Without question, the first two Starrcades were, by just about any metric one wished to use, very successful. But compared to what happened in 1985, they were just appetizers being brought on before the main course.
The reason for this? Because in 1985, WrestleMania was born. In Part 1 of our review of 1985, we are going to take a look at the events leading up to that historic event at Madison Square Garden in New York City. This will be the first blog entry so far to comment on both wrestling federations featured in 1985 in the WWE Network, namely the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). In Part 1 and 2, we will focus on the WWF side of things before circling back to the NWA for Part 3.
If you read the post on 1984, several events surrounding the WWF were discussed and one of the main ones was the Brawl To End It All. This was the event that truly sent the Rock ‘n’ Wrestling Connection into motion and, in many ways, was the first step on the Road to WrestleMania I. Much of the background to this event centered on a conflict between one of the greatest managers in the history of the WWF, Captain Lou Albano, and Cyndi Lauper. Lauper had become a pop/rock music icon by 1984 and Albano appeared in the video for “Girls Just Want To Have Fun”, portraying Lauper’s father. The WWF then created a storyline whereby Albano and Lauper would feud with one another. On an episode of Piper’s Pit, Albano would call Lauper a broad, Lauper would strike Albano with her purse and the war was on. This culminated in a match between the WWF Women’s Champion, The Fabulous Moolah, and the challenger, Wendy Richter. Albano managed the champion; Lauper would manage the challenger.
This took place at the Brawl To End It All on July 23, 1984 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. What many people forget about this event is that only the final match was shown on television. But this was a full fledged event with 10 other matches, including a Tag Team Championship defense by Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch, Hulk Hogan defending the WWF World Championship against Greg “The Hammer” Valentine, appearances from Bob Backlund, Sgt. Slaughter, Tito Santana, and the legendary Antonio Inoki winning a 20-man Battle Royal. In and of itself, the Brawl To End It All was a quasi-supercard.
In the main event though, Moolah would roll up Richter and both women’s shoulders were on the mat. Richter would lift her shoulder at the last instant and this enabled Richter to score the pin and put an end to the almost 28 year reign of Moolah as Women’s Champion. The main event, broadcast live on MTV, was a monster success for Vince McMahon, Jr. and the WWF, drawing a 9.0 Nielsen rating, the highest rated show in MTV history. The Rock ‘n’ Wrestling Connection was boiling hot…and it was about to go super-nova.
Wendy Richter captures the WWF Ladies Championship in a huge upset win over The Fabulous Moolah:
Lauper would make a few more videos for successful songs and these all had WWF Wrestlers or personalities in them. Perhaps most memorable was Albano reprising his role as Lauper’s father in the video for “Time After Time”. As the storyline rolled along, Albano and Lauper would end their dispute and work together to battle Multiple Sclerosis. On December 28, 1984, Lauper and her manager David Wolff presented Albano with a framed gold record. Roddy Piper, with whom Albano had always had a good relationship, entered the ring and smashed the record over Albano’s head. Lauper tried to stop the assault and Piper kicked her off of his leg. Wolff tried to intercede and got power slammed for his trouble. Piper stomped on Albano again before Hogan ran to the ring and chased Piper away, ending the fracas.
Roddy Piper bashes a gold record over the head of Captain Lou Albano as the Rock ‘n’ Wrestling Connection reaches a boiling point:
With all that as a backdrop, the year 1985 was poised to be a monumental one for the WWF. No one could possibly have imagined just how monumental a year it would actually be.
When we started this unique approach to pro wrestling history here at the Attitude Of Aggression, we made mention as to how we were planning on using the WWE Network as a means of educating fans and providing necessary material to bridge the gaps between key pay-per-view events that took place during the time frame being examined. A perfect example of this is in 1985 and it specifically relates to the road to WrestleMania I.
Tuesday Night Titans
The best way to truly experience the Road to WrestleMania I is to go into the WWE Network, hit the Vault button and then click on Tuesday Night Titans. Dubbed TNT by Vince McMahon and his co-host, Lord Alfred Hayes, Tuesday Night Titans was, more or less, the WWF’s version of The Tonight Show with McMahon playing the functional equivalent of Johnny Carson. McMahon would frequently have guests come on the show and between January 1985 all the way up through the first WrestleMania, the guests coming on the show served to develop or further a key storyline that would ultimately be an integral part of WrestleMania I.
What follows is a summary of the key episodes of TNT that took place in the early part of 1985, as the Road to the very first WrestleMania took place. It is my hope that this will serve as a guide, of sorts, for anyone interested in the history leading into WrestleMania I to have a good summary of the involved episodes of TNT that they might find interesting, important and/or useful.
