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Jack Likes Wrestlemania: Wrestlemania I

February 26, 2015 | Posted by Jack Stevenson
6.5
The 411 Rating
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Jack Likes Wrestlemania: Wrestlemania I  

WWE WRESTLEMANIA I: I am going to attempt to review all the Wrestlemanias. I haven’t done a proper show review in a while, and there are thirty to get through, so if you like or do not like aspects of the way I approach this please let me know, I have plenty of time to modify and improve.

Wrestlemania is one of the hidden gems of the WWE calendar- many of you will be surprised to hear that this event has been held right under your noses, every Spring, for 30 years now. I think everyone knows the backstory behind the first Wrestlemania now don’t they? It was a very big risk and if it had failed WWF would surely have collapsed, but it was a gigantic success so WWF pursued an alternative path of being an unstoppable entertainment juggernaut. Let us now relive the happening that this was!

So, from Madison Square Garden, on March 31st 1985, it’s Wrestlemania I! I am watching the version available on the WWE Network, just in case I miss anything through edits or what have you. Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura are your commentators, Lord Alfred Hayes introduces the matches from just behind the curtain and seems thoroughly uncomfortable all evening, and Mean Gene Okerlund gets the honour of being the first person to open Wrestlemania by singing the national anthem, which is the single greatest answer to a trivia question there may ever have been.

MATCH ONE- TITO SANTANA VS. THE EXECUTIONER

In sharp contrast, this is the most disappointing answer to a trivia question there may ever have been. In a pre-match interview, Tito Santana admits he knows nothing about the Executioner. He tells him he respects all his opponents, but won’t let any of them stand in the way of achieving his goals. Arriba! The Executioner, meanwhile, promises to target Santana’s leg, which was hurt by Greg Valentine. He sees himself as a big leaguer!

The first match in Wrestlemania history does not offer any indication that it would set into motion three decades of iconic pro wrestling. It is a humble, unassuming match that seems desperate to get out of the spotlight as quickly as possible. The action is OK but meanders slightly even at just five minutes in length, and The Executioner’s attempts at working Santana’s leg are half hearted at best. Santana wins with the flying forearm. * ½

MATCH TWO- KING KONG BUNDY VS. S.D. JONES

Jones is almost incoherent with excitement before the match! He is so bloody thrilled to be competing at Wrestlemania! It’s pretty heartbreaking what’s about to happen with him. King Kong Bundy feels it is fitting that the biggest card in professional wrestling features the biggest wrestler in professional wrestling. He pledges to avalanche Jones and get a five count!

You know what happens next- Bundy crunches Jones with an Avalanche and a splash and picks up a super speedy victory. The WWF claim a record time of nine seconds, although in reality it took 24. To this day, the official line is that this was the shortest match in WWE history until Diesel won the WWF Championship from Bob Backlund nearly a decade later. N/R.

MATCH THREE- RICKY STEAMBOAT VS. MATT BORNE

Matt Borne admits that Ricky Steamboat is one of the best wrestlers in the world, but he feels he’s too nice a guy, and Borne will take advantage of that to make a name for himself. Good little promo, actually, with Borne talking up both himself and Steamboat in effective fashion. Steamboat states that he’s in the WWF to develop a mean streak, and he’s going to start doing that against Borne. This is similar to the opening match, but marginally better- tighter, more focused, and with superior wrestlers. The wrestlers perform similar roles to the opener as well, with Borne trying to ground the peppy, high flying Dragon. Steamboat’s grace and precision in the ring is still a joy to behold 30 years later, and Borne has a bit of aggression to him. It’s still a short, ordinary match though. Steamboat wins with his signature high crossbody from the top rope. **

MATCH FOUR- DAVID SAMMARTINO VS. BRUTUS BEEFCAKE

With his famous father by his side, David Sammartino says he’s been training hard and his Dad is standing with him, so Brutus Beefcake is going to be in for a big surprise. Bruno warns Johnny Valiant of the consequences of getting involved in the match. The consequences involved a fist in probably the third most unpleasant area- the face. Luscious Johnny says fuck that noise, he’ll do what he wants, and Brutus underlines the point by blowing a raspberry into the microphone. How rude.

