The Name on the Marquee: WWF Championship Wrestling (3.29.1986)

-So unfortunately, I’m missing the March 22, 1986 broadcast, but just so we’re all up to speed, we missed a tag team match involving Tito & JYD, so that match for Wrestlemania 2 was probably etched into stone. Jake “The Snake” Roberts made his TV debut and pulled out the snake for the first time..damn…I actually wish I had this episode for that…King Kong Bundy beat up a guy named Yvon, and Valentine & Beefcake beat some jobbers to assert their dominance. That sounds like a 6.3 episode to me…no, wait, 6.2 Okay, so we’re all caught up. Let’s start the show…

-Originally aired March 29, 1986.

-Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Bruno Sammartino.

WRESTLEMANIA  2 UPDATE
-Lord Alfred Hayes has news so big that we don’t even bother with an opening match. Wrestlemania 2 has signed an impressive number of major Hollywood celebrities. Wow, alert your local affiliates, this episode may go over. Lee Majors will (not) be there! Ray Charles will be there! Robert Conrad will be there! Dick Butkus will be there! Ozzy Osbourne’s body will be there! Joan Rivers will be there! Herb will be there! Smokin’ Joe Frazier will be there! Claire Peller will be there! Susan St. James will be there! Ricky Schroeder will be there! Darryl Dawkins will be there! Cab Calloway will be there! Cathy Lee Crosby will be there! Elvira will be there! G. Gordon Liddy will be there! Wrestlemania 2: Answering the question “What if there had been a Match Game ’86?”

RANDY “Macho Man” SAVAGE (Intercontinental Champion, with Elizabeth) vs. ANDRE MALO
-A fan at ringside books the company three years in advance by holding up a sign saying “Elizabeth will manage Hulk Hogan.”

-Savage locks up with Andre the Average and drives some knees into the sternum, then snaps him over the top rope, a move that I always loved. We get the historic first-ever head-in-a-box promo, and it’s Elvira of all people, saying she’s looking forward to calling the action with Jesse Ventura at Wrestlemania.

-Axehandle from the top gets two. Savage slams Andre into place and finishes with the flying elbow. Just awesome heel stuff from Savage post-match, instantly demanding his belt and a kiss from Elizabeth, and he’s not actually happy until he has both.

-Gene Okerlund talks to Hulk Hogan and Mr. T, who are color-coordinated. How romantic. Mr. T says…something…about Piper…crying children…his mother…heavy training, and assorted verbs that link those together.

-Hostess Pies and Rolaids: two interesting products to advertise back-to-back.

“Mr. Wonderful” PAUL ORNDORFF vs. BOB BRADLEY
-They hype Orndorff/Muraco at Wrestlemania 2, which will be an interesting match, everyone predicts. Everyone is wrong. Interesting to note that it’s promoted as just a match even though they could have easily made a story out of it by saying that Orndorff wants revenge against Muraco for helping orchestrate the horrifying attack on his good close friend Hulk Hogan. Well, maybe they hadn’t thought that far ahead yet.

-Orndorff works the arm while we get a wooden promo from G. Gordon Liddy, saying Wrestlemania 2 will be judgment day. You’d think somebody with Gordon Liddy’s background could cut a more compelling promo, but he sounds like he’s been asleep since birth.

-Vince lays out which commentators have been assigned to which cities at Wrestlemania 2 because apparently we were wondering, and Orndorff sends Bradley over the top rope and onto the concrete. Back in, he levels Bradley with a clothesline, and a piledriver finishes.

-Gene Okerlund, apparently inside the largest tin building ever constructed, interviews the Hart Foundation, talks to the Hart Foundation about the Wrestlemania 2 battle royal. Anvil promises a victory and they get the hell out. Jimbo Covert steps in and gets a big pop…where the hell are they taping this? He promises that teamwork with Refrigerator Perry will help clear the ring. Perry says he’s ready for Harvey Martin.

FUNK BROTHERS (with Jimmy Hart) vs. SPECIAL DELIVERY JONES & IVAN MCDONALD
-Terry chops the Special One, who has what appear to be the remains of a rib involving a paintbrush on the back of his leg. SD gets tosses to the floor and appears to hurt his knee. Funk attacks it while Cathy Lee Crosby tells us that Chicago is a gorgeous city, even if she has to share it with a Gorilla.

-Jones fires shots at Hoss and tags McDonald, but Hoss recovers and knocks McDonald off the apron before he can even get in the ring. Terry tags in and serves billions and billions of ass-kickings to McDonald, and Hoss finishes with the cloverleaf. Nice touch as Hoss holds onto it while Jimmy brands Ivan right on the back of his neck, and then SD Jones chases off the Funks and clears the ring. What?

