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The Risk & Reward Of The Original WrestleMania

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Hulk Hogan WrestleMania

WrestleMania. It’s what put the world of Sports Entertainment on the map. Sports Entertainment being the keyword. If you wanted Professional Wrestling, if you were a hardcore fan, you had the NWA’s Starrcade event but that only ran in the territory. If you wanted action, drama, emotion, larger-than-life athletes, and celebrities, you had… nothing.

That was until Vincent Kennedy McMahon thought up the incredible event of WrestleMania. McMahon turned an idea into reality using his own fortune, using Cindy Lauper, using Mr. T, using MTV, and using the top athletes from each territory from around the world to make his idea of WrestleMania into the most exciting, the most captivating event in sports and entertainment history. More exciting than the Academy’s Oscars, more exciting than the MLB’s World Series, even more exciting than the NFL’s Super Bowl.

WrestleMania took every risk possible to become what it is today. It isn’t an event, it’s a feeling. A feeling that comes one week a year to anyone viewing either in-person or through PPV. This is the story of the risks taken to make WrestleMania what it is today and the story of the reward it received to have tens of thousands of average people from around the world to view the incredible spectacle dubbed as “WrestleMania Week.” 

It all started in the Summer of 1984. Vince McMahon had thought up the idea of WrestleMania: “I remember in 1984, in the Summertime, there was a meeting room, literally a little meeting room. I remember Vince said, ‘I’m gonna do this,’ and he explained his vision, what he wanted to do. We all thought he was nuts, but we all knew one thing about Vince McMahon, when he sets his mind onto doing something, he’s going to do it.” – Howard Finkel on Vince McMahon pitching the idea of WrestleMania (Source: WWF WrestleMania: The Official Insider’s History DVD). 

Now the question is, “Why?” The answer is simple: Domination. Vince Jr. had bought out the World Wrestling Federation from his father, Vince Sr., Gorilla Monsoon, and Arnold Skaaland. Vince was always known as wanting more. Well, in 1984, he sought after it. He sought after that mysterious “More” that no single promoter really understood or ever had at the time. One singular domination over the entire country is what McMahon wanted, and this was the start. 

There, of course, was an issue. No promoter wanted any performer involved in WrestleMania, or else, they’d be shunned: “This guy’s gonna piss everybody off. Vince is gonna get everybody so mad that everybody that’ll work on the WrestleMania card will be blackballed,” Hulk Hogan noted in the WrestleMania Rewind series on the WWE Network. “This was the first real move on Vince McMahon’s expansion. The promoters were telling wrestlers that if you go work for him, you may never come back again,” Bill Apter noted in WrestleMania Rewind. If WrestleMania succeeded, everyone involved would never be forgotten. If it failed, their names could’ve very well been scratched from every record book by every promoter personally. 

Now obviously, you can’t get a reward with no risk. It is well known by many insiders that Vince had put every single penny of his own fortune into his crazy idea of WrestleMania.

“It was the general consensus around the country that Vince McMahon was taking the biggest risk of his life and there was still some other wrestling companies around the country who were actually hoping that Vince would fail,” is what Jerry Lawler said on WrestleMania Rewind about Vince’s massive risk. “It was a huge gamble, the biggest gamble I’ve ever been involved with. It was a roll of the dice,” Vince said. “The risk for Vince McMahon was his entire life so to say. He had everything, all his money down on WrestleMania betting that this would make his business soar,” said Bill Apter on WrestleMania Rewind. 

Vince had to gain buzz about the event, and he did so by working two shows with MTV. The first show being “The Brawl to End It All” which went down on July 23, 1984. It featured multiple dark matches including a WWF Intercontinental Championship match which showed champion Tito Santana and Bob Orton Jr. wrestle to time-limit draw, a WWF World Heavyweight Championship match which featured champion Hulk Hogan defeated Greg Valentine in ten minutes, and WWF World Martial Arts Championship match which featured champion Antonio Inoki defend against Charlie Fulton in a little under four minutes, a WWF Tag Team Championship match which showed the incredible Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch defend against Sgt. Slaughter and Terry Daniels in an outstanding 17:16 bout.

