WrestleMania 2

This was the tag line for the second Wrestlemania, the first Wrestlemania to be a Pay-Per-View Event. The WWF had to come up with a way to top the original Mania. To achieve this the event was split between arenas in 3 cities; The Nassau Coliseum, New York, The Rosemont Horizon, Chicago and the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Each arena held 4 matches and the arenas could link up with live satellite feeds.

NEW YORK

We have Vince McMahon and Susan St. James (who?) on commentary so off we go.

The Magnificent Muraco vs Paul "Mr Wonderful" Orndorff

Two big fellas in here. This match should be better than it is. Muraco works through a few power routines, Orndorff displays some of his technical work, but it doesn't seem to gel right. Crap finish as well. I expect more from the opening of Wrestlemania

Intercontinental Title Match: The Macho Man Randy Savage (Champion) with Miss Elizabeth vs George "The Animal" Steele

All f***ing right, the Wrestlemania debut of one of my favourite wrestlers of all time. Savage in my opinion is pure wrestling class, heel or face, doesn't matter to me, the man always puts on a show. Comes to the WWF, very quickly becomes IC champion. Anyway, back to the match. The styles of these two men don't gel too well although Savage tries to carry Animal. Not a bad match, but I am shocked and deeply annoyed that Steele felt he had the right to kick out of the elbow. Watch it, you'll see what I mean.

Jake "The Snake" Roberts vs George Wells

Hmmm, brand new heel with a killer gimmick vs some random jobber picked up on the corner of "jabroni drive" and "know your role boulevard". Can't think how this will turn out. Holy crap, the jobber is controlling the whole match, oh no, DDT all over. Next...

10 Round Boxing Match: Rowdy Roddy Piper vs Mr T

Two of the main eventers from the previous years Wrestlemania, now slug it out to close the New York segment. This is a hard match to rate as it is so atypical. A lot of people don't like this match but I find Piper hilarious, especially in heel mode so I quite like this one. Pipers flagrant cheating is very funny and T's efforts to play it straight is damn admirable.

CHICAGO

Now on commentary we have Gorilla Monsoon, Mean Gene Okerlund and Cathy Lee Crosby

Women's Title Match: The Fabulous Moolah (Champion) vs Velvet McIntyre

Old Moolah, old old old Moolah. This is awful. Velvet, who was actually a pretty damn good wrestler gets squashed by the old lard ass herself. Very quick, very poor. Next...

Flag Match: Corporal Kirschner vs Nikolai Volkoff

Okay good all american, albeit Sgt Slaughter rip-off, Corporal Kirshner vs evil russian Nikolai. The WWF's answer to the cold war, a flag match. The idea being that each man enters with his country's flag and the winner leaves with both. Sounds pointless? Yes it is. Another daft and pointless match. This Chicago segment doesn't appear to be shaping up to much. Oh hang on the next two matches whup ass.

20-Man WWF/NFL Battle Royal

Guest Referees: Dick Butkus & Ed "Too Tall" Jones

Guest Timekeeper: Claire Keller

This battle royal contained WWF superstars as well players and legends from the NFL. The participants are as follows:

NFL: Jimbo Covert, Ted Arcidi, Harvey Martin, Ernie Holmes, Bill Fralic, Russ Francis, "Refridgerator" William Perry

WWF: Pedro Morales, Tony Atlas, Dan Spivey, Hillbilly Jim, King Tonga, The Iron Sheik, The Killer Bees, Big John Studd, The Hart Foundation, Bruno Sammartino, Andre the Giant

Well this is pretty good fun, most battle royals are. You get a chance to see the future of wrestling in Bret "Hitman" Hart involved as quite a major player here. If you take a look at the participants you can pretty much guess who's going to win this. Good fun none the less.

Tag Team Title Match: The Dream Team (Champions) with Johnny Valiant vs The British Bulldogs with Captain Lou Albano and Ozzy Osbourne

Oh yes the Bulldogs are here. In my honest opinion, one of the greatest tag teams ever, and no not just because they're british. Seriously, Davey Boy Smith and The Dynamite Kid were ahead of their time, pulling out moves you only previously saw in Mexico or Japan. This match is absolutely brilliant, I never thought I'd say that about a match with Beefcake and Valentine in, yet here it works. Best match of the night bar none, fabulous performance, great story to the match, superb shock ending. They don't get any better than this.

LOS ANGELES

Okay, now on commentary we have Jesse "The Body" Ventura (yay), Lord Alfred Hayes (boo) and Elvira (god how I used to lust after this woman (still do)).

Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat vs Hercules Hernandez

I like both these guys, but this match just didn't do it for me. I don't think their styles complimented each other particularly well. Not bad, not great, just decidedly average. Anyway I think I'll skip on now.

Uncle Elmer vs Adorable Adrian Adonis with Jimmy Hart

Yuk, yuk, yuk, yuk, yuk. Two fat men, one dressed as a hillbilly and one in a dress gut-barging each other. In my opinion, worst match on the card. Next...

Tito Santana & The Junkyard Dog vs The Funk Brothers

This is more like it. Tito flying about all over the place, JYD smashing Funks through tables, the funks taking some superb bumps. This one is great fun. I love watching Terry Funk, because you know the guy's going to do some crazy shit to his body, in this case a big back drop on to the cement floor. This match is fast paced, the styles compliment each other quite well and this is the most entertained I've ever been by the JYD. All in all, top stuff.

Steel Cage WWF Title Match: Hulk Hogan (Champion) vs King Kong Bundy with Bobby "The Brain" Heenan

Guest Ring Announcer: Tommy Lasorda

Guest Referee: Robert Conrad

Guest Timekeeper: Ricky Schroeder

Okay main event time. Hogan in a cage that's pretty unusual. Here we see the start of the trend of having Hogan face guys even bigger than he is, other examples being Andre and Earthquake. This isn't a bad match, not great as cage matches aren't really suited for massive guys. Still some good action, a damn good story, bit of blood, Heenan receives a slap which is always good fun. Problem is, there's never a question of who's going to win. Ah well, can't have everything.

And so ends Wrestlemania 2, not as good as the first, but still worth a look. Especially for the introduction of Savage and Jake, and that damn fine Bulldogs Match. Anyway signing off for now, be back with a write up of Wrestlemania 3 sometime soon.

A very lackluster show. I remember being like "What a show!" Back when I first saw it. Well 17 years later and I really dont like any of the card at all. Well thats what happens when you turn from Mark to Smark.

The Funks vs. JYD and Tito match was suprinsgly good, while Match of the night honours go to Bulldogs vs. Valentine/Beefcake.

Not recommended.

BTW, if you want to chat about the good old days of wrestling just drop me an e-mail!

Match 1: Paul Orndorff and Don Muraco wrestled to a double-countout Match 2: Randy "Macho Man" Savage defeated George " the Animal" Steele Match 3: Jake "the Snake" Roberts defeated George Wells via pinfall Match 4: Mr. T defeated Roddy Piper by DQ in a boxing match Match 5: Women's Champion Fabulous Moolah defeated Velvet McIntyre Match 6: Cpl. Kirschner defeated Nikolai Volkoff via pinfall Match 7: Andre the Giant won a 20 man battle royal Match 8: British Bulldogs defeated Greg Valentine & Brutus Beefcake for the Tag Team Championship Match 9: Ricky Steamboat defeated Hercules via pinfall Match 10: Adrian Adonis defeated Uncle Elmer via pinfall Match 11: Hoss & Terry Funk defeated Junk Yard Dog and Tito Santana Match 12: WWE Champion Hulk Hogan defeated King Kong Bundy in a cage match

Overall Mark: B+

Whole event saved by a few performances, "WrestleMania 2" isn't really a fun experience for the most of the time. Me and my friend watched it and were not amused for a large portion of the run time. Especially cringe inducing and boring to watch was a boxing match nobody asked for. While you can simulate wrestling, you can't really do the same with box. I give it 6/10, and that's only because of the main event and Hogans charisma as an performer. Without that, it would have been an 5/10...

Wrestlemania II (1986) was shot at three different locations (bad idea). Vincent K. McMahon tried to be different and it nearly killed the series. Whenever you try to do an event such as this one in three seperate events, the quality is going to be anywhere from average to very poor. But hey you can't fault the man for trying. Most notable from this event is the great "boxing" match between Mr. T and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper. Piper's promos are worthy enough to sit through the rest of the matches. Mr. T is slouch either. The rest of the card is a mixed bag. For sideshow viewing you have the wrestlers/football players battle royale, the Funk Brothers in action (Terry and Dory jr. a.k.a. Hoss) and as always George "The Animal' Steele. Hulk Hogan (juiced to the gills) is locked in a brutal cage match with King Kong Bundy. Wrestling wise it's better than Wrestlemania I but it has it's boring and dull matches as well.

For big fans of 80's wrestling.

B