411’s Countdown to WrestleMania 23: The WrestleMania II Roundtable Review
Posted by Larry Csonka on 03.12.2007
The WrestleMania so big that it needed three venues!
Introduction~! "I remember when I originally saw this show. In the summer of 1986, Showtime aired the card several times, including once during a free preview weekend. Ah, free boobies…
Vince McMahon introduces his co-host, Susan St. James. At this time, she was co-starring in "Kate and Allie" with Jane Curtin, but there was another reason she was there. No, it's not because, as has been suggested elsewhere, she was sleeping with Vince. She was (and still is) married to Dick Ebersol, producer for "Saturday Night's Main Event."
Roddy Piper starts the festivities with some pre-recorded comments about Mr. T. The best line: "Never will I shave my hair like and Indian and paint myself black." Well, he was half right…"
-Ron Gamble
Just S'pose
The inaugural WrestleMania was a success, and the WWF was off and running with their second version of the show. Vince McMahon, always one to try and improve upon his creations decided that the second incarnation would be "too big for one city." WrestleMania II branched out in a revolutionary concept of using three cites for one event. Los Angeles, Chicago (Rosemont) and New York were those locations and this was the show.
Our analysts today are…
Here for the whole ride, Friendly Competition's Stuart Carapola!
The Evolution Schematic may be on a break, but Mathew Sforcina has time for WrestleMania!
Part of the 411 Aussie contingent and a man who you will see a lot in this feature, Scott Rutherford!
The Godfather of 411, the man, the myth the legend; he is Ron Gamble!
WrestleMania II~!:
Paul Orndorff and Don Muraco fought to a double DQ @ 4:30
Stuart Carapola: In a move of Lex Luger-esque proportions, Orndorff went from main eventing WrestleMania one year to jerking the curtain the next year. Truly not an envious position to be in. His opponent was Don Muraco, along with manager Mr. Fuji. There really isn't anything remarkable about this match except that it ended in a double count out and they didn't announce the result until three matches later. Orndorff was, of course, just a couple months away from his big-money feud with Hogan, which became Orndorff's only really notable career accomplishment.
Mathew Sforcina To start off with, this show's concept, while sound, was also kinda stupid. I mean, "An Event So Big, It Needs 3 Arenas To Hold It!" sounds good, but at the time, just seemed silly. WWE obviously agreed, and hence apart from the Owen/Shamrock feud that necessitated a second arena (to house the UFC cage rip off WWE had…actually, that might not be a bad thing to bust out of storage. Stick a couple of ECW guys in there, throw in a couple of weapons…but I digress), it's never been done since, although it's actually a bit more plausible an idea today (say with Summerslam, find a city (i.e. New York) with three arenas, and Raw, SD and ECW can all have their own to hold it from…again with the damn digressing. I guess I really don't want to discuss this match, huh?). Ahem. This match was short, kinda pointless and ended in a double count-out/double DQ/double whatever ending that opening matches should never have. So the show was not off to a great start.
Scott Rutherford: Oh how the mighty fell, sort of. After headlining the previous years WM, Paul Orndorff gets stuck jerking the curtain. The match was pretty lame and reeked of Vince giving TV time for two of his bigger stars but being unable to job either of them so they have this ass DQ finish. Fear not for Orndorff since he was mere months away from the biggest money making feud of all time and probably doesn't give a damn what he did on this card.
Ron Gamble This match was typical of the styles for both men. Orndorff worked on Muraco's arm, and Muraco pounded on Orndorff. Both men fell out of the ring and were counted out at 4:10. Not a bad opener, but certainly not Bret vs. Owen at WMX, either.
