I don't think the Wrestling Classic was good, just less bad.

Piper has talked about this in shoot interviews. Something to the effect of him not wanting to look bad against somebody who wasn't an athlete and keep some sense of kayfabe. Wish I knew where I heard this.

Take what Piper says with a grain of salt. He is kayfabe 4 life. In most interviews I have seen, he talks as though the story lines were real. I don't hate him for it, it would add more to his legacy I believe if he let us in more. Even in his book, he goes to great pains not to reveal the business. He goes in and out of kayfabe and it's quite exhausting.

Wrestlemania 2: April 7th, 1986 from New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago



Rankings and reviews will remain open until after Raw on July 7th.

WrestleMania 2

Paul Orndorff vs. Magnificent Muraco: Pretty dull. And WWF hadn't really found their way yet, with again Orndorff in mid-feud with Orton and randomly taking on someone else at the biggest show of the year. A double countout to open the show is a pretty lame idea as well. 1/2*

IC Title: Randy Savage (c) vs. George Steele: Total waste of Savage's talents. They go five minutes and there's barely any wrestling at all. And the Animal gets to kick out hard after the flying elbow? I hated this Savage-Steele feud. 1/4*

Jake Roberts vs. George Wells: This Wells guy got more offense than I remembered him getting. Thought this whole match + post-match was a really good vehicle for getting Jake Roberts over as the hot new heel in the company. It was short, but front-to-back I think this earns at least **

Roddy Piper vs. Mr. T: A worked boxing match between two non-boxers, complete with silly "sports entertainment" touches. This is a greasefire. N/A since it isn't a wrestling match, but it was a big waste of time. Piper legit hated working with Mr. T, so I sympathize with him having to put up with this crap even though I'm not a Piper fan.

That concluded the New York portion of the show. Susan Saint James is not a good color commentator to go with Vince, though I'll say that she's not the worst celebrity color commentator even on this show. She at least seems to have been something of a casual wrestling fan who was familiar with the wrestlers, etc. It was just like putting a random quasi-famous mark in the booth.

Women's Title: Fabulous Moolah (c) vs. Velvet McIntyre: Moolah was just off of winning the title back on the original Vince screwjob here. Anyway, Velvet McIntyre's initial offense made it look like this would easily trump the WrestleMania I women's title match, but then they stopped this after less than 90 seconds. I dunno, I can't even give a rating to a match that short, so N/A, though the first minute was pretty good.

Corporal Kirchner vs. Nikolai Volkoff: WTF was this. Also extremely short, though given how stupid it was, I'm not complaining about that fact. But Kirchner is able to just openly attack the referee and then pin Volkoff? I don't know; whatever. 0 stars.

Battle Royal: Can't say that I realized that Bruno Sammartino ever actually wrestled at a WrestleMania, but here he is. … I'm a little surprised that even some active football players would participate in something like this given that battle royals aren't the safest matches. … For such a little guy, Bret Hart sure did get booked strongly in battle royals over time.

The stuff with Refrigerator Perry and John Studd was pretty fun, but in general battle royals where everyone starts in the ring are pretty unwatchable and are mostly exercises in waiting until the field gets thinned out enough that you can reasonably follow everything. This was a good crossover vehicle to comingle the NFL with the WWF, but as wrestling matches go it's tough one to take much away from. 1/2*

Tag Titles: Dream Team (c) vs. British Bulldogs: Good match. I find that I had built this match up as possibly being stronger than it was, perhaps because the rest of this show is so ****ing bad that a good match looked like a classic by comparison. I liked it on this viewing, and it was the match of the night, but I don't think that it was particularly special. ***

Onto Los Angeles, where poor Jesse Ventura has to try to carry a broadcast team of Lord Alfred Hayes and Elvira. As I mentioned earlier, Susan Saint James wasn't any great shakes as a color commentator as she sounded a bit out of her element, but she seemed like a legitimate wrestling fan. Elvira sounds like a complete and total ****ing idiot throughout this part of the show.

