My Favorite WrestleMania Matches: I-V

WRESTLEMANIA I

Hulk Hogan & Mr. T vs. Roddy Piper & Paul Orndorff

I was three years old when the first WrestleMania took place, so certainly too young to even be aware of it, let alone watch it; I didn’t get into wrestling until my dad introduced me in 1990 (I’m actually curious now to ask my dad if he watched the first WrestleMania). While I saw clips and selected matches from the card over the years on highlight reels and compilations, I don’t believe I watched the entire show start to finish until just a couple years ago via WWE OnDemand.

This was a show not so much about athleticism, but spectacle. The longest match went 13 minutes, and only one other hit double digits, so none were that stand out, but they didn’t need to be; it was a chance for the WWF to trot out their stars for display in front of a big audience alongside mainstream celebrities like Mr. T, Cyndi Lauper and Muhammad Ali.

That said, while it’s tempting to be a know-it-all and say Ricky Steamboat’s sub-five-minute bout with Matt Borne was some sort of hidden classic, this show was all about the main event. The wrestling was fine, but it was the skill Hogan and Piper had for playing the hero and the villain respectively, plus all the bells and whistles beyond their partners—Ali as guest ref, Jimmy Snuka and Bob Orton as the corner men, and so on—that made it memorable.

WRESTLEMANIA 2

Hulk Hogan vs. King Kong Bundy in a Steel Cage match for the WWF title

I’m fairly certain WrestleMania II (or 2, if you prefer, but I never stray from the Roman numerals) is the one I got my mom to rent for me when I was recovering from one of the many times I had to get teeth pulled when I was in elementary school. I seem to recall there was a really dinky video store in Newton Center that was a quarter of the size of the larger Wellesley Video down the street (Blockbuster was a couple years away), but they had this awesomely quirky selection of 80’s WWF Coliseum Video collections, including this one.

That said, I don’t remember a lot of the big matches from this show, including the first two main events with Mr. T against Piper in a boxing match and the British Bulldogs winning the Tag titles. I do remember Randy Savage against George “The Animal” Steele for the Intercontinental title, I do remember Andre the Giant winning a battle royal, and I do remember this match, the final one of the show.

I recently watched WWE’s Greatest Steel Cage matches compilation and gained a new appreciation for what Hogan can do in these particular matches against big guys like Andre there and Bundy here. He’s very good at using the psychology of the cage as a weapon to make himself more vulnerable than in his typical early matches, and bounced around spryly for Bundy here. The eventual super hero comeback and victory is textbook how it should be done stuff, and I think it’s a nice snapshot about what worked during this era. Bonus points for the crazy beating Bobby Heenan takes from Hogan per usual after the match (a match where Heenan just wrestled a cage would have been great).

WRESTLEMANIA III

Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat for the Intercontinental title

I inherited a tape of this show from I want to say either my friend Eli or his brother Nate at some point when I was in college. I’d seen the Hogan-Andre main event many times, but almost none of the undercard and the IC title match only in clipped format I believe.

Savage-Steamboat is widely considered not just the match of WrestleMania III (it was the perfect pairing with the moment of the night—which of course is Hogan slamming Andre—in a surreally huge venue to make this one of if not the most memorable Manias), or even just one of the best Mania matches of all-time, but one of the best ever, so it’s not shocking or controversial in any fashion to say I loved what.

What impresses me most though is that it’s 15 minutes long—longest match of the night—and I challenge you to find a single second that drags. Even when they’re in a rest hold—and there aren’t many—Savage’s intensity and Steamboat’s emotion make those exciting. I’m a guy with a short attention span, and this was one of the first matches I saw that started conditioning me to enjoy wrestling clinics that go longer than 10 minutes.

WRESTLEMANIA IV

Ted DiBiase vs. Randy Savage for the vacant WWF title

Another one I’m pretty sure I got from the Freedman boys. It was a two-tape VHS set that I retained until ditching my VCR once and for all when I moved last year; I believe Ryan Penagos now has possession of this one.

It’s a pretty boring affair, as the bulk of the show is devoted to the tournament for the vacant WWF title, and as a result of having to accommodate 11 matches there plus five more to boot, most everything is a forgettable five minute dash. I imagine watching it in 1989 and not knowing who would walk out with the championship the whole thing was pretty exciting—that’s how it was when I watched Survivor Series 1998 live—but the hindsight of knowing the end result kills that.

That said, despite temptation to tap the fun opening battle royal or Demolition’s coming out party winning the Tag titles, I’ve still got to go with the final match of the tournament. Savage was on fire all night, making the most out of whatever time he got and the crowd loved him. DiBiase is the perfect foil and they deliver a solid match made better by the presence of Hogan and Andre at ringside plus an awesome post-match celebration where Savage hoists Elizabeth on his shoulder carrying the belt; classic image and it’s cool to see somebody else with the title during that era.

WRESTLEMANIA V

Randy Savage vs. Hulk Hogan for the WWF title

I watched this show at some point when I was a kid, most likely rented from Blockbuster’s ever-shifting collection of wrestling videos (which always had WCW Halloween Havoc 1995). Bought it on eBay or Amazon sometime around or after college graduation when I was going through a 1989 WWF kick (I had the Royal Rumble and SummerSlam as well). I think that year captured my attention around that time mostly because it was the period right before I started watching so I basically got to see the prologue to everything I dug growing up, but maybe also a little due to it being around the time everybody started getting amazing entrance themes (the intros to the Rude’s Brood vs. Roddy’s Rowdies match at Survivor Series is just musical bliss).

