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Tonight's Wrestlemania is Wrestlemania 2: Three Arenas Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time™
At 8:00 Eastern Time(when this post is roughly TWO HOURS old) hit play! Barring buffering, we should all be at the same spot, as much as when we watch the network together for a live Pay Per View event.
My suggestion is to hit play about two minutes beforehand and pause as soon as it starts up so you've got a slight buffer.
After the success of Wrestlemania, Vince McMahon knew he had to do even better with Wrestlemania 2. His idea was to hold it in three different cities - one on each coast and one in the midwest. The Nassau Coliseum in New York, the Rosemont Horizon in the Chicago Metrpolitan area, and the Los Angeles Sports Arena were chosen, with each arena getting an hour of the show and their own production teams, including commentary.
It presented a challenge unlike any other show WWE has done. In addition to doing localized promotion for three cities, arrangements had to be made so that attendants in the two cities not currently hosting the show could see the action going on, but the screens used for showing it had to be temporary to make way for the action in the ring when it was their time to host.
Matchmaking presented a problem in that each city had to have a match with a "main event" feel to close out their hour.
Celebrity guest involvement was also ramped up from the previous year. Celebrities involved included
- Ray Charles - Legendary singer - Sang America The Beautiful
- Cab Calloway - Legendary jazz singer, most famous for Minnie The Moocher - Celebrity Boxing Judge
- G. Gordon Liddy - Leader of the Watergate break-in - Celebrity Boxing Judge
- Darryl Dawkins - Then-player for the NBA's New Jersey Nets - Celebrity Boxing Judge
- "Smokin'" Joe Frazier - Olympic Gold Medalist and World Champion boxer - corner man for Mr. T
- Lou Duva - Boxing trainer/manager of 19 world champions - corner man for "Rowdy" Roddy Piper
- Ozzy Osbourne - Legendary heavy metal singer - corner man for The British Bulldogs
- Robert Conrad - Actor best known for the TV series The Wild Wild West - Guest Referee
- Susan Saint James - Emmy-award winning actress at the time best known for McMillan & Wife and Kate & Allie - Guest Commentator
- Elvira - TV hostess - Guest Commentator
- Joan Rivers - Comedienne - Guest Ring Announcer
- Tommy Lasorda - Legendary manager of the LA Dodgers baseball team - Guest Ring Announcer
- Ricky Schroeder - Actor, at the time best known for Silver Spoons - Guest Timekeeper
- Herb - Character from poorly-received Burger King ads of the time - Guest Timekeeper
- Dick Butkus - Hall of Fame NFL linebacker - Guest Referee
- Ed "Too Tall" Jones - Defensive End for the NFL's Dallas Cowboys - Guest Referee
- Clara Peller - Actress known for Wendy's "Where's the Beef?" ad campaign - Guest Timekeeper
Tonight's event includes...
NEW YORK
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"Mr Wonderful" Paul Orndorff vs. The Magnificent Muraco - Hulk Hogan had been facing Muraco in the match in which King Kong Bundy interfered to attack Hogan to set up their match later in the night. Somehow that meant Muraco needed a Wrestlemania match? Even WWE's official Wrestlemania retrospective doesn't give much information on the backstory for this match. Sorry.
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Intercontinental Championship: "Macho Man" Randy Savage(champion) vs. George "The Animal" Steele - To hear Steele tell it, not only his face turn, but the fact he was still with the WWF at this point was a bit of an accident. He was meant to leave after eating the pin as part of a six-man match, teamed with Nikolai Volkoff and The Iron Sheik. After being beaten by them for losing, the crowd was sympathetic to him and the opportunity was taken to turn him face.
Savage was at the time running an angle where he was emotionally abusive of his manager and real-life wife at the time, Miss Elizabeth. Steele became obsessed with the beautiful Elizabeth and Savage would use his attraction to his advantage, instructing Elizabeth to distract Steele in their matches.
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Jake "The Snake Roberts vs. George Wells - George Wells was a jobber. They needed to fill time.
