WrestleMania 2 – April 7, 1986
Now we’ve got the Intercontinental Championship match – George “The Animal” Steele takes on the Champion “Macho Man” Randy Savage who has the lovely Miss Elizabeth in his corner. Savage is the heel here, and he’s awesome in this role. Steele plays the Animal character extremely well, but he’s not in Savage’s league in terms of athleticism. Macho is probably the best athlete on this entire card. Steele slows things down with illegal chokes and bites, and, of course, ripping the turnbuckle open to eat the stuffing inside. Savage does what he can to keep things exciting, ultimately pinning Steele with his feet ont he ropes. All in all, this was a fun short match. Steele kicked out of Savage’s flying elbow on the ONE COUNT and completely no-sold it, and that kind of messed things up at the end a bit. He was also pinned in a sort of missionary sex position which was kind of awkward looking.
Back in Chicago, Mean Gene interviews Bill Fralic and Big John Studd. This is great. Gene requests decorum, but Studd squashes a football and argues with Fralic about how wrestlers are better than football players.
In NY once again, we’ve got a squash match at WrestleMania. Yep, it’s Jake “The Snake” Roberts vs. George Wells. Wells gets plenty of offense in early, but this is primarily there to showcase Roberts who was a newcomer at this point. Roberts wins with his signature DDT and he wraps Damien, his python, around Wells at the end of the match which causes him to foam at the mouth. Vince informs us that Jake’s undefeated streak remains in tact with this win.
There’s a video package giving us the build up to the boxing match between Mr. T and Roddy Piper.
Now we’re in Los Angeles for Jesse Ventura to interview Hulk Hogan. Hulk says he’s taking out King Kong Bundy in spite of his injured ribs. He also makes a prediction that Mr. T will defeat Piper because he’s fighting for what he believes in. We return to New York and Susan lets us know she’s rooting for Hulk.
Finkel hands the microphone over to Joan Rivers, who was probably 60 here, as the guest ring announcer. She introduces a boatload of celebrity stars — Guest Judges: Darryl Dawkins, Cab Calloway, & G. Gordon Liddy and Guest Time Keeper: Herb (Burger King commercial superstar). This is New York’s main event, scheduled for 10 rounds of boxing. The best part of the introduction is that she misreads “The Ace Cowboy Bob Orton” as “The Ace Comedy — and funny man — Bob Orvin.” I’m not making that up, it really just happened. Now it’s time for the boxing match between Mr. T and “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. This is even faker than all the other stuff on this show. Wow, this gets really bad. Mr. T is atrocious. This whole thing is a sloppy, clumsy mess. So this represents the first horrible match that I didn’t really know was horrible when watching as a kid. Mercifully, it ends in the fourth round when Piper gets disqualified for throwing the ref down and bodyslamming T. A melee ensues following the match where all the corner men flood the ring — Vince mispronounces melee twice. Thank god we’re done with Susan St. James with our location switch.
Now we’re in Chicago with Gorilla Monsoon, Mean Gene Okerlund, and Cathy Lee Crosby. It’s funny that they’re all sharing one microphone, it’s sort of awkward as compared to how it would be today where all three would have their own mic. Chet Coppock is the ring announcer. Women’s World Champion Fabulous Moolah defends against Velvet McIntyre. Moolah is ancient here, yet she’s still the Champ and is believeable in the roll of tough old wench. The match is over in under a minute when McIntyre misses a splash off the rope allowing Moolah to pin her and retain the belt.
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