The featured event though was for the WWF Women’s Championship. It featured The Fabulous Moolah, accompanied by Lou Albano, defend against Wendi Richter, who was accompanied to the ring by musician Cyndi Lauper and David Wolff. The entire world was shocked when Richter had ended Moolah’s 10,000+ day reign as WWF Women’s Champion. 

The second event, “The War to Settle the Score”, occurred a month before WrestleMania. It featured many dark matches which included The U.S. Express (Barry Windham and Mike Rotunda) successfully defend their WWF Tag Team Championships against The Spoiler and The Assassin. Another title match was for the WWF Women’s Championship. Leilani Kai, accompanied by The Fabulous Moolah, had beaten Wendi Richter, who was accompanied to the ring by Cyndi Lauper, in 11:49. The Women’s Title change was aired via tape delay on the March 5th edition of Prime Time Wrestling.

The Main Event was aired on MTV, it was the set-up for WrestleMania. It featured Roddy Piper get disqualified in his match against champion Hulk Hogan for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship after Hogan was attacked. This would be the set-up for the Main Event of WrestleMania. 

The day had come: WrestleMania.

It had nine bouts. The first one showed Tito Santana defeating The Executioner (FKA “Playboy” Buddy Rose) in 4:50. The second bout showed King Kong Bundy defeat Special Delivery Jones in an astonishing twenty-three seconds! The third bout showed Ricky Steamboat defeat Matt Borne in 4:38. The fourth match was a homecoming for the Sammartino Family, as it showed Bruno Sammartino’s son, David Sammartino compete against Brutus Beefcake. Unfortunately for both competitors, that match ended in a double-DQ. The fifth match was the first title event of the night, it showed champion Greg Valentine defend the WWF Intercontinental Championship against Junkyard Dog. While JYD had beaten Valentine, it was via countout, so Greg Valentine kept his title.

The sixth bout was also a title match, this time for the WWF Tag Team Championship. It showed The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff, who was accompanied by Freddie Blassie defeat the team of The U.S. Express, which consisted of Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo, and manager Lou Albano. The seventh bout was the $15,000 Body Slam Challenge. It showed André the Giant put his career on the line against Big John Studd. If André won, he would get Studd’s $10,000. If not, Big John would have the tremendous honor of getting to say he retired the Eighth Wonder of the World. Of course, André won in 05:54. The Semi-Final Bout showed Wendi Richter with Cyndi Lauper take back the WWF Women’s Championship from Leilani Kai in 06:12.’ 

The Main Event was ready. It was promoted every second Vince McMahon could get the chance, including the night before when Hulk Hogan and Mr. T hosted Saturday Night Live. The Main Event went incredible. It featured world-class boxer Muhammad Ali and inaugural WWE Intercontinental Champion Pat Patterson as special guest referees, New York Yankees manager Billy Martin as the special guest ring announcer, and musician Liberace, accompanied by The Rockettes, as the special guest ring announcer. The Main Event consisted of every celebrity possible. It showed the team of WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan and Mr. T (accompanied by Jimmy Snuka) defeat the team of “Mr. Wonderful” Paul Orndorff and Roddy Piper (accompanied by Bob Orton Jr.) after Orton had tried to hit a double-ax handle on Hogan when the ref wasn’t looking but Hogan moved away, and Orton had hit Mr. Wonderful instead. 

The Original WrestleMania had concluded, and it left a legacy no one could dare imagine. Obviously, it had succeeded. Vince McMahon went onto say this on WrestleMania Rewind, “After the event was over in Madison Square Garden, the very first one, I began to get phone calls from the rest of the Eastern Sea Board. That to was a success, now we’re onto something. What about the Midwest? Chicago came in, hey that’s working. So, at the end of the night, we had been parting quite heavily.” Hulk Hogan said on WrestleMania Rewind, “We had a guy, Vince McMahon, who believed in us and he put everything he into that night and I just knew that if everybody stepped up to their A-game, we’re onto greatness, one way or the other. Vince McMahon went onto call this the defining moment of the WWE on WrestleMania Rewind: “With the success of WrestleMania, it really put us on the map and that was the defining moment of what we know now as the WWE.” 