Randy Savage retained the WWF Intercontinental Title over George "The Animal" Steele via pin @ 7:07
Stuart Carapola: Savage had just come to the WWF about six or eight months before this, and won the IC Title shortly afterward. Of course he had his manager (and future wife) Elizabeth at ringside with him, so they did this angle where George Steele (who was supposed to be some kind of jungle man, but not totally feral like a Kamala or Wild Samoans-type) fell in love with Elizabeth. Savage, of course, went nuts over the fact that Steel would dare try and move in on his action, and they spent a good chunk of 1986 wrestling each other. Each time, Savage would stomp the shit out of him, beat him, and then smack him around some more for good measure. Steele got a lot of crowd sympathy out of it and Savage got over as a real dick. This was one of those matches and Savage won again. Steele would end up being instrumental a year later when Savage finally lost the title to Ricky Steamboat.
Mathew Sforcina MINE! Sorry, had to prove my geek-dom there. Anyway, this probably should have opened the show, since it was both a better match and a better storyline. You had "Still a little bit Memphis" Savage and ‘Good for a laugh' Steele, a guy who set the standard for insane lovable maniacs, and they fought over Elizabeth, who George loved and who Randy treated like dirt. Simple, and it worked. Although it did make the IC belt a little bit of a afterthought, but then with George, it didn't matter. Randy cheats to win, and Liz is still with him. Simple, after all, not everything has to be complicated.
Scott Rutherford: This is one of the prime examples of your older big time stars putting over your hot newcomer and giving them the leg up they need. The match was nothing but cheap Memphis heel heat tactics and George Steele ogling Elizabeth and Savage getting the cheap win but when it was done the proper way, like here, it gave Steele more sympathy and Savage more heat. However, I must warn you that this match will be seven minutes of your life you will never get back. It's that bad.
Ron Gamble This match is further proof that Savage can work with anyone. This is not a knock on The Animal by any means; I just mean his style is so different from anyone else in the WWF at the time, and the match was not half bad. I mean, both men used a bunch of flowers as a foreign object. Where does that come from? Steele was "in love" with Elizabeth, as was most of the audience, and Savage couldn't stand it. Savage wins in 5:10, but the most noteworthy thing from this match is that he hit the flying elbow from the top rope, and George kicked out of it at two! This was the first time that happened in the WWF, and would not happen again until, I believe, Hulk Hogan at WMV.
Jake "The Snake" Roberts defeated George Wells via pin @ 3:04
Stuart Carapola: This was another one of those terrific squash matches they had at the first couple of WrestleManias. In this case, Wells basically beat the crap out of Roberts, but Roberts hit the DDT out of nowhere and won the match. The match ended with a great visual as Jake put the snake on Wells, and Wells just lay there blowing spit out and drooling all over himself. Totally underrated selling job, and this almost made it worth having a three minute squash on WrestleMania.
Mathew Sforcina Jake hit one move on the former Football player. But it was the DDT, and that's the kind of thing you should have at a WM, sometimes. Jake was in his first heel run, and the DDT became that much cooler here. Again, simplicity can work for you.
Scott Rutherford: I've always liked this match a lot. Wells was a better than average jobber that could really do some good stuff in the ring while Jake was just new to the WWF. The basic story of the match was Wells kicking the crap out of Roberts who makes a last minute comeback to scrape out a win and for a three minute match it told the story that was needed, made Roberts look great and was entertaining. Scarily this was almost match of the night!
Ron Gamble Something forgotten in history is that WM2 was held on April 7, 1986. A Monday. It was also opening day of baseball season. To celebrate the occasion, George Wells stole his pants from the Philadelphia Phillies equipment room. Not much of a match, as Roberts wins with the DDT at 3:15 and gets to play with his snake. Vince, however, simply says, "That's a maneuver that's knocked out many an opponent." The earliest I had heard the move called the DDT was 1980, when Jake was with Georgia Championship Wrestling on WTBS. Vince never heard that name before?
Quick aside: People have always asked what "DDT" stood for. I know what Jake says, but for me, what my dad said in 1980 is the best answer: "It stands for ‘Damn Dirty Trick.'"
