Savage made his pro debut in 1962 in Macon, Georgia using the ring name Lonnie Brown, then spent the next few years competing across North America, in Hawaii and in Japan (going by the ring names Mr. X and Dutch Schultz) before he settled in the Pacific Northwest region in the late 1960s, splitting his time between PNW in Portland and NWA All Star Wrestling in Vancouver, British Columbia, and adopting his most famous ring name.

Savage wrestled mainly as a heel early in his career, but would turn face around 1971 during a feud with Bull Ramos in Portland. He also formed a legendary tag team in PNW with Jimmy Snuka that won six Pacific Northwest tag team titles; one of their reigns lasted for a record 11 months in 1974-75. He originated the Coal Miner's Glove match in 1972 in Eugene, Oregon, and went undefeated in that specialty match during his career. In Vancouver, Savage captured 13 NWA Canadian tag team titles, second only to the record of 18 Canadian tag titles won by Don Leo Jonathan (with whom Savage won the championship once, in 1977).

On the promotional side, he later bought out Sandor Kovacs' ownership stake in the Washington territory and would also purchase a one-third portion of PNW, getting into promoting as well as doing color commentary for PNW's Portland Wrestling program on Portland station KPTV (syndicated outside of Portland to the rest of Oregon and Washington as Big Time Wrestling) after his retirement from active competition around 1981.

Savage was involved in real estate for many years after his wrestling career, but is now retired. He is now an administrator for his official website (Dutch Savage.com) and hosts a program called "Dutch's Corner", where he teaches King James Scripture, on public access cable out of Portland, Oregon. He and his wife Willa now live on their farm in the mountains of southwest Washington State, close to Mount St. Helen's, and have adopted Yacolt, Washington, as their home town.