411’s Countdown to WrestleMania 28: WrestleMania 2

WORST MATCH: Don Murraco vs. Paul Orndorff [DUD] So many matches to pick from but only one choice can be made. This gets the gong because of the complete lack of interest shown by both men and if you could tell Orndorff was mere months away from being involved in the biggest money feud in wrestling up to that point, you should get a job as fortune teller.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE SHOW: Mr. T vs. Roddy Piper – If you asked me this question two weeks ago I would have had a different answer but I just recently watched the most recent Legends of Wrestling roundtable and Rowdy talked about WWF management being so shit scared he would shoot on Mr. T they tapped his thumbs into the palms of his hands before putting on his gloves to avoid him taking the mohawked one out. With everything else about this match that has come out, it becomes fascinating to watch when smartened up and shake your head at the lengths the WWF went to protect Mr T from a lowly old wrestler.

MVP OF THE SHOW: Adrian Adonis. Fat, out of shape and at the start of his horrible cross dressing gimmick, he went out and busted his ass in his match with the barely mobile Uncle Elmer and managed to actually get a watchable match. To be sure, the match isn’t much and barely hovers over one star but Adonis and his ability to bump and work shine through like a shinny beacon.

OVERALL SHOW RATING: 4/10 – WrestleMania was still not WrestleMania at this time. It still was very much your normal house show card with a hot main event and several hot undercard matches between feuding rivals. It has some bright spots and would have been better served if the main event wasn’t a disappointment but when you have two matches that run around a minute and a couple of others that barely went five it’s hard to call this card anything but poor.

WORST MATCH: Mr. T vs. Roddy Piper in a boxing match [*1/2]
Explanation? This was a boxing match between a wrestler and a TV star. It ended in a DQ because someone used a wrestling move on a wrestling event. It was ill conceived from the start, and it shows that Vince has bought into celebrities wrestling for far too long. Mr. T was very capable when it came to talking and doing a run-in. And that’s where his involvement should have ended. His run-in would be expected, yet it would easily pop the crowd. Instead he was taken way out of his element and thrown into one of the main events of WrestleMania.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE SHOW: Randy Savage w/Elizabeth vs. George “The Animal” Steele – This is a highlight because of the family element. Knowing how much people tend to mean to each other, it’s fun to look back on and see that this match featured a man, accompanied by his wife, facing his wife’s father. I know they played it as Steele being infatuated with Liz, but playing it was him being the disapproving father would have turned into an example of a family angle that worked in wrestling.

MVP OF THE SHOW: Hulk Hogan – The strength of a face champion is his ability to make you think he’s in jeopardy of losing to the heel challenger at all times. As a kid, I watched this match on the edge of my seat worried that Bundy would win. I was yelling at the TV—and I watched it on VIDEO! I already knew who won, and I still bought in. I love seeing the old school blue big bar cage, and think Cena should bring it back for a special RAW at some point—he can call it a throwback cage match.

OVERALL SHOW RATING: 7 – This show was an experiment in wrestling. it was spread over three cities, so each only got four matches and some closed circuit TV. While it worked for Starrcade, it might have backfired a little here. I’d love to see the WWE do this now, even if it were for SummerSlam. Put it in two cities and see what happens. With a brand extension it could work (or could have worked when they stuck to the brands). You had three main events, and two of them delivered. The battle royal was far better than it deserved to be, and much of the undercard was good for its time.

WORST MATCH – Roddy Piper vs. Mr. T (Boxing Match): [DUD] I suppose some would let this slide since it’s not technically a “wrestling match”, but much like the sumo match with Big Show and Akebono, this was horrid. Even worse, it took up nearly 15 minutes.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE SHOW – British Bulldogs winning the WWF Tag Team Titles: Great moment as the Bulldogs got their first big tag title win with Ozzy Osbourne in their corner, probably drunk out of his mind. Not much else to remember on this show to be honest.

MVP OF THE SHOW – British Bulldogs: Again, on a show where nothing really stands out besides the tag title match and a solid Funk brothers/JYD and Tito Santana match the Bulldogs get the pick here for MVP.

OVERALL SHOW RATING: 6.0 – Average show here really, the only things that stand out are two solid tag team matches and the gimmick of having the show emanate from three separate locations. It’s certainly worth checking out for the historical value and nostalgia, but don’t expect to be blown away or anything.