January 3, 1985
The first episode of TNT for 1985 has a little bit of Nikolai Volkoff and The Iron Sheik as the seeds for the eventual Tag Team Championship match at WrestleMania I are first planted. But the much more important part of this show is the confrontation between “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and “Captain” Lou Albano near the show’s conclusion. This is absolutely great television for 1985 and something anyone interested in WrestleMania I should watch. Piper essentially accuses Albano of pocketing and embezzling the funds he, along with Cyndi Lauper, helped raise to battle multiple sclerosis. An understandably outraged Albano confronts Piper about this and gets slugged in the face, knocking him over a couch in the process. Albano is beyond angry as the episode goes off the air. Great stuff.
January 17, 1985
There is not a lot to this episode but it is still a fun one to watch. Tito Santana beat The Executioner on this episode. Why is that significiant? Because these would be the same two men who would meet in the first match ever in the history of WrestleMania just over two months later. So that is an interesting bit of trivia for you history buffs out there. The remainder of the episode is not that compelling. Hillbilly Jim continues to train with the WWF Champion, Hulk Hogan, and he shows some signs of progress. Albano makes an appearance and is still very pissed off about what happened the last time out.
January 24, 1985
This is a fairly important episode as it serves to develop the angle for WrestleMania I between Big John Studd and Andre The Giant. The fact that Andre’s hair has been cut is noted. Later in the episode, Patera, Studd and Bobby “The Brain” Heenan all combine to give some “volunteer” a shave and a haircut. It is a horrendous hack job…but it is still pretty funny. We also get some rare footage of Jesse “The Body” Ventura, both in-ring and behind the mic. This is definitely an episode worth watching.
January 31, 1985
On this episode, Hillbilly gets a victory with Hogan in his corner. We then see footage of the tag team match between Studd and Ken Patera vs. Andre and S.D. Jones. Jones was a quasi-jobber at the time and he too would be involved in a historic moment at WrestleMania I. In the tag team match though, he is effectively wiped out allowing Patera and Studd to double team Andre, incapacitate him, and give him one of the more memorable hair cuts in WWE history. It is a hugely important on the Road to WrestleMania I. Then we get a real treat as “Classy” Freddie Blassie makes an appearance and we see footage of Volkoff and Iron Sheik basically squashing another team of jobbers as their rise to #1 contenders for the Tag Team titles continues. This is another important episode to watch as things really begin to pick up steam from here.
Ken Patera and Big John Studd give Andre The Giant a haircut:
February 14, 1985
This Valentine’s Day edition of TNT is a very important one on the Road to WrestleMania I. There is a huge amount of build up here to The War To Settle The Score match between Piper and Hogan. How the match comes to be is detailed including Hogan challenging Piper to the match but Roddy declining to go forward with it…unless Hogan agreed to put the WWF Championship on the line. Hulk agrees and the match is set. We also see Cowboy Bob Orton in a tag team with Piper as they took on “Superfly” Jimmy Snuka and The Tonga Kid. This is interesting because, at this time, Orton is not wearing a cast on his wrist. The match is pretty good and Snuka and Tonga Kid get the better of the bad guys for much of the match. Eventually though, everything falls apart and the match becomes a free for all with both teams getting DQ’d. This episode is one that should definitely be watched by anyone interested in WrestleMania I.
February 22, 1985
This is a good episode to watch if the Tag Team title match at WrestleMania I interests you. There is a lot of stuff here involving the new Tag Team champions, Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo. For modern day fans, Rotundo is the father of current WWE Superstars Bo Dallas and Bray Wyatt. Back in 1985 though, Rotundo and Windham, called the US Express, had just captured the Tag Titles from Dick Murdoch and Adrian Adonis. Coverage of that title match is included in this episode and that alone makes this episode of TNT a must watch, in my opinion. The nonsense about Windham and Rotundo being teen idols is rather lame, but you can still see where Vince was going with it at the time. The rest of the episode focuses on more shenanigans involving Hogan and Hillbilly Jim. We do, however, get to see Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart in solo action, with his manager Mr. Fuji. It is one of the rare times we get to see The Anvil flying solo. All in all, this is another very good episode of TNT as WrestleMania I drew closer.
February 28, 1985
There is not much to see here that really furthers the angles in play for WrestleMania I. Volkoff and the Iron Sheik are in action against two of the better jobbers of the era, S.D. Jones and Rick McGraw. Jones and McGraw hold their own for a couple of minutes and are then soundly defeated. In the TNT studio, Blassie is in fine form and the promos he cuts are awesome. An interesting aspect of this episode is that we see a female referee, Rita Marie. It raises the interesting question: Why in the present do we not see any female referees? It is something interesting to ponder. In any event, she does OK in the match she referees but that whole angle goes nowhere. The show raps up with Dr. D, David Schultz, cutting some great heel promos. This guy might have actually been crazy and if not then he did a hell of a job of presenting himself that way.
