Huguelet broke into the wrestling business in the independent circuit in western North Carolina. He was trained initially in a garage in Waynesville, North Carolina, by Chuck Justice, a high school friend. Savage then wrestled every independent show he could before getting his first television break with South Atlantic Pro Wrestling in 1991 in a televised match against Chief Wahoo McDaniel. Savage then trained briefly under the "Russian Bear" Ivan Koloff at his school in Indian Trails, North Carolina.
Huguelet would only work for USWA for a week due to a desire at that point to leave professional wrestling and begin preparing for a career in law. While working for Lawler, Huguelet feuded with Skull Von Krush. He would also wrestle Tommy Rich, Eddie Gilbert, and The Moondogs. Huguelet had the opportunity to work with The Rock 'n' Roll Express, where he would build a friendship with Ricky Morton.[citation needed] After Huguelet left the USWA, he began to focus more on college and wrestled on the independent circuit to pay his bills. He toured with Jimmy Valiant for several months. Huguelet also tried a brief, unofficial cross-promotion with 1980s glam metal band Quiet Riot, but the venture was not a success.
National Wrestling Alliance
Huguelet wrestled for the National Wrestling Alliance, where he was booked by former Four Horsemen member Tully Blanchard, and was managed by former FreebirdMichael P.S. Hayes. Huguelet had formed a tag-team with a biker gimmick called the Hard Riders with Frankee Lawless[1] (Mark Cavnar) and the pair became the leading "heel" tag-team in the new NWA wrestling federation based out of the Sportatorium in Dallas, Texas, and run by pioneer professional wrestling promoter Jim Crockett, Jr. The Hard Riders feuded with brothers Chris and Mark Youngblood. The Hard Riders also competed against Ahmed Johnson, Greg Valentine, Chris Adams, C. W. Anderson and the Junkyard Dog. Huguelet and Lawless met an obscure brother duo at this time that would influence Huguelet's later career. The team was Matt and Jeff Hardy. Huguelet would work closely with the Hardy's for the remainder of his time in wrestling. The Hard Riders drifted apart after Crockett folded in 1996.
Huguelet and Cavnar reunited The Hard Riders when Ric Flair offered the team a shot to try out for WCW where they had a dark match the following week at Center Stage in Atlanta. The gimmick did not go over with WCW fans and was dropped. Huguelet then went back to the independent circuit as a single's wrestler and changed his look to a grunge rocker. His old friend from the NWA Ahmed Johnson introduced him to Chief Jay Strongbow at a WWF show. Strongbow scheduled a dark match for Savage in Fayetteville, North Carolina. But Strongbow suffered a massive heart attack and was released from the WWF before he could return. Huguelet's dark match fell through the cracks.
After suffering from a left knee reconstruction, and three lower back surgeries, Huguelet retired from professional wrestling in 1997. Initially, he moved to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where he performed a live storytelling presentation called Haunted Gettysburg for author Bob Wasel at the now defunct Conflict Theater. It was in Gettysburg that Huguelet met his wife Rita.[citation needed] They have three children and two recent grandchildren.[citation needed] In 1998, Huguelet moved his family to New Jersey, where they lived until moving to Virginia in 2009.
Huguelet is very interested in American history, in particular the Civil War. He is an avid artifacts collector, and maintains a website that assists collectors in identifying fake Civil War and World War II relics. He enjoys metal detecting across the country for historical artifacts. Since 2007 Huguelet has written a column for American Digger magazine called The Savage Facts that provides tips on identifying fraudulent Civil War and other militaria collectibles. He has done lectures for Civil War roundtables, metal detecting clubs, and other historical organizations across the United States on avoiding the pitfalls of buying fake or misrepresented militaria items. It was announced on August 10, 2011, that Spike TV bought 13 episodes of the new reality show, American Digger, featuring Huguelet and his team of artifact recovery experts.[2] However, the concept of the show is being protested by a number of archaeological and historical institutions, including the Society for American Archaeology[3] and the American Institute of Archaeology,[4] as promoting illegal looting and destroying shared cultural history.