The legacy of WrestleMania is well documented. There have been 34 annual WrestleMania events, and one more confirmed to be happening. WrestleMania became more than a day though… now it’s a week. WrestleMania Week is home to an NXT TakeOver event, the WWE Hall of Fame, WrestleMania Axxess, ROH Supercard of Honor, and other independent shows. Thanks to WrestleMania, World Wrestling Entertainment is now a household name. Vince McMahon is now a billionaire, and the company alone is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. To think, it all started with that one meeting in the Summer of 1984. 

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Opinion

TheChairshot.com PRESENTS: WWE Bash In Berlin Immediate Reactions

Join DJ and Tunney for their immediate reactions to WWE Bash in Berlin. For the latest, greatest and up to datest, ALWAYS #UseYourHead and visit THECHAIRSHOT.COM

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Join DJ and Tunney for their immediate reactions to WWE Bash in Berlin. For the latest, greatest and up to datest, ALWAYS #UseYourHead and visit THECHAIRSHOT.COM

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prowrestlingtees.com/TheChairshot – TONS of Great designs…MAKES A GREAT GIFT!

About Chairshot Radio Network

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Opinion

AJ’s Top 3 Favorite SummerSlams

AJ is back with his annual opinion article, and this time the SummerSlam buzz got him wondering about his personal Top 3.

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It’s been a while since I have done any form of writing and SummerSlam is this Saturday. Of all the SummerSlams I’ve seen over the years; which ones are my favorites? While it’s not a revolutionary idea, I figured everyone loves to debate favorites of well, anything. Don’t worry though because this isn’t just going to be pure recency bias. I’ve watched the majority of them so with the ones I put on the list, it hit me more in some way shape or form whether it was story, a really good match or it just felt like a solid event.

At least this proves WWE is trending in a good direction for me, when it gets the ol’ brain juices flowing just because a show is around the corner!

#3: 2022 (Ol’ Brock Lesnar Has A Farm)

r/Wrasslin - when did Brock lesner begin his farmer and cowboy gimmick and when did he stop doing the gimmick ? is it worth watching I believe it was 2021 but not sure when he stopped the gimmick
Starting off the show, we get Bianca looking for a rematch against Becky from last years SummerSlam and it was better than the 21 second affair that everyone claims was a squash. This time Bianca holds her own and beats the Man in a fairly decent match, good way to get the event started. Next up is the heat seeking missile, Logan Paul against the former heat seeking missile because, well he wasn’t cut out for it and wasn’t a guy in everyone’s eyes, The Miz. After they had their blow off at Mania with Logan coming out on top which… isn’t awful, I just don’t like Logan Paul because he has that dude bro aura and swagger to make him more hateable than any other person on the card. Which I suppose is his gimmick…so…kudos?

First Championship match is for the US Championship and it’s as expected that in Theory, he should never beat someone to the caliber of Bobby Lashley which is no surprise. Dominik and Rey still back when Dom wanted the good fight against the Judgement Day before joining them later. The former Colts players, which they hammered it dahn in this match up showed that the canal swimming, trash talkin’, podcastin’, current RAW Color Commentatin’ goofball we all love, Pat McAfee came out on top again Bum Ass Corbin.

Usos putting the Street Profits on lockdown in the penitentiary since I believe this was peak Bloodline with the belt collecting and running all of WWE. Liv beat Ronda Rousey which isn’t astonishing but it’s not something people had on their bingo cards for anything with WWE so it was a nice little shock factor. The most memorable part of the night is obviously the Main Event, Lesnar brings the tractor, Roman catching the Microphone and Brock stands on top of the vehicle. Damn good match that showed off what they do in the ring since Roman caught his stride as the main bad guy and Brock… liked people after all of this? That is still a weird statement in my head. Brock being a good guy people person. If Liv wasn’t on bingo cards for wrestling, that is not on bingo cards in any aspect of life really.