March 7, 1985
The episodes of TNT in March are all quite important and worth watching and the one on March 7 might have been the most important of them all. That is because this is the first time we hear the word “WrestleMania” used. This episode gets going though with coverage of The War To Settle The Score main event between Piper and Hogan. We get to see a good portion of what went down, including Mr. Wonderful, Paul Orndorff, and Piper double teaming Hogan. Lauper tries to get involved to break up the beat down. She is about to get a beating too when Mr. T jumps the railing and is able to prevent Piper and Orndorff from going any further. Piper invites T into the ring and T obliges. Orndorff distracts T, allowing Piper to nail him in the back of the head and things look pretty bleak for T—until Hulk recovers, gets to his feet and Hulks out. T goes to his side and Piper and Orndorff want no part of this new team. It is absolutely awesome stuff to watch and ring psychology at its finest.
The Main Event of The War To Settle The Score sets the stage for the Main Event of WrestleMania I:
We then learn of the event coming up on March 31, 1985 and we even know the main event, which will pit Hulk Hogan and Mr. T against Paul Orndorff and Roddy Piper in a tag team match. Initially, the word WrestleMania is not used. It is also important to note that this is the one and thus far only time, that the WWE Heavyweight Championship was not defended at a WrestleMania. Still, the match is a huge one and feeding off of all the buzz from The War To Settle The Score, the buzz sweeping the nation for pro wrestling had, quite possibly, never been higher.
From there we see the Junkyard Dog in action and he begins to promote his upcoming match with Greg “The Hammer” Valentine for the Intercontinental Championship, which will also take place at the event on March 31, 1985. If you were watching this in 1985, your reaction may have been what it was for many of us: That match is going to be on that card too? And, suddenly, a true Supercard was being born and one that felt completely different than anything that had happened with the first two Starrcades.
We then get footage of Hogan and Mr. T training for the big main event and it is Mean Gene Okerlund who says the word WrestleMania for the first time.
The show closes with coverage of Leilani Kai upsetting Wendy Richter, in a match on the undercard for The War To Settle The Score, and capturing the Women’s Championship from Richter. The former champion, The Fabulous Moolah, was heavily involved in the match and went so far as to choke out Cyndi Lauper. This created enough of a distraction for Kai to get the win over Richter and steal away the title. We then learn that Kai will defend the title against Richter in a rematch at WrestleMania I.
Leilani Kai upsets Wendy Richter to capture the WWF Ladies Championship and sets the stage for their WrestleMania I rematch:
Wow! What a great episode and one that has to be watched as it is the episode that truly demonstrates just how big an event WrestleMania was about to become in the early spring of 1985.
March 14, 1985
With WrestleMania I just over two weeks away, we see the beginnings of the WWE hype machine in full gear, even back in 1985. The show begins with footage of Studd, Patera and Heenan giving Andre The Giant his infamous haircut. It is worth noting that Patera and Studd body slam Andre a full two years before Hogan would replicate the feat at WrestleMania III. And, sure, it took two of them to do it. Still, as Vince McMahon noted, it was a very, very rare sight indeed to see Andre taken off his feet by an opponent, regardless of how many of them there were. Studd then flashes a wad of cash to the audience, $15,000 to be exact, and the parameters of the “Slam Match” are first revealed.
We then see more footage of Hogan and Mr. T training. T is in full Clubber Lang mode during these training sessions and, according to Hulk, had knocked out 11 sparring partners.
Wendy Richter then spends some time promoting her Ladies Championship match with Kai. This is rather comical in that Lauper, for the life of her, cannot pronounce Leilani’s name properly and, ultimately, just combines her first and last name into Lani Kai. It is equal parts funny and sad.
The show closes down with footage of Volkoff and The Iron Sheik in a non-title tilt against Windham and Rotundo. The US Express more than holds their own in this match and win when Volkoff gets disqualified.
It is another very good episode and the anticipation for WrestleMania I was nearing a fever pitch.
March 21, 1985
Just 10 days out from WrestleMania and TNT ups the ante quite a bit. The show begins with Andre The Giant as a guest in studio. We first see footage of Andre getting a DQ win over Patera in a match loaded with interference from Heenan. The upcoming match with Studd is discussed and Vince almost seems to be goading Andre into putting his career on the line at Mania and retire if he cannot slam Studd. Andre does not take well to this at all and actually gets very physical with Vince, grabbing him by the tie. It is a side of Andre we had not seen before and a frightening reminder of how dangerous a giant Andre could actually be. Andre then goes storming off set leaving behind a clearly flustered McMahon. When the show comes back on air though, we learn that Andre has in fact, agreed to these terms and would put his career on the line if he could not slam Studd at WrestleMania. The match had a lot on the line already but this ratcheted up things drastically.
