Second part of the WM1 review. Sorry for the length.
Awkward Hayes introduces us to the next match: Freddie Blassie-managed Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik versus a team of young men, fine young athlutes [sic], Lou Albano-managed Barry Windham and Mike Rotunda, reigning tag team champions, for the tag team championship. Bray Wyatts uncle and dad on the same team, resulting in his first name and his last name being the last names of the face team. Windham Rotunda is a stupid name in the first place though.
Pre-taped interview. Foreign heels start off. The Iron Sheik immediately calls Mean Gene Gene Mean. Mean Gene hilariously calls Volkoff a commie instead of a comrade. They say basically nothing and Gene switches over to the face team. Lou Albano has teabags hanging from his left cheek for some reason. Mean Gene cant decide if its Rotunda or Rotundo and switches between the two. Both face team members essentially say were on our way to the ring right now which we know isnt true because this is a pre-taped interview.
Match 6: Barry Windham & Mike Rotundo [sic] vs. Nokolai Volkoff & Iron Sheik
Finkel introduces Freddie Blassie as such but the nameplate says Fred Blassie. Loud boos. One hour time limit, as seems normal for title matches. Nikolai Volkoff does his national anthem thing and the audience reacts more negatively than to anything else so far. They throw trash at the ring. The Iron Sheik takes the microphone from Volkoff after half of the pre-chorus and does his usual Russia number one, Iran number one, USA (spits) thing which doesnt even make sense. At least make Russia number two. Unless its the tag team rankings in which case I guess the reigning champions could be Russia and Iran.
Theres a big pop for the champions. They enter to Born in the USA in the version Im watching which seems like the original music. Real American was written later and was given to Hulk Hogan after Windham left the WWF in 85, which is a much more fair turn of events than how its usually told.
When discussing the heel teams credentials, Monsoon eventually manages to mention that the Sheik is a former WWF heavyweight world champion. The Sheik starts the match and is initially dominated by Rotunda/-o to a decent reaction. Windham tags in and the Sheik reverses. Some attempted heel tactics with Volkoff holding Windham back while the Sheik attacks backfires and the Sheik accidentally big boots his tag partner. This leads to nothing at all, and the heel team gets time re-group and tag Volkoff in while the Sheik apologises. Theres a slow-motion replay of the friendly fire spot. So far replays have only been used to replay the finish of matches.
The face team tags in and out repeatedly to keep an arm lock going on Volkoff. Not a lot going on. Volkoff manages to send Rotunda/-o into the Sheiks boot which Monsoon calls an illegal weapon. Its really no more severe than anything the face team has done so far.
Back drop by the Sheik and a pin, kick out at two. Gut wrench suplex, kick out at two. Rotundo/-a counters a suplex into a nice-looking vertical suplex of his own. Volkoff is somehow tagged in to thunderous USA chants. Volkoff gets the heat on Rotunda/-o. While the camera focuses on the managers outside of the ring, the Iron Sheik is tagged in and puts an abdominal stretch on. Rotundo/-a escapes and both teams tag in the other guy. Big comeback by Windham on Volkoff. Windham hits his enormous finisher on Volkoff. Its a bulldog.
Sheik saves. Rotunda/-o enters the ring to throw the Sheik out and does so with a dropkick, but also manages to distract the referee as the Sheik hits Windham with some sort of Iranian cross between a golf club and a whip from the apron. Windham plays dead as the ref counts the three. New tag team champions. The crowd boos the hell out of no one overturning the decision, which to be fair weve kind of established someone could easily do by just telling the referee what happened.
Winners: Nokolai Volkoff & Iron Sheik via pinfall.
For a change, Gorilla Monsoon sends us straight to Mean Gene who reacts live to what just happened. The Iron Sheik enters the frame as it is established that this is to be a post-match interview. Blassie denies there being anything shady about the finish and the Iron Sheik, for the second time, starts his promo with you know, Gene Mean. We come to the America, we prove it. Look at us, he says, as Gene Mean sends us back to ringside.
After fooling us into thinking Alfred Hayes wouldnt be introducing the next match, we are now sent to him. Its established that two giants are going to clash, and that fifteen thousand dollars are on the line. Big John Studd and his manager Bobby Heenan have challenged André The Giant as Hayes quotes Studd as having said he is the only champion
giant. André The Giant seems to have this one in the bag as being the giant is in his name. In a completely backwards fashion, Hayes makes clear that if André cant slam Studd, he will have to retire from wrestling.
Gene Mean interview. Big John Studd says the bag with the supposedly 15 000 dollars of cash is heavy which just makes him come across as weak as hell as its not a very large bag.
Studd and Heenan cut promos basically saying André wont see any of the money and will have to retire. André does not get an interview.
