It’s hard, from a modern perspective, to fully appreciate the eventual physical transformation that Randy Poffo would make to become the Macho Man. The only way to do it justice is to get a good snapshot of where his body began in adolescence as a baseline.

To start, Macho was not born of marble like Bo Jackson, with muscles rippling on a jacked frame without even lifting. He wasn’t gifted with the natural foot speed of one of his heroes, Pete Rose, who was once clocked running to first in 3.5 seconds in the minor leagues and earned the nickname Scooter. He wasn’t blessed with soaring height like his future rival Terry Bollea (Hulk Hogan), who was 6'2", 250 pounds early in high school on the way to 6'7".

With this in mind, forget the WWF-billed 6'2", 240-pound Macho Man you typically picture in your mind’s eye, the one decked out from head to toe in neon colors and cowboy hats and tassels who seems to fill every television frame he’s ever in.

Remove this image from your brain because the junior high school version of Randy is essentially the opposite of that. He was not physically imposing or impressive. He was sinewy and strong, yes, but would he stand out in a crowd?

No.

Entering high school he was about 5'7", 150 pounds. Skinny. He could hit the hell out of a baseball, but he was a mediocre running back on the football team and an average guard on the basketball team. Though there was a hint, even in those days, of the future savage mentality he’d take into the ring.

“When we were sophomores playing basketball, we had a competitive team,” Tim Gunn said. “He and I were guarding each other during practice. He didn’t like my hand checks. Didn’t like my tough defense. But he was very physical right back. After practice, he came into the locker room and said, ‘Where’s Gunn?’ I turned and he just leveled me. He punched me in the face and knocked me to the floor. I got up and went after him and then we were separated by the team and coaches.”

In another instance, Randy used his aggression for good, defending a fellow student who was getting bullied. John Comforte described the scene:

“We heard one of the greasers walked up to a special-needs child and poured milk on his head. So Randy and I decided we were going to get them. The following day, I say to one of them, “I heard you poured milk on [the boy’s] head?” He said, “Yeah, what are you going to do about it?” I look at Randy and — pop. I hit this guy. Randy does a double-leg takedown of the other guy. We beat the heck out of them. Savage hated bullies. Strange, isn’t it? His hatred for bullies, I believe, is what made him portray a bully in his persona.”