WrestleMania 2 (1986 TV Special)
5/10
Interesting and innovative idea
11 February 2009
Warning: Spoilers
This was the first Wrestlemania to be shown on PPV as the first, in 1985, was shown on Closed Circuit Television. The Gimmick here is that we're coming to you from three different cities, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles in a coast to coast spectacular! This seemed like a great show at the time it happened and is still good fun now.

The action starts off in New York with Paul Orndorff and Don Maruco fighting to a double count out draw. They do some nice stuff and the match ends after about 4 minutes. The second match on the card features the first Wrestlemania appearance for Macho Man Randy Savage, one of the great wrestlers of the late 80s and 90s. He's here putting the Intercontinental Title on the line against George "The Animal" Steele. Steele has his chances, but for most of the fight is too busy ogling over Savage's sidekick Miss Elizabeth. Savage rolls up Steele and puts his feet on the ropes to get the pin. Dastardly.

Next up is he short match between Jake Roberts and George Wells. Roberts wins in short order with the DDT and gets his pet snake "damien" to slither all over the unfortunate Mr Wells. The main event for the New York section of the show is a boxing match between Mr T and Roddy Piper. This one ends in the fourth round with Piper disqualified for body slamming Mr T. I pity that fool.

Things now move to Chicago where we kick things off with the Fabulous Moolah defeating Velvet McIntyre to retain the WWE Women's Championship. McIntyre looked a good thing to win the fight for most of the going, but the veteran Moolah pulled out the win with some nice evasion and a quick pinning combination. Next up was a flag match between Corporal Kirschner and Nikolai Volkoff who was accompanied by Freddy Blassie. Blassie tries to throw his cane to Volkoff, but Kirschner intercepts it, knocking out Volkoff and winning the match.

The next match was the NFL Superstars vs WWE Superstars. I'll be honest as an Australian and say I have no idea who any of the NFL guys were. It doesn't matter anyway as the 20 man battle Royal comes down to Andre the Giant vs the Hart Foundation. Andre wins after eliminating first Neidhart than Bret Hart. The main event for the Chicago part of the show is the British Bulldogs (Davey Boy Smith and the Dynamite Kid) defeating the Dream Team (Brutus Beefcake and Greg Valentine) to win the Tag Team Championships. Plenty of shenanigans here, with head butts and ref bumps. From a technical standpoint this was the match of the night.

Wrestlemania 2 now switches scenery to beautiful Los Angeles, and we kick things off with Ricky Steamboat getting an upset win over Hercules. Steamboat jumps around a bit, Hercules beats on him, goes for a splash, misses, Steamboat pulls out the win. Next up we had Adrian Adonis accompanied by Jimmy Hart defeating Uncle Elmer. Short match, don't know what the story was going in. Crowd seemed to like it. This is followed by Hoss and Terry Funk defeating the Junk Yard Dog and Tito Santana with help from Jimmy Hart's microphone.

The main event in Los Angeles, and for the show is Hulk Hogan defeating King Kong Bundy in a steel cage match to retain the WWE Title. Some people rate this the worst match ever, but they really need to get over it. Fun match, crowd was into it. Good triumphs over evil. The only thing I will say bad about it is the awful female commentary throughout the event.

An interesting experiment which didn't quite work for the WWE and was never tried again.
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