Wrestlemania 2

WWF Wrestlemania 2

Venue: Uniondale, New York; Rosemont, Illinois; Los Angeles, California
Date: 07/04/86
Attendance: 16,585 New York; 9,000 Chicago; 14,500 Los Angeles
Commentators: Vince McMahon & Susan St James; Gorilla Monsoon, Cathy Lee Crosby, Gene Okerlund & Ernie Ladd; Jesse Ventura, Lord Alfred Hayes & Elvira

After the success of Wrestlemania Vince McMahon hatched a plan to make the sequel even bigger. Some of those close to him thought he was crazy but then again those same people felt the same way before the original event. Perhaps influenced by Live Aid the previous year which aired from live events in London and Philadelphia, McMahon wanted to produce Wrestlemania 2 from three different locations in three different time zones. How would it work? Well the show would begin with an hour live from New York, followed by an hour of live action from Chicago, and finish off with a third hour live from Los Angeles. The fans in each arena would be able to view the events from elsewhere on giant screens. It was big ask especially considering it was 1986 but they pulled it off, although they have never attempted it again. The question is, was the show any good?

 

Review

New York: It's never a good sign when the opening contest provokes chants of "bulls**t" but that's exactly what happened at Wrestlemania 2 when Paul Orndorff and Don Muraco fought to a pointless double count out after just four minutes. They needn't have bothered... Despite his obvious talent Randy Savage was never going to get a good bout out of George "The Animal" Steele. Instead we got lots of stalling, cat and mouse chases, fighting with flowers, and biting. Their comedy affair ended when Savage pinned Steele with his feet on the ropes to retain the Intercontinental Title... Jake Roberts defeated George Wells in a passable offering in which Wells dominated the action before succumbing to the DDT... Mr T scored a disqualification victory over Rowdy Roddy Piper in an abysmal worked boxing match. Considering their feud dated back over a year this was a pretty lousy pay off. There wasn't much that resembled actual boxing and the bout seemed to drag on forever. Fortunately it only went four rounds but even that was too long...

 

Chicago: The Fabulous Moolah retained the Women's Title over Velvet McIntyre in a complete waste of time. Quite why McIntyre needed to be squashed in less than 90 seconds by 62 year old Moolah is beyond me... Corporal Kirschner's two minute win over Nikolai Volkoff was another pointless exercise... Things picked up in the 20 man battle royal which featured WWF superstars and NFL pro footballers. It was certainly unique and went down well with the Chicago crowd. In particular William "The Refrigerator" Perry, a star player with the Chicago Bears was massively over with the home crowd as you might expect. The match itself was decent for a battle royal in which Andre the Giant was victorious, lastly eliminating both members of the Hart Foundation. It has to be said that Jim Neidhart's elimination looked ridiculous... In the best match of the card The British Bulldogs defeated The Dream Team to become WWF Tag Team Champions. Full of action, the match was fast paced throughout and filled with good, solid wrestling. The bump the Dynamite Kid took for the finish was the sort of abuse that would contribute to severe spinal problems in the years to come...

 

Los Angeles: Over on the west coast Ricky Steamboat pinned Hercules Hernandez in a good bout that was given enough time to develop... Adrian Adonis, who at this point in his career had become obese beat Uncle Elmer, who was even bigger in an embarrassing contest... The team of Terry Funk and Hoss Funk (Dory Funk Jr) defeated The Junkyard Dog and Tito Santana in a hectic, entertaining tag team battle. While not quite as good as the tag team championship bout it was certainly a very good effort...  The World Title steel cage match between Hulk Hogan and King Kong Bundy was an entirely acceptable big man brawl. Hogan was white-hot around this time and the crowd roared for everything he did. Hogan won the bout by escaping the cage to the delight of the LA crowd.

Overall

A slight step up in quality from the original Wrestlemania but still a poor show on the whole. The concept of multiple events was unique (in wrestling anyway) but it was not great for the fans in attendance. They each got to see four matches live and then eight on a giant screen, not what you would call value for money. The New York crowd were the most unfortunate as the first portion of the card was truly dreadful. Chicago got one good and one very good match, although they had to sit through two stinkers first. The Los Angeles fans were the lucky ones, apart from the Adonis/Elmer rubbish they got three good matches including the true main event of the show. Wrestlemania II drew 250,000 buys on pay-per-view plus a further 319,000 at closed circuit television locations.

Results

Uniondale, New York

1 Paul Orndorff fought Don Muraco to a double count out (4:10) *
2 Randy Savage (c) pinned George Steele to retain the WWF Intercontinental Title (5:10) *
3 Jake Roberts pinned George Wells (3:15) **
4 Mr T def Rowdy Roddy Piper by disqualification in a boxing match (13:14) DUD
Rosemont, Illinois
5 The Fabulous Moolah (c) pinned Velvet McIntyre to retain the WWF Women's Title (1:25) DUD
6 Corporal Kirchner pinned Nikolai Volkoff (2:05) DUD
7 Andre the Giant won a 20 man WWF/NFL Battle Royal (9:13) **1/4
8 The British Bulldogs def The Dream Team (c) by pinfall to win the WWF Tag Team Title (13:03) ***1/2
Los Angeles, California
9 Ricky Steamboat pinned Hercules Hernandez (7:27) **1/2
10 Adrian Adonis pinned Uncle Elmer (3:01) 1/2
11 Terry Funk & Hoss Funk def Tito Santana & The Junkyard Dog by pinfall (11:42) ***
12 Hulk Hogan (c) def King Kong Bundy in a steel cage match to retain the WWF Heavyweight Title (10:15) **1/2

Rating

18.25/60 = 30.42%

 

WWF PPV Ratings
1.            Wrestlemania 2                30.42%
2.            Wrestlemania 1                28.33%
3.            The Wrestling Classic      26.00%