In April 2013, American Digger magazine stated that they would no longer have any association with Rick Savage, saying, "We won’t lie, our dropping his association was in great part because of the controversy his TV show has created, and the confusion that American Digger Magazine had anything more than a passing association with the Spike TV series which shares our name." According to Huffington Post, the American Anthropological Association sent Spike TV a letter "urging [the network] to withdraw or modify the contents" of "American Digger" because it "wrongly represents archaeology as a treasure-seeking adventure, in which our collective heritage is dug up and sold for monetary gain."[5]
Savage Family Diggers (previously American Digger)
In 2012 American Digger debuted on Spike TV. The show performed well and drew an average audience of 1.2 million viewers weekly. Huguelet and his crew of artifact recovery experts dug on private property in Tombstone, AZ, Brooklyn, NY, Detroit, MI, Mechanicsville, Jamestown, and Middletown, VA, Chicago, IL, Venice, LA, St. Augustine, FL, Asheville and Sylva, NC, Girdwood, AK, and Aiken, SC. It was announced in August 2012 by Spike TV that another 13 episodes of American Digger had been ordered and would be filmed in the fall and winter with a planned airtime in spring 2013. American Digger is produced by Gurney Productions who also produce Duck Dynasty, Auction Hunters, American Guns, Hollywood Treasure and Haunted Collector as well as many Shark Week specials. One of the signature points on the show is when Huguelet yells his catch-phrase "boom baby" after a significant discovery. The phrase is popular with show fans and has been made into both T-shirts and ringtones.
In December 2012, Spike TV announced that American Digger would be renamed Savage Family Diggers for its second season premiering January 30, 2013, saying the name change better reflects the crew which adds Savage's wife Rita and son Nick to the dig team. Highlights from the second season would be a dig with Emmy nominated actor Bill Paxton and his son James, a dig lead to Memphis, Tennessee from Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Rickey Medlocke, a hunt for Blackbeard's treasure, and a tour of one of America's Gilded Age havens, loaded with mansions of the early elite.
The Savage~Turner Rock Express Radio Show/Podcast
In November 2013, Ric Savage and Erik Turner of '80's powerhouse Band, Warrant (American band), joined forces to create The Savage~Turner Rock Express Radio Show. The show airs Saturday and Sunday nights at 10p EST on the KZOI / KZOY FM stations located in Sioux City, Iowa and Sioux Falls, SD. The show streams worldwide at Sunnyradio.com. The show consists of Savage and Turner interviewing guests from a diversity of fields from rock musicians to professional wrestlers. Guests have included: Rickey Medlocke of Lynyrd Skynyrd, actor Peter Sherayko, Gary Hoey, Matt Hardy, and other notable personages from all genres of entertainment. The interviews are punctuated with music from artists from the '80's through today. The show used to contain a weekly fitness tip from Todd Howard, star of Spike TV's Worlds Worst Tenants, and also a special segment with Rock legend Carmine Appice, former drummer for Rod Stewart, Ozzy Osbourne, and Vanilla Fudge. He is currently the drummer of The Rascals.
The radio show became a podcast in 2016, and it is hosted on SoundCloud. Guests have included Nick Searcy, John Moyer of Disturbed, Ambassador Scott Brown and more.
“Born to be Wild” Single and Video
In March 2016 Ric Savage teamed up with Danger Danger frontman Ted Poley and Trixter guitar wizard Steve Brown to do a heavy metal remake of the iconic Steppenwolf hit, Born to be Wild. They were joined by the legendary Carmine Appice on drums, “The Fretless Monster” Tony Franklin from Whitesnake on bass, and Mike Orlando of Adrenaline Mob on lead guitar.
The single was released by Rocker Records, and the video was shot in New Jersey and is available on YouTube. Greg Smith, bass player for Ted Nugent played the bass track on the video.
