Macho Man's elbow drop...

I don’t know why this was, but I always noticed it too. I always thought it was a great looking move and as it was a major star’s finisher, it set it apart from all the other elbows from the top as being a believable kayfabe finishing move as opposed to the others simply being a big spot move.

Not sure why no one has done it in the same way since; even when someone is doing it as a tribute (like CM Punk for example), they still don’t quite look right.

Most elbow drops land the underside of the arm over the prone target, usually the chest area, and rarely catches them by the point if the elbow itself (surely though, that was the point of such a move?). I imagine that was done that way to protect the opponent, as landing the point of your elbow in someone could actually cause devastating damage! Being a finishing move, I think Savage’s elbow was actually meant to look like he was using the point of his elbow on the upper chest or neck and that would explain why he had his arm in such a low position. Of course, even then, you can see that to protect his opponent he either lands his forearm flush on their chest, if he off target a little, or he lands it on the canvas at the side of the head with his upper arm just long enough to keep his body from squashing their face with his armpit. I think this is his intended landing place. You’ll see when he’s in the air, his elbow seems positioned just far enough away from his body to fit a head in between. Doing this quickly certainly can look like he’s catching them with the point of his elbow. Awesome looking move with a believable reputation, it was a shocker when Warrior kicked out after taking five of them. Even nowadays they usually use three as the maximum number of consecutive finishes it would take to keep someone impossible down (don’t pay attention to the Lesnar-Reigns match, that was an extreme point Vince wanted to make).

Sorry I couldn’t give an actual answer to your question though! Maybe the risk of catching your opponent with the lowered elbow point is why no-one does it that way, after all, even Savage sometimes caught people on the chest, shoulder or neck and that would look like a genuine ‘ouch!’ moment!

Think am gonna go watch him hit some elbows now........!

Savage’s elbow is still one of the greatest moves from that era by far. Thing of beauty.

Looking back on it now compared to most modern elbow drops it looks more like a splash but connecting with the point of the elbow which is feel makes it more devestating.

I assume it’s to protect Savage on the landing. As mentioned most modern elbow drops are done with the elbow to the side of the head and when it connects; it’s just the arm hitting the opponent. Means rest of the wrestlers body is left to absorb the impact of falling to the mat. You watch Test or Michaels and you see they land kinda hip first into the mat. Can’t be comfortable to do over and over again especially for Savage back when they were wrestling so much in the 80’s/90’s.
Savage elbow almost always saw him land with his arm and some of his body behind the move as well which meant there was less impact for the rest of him. If you watch his legs he almost always lands on one knee/side of shin for the landing so his knee pad would soak up the rest.
There is actually footage of him hitting the elbow drop the “regular” way of arm up and landing on the hip area so makes me think he switched it up to keep his body intact. Aerial moves weren’t common place around this time after all so made more sense to protect himself from injury.