Sunday, March 31st, 1985
Madison Square Garden
New York, New York
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Off The Grid, Volume 32:
After a still photo intro, we go to Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura, with Gorilla quickly passing it off to Howard Finkel in the ring. He introduces Mean Gene Okerlund to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" and it's not good. Speaking of not good, they throw it over to Lord Alfred Hayes to talk about the pre-recorded comments from the competitors in the opener. Tito Santana talks about not knowing much about the Executioner, but he's going to show him what the big leagues are all about. The Executioner talks about going after the leg of Santana. Thrilling stuff.
Executioner vs. Tito Santana
What a way to kick off what would be the biggest annual event in wrestling than with a match including a guy no one has ever seen before. Tito comes out hot and dropkicks Executioner out of the ring. Executioner keeps his promise and goes after the leg of Tito. Tito fires back, but gets hit with a back body drop. Executioner goes up top, but Tito is there to throw him off the top. Tito goes for a splash, but Executioner gets the knees up. I guess I should just note that Executioner is Buddy Rose. Tito comes back with a flying forearm and slaps on the Figure Four to go down in history as the winner of the first WrestleMania history. This was a little bit better than I remembered, but I also love Tito.
Match Rating: **1/4
Lord Alfred again gets the honor of introducing pre-recorded interviews. SD Jones is going to get down today, baby. King Kong Bundy talks about the 5 count.
King Kong Bundy vs. SD Jones
I feel like I have to mention how much I hate the ring announcer's microphone and the ring bell during this era. Bundy drives Jones into the turnbuckle and splashes him. He then hits the splash in the middle of the ring and that's all. He must have forgotten about the 5 count there. They talk about it possibly being in record time. It definitely is the shortest match in WrestleMania history up to this point.
Match Rating: 1/4*
Matt Borne and Ricky Steamboat both have pretty typical pre-match promos.
Matt Borne vs. Ricky Steamboat
Steamboat leapfrogs Borne a couple of times and hits him with a chop. Steamboat hits an atomic drop and continues the attack. Borne gets in a couple of suplexes and then gets criticized by Gorilla for his pin attempt. They kind of trade moves and next thing you know, Steamboat hits a crossbody off the second rope and that's all? This felt rushed and considering they were able to cram 3 matches in less than 30 minutes, I'm not really sure why it had to be? Anyway, Steamboat is always fun to watch.
Match Rating: *3/4
Back to Hayes to talk about the next match with all of the wrestlers walking by him. I know it's noisy and live, but Hayes is just so bad. David Sammartino is with daddy and he cuts a generic promo. Luscious Johnny talks about nothing and Beefcake spits into the mic. Boy, I can't wait for this one.
Brutus Beefcake vs. David Sammartino
Bruno gets a nice pop for his intro. The match takes forever to start for whatever reason. This match is already worse than I remember. I really don't know why I made myself suffer through this match again. Plus, I still have to do December To Dismember. I know by looking at this review you would never know it's over 10 minutes, but we finally get everyone in the ring after Johnny body slams David outside the ring. The ref calls for bell and puts us all out of our misery. Absolutely the first terrible match in WrestleMania history.
Match Rating: 1/4*
Greg Valentine shows a little bit more charisma than I'm used to from him. Junkyard Dog cuts his usual fun promo.
Intercontinental Championship Match
Greg Valentine vs. Junkyard Dog
Valentine is on the mat and JYD does his trademark headbutts, which is honestly one of the least convincing moves. But at the same time, it was over, so what do I know. Valentine regains his composure and goes to work on the leg. He goes for the Figure Four, but it's a little early and JYD kicks out of it. JYD makes a comeback and it leads to Valentine accidentally hitting Jimmy on the apron. Valentine trips JYD up and uses the ropes to pick up the pinfall victory. Talk about a match having absolutely no flow whatsoever. Out comes Tito Santana and now the referee is counting Valentine out. JYD then gets the victory by countout. This is just embarrassingly bad booking. Valentine is furious, but heads to the back. This was not much better than the last turd.
Match Rating: 1/2*
Iron Sheik, Nikolai Volkoff and Freddie Blassie think they will be the next champions. Barry Windham, Mike Rotundo and Captain Lou cut a boring promo about being on their way to the ring, even though they're wearing Polo shirts.