Mr. T defeated Roddy Piper in a boxing match via DQ in Round #3 (10:15)
Stuart Carapola: This was the main event of the "New York" portion of WrestleMania 2 (which was actually held at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island which, while geographically close to New York City, is a COMPLETELY different arena and type of crowd) and was a boxing match. I'm not a boxing fan so I don't know if this was good boxing or bad boxing, but I do know that it was worked boxing, and it had this ridiculous ending where Piper got disqualified for body slamming T in the fourth round. You would think that this would lead to some kind of blow off between the two down the line, but that never happened. That's probably a good thing for everybody involved, because from what I hear, Piper really didn't like T.
Mathew Sforcina Was this even a match? I mean, sure, as a comedy routine it's not bad, and compared to some of the other things that have happened at WM (Sumo match, I'm looking at YOU!) it's inoffensive. But still…a boxing match. On a Wrestling PPV. Gahuh?
Scott Rutherford: This match is history. After watching the Roddy Piper DVD I have a much deeper respect and appreciation for Piper and him standing up for what he thought the business was about. While he didn't go out of his way to make T look like a chump he refused to back down to his star power and dared Mr. T to take him down. The crowd sensing this suddenly started chanting for Piper and literally months later he went from the biggest heel in the company to the second biggest face. While it's pretty hard to watch these day the match itself is almost required viewing for other reasons.
Ron Gamble Joan Rivers is your guest announcer, Darryl Dawkins, Cab Calloway, and G. Gordon Liddy are the guest judges, and "Herb" is the guest timekeeper. Herb was advertised by Burger King at the time as "The only man in America who had never eaten a Whopper." Now, you know.
Joe Frazier is a corner man for Mr. T, and for some reason, he's wearing plaid shorts. In fact, they look just like Piper's boxing trunks. Hmmmm…
The fight itself was nothing special, just what you would expect from two non-boxers. In fact, T was just as good here as he was in the main event of WMI. Take that however you want. Piper is disqualified at 1:15 of the fourth round when he pushes the referee and slams T, and havoc reigns supreme!
The Fabulous Moolah defeated Velvet McIntyre via pin @ 1:00 to retain the WWF Women's title
Stuart Carapola: This match was only about a minute long and ended when Velvet missed a cross body off the second rope and Moolah covered for the pin. I had heard something about Velvet getting hurt on that move, which resulted in the quick finish, but it might also have just been designed to make Moolah look like a nasty, mean old lady. Either way, there really wasn't much to tell about this match.
Mathew Sforcina So, from New York to Chicago. And yet again, the opening match is short with a somewhat bad ending, but then as I understand it Velvet was injured or some such, so it's understandable. Still, be thankful we've seen the occasional periods of WWE Women's Wrestling being somewhat respected. Because it used to be a whole lot worse.
Scott Rutherford: This match is an oddity. Supposedly Velvet was to get a run as champ but something happened along the way and she lost to Moolah this night even though she had all the offence. I do find it fascinating that Moolah, who was nearing 60 at this time, was the person Vince called on to take care of business in a shoot situations. While this wasn't really an out and out shoot it had the air of Vince telling Moolah "McIntyre gets defeated no matter what".
Ron Gamble Gorilla Monsoon and Gene Okerlund welcome us to Chica… um, Rosemont, while the participants for the first match are in the ring.
Velvet was much better that what she was allowed to be in this match. Velvet missed a splash from the top rope and almost comes out of her top. Moolah jumps on top of her and gets the pin at 1:25.
Cathy Lee Crosby joins Gorilla and Gene Mean at the broadcast table. She's not wearing her headset, which is clearly labeled "SPARE."
Corporal Kirschner defeated Nikolai Volkoff @ 1:35 in a flag match via pin
Stuart Carapola: Kirschner was supposed to be your standard military hero wrestler. What they wanted was Sgt Slaughter, and what they got was Ranger Ross. This match went about thirty seconds longer than the Women's Title match, and ended when Kirschner got a hold of Blassie's cane and whacked Nikolai with it for the win.
