Come on!

That phony fight, the Rock spanked you fast,⁶

But when I challenged Hogan to a real fight, he passed.⁷

I called him out, but the punk was scared to go.

It was a charity event, but the Hulk didn't show.

Hollywood Hulkster,

You're at the end of your rope.

And I'mma kick ya in the butt and wash your mouth out with soap.⁸

'Cause like Rodney Dangerfield, he gets no respect.⁹

So come on Hulk, let's wreck, so I can put you in check.

[Hook]

(Be a man, Hulk!)

Come on, don't be scared.

You're runnin' from Macho, that's what I heard.

(Be a man, Hogan!)

Come on, don't be a chump.

I never thought Hulk would go out like a punk.

(Be a man, Hulk!)

Come on, don't be scared.

You're runnin' from Macho, that's what I heard.

(Be a man, Hogan!)

Boy, you's a chump

'Cause Hulk Hogan is a real big punk.

They call you Hollywood?

Don't make me laugh.

'Cause your movies and your actin' skills are both trash.¹⁰

Your movie straight to video, the box office can't stand

While I got myself a feature role in Spider-Man.¹¹

Ya hidin' man

But when I find you, it's on,

And when I slam ya through the dirt, you'll wish you's never born.

I smell a coward, is that you Hogan? (What?)

Macho's gonna kick your butt is the slogan.

You tried to ignore me, thinkin' I'll go away,

But I'mma keep on messin' with ya dude, day after day.

And once you step to Macho, you're through, the joke's on you

So Hulk, whatcha gonna do?

Probably nothin'

'Cause you're a real big punk.

You called my dad up on the phone, man, you's a chump.¹²

'Cause if you really got static, take it up with me

And I'll punk your butt out for the world to see.¹³

(Hook x2)¹⁴

Stay tuned next week for Be a Man (Part 2).

1. Hulk Hogan was born as Terry Gene Bollea. Macho’s name beyond the ring is Randy Mario Poffo. In a promo interview recorded around the time of the release of Be a Man, Randy notes Hulk’s real name and claims that Hulk disrespected him and his family. If you’re interested in the blurred lines of pro wrestling, this is a great video to watch.

First, it’s very hard to tell the degree of kayfabe in this interview. Macho describes real-life beef he has with Hogan, but he also says that they were never friends. Not only is this worse storytelling, it doesn’t seem true based on many other accounts of Hogan and Savage’s relationship. He also describes Hogan standing up his challenge to “the first real fight in professional wrestling,” with proceeds going to charity.

Second, it’s the most absurd Macho’s ever looked. He’s wearing an all-black tank top and sleeveless leather vest, with a leather Kangol-style hat and extremely 2003 sunglasses. His neck is absurdly thick. His beard is dyed Vantablack. He looks like he’s heading to the premiere of Matrix Revolutions in full cosplay.

2. Hogan adopted the “Hollywood Hulk Hogan” moniker upon his famous heel turn, where he and fellow WCW baddies founded the New World Order, or NWO wrestling stable.

Hulk Hogan in the “Hollywood” era. Cred: Lisa Reese - originally posted to Flickr as hogan CC BY-SA 2.0

3. As a coward myself (Last time. I promise.), I know for certain that Hogan isn’t one. He is definitely not a good dude, but I know he’s not a coward because true cowards never get called out like this. True cowards are plainly evident. People just know.

4. Macho’s referring to a string of 10-10-220 commercials starring Hogan from the early aughts. If you were alive back then, you’ll remember 10-10-220, 10-10-321, and how ubiquitous these commercials were. The service allowed you to use an alternative telephone network to complete long-distance calls. In theory, it would cost less than using your local carrier. In many commercials of this series, Hogan hams it up with ALF, the puppet alien sitcom star who similarly hit his zenith in the 1980s. Looking back on these ads, it’s clear they’re capitalizing on the 20-year nostalgia cycle, the same one that’s driving this series 20 years after the release of Savage’s Be a Man. It’s nostalgia all the way down.

5. This sounds like a reference to Mr. Nanny, a 1993 bomb where Hogan dons a pink tutu while playing ballet with a baby Madeline Zima. But no. It’s referring to another 10-10-220 commercial where Hogan joins former NFL quarterback Terry Bradshaw in a ballet studio.