From there, we get to spend some time with the Intercontinental Champion, Greg “The Hammer” Valentine and his new manager, “The Mouth Of The South”, Jimmy Hart. We actually get to see Valentine in action as he gets a victory over future Young Stallion, Jim Powers, by way of the Figure Four Leglock. Valentine then spends some time promoting his WrestleMania match with the Junkyard Dog.
We then get a heavy dose of Piper, Orndorff and Orton as we get footage of an episode of Piper’s Pit. The three men are also in studio with Vince and Lord Alfred Hayes. McMahon asks Orton why he still has a cast on and shouldn’t he be healed up by now? It is a question many of us would ponder for a very long time after WrestleMania.
Rotundo and Windham are in action again as they pick up another win. They then spend some time discussing their title match with Volkoff and The Iron Sheik coming up at WrestleMania.
The show closes with a funny look at Hulk Hogan and Mr. T doing some shopping at a health foods store.
March 24, 1985
This is the final TNT before WrestleMania I and it can be argued that they saved the best for last. The first half of the show is all about the Main Event and it does an excellent job of recapping exactly how and why the match is happening. The highlights begin with footage of Piper smashing the gold record over Albano’s head, kicking Lauper off of his leg as she desperately tried to prevent a further attack by Piper and Piper’s eventual power slamming of Lauper’s manager/boyfriend, David Wolff. From there, we see footage of Piper going onto the set of the A-Team and harassing Mr. T. The two men get into a verbal confrontation, sowing the seeds of a confrontation on that front. The highlights then shift to The War To Settle The Score and exactly how all the participants got involved. By this point in time, the Main Event may have been the most must-see match in pro wrestling history—and no title was even on the line.
Roddy Piper gets into it with Mr. T on the set of The A-Team. Is there any wonder there was real heat between these two guys?:
We then get a very neat little blurb from Vince McMahon explaining exactly how one could see WrestleMania. Vince stresses it will not be on free TV and that very few cable providers had pay-per-view access. Vince explains that to see Mania, one had to go to a specified closed-circuit location and watch it there. Later in the show, a listing of all such locations is provided. It is not as extensive a list as one might expect and the fact that WrestleMania I did as well as it did, with a somewhat limited run, is a true testament to just how successful a venture it actually was.
Footage is then shown of a Piper’s Pit segment that was filmed at Madison Square Garden on St. Patrick’s Day. All six men involved in the Main Event are in the ring and, as expected, things disintegrate pretty quickly. Piper spends a lot of time imploring T to back out and not risk being injured. To drive the point home, Piper shows T several paintings, each one depicting T in a more serious state of injury than the one before. Although it is quite funny, T is not amused and the bad-blood between all the participants only grew hotter.
The epic Piper’s Pit from Madison Square Garden on St. Patrick’s Day in 1985:
The special celebrity guests involved in the Main Event are then discussed and this further amplified just how different an event WrestleMania I was going to be as compared to the first two Starrcades. Muhammad Ali is mentioned as being a guest referee and Liberace is revealed as a guest time-keeper. Mean Gene spends some time interviewing him and he also spends some quality time, shall we say, with the guest ring announcer, Billy Martin.
To close things down, Vince and Lord Alfred Hayes run through pretty much the entire card.
Thus, the Road To WrestleMania I was complete and had reached its destination. What happened next would forever change the landscape of the professional wrestling and sports entertainment industries…forever.
WRESTLEMANIA I
While TNT is an excellent way to gain the true flavor of the Road to WrestleMania I as far as what was happening on-screen, the story of what was going on behind the scenes that even allowed the first WrestleMania to happen is even more compelling.
There are numerous sources one can turn to in order to learn the true story of how the first ‘Mania came to pass. W50, written by Kevin Sullivan, is a great choice but an even better choice is the phenomenal 30 Years of WrestleMania by Brian Shields and Dean Miller. Both books are loaded with so much history that they should be in the home of any WWE fan. On the Network, I would certainly recommend watching the WrestleMania Rewind for WrestleMania I and I would absolutely recommend watching The True Story of WrestleMania. You can find the latter in the Beyond The Ring section of the Network. What follows is a summary of a lot of the information I gleaned from all of these various sources.