Before we get to the match, Gorilla Monsoon does a confused transition into an ad for merchandise. A life-like poster of Hulk Hogan and Mr. T is shown. For some reason, it is advertised as being available in the lobby for eight dollars at intermission, and Monsoon implies that this ad is in fact for when WrestleMania will be touring the entire US and the world. They must mean at house shows after this event. For five dollars you can get a graphic depiction of the nights events in full colour.
A T-shirt and a cap are also advertised. The T-shirt would go for 14.75$ and the matching cap for 12.75$. This feels like it would have been a lot of money for clothes of presumably poor quality in 1985, but Im basing that entirely on how fifteen thousand dollars was apparently a mind-shattering amount of money for Mean Gene two minutes ago.
Ten minutes of intermission. Hot piano music and some smooth jazz plays. We return to Finkel seemingly forgetting to introduce the match, going straight to introducing Studd and Heenan. As the only gimmick match on the card, this feels like the one youd need to introduce the stipulations of. Oh wait, he does introduce the match after Heenan. One fall will win this contest, but if Studd is slammed he will lose fifteen thousand dollars in cash. If André fails to slam Studd, he will have to retire. If those are the stipulations, why doesnt just Studd leave the ring immediately and go home, making André the winner by count-out, but without a slam? André would get fired.
André enters without music.
Match 7: André The Giant vs. Big John Studd
André chokes Studd in the corner for way more than five seconds, which seems like a stupid idea considering the stipulations. Big rest hold bear hug by André after almost nothing. André lets go, does almost nothing, and puts Studd in a choke hold while Studd has his hands on the ropes for several seconds without interference by the referee. After a couple of low kicks, André spontaneously gets Studd up and slams him. For some reason the bell rings.
Someone hands André the money and he manages to throw something like two handfuls of bills in the general direction of the audience (with most of it landing in the ring because you try throwing paper money sometime) before Heenan takes the bag and runs off to boos.
Big John Studd isnt very big, or at the very least looks like a normal guy next to André. This made the entire match strange to watch, and considering nothing happened until André slammed him and won for some reason, I dont think this was very good at all.
This is the only match from WM1 that is in WWE 2k14. The stips in that game are corrected to simply be first one to slam the other wins.
Winner: André The Giant via ???.
Instant Mean Gene interview with André. André says something but its impossible to actually hear any words. He expresses dislike for Studd and Heenan, and sounds negative to the prospect of retiring.
Monsoons seventh a happenin of the night. He and Ventura are a pretty interesting dynamic on this show. Ventura is clearly the heel announcer with Monsoon being the face announcer, but they dont actually disagree with each other. Theyre quite friendly. Ventura just points out heel points of view, some of which Monsoon can agree with, and vice versa.
Hayes starts talking before Monsoon sends us to him. He starts by saying back on WrestleMania here, which makes no sense whatsoever as weve been at WrestleMania for a while now. He tries to say something about the ladies championship but is interrupted by women kissing him on the cheek. The first of the wrestling rock connection matches, we have Lelayli [sic] Kai versus Wendi Richter.
Wendi Richter and her temporary manager of Cyndi Lauper (way too similar names, Im going to get them mixed up at some point) get a Mean Gene pre-taped interview. They cut a pretty coherent promo about how Richter apparently only lost the belt in the first place because Moolah interfered. In the same room are Moolah and Lailani Kai. Kai establishes she is a heel and will cheat to win.
Match 8: Leilani Kai vs. Wendi Richter
Finkel also calls it the ladies championship, despite the on-screen graphic saying womens. Richter enters to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, obviously a famous Cyndi Lauper cover. Decent reaction to them entering the arena, although youd think there would be much more of a pop for an actual famous person.
Cyndi Laupers manager is at ringside. Great hierarchy of managers there. Stalling before the match can start. So much stalling they show the match graphic again. Kai repeatedly taps out to a hammerlock because tapping out isnt a thing. Monsoon and Ventura agree that its okay to break the rules if the referee isnt looking. Monsoon berates the referee for asking Kai if she grabbed Richters hair because of course shes going to say she didnt.
Nothing happens for a couple of minutes. Its not
bad but its just a bunch of holds. Moolah grabs Richter by the hair but the referee doesnt see it. Richter picks Kai up for what Monsoon assumes is going to be an airplane spin but its this instead.
Leilani Kai tries to do a Worlds Strongest Slam which garners a two count. Follows it up with a powerslam and goes to the top rope
high cross body by Kai to Richter. Richter awkwardly turns it around and pins Kai! New womens champion. All right match.
Cyndi Lauper attacks Moolah and theres a confusing brawl including Laupers manager. They play her entrance music after the match too which I dont think they did for JYD.