The Mega-Powers exploding in the main event of WrestleMania was the best storyline conclusion to date at the time—it’s still up there—with a solid match to back it up. The year build of Savage growing to resent Hogan with Elizabeth as the fulcrum was a thing of beauty, with perhaps the only flaw being that even as a kid you could kind of see that Hulk came off as the jerk. No matter, because Savage was a great villain and Hogan could still get it done as a hero, so their dynamic was great at Mania for their best match ever (that I’ve seen). I also like that it’s a break from Hogan’s formula to that point of dealing with lumbering monsters, instead having to content with a quicker, more devious, more athletic guy and come up with a new game plan.

Rasslin' Ramblings: When Hulk Hogan Was a Jerk

It was only a couple years back that the fellas over at Superdickery.com launched their fantastic site and shined a solid spotlight on what many had already figured out but never had the heart or fortitude to say out loud: Silver Age Superman was a tremendous jerk. Indeed, whether it was torturing Jimmy Olsen, toying with Lois Lane’s emotions or raising general havoc, the purportedly virtuous Man of Steel spent the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s as more or less a complete tool.

If there’s any comparable figure to Superman in the world of pro wrestling—John Cena aside—certainly it would be Hulk Hogan, and as Marvel editor Bill Rosemann and I realized the other day, The Hulkster paralleled Kal-El not just in strength and stature, but that in his own “Silver Age” of the 80’s and early 90’s, while being promoted as the ultimate good guy, his character—I’m not casting aspersions on the man himself, that’s for others to do or not do and I’ve never met the guy—was actually a pretty terrible fellow.

Again, this isn’t a news flash—Scott Keith alone has been saying it for years—but pretty enlightening and amusing to sit down and pick apart.

To wit…

-Despite holding the World Wrestling Federation championship for three years, Hogan never gives his supposed best friend, the undefeated and dominant Andre The Giant, a title shot. When Andre gets pissed and sides with Bobby Heenan—a tiny little manager the 300+ pound Hogan liked to toss around like a rag doll—Hulk can’t understand why.

-When Hogan and Randy Savage were teaming as the Mega Powers in 1988 and 1989, The Hulkster was all over Macho Man’s lady, Miss Elizabeth, at every available opportunity. When they were wrestling the Twin Towers and Liz got accidentally knocked out, Hogan ditched the match to carry her to the back while Savage got pummeled by Akeem and The Big Bossman. When Hogan returned to try and get the glory, he was again aghast that his buddy was mad at him. Hulk ended up beating Savage to win the WWF title back at WrestleMania V, splitting the Macho Man and Elizabeth in the process. Then when Macho Man got a new chick, the Sensational Sherri, Hogan would beat her up at every opportunity!

-Hogan took WWF newcomer Sid Justice under his wing in 1991. During the 1992 Royal Rumble, with the vacant WWF title on the line, Sid eliminated Hogan fair and square. Rather than graciously applaud his student for becoming the teacher, The Hulkster threw a fit at ringside and grabbed Sid’s arm despite no longer being in the match, allowing the villainous Ric Flair to dump the big man and win the championship. Despite being the clear sore loser and jerk in this scenario, Hogan was still granted shots at Flair and portrayed as being the good guy—and of course was baffled as to why Sid stopped liking him.

-At WrestleMania IX, Hogan got himself and partner Brutus Beefcake disqualified during their World Tag Team title shot at champs Money Inc. by using a foreign object, then still spent a solid five minutes posing in the ring afterward. Following the main event where Bret Hart got gypped out of the World title by Yokozuna and his nefarious manager Mr. Fuji, Hulk came down to make sure The Hitman was ok and then promptly forgot all about him to run in and challenge the new champ, winning due to mistimed outside interference and then posing for another ten minutes while Bret Hart was in the back getting salt scrubbed out of his eyes.

-Upon debuting for World Championship Wrestling in 1994, Hogan went after Flair’s World title, and in the course of winning it, once again beat up poor Sherri, who had gone five years without having a 6’7” dude slam her and give her multiple atomic drops.

-At Halloween Havoc 1995, Hogan faced The Giant in a Monster Truck Sumo Challenge on the roof of Cobo Arena. After The Hulkster won, he celebrated by throwing his opponent off the roof of the building, presumably to his demise (fortunately, he was fine, and they wrestled like 15 minutes later).

-Hulk Hogan made me watch a 24 minute long match where he and Dennis Rodman beat Diamond Dallas Page and Karl Malone at Bash at the Beach 1998. He also made me watch him choke The Ultimate Warrior with his weightlifting belt for 15 minutes and then accidentally light his eyebrows on fire at Halloween Havoc the same year. Sure he was technically and actual villain by that point, but c’mon, that’s above and beyond.

-Mr. America.

Hey, I may not be a full blown Hulkamaniac—I was a little Tornado as a kid, cheering on Kerry Von Erich, then transitioned to whatever Shawn Michaels called his fans before there was a Clique and I realize I was the only dude chanting the name of the guy in the sequined chaps—but I recognize and appreciate all the man did for the business.

I also recognize and appreciate how there probably wouldn’t be a comic book industry without Superman.

But if those guys hung out in the 80’s, they probably would have just taken turns giving Lois Lane and Sensational Sherri atomic drops before making Jimmy Olsen marry an ape and never letting Paul Orndorff have a title match.