Vince McMahon had already drawn battle lines and had fired several shots in his war to make the WWF a national, and potentially global, powerhouse. Having lured away much of the best talent in pro wrestling, McMahon had a roster in place that had never been truly assembled in any other territory. McMahon knew there was a way to truly make pro wrestling explode and he had already captured lightning in a bottle with the Rock ‘n’ Wrestling connection. It was on a very rare vacation that the idea for the first WrestleMania was born. McMahon pondered the idea of an annual event combining the best of pro wrestling and the best of entertainment in one venue and in one huge event. McMahon figured that it would be pro wrestling’s version of the Super Bowl. To McMahon, it seemed like a natural fit. McMahon got together his cabinet of advisors and told them the date of the event would be March 31, 1985 and it would take place at Madison Square Garden in New York City. There was no name for the event yet, but the ground work for an unprecedented extravaganza had already been laid.
But the devil was in the details for McMahon and this event. Many questions still lingered. How could he make this event truly different than other annual Supercards, such as Starrcade? Would allowing celebrities inside the closely guarded kayfabe world of pro wrestling backfire? And would fans really go to a local arena or theater and actually pay to watch the event on closed circuit TV?
The first two questions kind of played off of each other. McMahon distinguished WrestleMania from Starrcade, or anything else, with production value and because WrestleMania was truly “sports-entertainment.” Just watch the first 15 minutes of Starrcade ’83 or ’84 and compare that to the first 15 minutes of WrestleMania and the difference is very obvious. And while allowing outsiders into the world of pro wrestling was unheard of at the time, Vince McMahon has never been shy about bucking a few trends.
The closed circuit issue was more problematic. One of the TNTs that I watched made a point of letting the fans know that only a few select areas would be able to get the event on PPV; everyone else was going to have to watch it on closed circuit. The literally million dollar question was would they? McMahon gambled everything that they would. He put it all on the line because he believed so strongly that WrestleMania would be a success. He brokered deals with all of the venues and obtained all of the equipment to pull the event off. If it failed, every line of credit he had obtained would come due and the WWF would likely be bankrupt, along with its principal owner, and everyone involved would have been blacklisted across the pro wrestling industry. Everyone from McMahon to Hulk Hogan to Pat Patterson were all gambling that WrestleMania I would be a success.
McMahon went the extra mile to gain as much exposure for his event as he possibly could by granting the press unheard of access to the wrestlers and, by extension, to the industry. In addition to what was happening on TNT, Hulk Hogan and Mr. T were showing up all over the airwaves, such as The Today Show and appearing on an episode of Saturday Night Live, the night before WrestleMania. McMahon did an absolutely phenomenal job of positioning WrestleMania to succeed. All that was left was to put on the event.
A classic clip of Billy Crystal getting Hogan and Mr. T to laugh during a skit from Saturday Night Live the night before WrestleMania:
Now, to be fair, if one were to judge WrestleMania I based solely upon match quality, this is one of the weaker entries in the 31 year history of the event. But one cannot truly look at it solely in that context and the historical impact of the event makes it one of, if not the, most important Manias in history.
Here is a bit of trivia for you historians out there: Who was the first person to sing the National Anthem at WrestleMania? It was none other than “Mean” Gene Okerlund. It is amazing to contemplate that when one considers the star power of performers who have opened WrestleMania with the National Anthem ever since WrestleMania I. The ringside broadcast team for WrestleMania I was Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse “The Body” Ventura. Could anyone have really anticipated or expected the tremendous chemistry these two would have together? They were so incredible together that they would be the color and play by play duo for the first six WrestleManias.
For the first match ever at WrestleMania, McMahon turned to someone he could trust to get the crowd at MSG going straight away. That person was none other than Tito Santana. In some respects, this was a curious place to put Santana. After all, Tito was a very popular star on the WWF roster and a former Intercontinental Championship who still had a feud going on with the then current champion, Greg Valentine. His resume would sure seem to have justified being placed later on in the evening. But McMahon knew Santana would deliver the kind of opening match that would set the pace for the rest of the evening. And, as is often the case, McMahon was right. When you compare the opening match of WrestleMania to the opening match of Starrcade ’83, there is definite difference in the entire feel of the two events and, to a large extent, Santana was responsible for this.
Santana would square off against The Executioner in the very first match at WrestleMania. Under the mask of The Executioner was Buddy Rose. Rose may have been best known for his brutal feud with Roddy Piper in the Pacific Northwest. In later years, he would struggle greatly with his weight and many people only remember him as “Playboy” Buddy Rose, a bleached blond jobber to the stars. Their match at WrestleMania was nothing spectacular, but it was better than the one that was aired on the January 17, 1985 episode of TNT, and it was certainly good enough to get WrestleMania off on the right foot. Santana would prevail after nailing The Executioner with his patented Flying Forearm and then getting him to submit to his Figure Four Leglock.