Ricky Steamboat vs. Hercules: Fun little Steamboat showcase here. Hercules, usually something of a bum, wasn't even too bad in this match. Good high-energy opener for the Los Angeles portion of the show. **3/4

Adrian Adonis vs. Uncle Elmer: Not much of a match to speak of here. Adonis was a good worker, but there wasn't much to be done with this massive Elmer dude. 1/4*

The Funk Brothers vs. JYD & Tito Santana: Crazy that Terry Funk was already over 40 years old at this point, considering how much longer he carried on with an in-ring career. This was a good match, enjoyable especially when Tito was in against the Funks, and I thought it gave Dream Team vs. Bulldogs a good run for its money for match of the night honors. ***

Hulk Hogan vs. King Kong Bundy: Thought this was actually decent psychologically even if there weren't any particularly great individual spots. Considering that Bundy wasn't a believable WWF Title contender, and considering the respective talents in the ring, this was about as good as it could be expected to be. Not a technical classic, but a decent story. **1/4

Overall: The first half of the show was atrocious. The second half was generally quite watchable and salvaged the show to a certain extent. By comparison to the inaugural WrestleMania, I would say that the highs were slightly higher, but the lows were lower and more frequent. Overall I give the original Mania the nod between the two both for a slightly more consistent level of watchability and for the previously-mentioned historical importance bump.

WrestleMania Rankings
1. WrestleMania
2. WrestleMania 2

I've only watched through the battle royal but so far it's been way easier to watch than the first WM. Even if the matches aren't great characters like Savage and Roberts are entertaining to watch. I usually hate Piper but I've actually liked him here. Plus Ray Charles' version of America the Beautiful is the GOAT.

Well if you like WM 2 better after the battle royal then I'd almost certainly think you'll put it over the original at the end. The show generally gets markedly better right after that point you're at.

Ray Charles was definitely ****ing awesome.

So bad it is good:

Cathy Lee Crosby's outfit

Star pro football players doing something they would be contractually obligated to not do today.

The good:

The 1986 WWF crowd chants bull **** at the end of that opening match. I'm not sure if it is edited out or not on more recent versions.

When I was a kid Jake's opponent foaming at the mouth was a really effective way to get Jake and the snake over as powerful/heelish.

So bad it is...bad:

Orndorff, a face, makes a racist gesture at Fuji about 2 minutes into the match.

George Steele. Burying the elbow, and biting Savage on the outside of the boot. Adding terrible on top of his usual awful.

The Fridge's outfit fail.

Nearly all the in ring action in all but 3-4 of the matches.

Summary:

Not quite enough "so bad it is good" moments to compete with the fact that Wrestlemania I had much better commentary.

Yeah I didn't make mention of the foaming at the mouth, but that was a great touch since it was a visual that stuck with me over the years.

I really hated Savage vs. Steele. I can't reconcile myself to any other opinion on that one.

Wrestlemania 2
Wrestlemania


I personally liked the matches better in this one. The 3 cities were an interesting touch, even if we lost some in the commentating. I loved the Bulldogs vs The Dream Team, WWF was coming into its own at this point. I wish they used that blue steel cage instead of the regular fence material. The blue was more aesthetically pleasing. Plus the build up to WM2 from Saturday Night's Main Event was a great story line. I remember going to bed and getting on my knees praying that Hulk Hogan would be ok after Bundy hurt his ribs. All in all this is my favorite Wrestlemania ever at least it was when I was a kid, so it will be interesting to see which ones hold up over time.

Could be the best part of WM2.

about halfway through. boy is this brutal.

I think you're looking for this thread.

Luckily the second half is quite a bit better.

Wrestlemania 2 Review

1. Paul Orndorff and The Magnificent Muraco (with Mr. Fuji) fought to a double countout - This was pretty bad. Not a whole lot to say. 1/4 star.

2. Randy Savage (c) (with Miss Elizabeth) defeated George Steele - unfortunate to see Savage wasted this way. Everything about this match was bad. Steele kicking out of the elbow with plenty of time before the three count was especially perplexing. How many times was Steele going to do the bite thing? Just awful. 0 stars.

3. Jake Roberts defeated George Wells - really enjoyed seeing early Jake here and he definitely delivered some of his trademark top quality in-ring psychology. Too short of a match to be rated higher. 1 star.

4. Mr. T (with Joe Frazier and Haiti Kid) defeated Roddy Piper (with Bob Orton and Lou Duva) by disqualification - couldn't even watch this. N/A

5. The Fabulous Moolah (c) defeated Velvet McIntyre - Velvet squashing and then randomly dies. Not sure what they were trying to accomplish here. 0 stars.

