Miz, Maryse following path of famous wrestling couples who should have stayed together

Scott Keith

Miz, Maryse following path of famous wrestling couples who should have stayed together image

Poor Miz and Maryse. Based on the direction of their relationship after the last couple episodes of “Raw,” their real-life marriage is probably in some trouble.

Now, I might not be an expert at relationships all the time (as my wife can attest), but do I ever know about relationships in pro wrestling, and Rule No. 1 is: “Never break up with your spouse in a story line." It never ends well; typically the real marriage ends just as surely as the on-screen one does.

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Unfortunately for these five infamous former power couples, they learned that lesson too late. I just hope Miz knows a good divorce lawyer, just in case.

1. Randy Savage and Elizabeth

Savage and Liz were wrestling’s most famous power couple of the '80s, married behind the scenes since 1984 but only outed as a couple in the WWF in 1991. Savage had the most brilliant heel gimmick of the time, because he was such a fantastic pro wrestler that fans would naturally want to cheer him. He and Vince McMahon came up with the character trait of him hiding behind his manager, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was not an unattainable supermodel. She was a very pretty, but also very normal and approachable, woman. And therein lay the gimmick's greatness; Savage would treat her like dirt, which resulted in the female fans sympathizing with Elizabeth and booing Savage. As well, the male fans would get jealous because they felt they could conceivably have a shot with Elizabeth if not for the jerk who was mistreating her. And they booed Savage for that as well.

The character was such a well-defined archetype that even complete non-fan Susan St. James, who did “commentary” for part of WrestleMania 2 and barely even seemed to understand how ring ropes functioned, instantly understood that the essence of the Macho Man was that he treated Elizabeth like dirt but then got jealous if anyone else paid attention to her.

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Regardless of their on-screen relationship being portrayed as businesslike, backstage Savage was even more maniacally overprotective of his wife. His brother Lanny Poffo talked in interviews about how Savage would be out of his mind on various substances and get so insanely jealous and paranoid that he would literally lock Elizabeth in her dressing room.

By 1989, Elizabeth had lived enough of this life and wanted off the road, which coincided nicely with one of the biggest angles in wrestling history: The Megapowers Explode! Elizabeth was accidentally thrown aside by a crazed Macho Man on the live Main Event special in February 1989, turning Savage into the biggest heel in the world instantly, but also serving to write her out of the story for two years. Although they remained married, Elizabeth was off TV and the marriage reportedly crumbled as Savage toured the world with new manager Sensational Sherri. It was perhaps life imitating art in the worst way for them.

When Liz finally returned to the wrestling world in 1991, to set up an on-screen reunion with her husband and a PPV wedding as a payoff, their marriage was already on the rocks. Savage was desperate to salvage it and got off steroids so they could have a child, because that’s always a foolproof marriage-saver. Unfortunately, it failed; can you even imagine how amazing the offspring of Randy Savage and Elizabeth would have been? Macho Man Jr. would probably be WWE champion today.

But I digress.

After being written out a second time in 1992 (after the famous “She was mine before she was yours” feud with Ric Flair), Liz filed for divorce and retired to a life working in retail and married to a normal human being in a normal business. And then WCW drove a dump truck full of money up to her home and brought her back, which eventually ended with her death in 2003 after getting into a relationship with Lex Luger. Savage died in 2011.

2. Diamond Dallas Page and Kimberly

This one, thankfully, has a happier ending. DDP and Kimberly were married in 1991, when Page was breaking into wrestling as an actual wrestler for the first time. She didn’t become an on-screen character until 1995, billed as “The Diamond Doll.” They had a similar vibe to their characters as Savage and Elizabeth did, except Kimberly was very much the unattainable supermodel, so she never got sympathy from female fans for her mistreatment at the hands of DDP.

After months of said horrible treatment, like forcing her to hold up scores of “10” for wrestling moves that clearly would only rate a “4” at best, the duo did a breakup angle in 1996. Kimberly instead received the honor of becoming “The Booty Babe” and seconding Brutus Beefcake in his Booty Man identity.

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By 2000 it was well-known they were a real-life married couple, and head writer Vince Russo decided to work that into a story because he’s got no other stories to tell. Kimberly had been the leader of the “Nitro Girls,” a team of dancers who entertained live fans during commercial breaks on “Monday Nitro," and she was written back in as Page’s wife. Then (shocking swerve) she turned on her husband at Spring Stampede 2000 and allowed Jeff Jarrett to win the WCW World title. This was not at all good. 

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Kimberly was never really a talented pro wrestling personality, but regardless they split up on TV. Soon, their real-life marriage would also be ending.

Page went to WWE after the end of WCW and was portrayed as the crazed stalker of Undertaker’s wife. Kimberly became an actress, most famously during the speed dating scene of "The 40 Year Old Virgin." They divorced in 2004.

Just another thing to blame Vince Russo for, I guess.