The match is the longest of the night so far, but because life is just desperately unfair it’s also comfortably the worst. The best moments in it are a fragment of commentary and a heckle from Johnny Valiant. First, Monsoon and Ventura agree that whoever loses will go “six months to a year, maybe two years behind” in their career. They don’t explain why this is the case, why losing one puny midcard match will transport you back to 1983, but it’s still an admirable attempt at trying to create some added drama out of thin air for a bout that needs all the help it can get. The other nice moment is Johnny Valiant claiming Sammartino has grease on. Both of those little plot devices seem completely alien to modern wrestling, which has evolved so far from its sports routes that nobody really thinks about the benefits of greasing yourself before a match. There are a couple of independent promotions that pride themselves on wins and losses being meaningful in their universe, but it never seems as natural and ingrained a part of the whole concept of wrestling as it does here. I know a lot changes in 30 years, but the WWF of Wrestlemania 1’s undercard is unrecognisable from that of WWE’s Wrestlemania 31- all these almost random singles matches, still somewhat rooted in sports sensibilities, occurring in a dingy, intimate Madison Square Garden, the ring marooned by a grimy concrete floor. Modern Wrestlemanias feel like they’re taking place in gleaming, open air spaceships. Wrestlemania 1 appears to emanate from a disused mine in comparison. As for the match- David Sammartino has understandably become synonymous with disappointment and underachievement in wrestling, but it’s Brutus who looks really bad here. He controls most of the match and his offense is fucking tedious, quickly descending into just punching and stomping. David looks pretty competent by comparison, but the booking tells the story. Before the match, David is introduced first, with Bruno the main attraction. At the end of the match, Johnny Valiant hoists the younger Sammartino up and slams him on the concrete floor- I know Valiant used to be a distinguished competitor but seriously, a manager hoisting an active wrestler off his feet and depositing him unceremoniously on his rear end? Bruno then tears over and beats the shit out of him. David needs to be saved by his Dad. And, yeah, then Brutus blindsides Bruno and it’s a two on one assault and David makes the save, but it isn’t like it’s a grand conquering moment for him because the rule-breakers quickly flee the ring and the match is ruled a double DQ. Very little good about this. Bad match. ¾ *.

MATCH FIVE- WWF INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP- GREG VALENTINE VS. THE JUNKYARD DOG

Flanked by Jimmy Hart, Greg Valentine promises to show why’s he the greatest Intercontinental Champion of all time, and why they call him the Hammer. He’s lean, mean, and full of fighting fury! Junkyard Dog is aware what a big opportunity this is, and is looking forward to buying lots of dog bones for himself when he is the Intercontinental Champion. This is kind of intriguing without actually being all that entertaining. Junkyard Dog’s offence is built largely around headbutts, Valentine wants to keep his opponent grounded as much as possible. It’s impressive how tenaciously Greg pursues that goal but, yeah, it’s not thrilling. Jimmy Hart hops up onto to the ring apron to try and be an annoyance and Valentine accidentally shoves him onto the floor! The crowd go bananas!!! Wrestling needs, like, 110% more managers. You really want to see someone get beaten up when they’re always cowardly avoiding getting beaten up. Valentine makes amends by swiftly pinning Junkyard Dog with his feet on the ropes. Boooooo! Tito Santana storms down to the ring to protest and the referee restarts the match, so Greg and Jimmy quite naturally take the count-out loss and retain their title. Another pretty average, meat and potatoes kind of match, but hey, the undercard is zipping by. * ½.

MATCH SIX- WWF TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIPS- THE U.S. EXPRESS VS. THE IRON SHEIK & NIKOLAI VOLKOFF

Freddie Blassie believes he’s got the next tag team champions in the Sheik & Volkoff. The Express are managed by Lou Albano, and he thinks he’s got a hard working team who will try their best to get the job done. One certainly sounds more confident than the other. The Express are comprised of Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo. Before the match, Nikolai Volkoff belts out the Soviet national anthem and the crowd are veeeeeerrrrrrry keen to show their displeasure! It’s sort of cool that wrestling can really help people release their anger and insecurities by shouting at people pretending to fight. I wasn’t alive during the height of Cold War tensions but I’d imagine living in that time was just that- pretty darn tense. Yet WWF have created this kind of safe space with unthreatening Soviet caricatures you can just openly loathe, without worrying about the consequences of doing so. I mean, Nikolai Volkoff isn’t going to blast you into oblivion with nuclear weaponry. It’s xenophobic and unpleasant, but still somewhat impressive.