-Gene Okerlund has words with Bobby Heenan and King Kong Bundy. He says that the attack on Hulk was a plot to take advantage of his ego. He got attacked, got injured, and got mad enough that he agreed to a cage match without thinking about what he was doing. Bundy promises that he has Hogan right where he wants him.

BRITISH BULLDOGS (with Captain Lou Albano) vs. TIGER CHUNG LEE & MR. X
-Chunger shoulderblocks Dynamite, but gets greedy and winds up going out to the concrete the second time. Double backdrop by the Bulldogs and a dropkick by Davey Boy gets two. We hear from Cab Calloway—Good lord, I’m starting to understand why Vince scaled back to two celebrities for Wrestlemania III.

-X tags in and the running powerslam by Davey Boy only gets two, amazingly. Snap suplex by Dynamite, followed by the backbreaker. Cradle gets two. Davey slams him a few times and plants him on the top rope, and Dynamite finishes with a back suplex from the top.

RODDY PIPER TRAINS
-Piper is in Las Vegas, in heavy training for his boxing match. Piper looks like a million bucks while jumping rope and going to town on a punching bag. He easily dispatches a sparring partner, and Leon Spinks offers him a handshake and a hug, wishing him luck for the big match. After his training session, Piper signs autographs for fans at ringside and gives interviews for local media. Keep in mind, Piper is the heel in this match.

-Vince breathlessly rattles off the entire card for Wrestlemania 2 and reminds us that he can see it all on closed-circuit TV…in COLOR! Apparently, there were parts of America that were shitty enough that “in color” was still a selling point in 1986.

WRESTLEMANIA 2 REPORT
-Gene discusses the extremely dangerous battle royal. Danny Spivey says he’s not worried about anything. Russ Francis, son of a pro wrestler, cuts a not-terrible first-timer promo. Think a slightly more charismatic Bob Backlund. Harvey Martin says that if he wins the battle royal, he’s going to go on a nice vacation and think about whether or not he’ll ever go back to pro football.

-You know what’s interesting about this three-city three-main event hype for Wrestlemania 2? Hogan-Bundy is getting, by far, the least hype.

HULK HOGAN (WWF Champion, with career-threatening rib injury) vs. MOONDOG SPOT
-Okay, let’s talk about this for a minute.

-Last year, Wrestlemania. Roddy Piper gets into some crazy shit at MSG before New Year’s, they build it for six weeks up to an MTV special that culminates in chaos, and then build for another six weeks to the main event at Wrestlemania.

-This year, Wrestlemania 2. Hulk and Bundy cross paths on TV twice in 1985 and it’s never mentioned again. And then for the hell of it, Bundy attacks Hogan so severely that Hogan puts some tape on it and continues traveling the country and wrestling a full schedule. It’s amazing how a company can set a certain standard and then promptly forget it the following year. And what I find most interesting about the Hogan/Bundy feud is that they apparently learned from the experience, and four years later, Hogan and Earthquake do EXACTLY the same angle, except with all the mistakes corrected. They cross paths several times, cut promos on each other, and then Earthquake attacks Hulk and Hulk, in turn, GOES AWAY FOR FOUR MONTHS.

-And despite all that, what’s really amazing and kind of makes you want to take your hat off to Vince, is that even in the crappy second-rate version of the angle, Bundy STILL managed to build a strong enough reputation that he could write his own ticket on the indy circuit for almost twenty years.

-Hogan does the arching back and pointing thing on the apron even though it would hurt like hell with injured ribs. Hogan then removes the tape before the bell to show he doesn’t need it, though he apparently changed his mind about that because he wore the tape at Wrestlemania 2. Hogan locks up with Spot. Spot immediately punches the ribs and Hulk no-sells it entirely.

-Hogan clotheslines Spot and Spot lays there dead, like Hulk could just finish right there. Hulk looks at him confused, and Spot snaps up and throws punches at the ribs. Sell one, sell one, sell one, sell one, and then Hulks up the fifth time. Legdrop finishes. Bruno says this match is a good indication that Hogan’s ribs have adapted. “Quick kids, get in the car so we can get to those giant color closed circuit screens! Hulk’s ribs adapted!”

5.3

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

Discovery of the month: The build to Wrestlemania 2 was just WEIRD. Piper is treated like a face, the Funks get beaten up by a jobber, and the WWF Championship match now looks like a total non-issue. What a strange week.