3. Kevin Sullivan and Woman

This one is all kinds of weird, and Sullivan had no one but himself to blame, because he was the guy writing the story. In 1996, Sullivan was booking WCW and he was married to Nancy Toffoloni, who played evil manager Woman. Only hardcore fans who had followed his career since the early Florida days would have cared about the relationship, but for whatever reason, to spice up his feud with Chris Benoit, Sullivan decided it would be a unique twist for Benoit to steal his wife. This is where it gets weird.

Benoit and Woman began doing vignettes where they would be declaring their love for each other in order to play mind games with Sullivan, which was weird because the relationship between Sullivan and Toffoloni had never been acknowledged on TV. Furthermore, to make sure everyone was fooled, Sullivan told Benoit to actually make it seem like he was trying to steal Nancy for real. This included having them travel together, eat together and display affection for each other even when the cameras weren’t rolling. To really further this illusion, Sullivan and Toffoloni filed for separation in 1997 while Benoit and Toffoloni were regularly being portrayed on-screen as being together.

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Shockingly, Toffoloni fell out of love with her husband for real and actually started cheating on him with Benoit. By then Sullivan had been trying to fool the people backstage for so long that he had literally booked his own divorce in the process.

What the eventual payoff for this insanity was supposed to be, we’ll never know. Sullivan’s feud with Benoit, which spanned more than a year, was little more than a way for him to avoid retiring to a front-office position with WCW, and it did little to elevate either performer.

Woman managed Benoit for only a couple months after they got together in real life and abruptly left the business in May 1997, disappearing from WCW TV one week and never getting mentioned again.

We’ll just pretend the rest never happened.

4. Goldust and Marlena

This one was kind of a double-whammy: The couple not only ended up getting divorced, but they also started airing their dirty laundry on national TV. Well, mostly Goldust’s dirty laundry, although we discovered some weird stuff about Marlena later, too.

Dustin “Goldust” Runnells and Terri “Marlena” Boatwright were married in 1993 when Runnells was a top star in WCW and Boatwright was acting as manager “Alexandra York” after being discovered doing makeup for the TV production department. When Runnells signed with the WWF in 1995, Boatwright came along with him and got a radical makeover as glamorous “director” Marlena, a cigar-smoking Hollywood sexpot. Their true relationship was never revealed until late in 1997, when the company started openly acknowledging their marriage as a way to build babyface sympathy for Goldust.

And then they immediately started turning him heel.

The marriage of Goldust and Marlena became storyline fodder in a feud with Brian Pillman, which ended up being Pillman’s final TV appearances before his death. Marlena was supposed to turn on Goldust and join with Pillman in another radical reinvention of herself, but Pillman’s death shortly before the Badd Blood PPV in October 1997 obviously derailed that idea. Instead, Goldust and Marlena swung all the way back to the “happy family” image, before starting up their on-screen split again in 1998.

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Goldust did interviews with Jim Ross complaining about how family life was leaving him feeling unsatisfied and unfulfilled. This was apparently something of a shoot, with his complaints being far too close to the truth and his new “The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust” persona becoming the expression of his real feelings toward family life and marriage.

Sadly, it was no fake wrestling story; the two were divorced soon after, in 1999, and Runnells got progressively stranger without Boatwright around. This included an infamous story where he went to Vince McMahon wanting to have breast implants done on himself for gimmick reasons. For her part, Boatwright also had a checkered history after the divorce, including a relationship with New Jack that ended up being even messier, if possible.

Maybe they should have just stuck it out?

5. Marc Mero and Sable

This one qualifies for its own sub-rule: “Never allow yourself to be powerbombed by your wife.” 

Marc Mero and his wife, Rena, were married in 1994, during Marc’s WCW run as Johnny B. Badd. When Mero jumped to the WWF in 1996, Vince McMahon put Rena on TV as part of Hunter Hearst Helmsley’s “arm candy,” which built to a story line where she dumped Hunter and went with Mero as manager “Sable”. Of course, given how she looked, she quickly became insanely popular, completely eclipsing her husband’s stardom while he struggled through a series of gimmick changes and a knee injury.

By mid-1998, “Wildman” Marc Mero had become “Marvelous” Marc Mero, an embittered boxer character who was jealous of the attention Sable was getting from the fans. He began feuding with his own wife, playing a hilariously awful person who was out to sabotage her at every turn. He even tricked her into losing a retirement match at one point by pretending to lay down for her and then turning on her. Any drawing power that his villainous persona might have had was completely undercut, however, by booking decisions that included having Sable powerbomb him as revenge for his deeds.

It made her look great, but Mero was essentially a job guy after that.

Unfortunately for Mero, Sable's eclipsing his popularity was all too real. While she became a huge star (and Playboy centerfold and face of the company), Mero suffered through a series of injuries that essentially forced him into retirement by 1999. With his career failing, he left the WWF and took Sable with him, but they divorced in 2003. She quickly married Brock Lesnar and now appears content to stay off TV while Lesnar makes millions of dollars and punches grizzly bears on his farm for fun.

Well, clearly that one worked out OK for her, at least.

Scott Keith

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Scott Keith is the overlord of Scott's Blog of Doom at www.blogofdoom.com, and has authored 5 books on pro wrestling, now available on Amazon and in discount bins near you! He lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan with his wife and ridiculously cute daughter.