Road to WrestleMania: WrestleMania 2

The Biggest Sequel to the Biggest Event of ALL TIME! So Big that it could not be contained in a single building! That’s right, WrestleMania 2 was held at 3 different Arenas, one in New York, one in Chicago, and one in Los Angeles. Evidently this did not win over the critics, especially those that were in attendance at one of the three shows, because they watched 4 matches in person, then stared at screens for the other 8 matches. I think this might have worked better if they had broken the matches up between the three cities differently. Instead of a four pack of matches, keep rotating between locations so that it gives them time to reset between live matches. However, it seems that the lesson learned was not to split them up, so they didn’t give it another go, and now almost 40 Wrestlemanias in, they probably got their system down.

So I honestly skipped most of this one, and the ones I know I watched, I don’t remember much. I know I watched the Randy Savage and Jake the Snake matches, but don’t remember anything very memorable about them outside of Randy being Randy and Jake bringing out his snake (GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE GUTTER). The Boxing match between Mr. T and Roddy Piper I just kept skipping ahead until I saw the end, which was DQ via body slam. I bet most of the people watching back in 1986 wish they had the opportunity to skip.

In Chicago, I watched the very brief women’s match between the Fabulous Moolah and Velvet McIntyre. I skipped the Fire Nation Man fight where America won the day this time, and jumped around the Battle Royal which included a bunch of NFL players getting eliminated by Andre the Giant. First Wrestlemania for the Hart Foundation. Skipped through the long tag team match. I don’t care about the British Bulldogs, especially knowing they would move to screw each other over later over name rights.

I once again decided to watch Ricky Steamboat, because it is wrestling history.

And then I got to the next match. On paper, I would have normally skipped it, but then I saw the Adorable Adrian Adonis. This was the gold mine right here. If the rest of WrestleMania is the bathwater to get thrown out, this is the baby you keep. My phone was down and I was riveted to the screen for 3 minutes. This is the match I tell people about. Adrian Adonis is a big guy with blonde curly hair who wears a pink dress and overloaded slapdash makeup. And he was taking on a bigger burlyer guy in overalls. And won in the end. Three cheers for the weird squad!

Before Ricochet, this was the Highlight of the Night.

The Funk brothers defeated Tito Santana and the Junkyard dog in tag team action. I realize these are the groundbreaking teams of the day, but I can’t fake interest in a match I don’t care about. Pioneers are fine and all, but I got so many of these things to go through.

Finally Hulk Hogan took on King Kong Bundy in a Steel Cage Match. Hulk Hogan overcame all the odds and continued his reign as champion. Obviously.

This show gave me the my favorite wrestler of the time Adorable Adrian Adonis. Which I guarantee you I would have probably hated as a kid. Fortunately, I was not born yet, so I had no opinion on the matter. As a fully grown adult shaped entity, I can appreciate them now and absolutely eat them up. If I go back and try and watch more of the 80’s shows, it will very likely be looking for them specifically. The rest was fine, just not a lot for me to get interested in. As I said, I wasn’t bothered by the 3 city format and I get it, but I would have staged the matches differently so it was live, video, video, live, thus allowing for more set up between the matches, get the mats cleaned, what have you. Though I figured out later that if the match before you ended in a bloody mess, you were wrestling in that bloody mess. No changing the ring mat during commercial.

Next up: WrestleMania III, and we FINALLY GET HULK VS ANDRE.

Road to WrestleMania: WrestleMania

Technically this one is just “WrestleMania” and it feels weird to call it WrestleMania One. Or WrestleMania Eye.

This one formed most of my rules, because it became pretty clear that I didn’t know the majority of the wrestlers and I really did not care about most of the matches. I figure I’m supposed to know Tito Santana because he kept appearing in numerous other WrestleMania’s, but I’m sorry, I just cannot be buggered. I have 39 WrestleManias to get through and it is clear that I am going to have to skip a lot of matches, so Tito Santana VS the Executioner quickly got skipped. Tito Santana predictably won against his masked and nameless opponent.

The next bout was King Kong Bundy VS Special Delivery Jones. I figured, “I know King Kong Bundy, I might as well let this one play out.” Glanced at my phone and then looked up to find out King Kong Bundy had already won. It was 25 seconds long.

The next match was Ricky Steamboat VS Matt Borne. Now I know what I said about Tito Santana, but I know about Ricky Steamboat and everybody mentions how he had awesome matches, so I made it a point to watch his matches. It was a good match and stood out a bit for the style of the time. Ricky Steamboat would win.

I started watching Brutus Beefcake VS David Samartino, simply because it was the son of Bruno Samartino, the longest reigning title holder of all time, so I figured I would let it go, but quickly got bored and skipped to the end where Bruno Samartino got involved and resulted in a Double DQ.