The next match is quite possibly the most famous squash match to ever take place at WrestleMania. King Kong Bundy, who would challenge Hogan for the Championship a year later, obliterated S.D. “Special Delivery” Jones. The only thing special about what was delivered to Jones was the rapidity in which he was dispatched by Bundy after being Avalanched and then splashed. The official announcement was a mere nine seconds but that is not true at all. The match lasts just a hair under 24 seconds. Watch it yourself here and time it for yourself. Nevertheless, perennial jobber, S.D. Jones, does the ultimate job for Bundy here and makes Bundy look like the monster he would become over the next year.
King Kong Bundy destroys S.D Jones in record time at WrestleMania I:
From there, Matt Borne took on Ricky Steamboat. Like much of WrestleMania I, the match itself is fairly average—not bad at all, but nothing special. But like much of WrestleMania I, there is historical significance in this match. There are three men who can say they competed in both the first Starrcade and the first WrestleMania (four if you count Bob Orton Jr., who competed in the first Starrcade but was only in the corner of Piper and Orndorff at WrestleMania I) and Steamboat is the first of the three who would compete on this night. As for the match itself, Borne hangs around for a while but Steamboat’s athleticism is simply too much and he prevails after connecting with a Flying Bodypress.
The next match is one of the points in WrestleMania where I think WWE swung and missed. David Sammartino, the son of The Living Legend Bruno Sammartino, took on Brutus Beefcake a couple of years before Beefcake would assume his Barber persona. David would be seconded by his father while Beefcake would have Luscious Johnny Valiant as his manager. When everyone comes down to the ring, it is Bruno who, by far and away, gets one of the loudest pops of anyone on the entire card, other than Hogan, of course. It raises the question as to why McMahon did not decide to have Bruno actually compete at the inaugural WrestleMania, as opposed to the role he played. Clearly, Bruno was one of the most beloved figures in the then WWF and would almost always sell out The Garden when he competed there. Perhaps McMahon did not want anyone to steal any of Hogan’s thunder? In any case, Bruno had been out of action for several years and I think having the father wrestle, as opposed to the son, would have made for a better match and would have added something to the entire event.
The match itself is probably the high water mark in the career of David Sammartino, which is, in many ways, a sad summary as to the career of someone who seemed to have such enormous potential. There is some good, classic, chain wrestling for quite a bit of this match and David controls large chunks of this match. Beefcake’s power set begins to take control though and David is eventually thrown outside the ring at the feet of Valiant. Valiant slams David to the cement floor and this sets Bruno into action as he throws Valiant in the ring and proceeds to clobber him. All hell breaks loose and, not surprisingly, the match is ruled a double DQ. Still, it gave the MSG faithful a chance to cheer for one of their heroes, albeit it not in the capacity I think they would have truly enjoyed.
The end of the match between David Sammartino and Brutus Beefcake where an all-out brawl ensues:
From there, we get the first of the three championship matches on the card as the Intercontinental Champion, Greg Valentine, with Jimmy Hart in his corner, took on the Junkyard Dog. Valentine became the second man to compete in the first Starrcade and the first WrestleMania by his appearance at this point of the card. It will come as no surprise that this match is not a technical masterpiece and JYD control most of the match with his brawling technique and toughness. Valentine gets in some shots here and there and appears to win the match by placing his feet on the second rope for leverage and getting the 1-2-3. But Tito Santana gets into the ring, clearly pissed off, and explains to the referee exactly how Valentine got the win. Then something happens that we hardly ever see—the referee believes this explanation, reverses his own decision, restarts the match, and begins to count out Valentine. Valentine refuses to get back into the ring and the Dog gets the win, but does not get the title. It is another OK match, but nothing more than that. It does, however, further the animosity between Santana and Valentine as that feud would reach its boiling point not too long after WrestleMania.
The Junkyard Dog gains a count out victory over the Intercontinental Champion, Greg Valentine:
The next match is the second championship match as the Tag Team Champions, Mike Rotundo and Barry Windham, the US Express, with Lou Albano as their manager, tangled with Nikolai Volkoff and The Iron Sheik, with “Classy” Freddie Blassie as their manager. One of the fun things I noticed in rewatching this broadcast is the promo that the US Express cuts with Albano before the match. Albano has a can in his hand that looks a lot like a can of beer. If you watched the Stone Cold Podcast a few weeks back with Paul Heyman, you may recall Heyman mentioned that Albano was a bit of a drinker. If he was partying down at the first Mania midway through the card that would certainly seem to verify what Heyman said. It’s a fun little thing to watch for if you decide to watch this event on the Network—almost like looking for hidden Mickey’s at Disneyland, if you will.