Winner: Wendi Richter via pinfall.
Mixed reaction from the audience. Some boos. I dont know why. Monsoon tries to send us to Gene but cant because Lauper and Richter are still in the ring. They eventually get to the interview and Richter is absolutely indecipherable. Lauper gets the mic and shit talks Kai a little. Richter pulls off the line of the night with Cow, thats how you pronounce it.
Finkel introduces all of the guest people for the main event. Baseball whatever Billy Martin is the guest ring announcer. Martin introduces Liberace as the guest time keeper. Eighth a happenin at Liberace entering the ring. I couldnt give less of a shit. Ninth a happenin. Monsoon claims the fans are loving it while they actually seem quite indifferent. Air horns, which have been absent since the opening segment since apparently the fans respected the matches and they dont respect this.
Before the third guy enters, Ventura claims 1.2 million viewers in 22 different countries are getting the event live. That has to be bullshit.
The third guy is introduced by Billy Martin but the microphone is off so we dont get to hear who it is. Its probably Muhammad Ali. Ali gets chants and a big pop. Hes the guest referee.
Martin (possibly Finkel) announces that the following is the main event and bagpipers enter the ring area.
Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff enter. Boos. The fix the microphone. Bob Orton is with them. Eye of the Tiger starts playing. We get a shot of Hulk Hogan entering behind Mr. T. The 1985 world heavyweight belt looks really good. Theyre followed by Jimmy Snuka.
Match 9: Hulk Hogan & Mr. T vs. Rowdy Roddy Piper & Paul Orndorff
Liberace rings the bell but its not the actual bell. Paul Orndorff and Hogan start off but Orndorff doesnt want to fight Hogan and Piper does, so they do an intense tag. Monsoon says they didnt have to tag because no contact had been made, so they could just have switched places. I love rules.
Hogan wants to fights Piper but Mr. T really wants to fight Piper so the crowd and Mr. T manage to convince Hogan to tag. This is done really well and the reaction for Mr. T coming in is huge. They havent even touched yet.
This is where I switched to the Network to watch the rest.
The heat for Piper and T going face to face and slapping each other is enormous. No question at all that this is the main event. Piper and T do some very basic wrestling and Piper runs back to his corner to recharge. Mr. T picks Piper up in a firemans carry position and slams him to the front in way more than youd think Mr. T would be able to do.
All four men enter the ring to brawl in an excuse to have Muhammad Ali break it up. Roddy chants as Piper leaves the ring. Pipers team leaves the ring area and start getting counted out.
Hogan stops the count but the audience keeps counting. All four men enter the ring to brawl, but this time Hogan and T take control and run the heels into each other.
I clicked a bunch of buttons and this is the .gif I ended up with, sorry.
Hogan himself dominates both Orndorff and Piper to a huge reaction. Mr. T slams Piper and hip tosses Orndorff.
Hogan does a big boot to Piper but Piper falls out of the ring instead of landing in a legdroppable position. As Hogan is looking at Piper over the ropes, Orndorff clotheslines Hogan out of the ring too. Piper hits Hogan with a chair outside of the ring as several referees are looking but maybe they didnt DQ people outside of the ring in this era. The heels work over Hogan in their corner.Mr. T tries to save Hogan but as the referee is sending T back to his corner, they double atomic drop Hogan. Lots of heat on Hogan who eventually gets to T. Piper and Orndorff immediately knock T down and beat him down instead. Rest hold between T and Piper. Hogan comes in and beats up both heels. Piper distracts the ref as Bob Orton runs in, but Snuka sends Orton out with a nose wrench or something.
A lot of things happen at once but it ends up with Orton coming off the top rope as Orndorff has Hogan in a full nelson, missing Hogan with the cast and hitting Orndorff instead.
Thats the finish. I stopped taping the .gif because I figured someone would break the pin but its the tree count. Mr. T checks on Orndorff who reacts violently to waking up. The Network plays Real American which means the real world played Eye of the Tiger and we leave Madison Square Garden.
Winner: Hulk Hogan & Mr. T via pinfall.
If you were wondering theres a Hogan/Mr. T/Snuka interview after the match so we get a Hogan interview on WM1 too. Well you know what turned me on, Mean Gene, the whole time Ive been training with a dude, he says.
It all comes across like the audience came to see the main event. Theres nothing memorable on the rest of the card but nothing really terrible either. Not worth watching because its an amazing wrestling event, but probably worth watching if you want to get a feeling for how wrestling was in 1985.
The best technical match felt like Santanas jobber match or Steamboats match, and outside of the main event, JYD definitely felt like the biggest (wrestling) star of the night.
This ended up becoming way too much of a re-cap and way too little of a review.