Junkyard Dog VS Greg Valentine was interesting simply because it was the first match to include any sort of entrance music. Everyone else just came to the ring and was cheered or booed. Junkyard Dog was the first guy to have music playing as he came out. The only other one who would have this was Hulk Hogan. (Edit: Fact checking would later reveal that 5 wrestlers had entrance music, but I honestly only remember Hogan and Junkyard Dog)

The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff took on the US Express for the Tag Team Championship. I honestly skipped this one. Just about all the matches that involved nationalistic characters I just skipped. It all seems like manufactured heat based on foreign characters badmouthing the US and we are supposed to boo them because America is Number 1. Just makes me think of Fire Nation Man from Avatar. I get that is a classic staple of wrestling, but I got 39 of these to get through, so I skipped it. And apparently I skipped it so hard, I didn’t realize The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff WON the damn thing. I took it for granted that the US Express would win.

Next up was Andre the Giant VS Big John Studd in a Career VS $15,000 Body Slam Challenge. Now apparently the bet was that Andre the Giant COULD NOT Body Slam Big John Studd. Which makes no damn sense to me. If anything, I would have bet that the challenge was whether Big John Studd could Body Slam Andre the Giant. In fact, when they announced the match, I thought that was what was happening. Andre the Giant seems like all he does is body slam people. WrestleMania 3 was all about Hulk Hogan Bodyslamming Andre the Giant as the most impressive and never before done thing (except for the time they did it before). Just seems like the most backwards match ever. “Bet the guy named the Giant can’t body slam the guy named simply Big. Oh crap, he did. Who could have seen that coming?”

Next was the Women’s Championship match of Wendi Richter VS Leilani Kai. Also featuring Cyndi Lauper as Wendi’s manager. I did not realize how much Cyndi Lauper was tied into wrestling until I heard about Becky Lynch playing her on Young Rock. She’s even in the Hall of Fame. I only know her for Time After Time. But apparently her star power was enough to put over Wendi Richter and win the Women’s Championship.

At last the match we’ve all been waiting for: Hulk Hogan and Mr. T take on Paul Orndorff and Rowdy Roddy Piper. If you asked me who headlined WrestleMania 1, going in blind, I would have guessed Hulk Hogan VS Andre the Giant. If you had shown me the poster, I would have guessed that Hulk Hogan took on Mr. T. I honestly would never have guessed that it was a Tag Team Match. With nothing on the line except pride. Oh and Muhammad Ali as one of two special guest referees. Hulk and Mr. T won, each recovering from their losses to Rocky in Rocky III.

Overall, it was okay. At the time, it was the biggest thing to hit wrestling and set the stage for an annual event that is driving my current hyperfixation. I have a strong feeling that most of these early ones are just going to be okay, simply due to me not knowing many of the characters and production values not being as high at the time. I think it is a perfectly suitable star studded affair, but I do not see myself revisiting this one year after year.

Next Up: WrestleMania II 2. Really? Would have sworn they would have started with the Roman Numerals.

Road to WrestleMania XL

I didn’t want to imply that I could actually afford to go TO Wrestlemania

You know what I haven’t done in a while? Watching a whole lot of stuff in a short amount of time. And then write reviews about it.

So WrestleMania XL is less than 30 days away and I am all for it! There are 39 WrestleMania’s before it, and I have not seen most of them. I have no idea how many WrestleManias I saw before I got back into it this past year. I know I have watched 31, 38, and 39, and a match here and there for some of the others. I might have watched 32, I think that is the one with Shane McMahon VS Undertaker in Hell in a Cell, but I am not 100%.

So I decided I am going to watch ALL the WrestleManias!!! Now, I work about 60 hours a week, and I intend to keep up with Raw and SmackDown as we barrel towards WrestleMania. And as to not drive my family insane, I am not going to force 40 years (39 years? How is the math not mathing?), it is going to be a stretch to try and fit 39 shows that are between 2-6 hours long a show. Especially since the later ones are two nights long. Just not enough hours in the day. Especially if I am going to write reviews for them.

So I am going to make things easier on myself.

1. The “Seen it!” Rule

If I’ve seen the WrestleMania already, I don’t have to watch it again. Outside of the ones I already mentioned, I don’t think this will pop up too often, I don’t believe I convinced my parents to pay for WrestleMania when I was a kid watching the Attitude Era. I know my dad ordered a few PPV’s for me, but I could not tell you which ones.

2. The “Don’t Know/Don’t Care” Rule

So, this will cut through a LOT of the early WrestleManias. If I don’t know any of the wrestlers involved in the match, I can skip it. If I don’t care about the match, I can skip it. I mean, this is probably going to be the most “do what I want” rule of the whole thing, cause it basically gives me carte blanch to skip most of the shows, but I do have one rule so I don’t just check the card and skip whole shows.

3. The “Main Event” Rule

So in the emergency event that I get to April and have too much Wrestle left to Mania, I can reduce it down to just the Main Events. Unfortunately as I get further down the line, this will mean I will be skipping storylines I find more interesting than the old school storylines, but it is what it is. However, I HAVE to watch the Main Events. No skipping allowed. I don’t care how little I care.

I think that covers all the rules. And this is mainly just to explain how I managed to watch 39 WrestleMania shows in 30 days. Unless I end up failing and later saying “I didn’t.”

Alright, without further ado. . .