Even though this is a quick match, lasting just under seven minutes, it is the best match of the night, from a match quality standpoint. There is some very good back and forth action in this match and it looks as though Windham has assumed control of the match for the champs after hitting Volkoff with a bulldog. But during a period of distraction, the Sheik is able to blast Windham in the back of his bead with Blassie’s cane. This enabled Volkoff to pin Windham and capture the titles for he and Volkoff. In the world of 1985, it was an enormously unpopular decision but it added a definite level of parity to the card that had thus far been dominated by baby face victories.
Nikolai Volkoff and The Iron Sheik steal the WWF Tag Team Titles at WrestleMania I:
From there, it is on to the $15,000 Slam Match between Andre The Giant and Big John Studd. It is interesting to note that for all his involvement leading up to WrestleMania, Ken Patera is nowhere to be found at this match. Studd could have definitely used his assistance as Andre pretty much dominated the entire match. After just under six minutes of action, Andre picks up Studd in the slam position, eliciting possibly the loudest pop of the night from the crowd at MSG, slams Studd to the mat and ends the match. Andre grabs the WWF duffle bag containing the $15,000 and begins to throw the money out to the audience. Bobby Heenan, however, jumps into the ring and steals the bag back from Andre and flees as fast as his legs can carry him. It is the quintessential weasel move from the manger known as The Weasel by the WWE Universe. Nevertheless, Andre prevailed and his career continued—which would obviously become very important just a couple of years later.
Andre The Giant slams Big John Studd to win $15,000 and avoid retirement:
The next match is the first of the Rock ‘n’ Wrestling Connection matches and it featured Wendy Richter, with Cyndi Lauper in her corner, trying to recapture the WWF Ladies Championship from Leilani Kai, who had the former champion, The Fabulous Moolah, in her corner. In the pre-match promo, Lauper still cannot pronounce Kai’s first name correctly. All that aside, however, the match is another serviceable one, but nothing spectacular. At the end of the match, Kai tries to pull off the same move that delivered a victory for Steamboat earlier in the evening, a flying bodypress from the top rope. Now, wrestling fans have seen this move thousands of times, or at least how it is intended to work. Kai’s momentum was supposed to work against her, enabling Richter to end up on top of her and get the three count. For the most part though, this is a botched spot at WrestleMania I. Richter completes the move and gets the win to capture the title. But the move is not smooth at all and very, very sloppy. It truly takes something away from the finish but still accomplishes the desired result of Richter recapturing the title. The post match celebration between Richter and Lauper is lots of fun though and Lauper does get a slight measure of revenge against Moolah during the match. The post match promo cut by Richter, however, is pretty bad and just rather nonsensical.
Wendy Richter recaptures the WWF Ladies Championship from Leilani Kai at WrestleMania I:
From there, we reach the apex of the first WrestleMania, the Main Event pitting Hulk Hogan and Mr. T, with Superfly Jimmy Snuka in their corner, against Rowdy Roddy Piper and Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff, with Cowboy Bob Orton Jr., in their corner. It is here where the celebrity factor of the first WrestleMania came to the forefront and truly separated WrestleMania I from any other comparable event that came before it. Former New York Yankee’s manager Billy Martin was the guest ring announcer and, overall, he does a pretty good job substituting in for the legendary Howard Finkel. Liberace came down to the ring with four members of the world famous Rockettes and they spend some time doing some iconic leg kicks in the ring. Muhammad Ali, The Greatest, then comes down to the ring as a special referee and he looks simply awesome. As Jesse Ventura commented, Ali looked like he could have gone 12 rounds right then and there. This is obviously before the hold of Parkinson ’s disease had truly affected Ali and for old school fans of boxing, it is really nice to see Ali still looking so healthy and vibrant, a subtle reminder of just how great a champion he truly was.
It should not be overlooked that WWF got Ali involved with WrestleMania as a guest referee, whereas the NWA had his biggest rival, Joe Frazier, as a guest referee at Starrcade ’84. But instead of letting Ali have a direct effect on the outcome of the match, such as the disaster that took place when Frazier was the special referee for the Main Event of Starrcade ’84, Ali was tasked with being the referee to try and control things outside the ring. I think this was a great move by WWE and a perfect use of Ali in this capacity. Pat Patterson, the first Intercontinental Champion, had some real concerns over whether Ali could do the job of the main referee and the decision was made that Patterson would instead serve as the in-ring referee for the Main Event. With that, all the pageantry and pomp was done and it was on to the actual match itself, the most anticipated Main Event in the history of pro wrestling, at least up to 1985. With a lot of real heat between Piper and T leading into the match, anything and everything seemed quite possible.