Mathew Sforcina You'd imagine that if there was an injury in the last match they could have given this one more time. But then, that would require these guys to wrestle for longer, so maybe it's a good thing. But a short, dull match with a flag stip, one I've never really liked, with a guy who I've heard not nice things about winning…yeah, I'm not a fan of this match.
Scott Rutherford: This would be you're "cheap pop" match of the night. The US armed forces dude kicking the crap out of the evil Russian to raise the Stars & Stripes. I really have no opinion about his match because it was designed to make people happy but I feel sorry for the crowd who shelled out the big bucks to watch four matches and two of the combined don't break three minutes. Hmmm.
Ron Gamble This is a flag match. A few weeks ago, LAX became the first "foreign" team to win a flag match on American soil, so you can guess which one won this match. Freddie Blassie threw his cane into the ring to Volkoff, but Kirchner caught it and put it to good use to win at 2:05.
Andre the Giant won a 20-man Battle Royal of wrestlers and NFL stars
Stuart Carapola: This was cool for two reasons. One was that they actually got about half a dozen or so real NFL players to agree to doing a wrestling match. I think it's great that they were able to do something like that, and kudos to them for realizing that the best kind of match to put a bunch of non-wrestlers in is a battle royal, where they'll be well-hidden and also have a bunch of real wrestlers around to tell them what to do. The other reason this was cool was that it was a battle royal and, let's face it, everybody loves battle royals. The match came down to Andre 2-on-1 against the Hart Foundation. Andre overcame the future two-time WWF Tag Team Champions to kick Neidhart over the top, then pick up Bret and toss him onto Neidhart for the win. There were also a bunch of celebrities who were apparently somebody important in the 70s.
Mathew Sforcina BRUNO! Sure, this was a decent mainstream cross over, showed a glimpse of Bret's future, and was a perfect example of what Andre did best, battle royals, but still, Bruno was there! That's cool, even if the situation with Bruno and WWE was getting near the end of their co-operation.
Scott Rutherford: Battles Royals not called the Royal Rumble are pretty per se these days but for a long time it was a great way to get all your favorites in the ring at one time. This had some hype about it because several NFL stars participated (most notable William Perry) and did a pretty good job. Of course, you can't have a Battle Royal with Andre The Giant and Andre doesn't get beaten so your winner was pretty academic. Pretty much the last time we saw Andre fit and healthy (not under a Machine mask that is) before his big heel turn later in the year.
Ron Gamble Clara Peller (Wendy's "Where's the Beef?" lady) is the guest timekeeper, and Dick Butkus and Ed "Too Tall" Jones are the guest referees. The match included six football players, Jimbo Covert, Ernie Holmes, Harvey Martin, Bill Fralic, Russ Francis, and William Perry. People expect Perry to last the longest of the players, and maybe even win, but he is eliminated fifteenth by Big John Studd. Perry offers to shake Studd's hand, then pulls him over the top rope to the floor, which is the regular way to be eliminated in a battle royal. Russ Francis, whose father was a wrestler, gets the honor of making it to the final four with Andre the Giant and the Hart Foundation. Hart and Neidhart tie Andre in the ropes, then throw Francis out of the ring. They go to work on Andre for a couple minutes. But Andre hits a kick to the face on Neidhart, who flops over the top rope in the fakest of fake flops EVER. Andre then picks up Bret and tosses him over the top rope to win after 9:13.
The British Bulldogs defeated The Dream Team to become the NEW WWF Tag Team Champions via pin @ 12:04
Stuart Carapola: I remember when I first saw this, I looked at the Dream Team and thought "could they have found two crappier wrestlers to give the title to? And who decided to call these two slugs the Dream Team?" I came to appreciate Valentine's style more later on, but this was before anyone gave a crap about Beefcake. The British Bulldogs, on the other hand, the darlings of the IWC, finally picked up the WWF Tag Team Title after several failed attempts. Pretty unique finish, too. Dynamite was standing on the bottom rope and leaning over the top, so Davey Boy rammed Valentine face first into Dynamite's head and pinned him. It's just something about the English wrestlers always coming up with these unique ways of beating people.