That is more of the event that had solid matches and story going for it. No weird double count out, multiple people involved, 5 tag matches on the card. Things made sense and weren’t convoluted, had shocking moments that were great to see like Liv actually getting a title defense and there were the results we all expected at the time like Theory losing in 4 minutes to Bobby Lashley.

#2: 2009 (Are You Ready for The Return?)

10 Greatest Summerslam Entrances in WWE History - GameSpot
This event wasn’t that strong. It was strong with the star power involved in 2009 with guys like Rey Mysterio as Intercontinental Champion, Orton and Cena for the WWE Championship as it was becoming as stale as month old chips and CM Punk was facing Jeff Hardy before he ultimately returned to TNA at the beginning of 2010 after this PPV. For me, it’s not so much of the show itself, it was more of the memories because the Balai as our friends Chris Platt and Rey Cash like to call my brother and I, we were just coming back into wrestling and we were TNA Fans. We didn’t watch WWE that much really, it was just what came on after another channel had old ROH shows before they moved to three hours and swallowed the 8pm Eastern Slot. No, the reason why this has so many memories for me is three main reasons. First, Orton and Cena. They have had their rivalry since the beginning it seems, being each others foils like Hogan and Piper before them and there had to be a stipulation where if Randy was Counted Out or DQ’d, he’d lose the championship regardless. This was prime Viper Randy and the obvious joke we had of Super Cena where he very rarely lost, unless it was SummerSlam surprisingly enough.

Number two reason was CM Punk and Jeff Hardy. Hardys known for the Ladder and TLC matches in the past and this being the penultimate match for this feud and it was a banger of a match. If you didn’t know Punk before, it was a great introduction to his wrestling. I used to like Punk a lot because of this match because he could talk, wrestle… and not insanely personal with things in wrestling. In all seriousness, this was a great match. Ultimate risks, high reward for Punk grabbing the World Heavyweight Championship and he was given his next feud because of the final boss of SmackDown at that time. Thanks, Teddy Long.

The main and final reason though why this match gave me the memories flowing back is more of the fact that one of my closest and longest termed friends of 23 years, also loves wrestling. Back when we were younger, he’d do MoCap videos on YouTube with his figures. We’d have friends come over for parties at his house and we’d do the one thing WWE always told us not to do and that was try it at home. He was always stronger than me, I was always more charismatic. He had the power aspect and did things with brute force, I could talk my way out of trouble with parents if we did something wrong. There was always one thing that our respective mother’s always called us though… it’s on the tip of my tongue… oh right, ‘Degenerates’.

As soon as we were called that, we kind of parodied the DX line. I was limber enough to do the HBK pose and do a Superkick before it became the new DDT and he would just Spinebuster people and knew how to do the water spit. So what do you think was the main reason we even ordered this PPV for his 13th Birthday? I think the two guys we were pretending to be were set to return on a tank and toss out some glow sticks. The return of DX, Shawn Michaels coming back after Mania with Triple H to deal with the Legacy problem was an amazing return for them and made everything so much fun.

So we have the solid card and this one has a personal story… what’s my number one SummerSlam? Is it personal? Well yes but not going into that. Is it a good card? To me, it was a phenomenal card! Is it memorable? Seeing how wrestling fans still mention at least three matches to this day.

#1: 2005 (Octopus in the Washer, Lover’s Quarrel and Where the F%#$ is Vickie?)