6. Corporal Kirchner defeated Nikolai Volkoff (with Freddie Blassie) - another dud. 0 stars.

7. André the Giant defeated 19 other participants by last eliminating Bret Hart - actually not as bad as I was expecting but certainly not very good either. A couple of entertaining spots. 1/2 star.

8. The British Bulldogs (Davey Boy Smith and Dynamite Kid) (with Ozzy Osbourne and Lou Albano) defeated The Dream Team (Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake) (c) (with Johnny Valiant) - really enjoyed this. All four guys were pretty good in the ring and I think the storytelling was excellent. One thing that you don't see very often these days is the high quality post-match selling that Bulldogs did here. You could really tell the match took a (kayfabe) toll on them. 3 stars.

9. Ricky Steamboat defeated Hercules Hernandez - not awful but I had a hard time getting into this one, for whatever reason. 1 1/4 star.

10. Adrian Adonis (with Jimmy Hart) defeated Uncle Elmer - Worse than expected. 0 stars.

11. Terry Funk and Hoss Funk (with Jimmy Hart) defeated Junkyard Dog and Tito Santana - good match. Thought all guys moved around pretty well and the storytelling was pretty good. I thought Jimmy Hart added a lot to the match as you could hear his obnoxious voice even when the camera was focused elsewhere. Thought it was interesting to see Funk take some "bumps" there. The most violent thing that happened in WM1 was David Sammartino being bodyslammed outside of the ring, so Funk's over-the-top-rope bumps and slam onto the table were relatively hardcore, I guess. Can't give this quite the same rating as the tag title match, though. 2 3/4 stars.

12. Hulk Hogan (c) defeated King Kong Bundy (with Bobby Heenan) - first time I've seen this. Call me crazy but it wasn't terrible as long as you're able to ignore Bundy's pathetic attempts to leave the ring. Blade job was a nice touch. Thought the pre-match promos were also good, all things considered. 1 1/2 stars.

Overall this was a pretty bad PPV and I'm expecting it to stay at or near the bottom of the rankings for a bit. Wasn't feeling the three city thing. Commentary was lacking though, as expected, Ventura and Monsoon were solid enough.

1. WM
2. WM 2

Almost done the Chicago portion. This would be the worst PPV of all time if it ended here.

The matches:

"Mr. Wonderful" Paul Orndorff vs. The Magnificent Muraco 1/4*
What a roller coaster ride for Mr. Wonderful, main event at WM1 to curtain jerking here to main event at The Big Event to not even being on the card at WM3. Pretty sure someone might have an issue with Orndorff making slanty-eye faces at Fuji in this day and age. Pretty nothing match, and a double countout to boot, bad start.

IC Title: Randy "Macho Man" Savage [c] vs. George "The Animal" Steele 1/2*
Savage keeps this out of negative stars, barely. What a trooper, selling for a bouquet of flowers and turnbuckle stuffing. And they went with this feud for a year afterward! What a waste.

Jake "The Snake" Roberts vs. George Wells 1/2*
I believe Jake had just barely come in from Mid-South here; the DDT wasn't called as such by Vince yet. Definitely a lot different style from just about anyone else in the promotion at the time. Unfortunately, another short one that never really got going.

Boxing match: Rowdy Roddy Piper vs. Mr. T
Joan Rivers is the guest ring announcer, looking nothing like she does nearly 30 years later. No point rating a boxing match, but this was really bad; with obvious pulled punches and ridiculous looking haymakers in the late stages, and too long to boot after a whole series of too short matches. And did I hear a "Roddy" chant? Piper should have main evented instead.

Women's Title: Fabulous Moolah [c] vs. Velvet McIntyre DUD
Gorilla and Mean Gene on commentary with Cathie Lee Crosby, who was at least more enthusiastic than Susan Saint James, if equally clueless. Moolah with the win off a failed flying bodypress about a minute in. What the hell was that?

Flag match: Nikolai Volkoff vs. Corporal Kirchner DUD
Another short, nothing match. Five matches and I don't think there's even been 20 minutes of wrestling so far, and the Savage match went nearly 10 minutes. First obvious music dub, anyone know what Kirchner's music was actually?