Mathew Sforcina Brutus Beefcake wasn't always a punch line you know. He used to be a decent enough wrestler. And this is one of his better matches, although when you're teamed with a solid guy like Valentine and you're up against the Bulldogs, it's hard to have a bad match. But this match set off the Bulldog's sole run, the small number thanks to Dynamite's condition, and thus is important, as well as being a cool match.
Scott Rutherford: One of my favorite matches from my time as a kid watching wrestling. While you can never tell someone what makes a good wrestler you always know who was a good wrestler is just on instinct. The Bulldogs fit that category and this was the big highpoint of their groundbreaking run in the WWF. While not a classic Bulldogs match you still had that rough and tumble Bulldogs style with a team (well maybe Valentine anyway) who could keep pace in that type of match. Match of the night easily and the only time the Bulldogs won the tag titles.
Ron Gamble Ozzy Osbourne (pre-Sharon, Kelly, Jack, and The Other One) is here with the Bulldogs, and his knowledge of wrestling obviously helps them to win the title in a very good match. This match was the best on the whole card, but unfortunately, there wasn't much to compare it to. After Davey Boy slams Valentine's head into Dynamite's, he gets the pin and the titles at 13:03. Gene Mean jumps into the ring after to interview the new champions, but Dynamite is too busy healing his broken back, and Davey Boy is his usual fluent self. In fact, between Davey Boy, manager Lou Albano, and Ozzy Osbourne, Ozzy makes the most sense. Imagine that…
Ricky Steamboat defeated Hercules Hernandez via @ 7:34
Stuart Carapola: Steamboat once again pulls off Match Of The Night carrying Hernandez of all people to a match he would never in a million years be able to pull off left to his own devices. Steamboat just had this talent for taking talentless muscle heads and making them look like monsters who could kill him dead. It's matches like this that always made me think that Steamboat put Flair to shame. Forget a broomstick, Steamboat could wrestle the Invisible Man and get ****. Oh yeah, Steamboat won, now giving him Match Of The Night two years running at WrestleMania. I forgot who he wrestled the year after this, but I heard that was a decent match, too.
Mathew Sforcina Ah yes, the infamous match that Bret Hart was going to get, which may have given Ricky/Savage the following year some competition, but they decided to go with Hercules since he had a bigger upside. You can't make this stuff up. Still, Ricky got a good match out of him, thanks to Herc bringing his A game (such as it was) and Ricky channeling his inner super ball. And it did give LA the best opening. And no, Elvira's dress doesn't count.
Scott Rutherford: Steamboat was in Dragon mode by now and Herc was the latest muscled up newcomer on Vince's roster. I was recently watching the Steamboat RF Shoot interview and he talked about how he was supposed to wrestle someone else but ended up with Herc and he really didn't like it because he had the shit potatoed out of him by the barely able to work Hernandez. Ricky, being a god, makes this match watchable by sheer force of will and it's a thing of beauty watching him now, knowing what I know about how to work a match, and seeing what he could do with anybody in that ring.
Ron Gamble Steamboat rules, you know what I mean? Hercules beats him down, and he comes back better than ever. You can have Ricky Morton as the guy who takes a beating best, but I have to go with a friend of mine who always calls him "Ricky ‘The Victim' Steamboat." Ricky wins with a flying body press at 7:27.
Adrian Adonis defeated Uncle Elmer via pin @ 3:00
Stuart Carapola: Yet another short squash in a series of them tonight. For those who don't know, Uncle Elmer was one of Hillbilly Jim's family of rednecks. Elmer was the one that was like 500 pounds. Adonis, meanwhile, had just put on a ton of weight and was apparently given the gay gimmick as a punishment. So Elmer smacks Adonis around for a few minutes, but misses something and Adonis comes off the top rope with an elbow for the win at the three minute mark.