Vickie Guerrero on Rey vs. Dominik Mysterio: 'I wish I was part of it' -  Cageside Seats
Quite possibly some of the best matches I’ve seen and one that was just the most hilarious moments of overselling in wrestling history, I know why I love this SummerSlam but it’s also a really good card at the same time. Redacted beats Orlando Jordan in 25 seconds for the US Title and they made jokes about it like, he can make a coffee faster than he beat Orlando and stuff like that, it’s pretty funny. Angle getting sick of Eugene’s antics for his Gold Medal was also a great bit they had play up, the Year long feud of Randy Orton and Undertaker was still going on where Orton comes out on top this time around to get the win back from Mania, Jericho returning for the match with Cena in a whole promotional thing for each other’s groups, Fozzy for Jericho and the Chain Gang doing Bad, Bad Man for Cena leading up to a match for the WWE Championship. JBL won a 20 man battle royal on SmackDown to win the Championship…… Opportunity to face the newest member of SmackDown, Batista but the three main matches that a lot of people talk about to this day; Edge vs Matt Hardy, Rey vs Eddie for Dominik and Hogan vs HBK in the Main Event.

I have reasons to enjoy the Hardy/Edge match but it looked like a real fight, it really made us believe that Matt Hardy was going to kill Edge because real names were dropped during this tirade from Hardy. It wasn’t Edge and Lita, it was Adam and Amy. Matt was so dead set on beating the hell out of Edge that they made a situation into gold and it was a great moment for this match to happen, I believe it was also an Unsanctioned Match too which added the intensity until matt got concussed and knocked senseless that it looked like he couldn’t fight for anything but the build up was what made it seem like a marque match. It made it feel real, it made it feel awesome and it made it feel personal.

Eddie kept tormenting Rey Mysterio about Dominik not being Rey’s but Eddie’s for the summer. That’s all you heard from Eddie being the weasel he was is hanging out with Dominik, making the world believe it’s his son and what not (Let’s not do a fast forward to today where he has the mullet, mustache and everything like Eddie) but they settle this in a Ladder Match where the top of it is a document for the custody of Dominik and my god, this match is better than it should have been. I expect nothing else from Eddie because the man hated having a bad match, Dom got involved and stopped Eddie, Vickie was late and stopped Eddie. The whole match was good it was just very weird with the premise but was a great match. I wonder if Rey regrets his decision to win the match now…

Octopus in a Washing Machine… those five words have resonated with Shawn Michaels’ performance in this match, forever. It was supposed to be an amazing match up between Hogan and Michaels, Icon vs Icon it said and suddenly Hogan’s back gives out, can’t do a trilogy of matches so we can only do the one and then pull out of everything after. This match was set up to be a classic and instead turned into the most unbelievable sell fest ever. A Hogan big boot caused Shawn to tumble 3 or 4 times, getting crotched on the ropes had HBK bouncing higher than he should have, being tossed out of the ring made it look like Shawn never broke his back in 1998 from how much he flopped and flipped around like crazy. It’s bad… or maybe even good that a lot of current wrestlers watched this match that went, “I can sell like that, I want to be a wrestler” and did. So good or bad, I don’t know but for some reason this PPV has always had a place in my heart for how memorable it was.

Those are my top three SummerSlams so far but who knows, 2024 has potential to maybe bump something or at least get me to consider a shift. Should be fun to see how the show plays out! What are some of your favorite SummerSlams?

About Chairshot Radio Network

Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!

 MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)

TUESDAY - Musical Chairs (music) / Hockey Talk (NHL)

WEDNESDAY - The Greg DeMarco Show (wrestling) 

THURSDAY - Keeping the news ridiculous... The Oddity / Chairshot NFL (NFL)

FRIDAY - DWI Podcast (Drunk Wrestling Intellect)

SATURDAY - The Mindless Wrestling Podcast

SUNDAY - The Front and Center Sports Podcast 

CHAIRSHOT RADIO NETWORK PODCAST SPECIALS

Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)

TheChairshot.com PRESENTS...IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends

Patrick O'Dowd's 5X5

Classic POD is WAR


Chairshot Radio Network Your home for the hardest hitting podcasts... Sports, Entertainment and Sports Entertainment!

All Shows On Demand


Powered by RedCircle


Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!
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