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Boxing Match: Mr. T vs. "Rowdy" Roddy Piper - The first one-on-one match involving a non-wrestling celebrity in Wrestlemania, the match presented the problem of having to have a finish that protected the ego of the celebrity being asked to be physically involved while also protecting the status of the wrestler who would have to be taken seriously by fans afterwards.
In the leadup to the match WWE realized that since they were billing it as a boxing match, despite being an exhibition match, it would have to follow New York State Athletic Commission rules, including needing an official weigh-in. They had to piggyback onto the weigh-in for another upcoming fight but word had not gotten out that WWE would be involved in the event, so there was only one reporter present.
Piper is old-school, though, and the show is always the same, whether 1 person is in the audience or 100,000, and backstage he used real-life animosity between himself and Mr. T to rile T up so that the two could put on a show for the sole reporter.
CHICAGO
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Women's Championship: The Fabulous Moolah(champion) vs. Velvet McIntyre - Moolah had recaptured the title from Wendi Richter the previous year as the masked Spider Lady in The Original Screwjob. McIntyre was starting a singles push after splitting up her tag team with Princess Victoria
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Flag Match: Corporal Kirchner vs. Nikolai Volkoff - Kirchner had been a jobber for the WWE under the name RT Reynolds until Vince McMahon found out he had been a paratrooper for the US Army. He was then given the Kirchner gimmick and soon placed in a Cold War feud with Volkoff.
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20-Man WWF/NFL Battle Royal: NFL players Jimbo Covert, Bill Fralic, Russ Francis, Ernie Holmes, Harvey Martin and William "The Refrigerator" Perry and WWF Superstars André the Giant, Ted Arcidi, Tony Atlas, Bret Hart, Jim Neidhart, B. Brian Blair, Jim Brunzell, Hillbilly Jim, The Iron Sheik, King Tonga, Pedro Morales, Bruno Sammartino, Danny Spivey and Big John Studd - George Scott, who booked the event with Vince McMahon, and Pat Patterson, known for his expertise behind the scenes of the Royal Rumble, were in Chicago to oversee the match.
Perry had scored a touchdown in a Superbowl victory for his Bears earlier that year but claims that to this day at appearances he makes his appearance at Wrestlemania is all fans want to talk about.
- Tag Team Championship: The British Bulldogs(Davey Boy Smith & The Dynamite Kid) vs. The Dream Team(Brutus Beefcake & Greg "The Hammer" Valentine)(champions) - The Dream Team had won the belt from The US Express the previous year and had been managing to withstand challenges from the Bulldogs in the time since, but on the big stage of the regional main event of Wrestlemania, this was going to be their biggest challenge.
LOS ANGELES
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Ricky Steamboat vs. Hercules Hernandez - This would be Hercules' first major exposure in WWE before going on to be a high profile member of the Heenan Family, where his impressive physique would bring him a lot of attention
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"Adorable" Adrian Adonis vs. Uncle Elmer - Adonis had committed entirely to his "Adorable" gimmick, not only changing his style, dropping his leather jacket(which he had presented to "Rowdy" Roddy Piper on an episode of Piper's Pit) and adopting a version of drag, but also abandoning his weight training. While he was still agile and athletic, he lost muscle definition and gained a lot of excess weight.
Not as much as Uncle Elmer, though.
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The Funk Brothers(Terry Funk and Hoss Funk) vs. Junkyard Dog and Tito Santana - Hoss Funk was actually Dory Funk, Jr., Terry's brother and, as his name suggests, another son of Dory Funk Sr. Neither of the pair would last very long in the WWE.
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Steel Cage Match for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship: Hulk Hogan(champion) vs. King Kong Bundy - In a time before gimmick matches were so commonplace that entire PPVs revolved around them, the steel cage was the end-all, be-all of grudge matches, typically ending a feud. This match is said to be the debut of the classic blue steel cage, which was a departure from the aluminum fencing that was at the time commonplace.
Submitted February 07, 2016 at 04:27AM by TheTrampRO http://ift.tt/1nV4zfu SquaredCircle
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