Rotundo starts the match off with staples of the happy go lucky good guy offence- hiptosses! Dropkicks! If you’re happy and you know it, grab the nearest person and hiptoss him halfway across the room. Things continue to go well for the U.S. Express as Sheik attempts to dropkick Windham, but misses and nails Volkoff! This is the best match of the night so far. The U.S. Express’ offense is enjoyable in a vanilla kind of way, and when Sheik and Volkoff take control they marshal the match well with basic wrestling. They are rewarding for this with a significant victory!

Sheik canes Windham in the back while the referee isn’t looking, and Volkoff pins him to win the WWF Tag Team Championships! The first title change in Wrestlemania history! This was one second longer than the Intercontinental Championship match, but I felt like I could have seen another couple of minutes- the finish was a little rushed. Solid effort though. ** ½.

Post match, Freddie Blassie is outraged at suggestions that their victory might have been in some way controversial. The Iron Sheik feels he has conclusively proved Iran is #1.

MATCH SEVEN- $15,000 CHALLENGE- ANDRE THE GIANT VS. BIG JOHN STUDD- IF ANDRE LOSES HE MUST RETIRE FROM WRESTLING

Big John Studd thinks we’ll be seeing the final match of Andre the Giant tonight. Bobby Heenan insists only three people will see the $15,000- Studd, Heenan, and the person at the bank when they deposit it.

So, if Andre the Giant slams Studd, he wins $15,000. If he doesn’t, he retires. You might be able to guess the result of this one, considering the Wrestlemania III main event wasn’t Hulk Hogan vs. S.D. Jones. Studd goes right on the attack with clubbing blows but Giant sends him scurrying to the floor with a hard headbutt. The match proceeds with achingly slow punches and a prolonged bearhug, but the crowd are itching to see a slam. Andre gives them what they want by essentially just kicking the shit out of Studd for a solid minute, and then dumping him on his back with the slam! This definitely wasn’t an exciting match by modern standards, but Andre and Studd clearly had a gameplan, they knew what they were doing. Hard to rate, but call it **. Giant’s long standing commitment to socialism is evident as he starts to redistribute the wealth to the fans- but greedy capitalist Heenan steals most of it and hurtles to the back.

Post match, Andre says he doesn’t care about the money, he’s just proud to have slammed Studd. There is no way, no way, no way he could have retired tonight!

MATCH EIGHT- WWF WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP- LEILANI KAI VS. WENDI RICHTER

Cyndi Lauper, pop icon, total hero, and manager extraordinaire for Wendi Richter, is a fucking ace promo. She warns The Fabulous Moolah and Leilani Kai that Richter is a powerful woman, and she herself is from the Lou Albano school of management! A fired up Richter is determined to reclaim the Women’s Championship tonight. Leilani Kai is equally confident that she’ll retain the title. The Fabulous Moolah only discusses his bizarre glasses.

Richer opens the match with a not especially great punch, and Kai flings herself across the ring upon receiving it, which is admirable. Wendi grabs a hammerlock and Kai taps the mat furiously. Just for a moment I was confused as to whether the match was over or not. It seems weird that tapping as a form of submission was only really popularised in the late nineties. After opening in pretty interesting fashion the match becomes stodgy, in truth no better than modern Divas matches, but hey, at least this is in the semi main event on merit and not just to cool down fans before the main event! The seconds get involved as Moolah seizes Richter by the hair, and Lauper flaps at her to break her grip. Back in the ring, Richter gets two from a pretty cool Fireman’s Carry slam variation that a lot of indy wrestlers seem to still utilise as a seemingly groundbreaking move! Why is Pennsylvania not utterly livid that Richter hasn’t even come close to winning the Rumble these last two years? Perhaps it’s because of the finish, which is dreadfully awkward for the most significant women’s match in WWF history. Kai attempts a high crossbody off the top, Richter rolls through with great difficulty, and flops across her opponent for an unconvincing three! New champion! This match wouldn’t have looked out of place in today’s women’s division. Every single men’s match on this show would have looked very out of place among today’s male matches. It is so fucking depressing how little effort WWE puts into its women. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a particularly great match, and even the spectacle of Lauper’s appearance didn’t save it as she was barely involved in proceedings. ¾ *.

Post match, Richter says this is the happiest moment of her life. Richter says she never doubted her pal, as she has more Olympic ability in her little finger than Kai has in her whole body!