WWF Tag Team Championship Match
Nikolai Volkoff & Iron Sheik vs. Mike Rotundo & Barry Windham
They naturally do the Soviet anthem gimmick, leading to trash being thrown in the ring. I guess I never realized he went by Rotundo instead of Rotunda during this era. Probably because I just didn't care enough. The champs start off hot and Sheik hits a dropkick on Volkoff by mistake. At least there's some action in this match. I do love me some Barry Windham during this time period. He just feels out of place in WWF to me. Volkoff rams Rotundo's face into the spiked boot of Sheik and Sheik hits an elbow drop for a 2 count. Sheik still looks pretty good here. Rotundo is able to hit a vertical suplex, but only Sheik can make the tag. Lou and Blassie are having some words outside of the ring while Sheik has Rotundo in an abdominal stretch. Rotundo barely makes the tag to Windham and it almost feels like a mistake that he did. Windham hits a bulldog that Volkoff looked like he had never taken before. All four men are in the ring, but not for long when Rotundo hits a dropkick on Sheik to knock him out of the ring. This allows him to grab Blassie's cane and he hits Windham with it behind the referee's back and we have new champions. These matches have no flow to them at all and just feel like guys doing moves for no reason. There's just no psychology, which I thought was supposed to be the strength of this era.
Match Rating: *1/4
We go straight to Mean Gene for a live interview with the new champions. Blassie was pretty fun here, claiming to not have a cane. How is there still an hour left in this show?
Back to Lord Alfred Hayes to lull us to sleep. Big John Studd and Heenan get about 15 seconds to cut a promo. Seriously, why so short?
Career vs. $15,000 Body Slam Match
Big John Studd vs. Andre The Giant
Words can't describe how excited I am to watch this again. So Andre is so confident that he can body slam Studd that he put his career on the line. If you like bear hugs and punches, this match is for you. Andre catches a boot of Studd and stalls before hitting a right hand. Andre hits some kicks that look like love taps and then body slams him. The match is over and he grabs the bag full of money and throws it into the crowd. Heenan grabs the bag and runs off. What a stupid match.
Match Rating: 0 Stars
Mean Gene is with Andre and he's all smiles. That makes one of us.
We go to pre-recorded comments from Cyndi Lauper and Wendi Richter, who are fired up. Moolah and Leilani Kai say that they will do what they have to do.
WWF Women's Championship Match
Leilani Kai vs. Wendi Richter
As much as I don't care for this era, Lauper was a top tier celebrity in WWF. Leilani Kai has to be the least well known wrestler to appear in two title matches at WrestleMania. Well, we have ourselves another match where both competitors are just doing moves for no reason. Richter is able to get both feet up at a charging Kai for a 2 count. Moolah gets involved and pulls Richter's hair. Lauper comes to her aid. Kai hits a boot to the sternum, but Richter fights back because moves don't matter. Richter hits a nice slam off her shoulder, but Kai kicks out. Richter runs into both knees and Kai gets a 2 count. Kai hits a top rope crossbody and Richter sloppily rolls over and is your new champion. We almost have a brawl after the match, but it leads to the champ celebrating with Lauper. I just can't believe how poorly constructed all of these matches are. It's like amateur hour.
Match Rating: *
Gene is with the new champ and Lauper cuts a funny promo with lipstick all over her teeth.
Billy Martin is here as the guest ring announcer. He then brings out Liberace and this at least makes it feel like something a little bit more unique. We see the famous clip of him dancing with the ladies that they love to show. I think I have checked how much time is left on this show about 73 times. Out comes Muhammad Ali to be the guest referee, which is pretty awesome.
Roddy Piper & Paul Orndorff vs. Hulk Hogan & Mr. T
Piper comes out to a Scottish band. Bob Orndorff is in their corner and Jimmy Snuka is Hogan's corner. Mr. T and Piper have a heated exchange to start things off. It eventually leads to all four men getting into a brawl and then Snuka and Orndorff are involved too. Snuka wants to hit a dive, but just jumps down. Piper and Orndorff head to the back, but Hogan breaks up Pat Patterson's count. Hogan calls them back and all four start fighting again. Hogan hits a big boot, but Piper goes over the top rope to the floor. Orndorff attacks him from behind and now Hogan is on the floor. Piper hits Hogan with a chair to the back. This leads to lots of heel tactics on Hogan, with Mr. T impatiently waiting to tag in. T is in and he does...nothing. Hogan comes back in and the heels continue their dominance. Snuka and Orton are both back in there again and Orton accidentally hits Orndorff with the cast and that's enough for the pinfall. What a fittingly stupid ending to a terrible show. The match itself was fine, but if they put out something like this as a main event in 2023, it would get trashed. Orndorff is back up after being knocked out and is confused. He heads to the back and it's time for the Hogan celebration.
Match Rating: **1/4
Mean Gene catches up with the victors before throwing it back to Gorilla and Jesse.
Obviously the historical impact of this show is enormous and one that still lives on to this day. But I can't let that get in the way of how terrible this was. The promos were short and mostly bad, the action was pointless and even Gorilla and Jesse weren't very good. There is nothing worth revisiting and it just feels like a house show with Muhammad Ali and Cyndi Lauper on it. I don't think I'll probably watch this one again for a very long time.
Overall Rating: 28%
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