411 Ranks The WrestleManias: #29 – WrestleMania 2

“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…”

– Former 411 Writer Ron Gamble

* Paul Orndorff and Don Muraco fought to a double DQ @ 4:30
* Randy Savage retained the WWF Intercontinental Title over George “The Animal” Steele via pin @ 7:07
* Jake “The Snake” Roberts defeated George Wells via pin @ 3:04
* Mr. T defeated Roddy Piper in a boxing match via DQ in Round #3 (10:15)
* The Fabulous Moolah defeated Velvet McIntyre via pin @ 1:00 to retain the WWF Women’s title
* Corporal Kirschner defeated Nikolai Volkoff @ 1:35 in a flag match via pin
* Andre the Giant won a 20-man Battle Royal of wrestlers and NFL stars
* The British Bulldogs defeated The Dream Team to become the NEW WWF Tag Team Champions via pin @ 12:04
* Ricky Steamboat defeated Hercules Hernandez via @ 7:34
* Adrian Adonis defeated Uncle Elmer via pin @ 3:00
* Terry Funk and Hoss Funk defeated Junkyard Dog and Tito Santana @ 13:00 via pin
* Steel Cage Match: Hulk Hogan defeated King Kong Bundy when Hogan escapes @ 10:18

Scott Rutherford
The Best Thing on the Show And Why: Junk Yard Dog/Tito Santana vs. The Funk Brothers [***1/2] Get four great workers (at the time), give them 10 minutes to tear the house down and you get this match. I would be extremely interested to know if this match was planned out or was it called in the ring with only the finished worked out. My money is that it was called and the reason why is it feels like a fight that flows from one spot to the next without anything contrived. It was a good, old-fashioned brawl between four tough as nails men who beat the crap out of each other. A true lost WM gem of a match that gets overshadowed by the Dream Team/Bulldogs tag title change earlier in the show.

The Worst Thing on the Show And Why: Don Murraco vs. Paul Orndorff [DUD] So many matches to pick from but only one choice can be made. This gets the gong because of the complete lack of interest shown by both men and if you could tell Orndorff was mere months away from being involved in the biggest money feud in wrestling up to that point, you should get a job as fortune teller.

Show MVP And Why: Adrian Adonis. Fat, out of shape and at the start of his horrible cross dressing gimmick, he went out and busted his ass in his match with the barely mobile Uncle Elmer and managed to actually get a watchable match. To be sure, the match isn’t much and barely hovers over one star but Adonis and his ability to bump and work shine through like a shinny beacon.

Your Thoughts on The Show: WrestleMania was still not WrestleMania at this time. It still was very much your normal house show card with a hot main event and several hot undercard matches between feuding rivals. It has some bright spots and would have been better served if the main event wasn’t a disappointment but when you have two matches that run around a minute and a couple of others that barely went five it’s hard to call this card anything but poor.

Greg DeMarco
The Best Thing on the Show And Why: British Bulldogs (Dynamite Kid & Davey Boy Smith) vs. The Dream Team (Greg Valentine & Brutus Beefcake) [****] – This was a perfectly executed tag team title match. It featured drama as to who could win, it featured false finishes that were believable, and the fans were buying in to every part of the match. It’s almost crazy to think that this went on after the Battle Royal that featured Andre the Giant and NFL stars, but it was the right call. Chicago ate this match up and went nuts for The Bulldogs’ win.

The Worst Thing on the Show And Why: Mr. T vs. Roddy Piper in a boxing match [*1/2] Explanation? This was a boxing match between a wrestler and a TV star. It ended in a DQ because someone used a wrestling move on a wrestling event. It was ill conceived from the start, and it shows that Vince has bought into celebrities wrestling for far too long. Mr. T was very capable when it came to talking and doing a run-in. And that’s where his involvement should have ended. His run-in would be expected, yet it would easily pop the crowd. Instead he was taken way out of his element and thrown into one of the main events of WrestleMania.

Show MVP And Why: Hulk Hogan – The strength of a face champion is his ability to make you think he’s in jeopardy of losing to the heel challenger at all times. As a kid, I watched this match on the edge of my seat worried that Bundy would win. I was yelling at the TV—and I watched it on VIDEO! I already knew who won, and I still bought in. I love seeing the old school blue big bar cage, and think Cena should bring it back for a special RAW at some point—he can call it a throwback cage match.