Mathew Sforcina Hillbillies. Great. Still, at least the non-Hillbilly won. This gets a low rating and likes it.
Scott Rutherford: A Hillbilly and a cross dresser…that'll sell. Actually, this match was enjoyable for what it was but you could never get away with this stuff now let alone at a WrestleMania. Gotta give the big thumbs up to Adonis who sold like a champ for the near cripple Elmer and made something relatively entertaining. Adrian was very much an under appreciated talent in his time.
Ron Gamble I will never understand why the WW replaced original music on the WM box set discs. After all, they owned the rights to "Don't Go Messin' with a Country Boy," and Hillbilly Jim still works for the company. Instead, we get some generic banjo music. Not that I'm jonesin' for some of Hillbilly Jim's soulful vocal stylings, mind you. Adonis hits a head butt for the win at 3:01.
Terry and Dory "Hoss" Funk Jr. defeated The Junkyard Dog and Tito Santana via pin @ 11:43
Stuart Carapola: I've never gotten Terry Funk. I never got what was so special about him, I never understood why this guy was around for as long as he was except that he was an old guy who got the crap beaten out of him. I especially never liked his goofy "I just got punched in the face so I'm going to stagger around like I'm drunk and swing at nothing" shtick, but at least that crap was closer to its time in 1986 than it was in 1996. On the other hand, I love to watch Dory wrestle, and if we had him on TV all these years instead of Terry, I'd have no complaints. JYD has always sucked and Tito was past the point of usefulness for good by WrestleMania 2. The Funks (who had Jimmy Hart in their corner) hit JYD with the megaphone for the win.
Mathew Sforcina Ah, the Terry Funk/JYD feud, that established Terry as a crazy old Texan. In 1986! Still, for 1986, this match featured Terry being slammed through a table, and a megaphone shot for the win. Which for WWE at this point is HARDCORE, as opposed to now, where they get mild admonishments from the ref. Still, great little match.
Scott Rutherford: They should make all potential wrestlers in training watch this match as a lesson in how to make a match entertaining. These four are old experts in how to work a match and keep a crowd interested and balance actual wrestling with the story being told in the ring. Matches don't have to be technically good to be entertaining and while the basics are solid, HOW they went about putting this match together is the real highlight.
Ron Gamble Despite having the Funks together, Vince never wanted to give them much of anything (except, of course, a younger brother). It's the same type of mentality that kept Dusty Rhodes in polka dots years later. Jimmy Hart throws his megaphone in the ring, Terry grabs it and hits Junkyard Dog from behind, and wins the match in 11:42.
Steel Cage Match: Hulk Hogan defeated King Kong Bundy when Hogan escapes @ 10:18
Stuart Carapola: This was one of my favorite Hulk Hogan matches. What newer fans might not realize is that back in the mid 80s, Hulk Hogan was still a crappy wrestler, but he had this energy about him, and when he Hulked up, it got the crowd going in much the same way that Steve Austin stomping the crap out of a guy in the corner would do in the 90s. The Hulk up didn't always come after the opponent's finisher back then, either. In this match, Bundy hit an avalanche in the corner, and Hogan just gave him the Hulk up look, and the crowd went nuts. It's really weird to look back and see how the same tired old act he's been sleepwalking through for 20 years lit the crowd up back then every time out. As the years went by, the Hogan act became really half-hearted and paint-by-the-numbers, but in 1986 it got the crowd so hot that it made a mediocre match into a good match just based on crowd heat alone. I think that Bundy was actually the first "unbeatable monster" that Hogan was faced. So here Hogan is, faced with this giant monster who had beaten everyone and also injured Hogan's ribs shortly before this, and now on top of all that Hogan was stuck in a cage with this guy. Surprisingly, Hogan controlled the match and, even though Bundy briefly took control, Hogan came back and power slammed him to pop the crowd, and then escaped the cage, kicking Bundy off the second rope on the way out. This was the first match to establish Hogan as a giant killer, as he took the indestructible Bundy and totally dominated him.