6. This match between Hogan and Dwyane “The Rock” Johnson occurred in March 2002 at WrestleMania 18 in the Toronto Skydome. The lyricism is especially terrible given the basic facts of the match. First, as Macho mentions, it’s a phony fight. Hogan’s loss to the Rock doesn’t say anything about Hogan’s toughness or skill. Macho knows this, of course. The undisputed best match of his career was a loss to Ricky Steamboat at WrestleMania III. Coincidentally, many fans, even those who think Hogan a far less skilled wrestler than Macho, consider Hogan vs. Rock to be Hogan’s best match. Finally, to say Rock “spanked (Hogan) fast,” just isn’t true. The 16-minute bout was the 3^rd longest of 12 matches during WrestleMania X8, almost 2 minutes longer than Savage vs. Steamboat.

Let’s note that the truly punk thing that Hogan could have done against the Rock is refusing to lose. Hogan is on pro wrestling’s Mt. Rushmore. He probably didn’t have official creative control over this match like he had over some past matches, but even so, he had a lot of weight to throw around. Hogan is infamous for “kicking early” during his defeats. He’d kick out pins just after the 3-count to indicate that he was barely beaten, that he still had fight left. Against the Rock, he laid down, the heel soundly bested, even after getting good-guy cheers from the smarky Canadian crowd. Chump Hogan would’ve been too proud to crawl back to WWF after WCW’s failure to put over their young, top guy. Again, I’m not here to call Hogan honorable, but we can’t deny that this match was an important step toward the Rock becoming one of the biggest celebrities of the early 21 century. Macho’s lyrical punch misses hard.

7. In the previously mentioned promo interview for Be a Man, Savage calls out Hogan for failing to respond to his completely authentic challenge that certainly was not just a lazy attempt to make the news ahead of the release of his debut rap CD.

8. WHO IS THIS ALBUM FOR?! You go, Macho! Glad to see Hogan’s infamous potty mouth (?) is finally getting cleaned up!

9. Dangerfield was still alive when Be a Man dropped in 2003. For me, this is the detail that truly makes the album feel 20 years old. It’s wild to me that when I was laughing along to Napster downloads of Dane Cook doing bits on Stouffer’s French Bread Pizza, Rodney was still out there doing his thing.

Savage, of course, flubs the reference. Instead of insulting Hogan, we’re now associating him with one of the most successful and beloved comedians of all time.

10. By 2003, Hogan had enjoyed a featured or starring role in at least 6 theatrically released Hollywood films where he plays a character, not himself. Here are the IMDB ratings of those films (out of 10), and their box office takes:

               Rocky III (1982): 6.8 - $270 million

               No Holds Barred (1989): 4.4 - $16 million

               Suburban Commando (1991): 4.6 - $8 million

               Mr. Nanny (1993): 3.8 - $4.3 million

               Santa with Muscles (1996): 2.6 - $220k

               3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain (1998): 2.9 - $376k

11. Savage’s brief role as Bone Saw McGraw in Sam Raimi’s 2002 hit is brilliant. Lines from this scene (“Bone Saw is ready!” “I’ve got you for 3 minutes!”) are regularly memed more than 20 years later. Savage looks truly menacing, as monstrous as a man has ever looked. And it must be said that this section of Be a Man is the best lick in the entire album.

But, of course, nothing good is ever truly good. Savage was reportedly injured from the multiple takes of the vicious bump he endures at the end of the scene. His brother, Lanny, notes that Savage’s neck problems sustained during filming never fully healed.

Lanny Poffo (1954-2023) Cred: Mike Kalasnik from Fort Mill, USA - Lanny Poffo CC BY-SA 2.0

Without Spider-Man, it’s hard to imagine the rise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its 2-decade run as box office king. Bone Saw is Savage’s only live action role in a theatrically released film.

12. I can’t find any specifics about this call or why Savage was so offended by it. Randy’s father, Angelo Poffo, was a former pro wrestler and regional promoter who helped lift Randy to stardom after he quit minor league baseball. Randy, by all accounts, loved and revered his father. He reportedly refused entry into the WWE Hall of Fame unless his father and brother were also inducted. Commenters speculate that Hogan’s call was likely innocuous, but Savage would have seen any attempt to directly communicate with the ailing Angelo, who died in 2010, as a major breach of etiquette. 

In my research on this point, I did discover that Lanny claimed that Randy had approached him to ask that he write the track that would become “Be a Man.” Lanny refused on the grounds that any success he’d enjoyed in pro wrestling that hadn’t stemmed from his father and brother had come due to Hogan’s favor. Instead, Lanny agreed to write “My Perfect Friend,” a tribute track to “Mr. Perfect” Curt Hennig, a wrestler and family friend who had recently passed. More on “My Perfect Friend” later in this series.

13. In song alone, Macho boasts that he will kick Hogan’s butt, that he will kick him “in the butt,” and that he will “punk (his) butt out.” Poetry.

14. After much research, I have not found evidence of Hogan ever publicly responding to “Be a Man.”