Thursday, March 28, 2024
EditorialWWE WrestleMania II: A Worthy Sequel?

WWE WrestleMania II: A Worthy Sequel?

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This look back at WWE WrestleMania 2 appears here, taken from it’s original form from Tiffany MC’s post at The Chairshot. Despite everything going on, it’s still WrestleMania and still the biggest day of the wrestling year!

WrestleMania II

This is the much-anticipated sequel to WrestleMania and like many sequels to huge successes, it tried to not only live up to its predecessor but surpass it. Living up to the 80s motto that excess was good, WrestleMania II emanated from not one, but three different cities: Long Island, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Each city with its own slate of matches and its own main event, culminating in an epic cage match for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship between the Champion, Hulk Hogan and the enormous King Kong Bundy.


WrestleMania 2, Part 1: Long Island

We start with Vince McMahon in the ring, welcoming us to WrestleMania. We are introduced to Vince’s co-host, Susan St. James (a soap opera actress). Next up, singing America the Beautiful, the incomparable Ray Charles.  We’re having a little trouble with the mic and Ray starts the song on the second or third verse along with a picture montage of America and Americans, culminating in two pictures of Hulk Hogan.

Comments: This was a great opener, even the tribute to America was great, until they shoehorned Hogan into it, making the statement that he’s the ultimate symbol of America, instead of the flag or the bald eagle.

We cut to Mean Gene in Chicago who hypes the big Battle Royale that will be in the Chicago portion of the show. He then sends us to Roddy Piper, psyching up for his big boxing match in Long Island.

Piper is with his trainer Lou Duva and Bob Orton. Orton is massaging Piper’s shoulders. Duva’s got the mic and says Piper is the best prospect he’s seen, and that Piper’s in great shape and will end the fight with one Knockout punch.

Piper says he’s cute and he’s grown his hair long so we can tell the difference between himself and Mr. T. Piper then says people might be confused because he(Piper) has the best trainer in the world whereas Mr. T ‘only’ has Smokin’ Joe Frazier

Piper then brags about the training Duva’s given him. He blabbers on a bit more and then throws this interesting stipulation: If Mr. T can knock him out, he (Piper) will not only retire from Boxing (didn’t know he was a pro-boxer) but he will also retire from Professional Wrestling and stop dating girls. Piper then goes on to say that he’s willing to put his cute face out there because Coach (Duva) has taught him how to dodge punches.

He then calls out T for being a smart aleck and coming out in a kilt and then says that T can say what he wants but he, Piper, would never shave his head like an Indian and paint himself black. Thankfully, that’s the end of the promo.

Comments: This promo was so problematic, even by 80s standards, I’m not sure where to start. Piper’s not too subtle racism was hard to stomach, even knowing it was a work (I hope). The cracks about Smokin’ Joe had me rolling my eyes. I do like Piper’s comment about retiring if Mr. T could knock him out, but otherwise, this was not a great promo.

We cut to the ring where Finkel introduces the ‘distinguished’ manager, Mr. Fuji to a loud round of boos, which get louder for Muraco. Orndorff is introduced to a loud pop that gets louder when he takes his robe off.

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