WORST MATCH: Fabulous Moolah vs. Velvet McIntyre [DUD] & Nikolai Volkoff vs. Corporal Kichner [DUD] – This along with three other matches on this card could have been left off entirely and the fans still could have gotten their money’s worth. This is why the three state venue did not work because they had to add four matches to the card to give everyone the same amount of matches at each venue. This was so short I don’t even see the point of having this on the show at all. Not to mention, it was followed by a boring and useless flag match and these two matches started off the first half of the Chicago portion of the PPV. The last two matches in Chicago were worth the price of admission, but this PPV suffered from too much filler and this an example of why, especially at Wrestlemania, short filler matches on PPV are a waste of time.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE SHOW: Seeing a Cage Match At Mania & Tag Team Wrestling – I liked the Cage match, and I think it delivered as a main event. Hogan no sold his rib injury until almost the end of the match to give Bundy one last shot at escape, which I didn’t like. Aside from that, the match was good. Hogan almost showed a mean streak here where he just went off on Bundy at one point during this match. The use of the injury tape was a good bit of improvisation to have a weapon in the match and the Cage was used well to a certain extent. There was consistency in the match as well, I think we all knew King Kong Bundy didn’t have the athletic ability to get over the top of the cage, so he tried multiple times to get out through the side door. They created a decent amount of suspense, even though everyone knew what the end result would be. The fans got to go home happy and the one time Bundy actually hit the cage he got busted open, which is how it should have been. Those old school blue cages were more dangerous than the mesh fences they use nowadays, and it was cool to see the effect of hitting the cage. I think this was better than a normal big man match and both men were motivated to make this work. Bundy was a very good worker for a big guy and I never felt like Hogan had to carry Bundy at any point. This PPV was a great showcase for tag team wrestling with two very well done tag matches one in Chicago and the other in the Los Angeles venue. I already spoke about the Tag title match, but again the best part was they didn’t stick to conventions in that one. The last match before the main event was the Funk Brothers vs. Junkyard Dog & Tito Santana. The Funks pulled out all the heel tactics including Jimmy Hart stepping on Tito Santana on the outside. The finish with the megaphone was an extension of the whole match and it worked in my view. They singled out Tito Santana and worked him over until he was finally able to tag JYD to get a breather. The heels eventually won, but I thought it was a good way to showcase four guys and do it by just working in the ring and keeping the crowd involved.

MVP OF THE SHOW: Hulk Hogan – This was the first of Hogan’s title defenses at Wrestlemania and the whole show was really about the Hulkster. He had two backstage interviews during the event, they used him in a long video to deter fans from watching the setup of the cage, and he was in the main event. Hogan did his part in the main event and made the crowd happy. Say what you will about his wrestling ability, but the fact is, the guy knew how to entertain and he accomplished that at WM 2.

OVERALL SHOW RATING: 6.0 – The main event delivered, the tag title match was damn good, and the fans got to see a bunch of football stars compete against wrestlers in the battle royal. There was also another good tag match and Ricky Steamboat was able to pull a pretty decent match out of Hercules to open the Los Angeles portion of the show. However, there was A LOT of filler crap in this show that could have been removed if they didn’t insist on making this happen in three different states. New York got bitch slapped by WWE management here as well because if you throw out the Boxing thing, there was hardly anything on the first part of the show that is memorable. We get two useless filler matches to start off New York (WWE followed the same progression in Chicago as well.) Macho Man vs. Animal Steele was silly and really nothing meaningful happens other than getting to see Animal eat some turnbuckle pad. The boxing thing had some cool star power with “Smokin” Joe Frazier in Mr. T’s corner, but the match itself had such an obvious ending, the only good thing is they kept the boxing ordeal short. The last two matches of Chicago and almost all of Los Angeles (lets forget that Uncle Elmer vs. Adrian Adonis even happened) saved this show from being totally deplorable. I already talked about the horrible opening to the Chicago venue with two useless matches, but then we get the fun battle royal and the great tag team title match. I don’t care that the last football player left had some wrestling experience, “The Fridge” should have been eliminated by The Hart Foundation. I understand they didn’t want the crowd to go against Andre, so it makes sense that they didn’t have Andre throw out William Perry at the end. If they would have put this whole show into one venue and cut out about three of those useless matches, this might have gotten a higher rating. The way they totally bitch slapped one of the venues entirely and the amount of filler matches in it makes this a barely average show for me