Tuesday, March 19, 2024
EditorialWrestleMania 1: Where It All Began...And Could Have Ended

WrestleMania 1: Where It All Began…And Could Have Ended

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Match 8: WWF Women’s Championship Match – Wendi Richter (with Cyndi Lauper) vs Leilani Kai (with Fabulous Moolah)

 Lauper and Richter are up first and they’re both looking very angry. Lauper warns ‘Lanie Kai’ and ‘Schmoolah’ to watch out because Richter’s a powerful woman and Lauper herself is a powerful manager because she’s been taught by Captain Lou (Commenter: Okay, I’ll give her that one). Richter reminds us that it took Moolah and Kai to take the Women’s Title from her and she’s dead set on getting her title back.

Moolah and Kai are next, Moolah wearing novelty glasses with the dollar signs backwards (Commenter: I hope she didn’t pay her jeweler too much for those), much to Okerlund’s amazement. Kai says that she’s ready for tonight and she doesn’t care what she has to do, she’s going to come back to the locker room with her hand raised in ‘victor’.

This was a solid match from both women. Lots of solid mat work and skill from both Richter and Kai. The managers got involved, but only once.

Winner: Richter wins via pinfall after rolling through Kai’s flying crossbody.

Thoughts: Lauper was easily the most over person in the ring. That being said, WWF did her involvement right. She only involved herself in the match when Moolah did. They kept the match about the women in the ring, not the managers, one of whom happened to be a huge pop star. Lauper made sure Richter was able to get back at Moolah for costing her the belt and for attacking her earlier in the bout.

Richter tells Okerlund that he’s caught her at the happiest second of her life. She admits that it took her and Cyndi to get the belt back, but that it took Moolah and Kai to get the belt away from her in the first place.  Lauper says she knew all along that Richter could do it and says that Richter had more ability in her pinky than Kai. She keeps butchering Kai’s name and Richter either tries to correct her or tells her to pronounce it ‘cow’. Lauper says she brought her towel to help fend off Moolah since Moolah was bigger than her. Not sure what that was going to do, but if it made Cyndi feel confident, who am I to judge?

WrestleMania 1 Main Event: Hulk Hogan & Mr. T (with Jimmy Snuka) vs Rowdy Roddy Piper and ‘Mr. Wonderful’ Paul Orndorff (with Cowboy Bob Orton)

Finkel is going to introduce all the celebrities involved with this match:

  • Guest Ring Announcer: Billy Martin, a legendary New York Yankees baseball player and manager, whose relationship with George Steinbrenner was the real-life template for Austin vs McMahon, just less violent.
  • Martin gets a great pop, thanks the crowd and, with some help from Finkel, begins to introduce the guest officials.
  • Guest Timekeeper: Liberace with the Rockettes. Liberace comes out with the Rockettes and begins dancing in the ring, much to the amusement of the crowd.
  • Guest Referee: Muhammad Ali. The Great One comes out to an enormous pop. Rumor is that Ali was supposed to be the actual referee in this match, but Pat Patterson was concerned that his head wasn’t in it and got Vince to change it.

Piper comes out first with Orton and Orndorff to NYPD’s bagpipers (I THINK that’s who they are). Crowd’s booing is pretty good.

Hogan and Mr. T come out to a loud pop, though not as loud as the celeb officials got, strangely enough. We watch Hogan and T walk past a slightly pensive looking Vince McMahon.

This match was solid start to finish. Both sides looked fantastic and there was plenty of back and forth. Mr. T showed himself to be a reasonably okay wrestler. There was a false finish, when Piper and Co, decide to head for the locker room after a free for all in the ring that ended with Ali getting in the ring and taking swings at the heels.

That said, this was a typical Hogan match, just in tag match form. However, he made T and the heels look great, so it was a successful match up.

Winner: Hogan picks up the pinfall after hitting the big Leg Drop on Orndorff after Orton accidentally hits Orndorff with his cast while trying to double team Hogan. In classic heel fashion, Piper and Orton bail out and leave Orndorff in the ring.

Thoughts: This is the only WrestleMania that didn’t have a Heavyweight Championship match, but this match felt like a Heavyweight title bout in any case. There seemed to be legit heat between the teams, or at least between Piper, Hogan, and Mr. T, that translated very clearly in the ring.

Mr. T checks on Orndorff, who comes to, realizing that he’s all by himself with Hogan and Mr. T. Hogan tries to explain what happened and that Piper and Orton bailed out, but Orndorff doesn’t believe them and leaves in a huff.

The show closes with Hogan, T, and the celebs celebrating while Hogan does his posing.

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