Hogan and Orndorff start off in the ring together. But Piper asks to be tagged in and T asks Hulk to tag him in. This leads to the iconic nose to nose showdown between Piper and Mr. T, with both men then slapping each other in the face. T shows some skill early on and surprises the Rowdy One. Things break down very quickly and all four men end up brawling in the ring. Ali gets in the ring and takes a swing at Orton. Piper gathers up his troops and they begin to leave the ring side area, triggering Patterson to begin to count them out. The Hulkster will have none of that though as he prevents the count out. Piper and company return to the ring and the match resumes.
Mr. T shows some more skill with a fireman’s carry of Piper and a perfect hip toss of Orndorff. Things go a bit back and forth for a while but business then picks up when Hogan gets knocked outside the ring and Piper crashes a chair over his back. Ali tries to restore some order outside the ring but Piper and Orndorff would maintain control over Hogan for the next few minutes. This persists until Orndorff attempts to hit Hogan with a flying kneedrop off the top rope. He misses and Hogan is able to get to T to make the tag. But T quickly gets double teamed and overwhelmed as Piper and Orndorff maintained the advantage. Piper uses a variety of wrestling moves to keep control of T but, surprisingly, T is able to power out and get to Hogan to make the tag.
The match then heads to its rather chaotic finish. Orton gets into the ring and is met my Snuka, who delivers a massive leaping head butt knocking Orton outside the ring. Orndorff locks Hogan in a full nelson while Orton climbs to the top of the ropes. Piper, meanwhile, is going to clean Hogan’s clock while Orndorff has Hogan in the full nelson, but Mr. T makes the save before Piper can deliver the blow. Patterson goes to try and break the two men up. Orton comes off the top rope, intending to blast Hogan in the head with his cast. At the last moment, Hogan spins away and Orton, instead, crushes Orndorff in the head. Hogan makes the cover and Patterson counts Orndorff down sending the Garden into a frenzy and giving the good guys the victory.
The Main Event of WrestleMania I:
After the match, Piper punches Patterson and he and Orton leave the ring, leaving Orndorff lying unconscious in the middle of the ring. As he comes to, he begins to swing at anything and anyone around him. Orndorff is clearly clueless as to what has just transpired even though Hulk and T try to explain what just took place. Eventually, Orndorff leaves the ring as Hogan, Mr. T and Snuka celebrate the win, bringing the first WrestleMania to a conclusion.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The real celebration would begin once the numbers for WrestleMania began to trickle back to McMahon and the rest of the WWF. At The Garden itself, there was no doubt that WrestleMania had been an enormous success. But the question remained: How did it do as a closed circuit event? As the various venues began to report in, however, it became clear that something truly special had happened. It was at about 3 AM when Linda McMahon was able to go to Vince and tell him they had, at a minimum, broken even. Once it was realized that over one-million people had actually viewed WrestleMania on closed circuit television, the venture went from a gamble to lucrative in a heartbeat.
As mentioned previously, WrestleMania I was from a classic, as far as match quality was concerned. Most of the matches were average, at best, and none of them lasted very long with every match other than the Sammartino v. Beefcake match and the Main Event clocking in at less than 10 minutes. Still, the historical impact of this event cannot, and should never, be overlooked or understated. When you factor in the huge gamble the McMahons’ took to put the event on, the technological hurdles involved, and the legacy WrestleMania I put into motion, then one has to look at the first Mania differently and with different colored lenses than we might look at a similar event in 2015.
Taking all of these factors into consideration, I would rate WrestleMania I as an 8 out of 10.
In the months that followed, the WWF would enjoy a huge surge in momentum, a direct result of the success of WrestleMania I. The feud between Piper and Hogan would escalate and grow more intense. Santana would finally recapture the Intercontinental Championship, defeating Valentine in a Steel Cage match at a house show in Baltimore in July of 1985. Rotundo and Windham would reclaim the Tag Team Championship from Volkoff and the Iron Sheik in Poughkeepsie, New York in June of 1985 but would then lose the titles to the Dream Team of Valentine and Beefcake at a house show in Philadelphia near the end of August of 1985. Along the way, we saw the debut of one of the most charismatic individuals in the history of the WWE, the “Macho Man’ Randy Savage. Savage surprised everyone by naming a female as his manager, the beautiful Miss Elizabeth. Orndorff was blamed by Piper for the WrestleMania defeat and was then attacked by Piper and Orton on the first episode of Saturday Night’s Main Event in May of 1985. Orndorff would come to Hogan’s aid as he was being double teamed by Piper and Orton later on that night culminating a face turn for Mr. Wonderful.
Over the next few months, many of these storylines and developments would occur and progress and they would all set the stage for what would take place at The Wrestling Classic, which is where we will pick things up in Part 2 of our review of 1985.