Mathew Sforcina Remember how before I talked about simplicity? This is another example of it. This was the Hogan Formula #1 done to a tee. Build Mega Monster Heel. Have MMH attack Hogan. Hogan is injured. MMH gloats. Hogan comes back and perseveres and everyone is happy and everyone makes money. Now, had the Hogan/Orndorff feud had a WM climax (which it really deserved), that would have been Hogan Formula #2, but we'll get to that later. That said, it was nice that Bundy got a chance in the sun.
Scott Rutherford: I've often thought about this match as Vince's dry run for WM3 and the big Hoagn/Andre showdown. Think about it, the baby face champ with the odds stacked against him facing off against the bigger and badder opponent. It's a formula that worked so well they did it for nearly 8 years after. I marked out for this match originally because it was the first match that I ever saw blood in and the shit kicking Bobby Heenan took afterwards. In today's world of RAW every week you lose that special-ness of someone like a manager getting beat on like you did back in 1986 when you only had Superstars and jobber matches to watch.
Ron Gamble This match brought forth the Big Blue Cage. Other than that, there really is nothing of note in this match. Hogan wins when he slams Bundy, hits the leg drop, and then leaves the cage in 10:15.
The Conclusion:
Stuart Carapola: Putting aside the personal insult I take from the WWF (who should know better) referring to Long Island as "New York", this was a show that was pretty evenly split between good and bad. You had some good matches like the battle royal, the Tag Team Title match, Steamboat's match, and the cage match, but you also had a lot of squashes and crappy matches in between. The idea to run in three cities was a good one, but the problem is that with the good matches, the bad ones, and the squashes, the live crowds would sit through a bunch of crap to maybe see one or two good matches (or in "New York's" case, none at all), and then watch the rest of the show on closed-circuit. Like I said, it was a good idea on paper, but didn't work out that well logistically. Another problem was that this show didn't have any kind of "WrestleMania moment", and would become one of the "forgotten WrestleManias" as a result.
Mathew Sforcina There's a reason people remember number 1 and number 3 but not this one. WM2 did not kill the concept, but it didn't help it. An untried gimmick and a sub-par match quality added to the general blah feeling of the show…from our perspective. At the time, it was good enough to do. WM1 set the thing going. WM3 gave the huge boost to momentum. But WM2…it existed. And that was enough.
Scott Rutherford: The goofy "three cities and celebrity commentators" slant to this show makes it tough to rate. Purely on wrestling you have to give it a thumbs down because most of the wrestling was ass. However Vince was smart enough to put just the right amount of "big happenings" in there to really make it hard to say "don't see this shit". You have Savage turning into a star, The Bulldogs winning their only world tag title, the start of Pipers face turn and Hogan being Hogan in a cage. These are things you need to see as part of being a wrestling geek because they are important so therefore it makes this almost must see. Funny old world hey?
Ron Gamble By the way, remember earlier when I said it was baseball's opening day? Tommy Lasorda, who was manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers at the time, made it to the LA Sports Arena in time to be guest announcer for the main event. I've never been to LA, so I have no idea how long a trip it is, but the main event went off around 7:00 local time. Even considering it was an afternoon game, which would end around 3:30 or so, he still had to go through clean up and the post-game press conference before he could leave Dodger Stadium. Tommy was booking, I tells ya.
By today's standards, this card does not hold up well. It was early in Vince's experiment to change from "professional wrestling" to "sports entertainment." Fabulous Moolah, Dory Funk, Pedro Morales and Bruno Sammartino made their only WM wrestling appearances, George Steele got to eat turnbuckle, and other than the Bulldogs/Dream Team match, there was nothing spectacular. However, for the time, it was a fun card. If you want a time machine for what wrestling was like twenty years ago, get it. If not, stay far away.