Your Thoughts on The Show: This show was an experiment in wrestling. it was spread over three cities, so each only got four matches and some closed circuit TV. While it worked for Starrcade, it might have backfired a little here. I’d love to see the WWE do this now, even if it were for SummerSlam. Put it in two cities and see what happens. With a brand extension it could work (or could have worked when they stuck to the brands). You had three main events, and two of them delivered. The battle royal was far better than it deserved to be, and much of the undercard was good for its time.

Sean Garmer
The Best Thing on the Show And Why: [*** 1/2] The British Bulldogs vs. Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake – This is tag team wrestling at its finest right here. The best part, Beefcake knows he isn’t a good in-ring performer so he stays out of the match most of the time. The match started out at a quick pace and had lots of back-and-forth action going on for quite a while. I like that they didn’t go straight to the normal tag team convention of having the heels pick out one guy and beat on him forever until he can tag his partner, until much later in the match. Beefcake did his job by coming in and breaking up pin attempts and adding in some offense when needed. Valentine did most of the work for the heel team, while Davey Boy and Dynamite made quick tags in and out to keep the offense fresh. This had all the elements of what can make tag team wrestling great if done correctly. These guys didn’t need tables, ladders, and chairs to have a great match, they worked as a team and eventually the Valentine got to work on the smaller Dynamite. I also liked the finish because Dynamite tried to hit the Flying Headbutt at one point but he was unable to do it. So, at one point Valentine is flung hard into the corner by Smith only to get run right into the head of Dynamite for the surprise win and a nice moment for the English guys with fellow Heavy Metal icon Ozzy Osbourne in the ring with them.

The Worst Thing on the Show And Why: Fabulous Moolah vs. Velvet McIntyre [DUD] & Nikolai Volkoff vs. Corporal Kichner [DUD] – This along with three other matches on this card could have been left off entirely and the fans still could have gotten their money’s worth. This is why the three state venue did not work because they had to add four matches to the card to give everyone the same amount of matches at each venue. This was so short I don’t even see the point of having this on the show at all. Not to mention, it was followed by a boring and useless flag match and these two matches started off the first half of the Chicago portion of the PPV. The last two matches in Chicago were worth the price of admission, but this PPV suffered from too much filler and this an example of why, especially at Wrestlemania, short filler matches on PPV are a waste of time.

Show MVP And Why: Hulk Hogan – This was the first of Hogan’s title defenses at Wrestlemania and the whole show was really about the Hulkster. He had two backstage interviews during the event, they used him in a long video to deter fans from watching the setup of the cage, and he was in the main event. Hogan did his part in the main event and made the crowd happy. Say what you will about his wrestling ability, but the fact is, the guy knew how to entertain and he accomplished that at WM 2.

Your Thoughts on The Show: The main event delivered, the tag title match was damn good, and the fans got to see a bunch of football stars compete against wrestlers in the battle royal. There was also another good tag match and Ricky Steamboat was able to pull a pretty decent match out of Hercules to open the Los Angeles portion of the show. However, there was A LOT of filler crap in this show that could have been removed if they didn’t insist on making this happen in three different states. New York got bitch slapped by WWE management here as well because if you throw out the Boxing thing, there was hardly anything on the first part of the show that is memorable. We get two useless filler matches to start off New York (WWE followed the same progression in Chicago as well.) Macho Man vs. Animal Steele was silly and really nothing meaningful happens other than getting to see Animal eat some turnbuckle pad. The boxing thing had some cool star power with “Smokin” Joe Frazier in Mr. T’s corner, but the match itself had such an obvious ending, the only good thing is they kept the boxing ordeal short. The last two matches of Chicago and almost all of Los Angeles (lets forget that Uncle Elmer vs. Adrian Adonis even happened) saved this show from being totally deplorable. I already talked about the horrible opening to the Chicago venue with two useless matches, but then we get the fun battle royal and the great tag team title match. I don’t care that the last football player left had some wrestling experience, “The Fridge” should have been eliminated by The Hart Foundation. I understand they didn’t want the crowd to go against Andre, so it makes sense that they didn’t have Andre throw out William Perry at the end. If they would have put this whole show into one venue and cut out about three of those useless matches, this might have gotten a higher rating. The way they totally bitch slapped one of the venues entirely and the amount of filler matches in it makes this a barely average show for me

What will #28 be? Come on back tomorrow to find out…