MATCH NINE- HULK HOGAN & MR. T VS. RODDY PIPER & PAUL ORNDORFF

Just like that, it’s main event time! But first, THE PAGEANTRY. New York Yankees manager Billy Martin is the special guest ring announcer; Liberace is the timekeeper, Muhammad fuckin’ Ali will be a special ringside referee to lend the law some extra enforcement, and Pat Patterson will be the official in the ring, with the ulterior motive of making sure everything would go to plan with the novice Mr. T an integral part of the match. It’s a pretty impressive roster of celebrities and guest stars, and they would make fools out of themselves trying to top it numerous times in the ensuing decades. Piper and Orndorff are played down to the ring by a bagpipe band, and Bob Orton is in their corner. Hogan and Mr. T have Jimmy Snuka in theirs, taking a welcome break from murdering women to join them. Probably goes without saying, but my word there’s a big fight feel to this one. Madison Square Garden is utterly electric.

Hogan and Orndorff look set to start things off, but when Piper decides that he wants to be the man to get the bout underway, Hogan can’t resist Mr. T’s pleas to be tagged in. The two exchange slaps! And then T takes Piper right off his feet with a Fireman’s Carry! Roddy is livid, and that triggers a huge melee involving all the wrestlers as well as Snuka and Orton. Ali helps restore order with an unconventional strategy of swinging wildly at the rule breakers. Piper and Orndorff contemplate taking the count-out, but Hogan goads them back into the fight, triggering another big four person brawl! This time the fan favourites clean house, with Mr. T body slamming Piper and hip-tossing Orndorff! The T stands for “technical.” Hogan big boots Piper out to the floor, and this is where things start to go wrong for our heroes, as Orndorff sneaks attacks Hulk with a big clothesline that sends him out the ring as well. The ever despicable Piper crashes a chair across his back, and the bad guys are in control for the first time in the match. They work Hogan over a nice variety of maneuvers, with Orndorff in particular impressing with a big suplex. He heads up top for a flying knee drop, but misses, and it’s a hot tag to T! Who immediately gets Pearl Harboured and isolated by Piper and Paul, who are looking like a well oiled machine at this point. Another tag is made to Hogan, but even the almighty Hulkster can’t turn the tide. Just as things are looking desperate for the good guys, they’re given a lifeline as Jimmy Snuka and Bob Orton get into a brawl that spills into the ring. The melee causes a distraction and disrupts the rule-breakers momentum, and oh boy does it cost them! Orndorff hooks Hogan in a full nelson, and Piper charges at him, but Mr. T is back, and just propels himself at Roddy, bulling him away from the action. But the rule-breakers have a Plan B. Bob Orton flies off the top turnbuckle, intent on crashing his cast-clad arm across Hogan… but the Hulkster spins out the way, and Orton crashes the arm across Orndorff instead! Hulk makes the cover! One, two, threeeeee! Hulk and Mr. T win!!! Hulk and Mr. T win!!! Maaaaan, that was such good fun. I think, because of all the pomp and circumstance and grandeur and spectacle that surrounds the first ever Wrestlemania main event, it gets forgotten what a genuinely good match this was. Mr. T looked entirely at home in the ring, and while his offense was understandably limitedm the match was structured perfectly for him- he made brief, fiery, exciting appearances throwing punches and kicks and hip tosses, and the novelty of his presence didn’t wear off even slightly. *** ½.

In the back, Mr. T admits it was rough out there and you can’t be a wimp and a wrestler. Hogan said he always knew Mr. T had it in him, and says he, T and Snuka have reigned supreme tonight! Snuka is very proud of his friends.

6.5
The final score: review Average
The 411
It's pretty difficult to rate the first Wrestlemania because there's no set criteria to measure it against. Obviously it hadn't yet achieved its current status as the absolute pinnacle of the wrestling calendar, and as such the undercard is filled with brief, insubstantial matches that were entirely acceptable within context, but don't come close to what we now expect from a Wrestlemania. Indeed, if we were measuring this on pure match quality alone, this would be surely the worst Wrestlemania ever, with only the main event being a genuinely, unequivocally good match. Yet that main event was an integral part of the WWF's complete redefinition of what pro wrestling could be, and was a heck of a fun battle to go along with that. The undercard might not always excel itself but it zooms by inoffensively, with only Brutus vs. Sammartino feeling a little arduous at just over ten minutes in length. You definitely can't say “the first Wrestlemania is the worst Wrestlemania ever.” Even out of context it reads like a ridiculous statement. The show itself is a very enjoyable historical artefact-- it's a cliched opinion, but you do have to see it as least once. Maybe not more than once though. Thumbs up!
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article topics :

Wrestlemania I, Jack Stevenson