Nobody has unique pathos like this in wrestling any more. The last person was maybe gone-crazed-from-steroids Scott Steiner. Ironically, the cleaner the sport gets (not just steroids, but drugs and all the associated carny shit), the less vibrant it becomes. I'm not going to say we're never going to get another Savage / Flair / Piper, but it's not going to come from the WWE.
A big part of it was when Vince rather than "booking" hired TV commercial writers and soap opera writers to script everything. It took a lot of the freedom wrestlers had in making their own promos. If Randy Poffo started his career around that time I doubt they'd have allowed him to get freaky deaky.
It doesn't take drugs, although it would help (and I'm sure they were in play). Savage was a triple threat: he had the creativity, the performance chops, and the physical ability to pull off his character(s). Add in coming from an era where he had a lot more creative control than performers have now.
They could hand Randy something as bad as the king gimmick (something they were using to make dull characters interesting...a gimmick Savage supposedly was not keen on taking), and he turned it into gold. I am surprised that his exaggerated movements and body language while talking remain the one thing no one learned from him. Part of the magic is that he keeps the crazy visually interesting.
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