Wrestlemania History lesson #1
So hello everyone.In the next few days I will put on a posts series which will be called Wrestlemania History Lessons and this is it's first part.
In this series every time I will present to you one wrestlemania each time and I will tell you what I liked in them & what I will change etc.
So of course we will start with..
Wrestlemania 1:
The show {data from Wikipedia}:
1.Tito Santana defeated The Executioner - 04:50.
2.King Kong Bundy {w/Jimmy Hart} defeated Special Delivery Jones - 00:24\
3.Ricky Steamboat defeated Matt Borne - 04:38
4.David Sammartino {w/Bruno Sammartino} vs Brutus Beefcake {w/Johnny Valiant} ended in a Double Disqualification - 11:44
5.The Junkyard Dog defeated Gret Valentine {C} by a Count Out to retain the WWF Intercontinental Championship - 06:55
6.Nikolai Volkof and The Iron Sheik {w/Freddie Blassie} defeated The U.S. Express {Mike Rotundo and Barry Windham} {w/Lou Albano} to win the WWF Tag Team Championship - 06:56.
7.Andre The Giant defeated Big John Studd {w/Bobby Heenan} in the 15,000 $$$ Body Slam Challenge - 05:54.
8.Wendi Richter {w/Cyndi Lauper} defeated Leilani Kai {C} {w/The Fabulous Moolah} to win the WWF Women's Championship.
9.Hulk Hogan and Mr. T {w/Jimmy Snuka} defeated Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff {W/Bob Orton} with Muhammad Ali and Pat Patterson as the special guest referees. - 13:24.
This was actually a decent show.Sure you had a lot of short matches but every one of them had a meaning of some kind.The Women's and Tag Team title matches had shown title changes in thier inagural show of shows.Bundy was built as a major player looking forward to WM 2.Tito Santana warmed up the crowd in a great way in the opening contest.You had the Samartino vs Beefcake match which was pretty much used to draw crowd because Bruno was involved.You had Steamboat putting a decent match to show his abilities and of course the IC title match which was a show case for 2 of the major players in that time in the WWF.
Pretty much WM 1 was WWF's showcase of talent.
Now I cannot talk about any of the matches that I mentioned above because they were just to showcase the talent nationally for the 1st time.
But for the 2 main events - major matches how ever you want to call them for this show.
First you had Andre defeating Big John Studd in an okay body slam challenge but the point was not to show the in-ring talent but to show the end of a rivalry of 2 giants facing each other with Andre's career on the line.Now no one really expected Andre's career to be ended but still 2 this day a WM moment is standing tall from this show and it is Andre throwing the money to the crowd.
And then for the most booked and build match on this card:You had Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff taking on WWF Champion Hulk Hogan and Mr T.Now I know a lot of you there think it should have been Piper vs Hogan for the title but you look on it from now 30 years later.In that time Mr.T was a huge celebrity and he drew a lot of attention to this show - and if we are talking about celbrities look who was on ths show:Muhammad Ali {Special referee for the Main event} & Billy Matrin {guest ring announcer} & Liberace {guest time keeper} & Cyndi Lauper {in the corner of Richter in the Women's title match} & The Rockettes {had a part in Liberace's entrance} - so this WM had a lot of hype because of the pepole who were there.Of course WM 2 had a lot more but we will talk about it later.As for the match itself - it was not a great technical wrestling match but it was an OK match.And you must remember:This match was used as a publicity tool for the WWF and this was it's goal and he succeeded in it very well.
If I could have changed this WM I would have made 3 minor changes:
In this series every time I will present to you one wrestlemania each time and I will tell you what I liked in them & what I will change etc.
So of course we will start with..
Wrestlemania 1:
The show {data from Wikipedia}:
1.Tito Santana defeated The Executioner - 04:50.
2.King Kong Bundy {w/Jimmy Hart} defeated Special Delivery Jones - 00:24\
3.Ricky Steamboat defeated Matt Borne - 04:38
4.David Sammartino {w/Bruno Sammartino} vs Brutus Beefcake {w/Johnny Valiant} ended in a Double Disqualification - 11:44
5.The Junkyard Dog defeated Gret Valentine {C} by a Count Out to retain the WWF Intercontinental Championship - 06:55
6.Nikolai Volkof and The Iron Sheik {w/Freddie Blassie} defeated The U.S. Express {Mike Rotundo and Barry Windham} {w/Lou Albano} to win the WWF Tag Team Championship - 06:56.
7.Andre The Giant defeated Big John Studd {w/Bobby Heenan} in the 15,000 $$$ Body Slam Challenge - 05:54.
8.Wendi Richter {w/Cyndi Lauper} defeated Leilani Kai {C} {w/The Fabulous Moolah} to win the WWF Women's Championship.
9.Hulk Hogan and Mr. T {w/Jimmy Snuka} defeated Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff {W/Bob Orton} with Muhammad Ali and Pat Patterson as the special guest referees. - 13:24.
This was actually a decent show.Sure you had a lot of short matches but every one of them had a meaning of some kind.The Women's and Tag Team title matches had shown title changes in thier inagural show of shows.Bundy was built as a major player looking forward to WM 2.Tito Santana warmed up the crowd in a great way in the opening contest.You had the Samartino vs Beefcake match which was pretty much used to draw crowd because Bruno was involved.You had Steamboat putting a decent match to show his abilities and of course the IC title match which was a show case for 2 of the major players in that time in the WWF.
Pretty much WM 1 was WWF's showcase of talent.
Now I cannot talk about any of the matches that I mentioned above because they were just to showcase the talent nationally for the 1st time.
But for the 2 main events - major matches how ever you want to call them for this show.
First you had Andre defeating Big John Studd in an okay body slam challenge but the point was not to show the in-ring talent but to show the end of a rivalry of 2 giants facing each other with Andre's career on the line.Now no one really expected Andre's career to be ended but still 2 this day a WM moment is standing tall from this show and it is Andre throwing the money to the crowd.
And then for the most booked and build match on this card:You had Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff taking on WWF Champion Hulk Hogan and Mr T.Now I know a lot of you there think it should have been Piper vs Hogan for the title but you look on it from now 30 years later.In that time Mr.T was a huge celebrity and he drew a lot of attention to this show - and if we are talking about celbrities look who was on ths show:Muhammad Ali {Special referee for the Main event} & Billy Matrin {guest ring announcer} & Liberace {guest time keeper} & Cyndi Lauper {in the corner of Richter in the Women's title match} & The Rockettes {had a part in Liberace's entrance} - so this WM had a lot of hype because of the pepole who were there.Of course WM 2 had a lot more but we will talk about it later.As for the match itself - it was not a great technical wrestling match but it was an OK match.And you must remember:This match was used as a publicity tool for the WWF and this was it's goal and he succeeded in it very well.
If I could have changed this WM I would have made 3 minor changes:
- I would have put the Body Slam Challenge as the last match before the Main Event.
- I would have changed the 1st match and I would have put it as Tito Santana vs Ricky Steamboat with Steamboat going over - you could have had them in a solid 10 minute match as a result of the union.
- I would have shortened Beefcake vs Sammartino match in 3-4 minutes and put those in the IC title match.
So this is what I think about WM 1 and you will see more WM History lessons later on Today and until WM 30.
My next posts will be:
1.Wrestlemania Preview - Part #2
2.WM History lessons -#2 & #3
3.Wrestlemania Preview - Part #3
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