20-man WWF-NFL battle royal
This was an OK battle royal, a bit short like everything else tonight and nothing terribly special. Nice to see the Hitman with a good showing in his first WrestleMania. Bruno got a nice ovation, as did Andre. The pop for the Studd-Fridge confrontation was the biggest one of the night. No rating for a battle royal.

Tag Team Titles: The Dream Team [c] vs. The British Bulldogs ***1/2
Wow, a wrestling match! Once again, a tag team match is match of the night, as was customary at this point in WWF history. The Bulldogs (especially Dynamite) were just so far ahead of their time, they'd have been a fantastic fit in the frenetic tag team scene of 2000-01. Valentine and Beefcake did a really nice job keeping up. Crowd popped huge for the title change, they were looking for any excuse to go nuts. Very good match, but they had many better ones, including an awesome 2/3 fall match on Saturday Night's Main Event a couple of months later.

Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat vs. Hercules Hernandez **1/4
This was a fun one, Steamboat was able to carry Herc to a good little match. They got some more time than most of the other matches, too, which I appreciated. Crowd was VERY into Steamboat.

"Adorable" Adrian Adonis vs. Uncle Elmer 1/4*
Adonis bumping like a madman all over the place couldn't save this one. Thankfully I pretty much missed the whole hillbilly experience the first time around.

Terry & Hoss Funk vs. Tito Santana & Junkyard Dog ***1/4
Still don't get why they insisted on calling Dory "Hoss". Perfect tag team formula match, with Tito playing Ricky Morton and doing most of the work. The Funks were still nearly as good here as they were in their heyday ten years previous. Bump of the night goes to 42-year-old Terry taking a backdrop out to the floor, then getting put through a table by JYD. This was right up there with the tag title match.

WWF World Title, steel cage: Hulk Hogan [c] vs. King Kong Bundy *1/2
First appearance of the blue bars. I liked that they gave a reasonable explanation -- Hogan and especially Bundy were so big that they were afraid the traditional cyclone fencing couldn't hold them. Pretty plodding match. Bundy's attempts to leave the cage were really pitiful, and Hogan no-selling the third avalanche left me shaking my head. Hogan, of course, would work a very similar match with Paul Orndorff nearly a year later to much better effect.

Comments:

- No idea what Vince was thinking with his choices for colour commentators at all three venues. Susan Saint James added virtually nothing to commentary, sounding almost bored half the time aside from the Savage match. She was better in the cutaways to New York from the other venues, though. I would have rather had Bruno doing colour here than in the battle royal. Vince would have even been better off doing this himself. Cathie Lee Crosby was at least more enthusiastic in Chicago. Elvira was a complete waste.

- Chicago crowd was hot all the way through, I'll give them that, even though they got virtually nothing to work with aside from the tag title match and the Fridge. Chicago crowds have always been awesome. The LA crowd was pretty good as well.

Overall rating: 3.5/10
Two great matches and a whole lot of terrible ones, with not much in between. Throw in the mostly awful commentary and subpar production values and this is a bottom 5 Mania in just about anyone's book. Fear not, though, it's about to get infinity times better...

Rankings so far
WM1 - 4.5 (adjusted downward after consideration)
WM2 - 3.5

Wrestlemania 2 Review:

I found this Wrestlemania to be much easier to get through than the first one. With that being said it was still terrible. Outside of the both tag matches and to a much lesser extent the battle royal and main event everything was pretty bad. The Savage match and Jake match were both disappointing, but even in a short crappy match I enjoyed seeing both of them much more than some of the nobodies they used in Wrestlemania 1. Piper/Mr. T is hard to rate. It wasn't good by any stretch of the imagination but it also didn't put me to sleep like a lot of the matches from the first WM. I usually find Piper to be pretty overrated on the mic, but I actually enjoyed him for the most part here. Outside of Ray Charles and the Fridge I thought the use of celebrities was much much worse than WM 1. I have no idea why a company with that many talented announcers would feel the need to use "celebrity" announcers who had no clue what was going on. The announcing was especially bad during the Savage match, it sounded like Vince was announcing with Brandon Stroud. The whole idea of using 3 cities was an interesting one, but in the end it just didn't work out. After watch the show and seeing the main events I think they would have been much better served to just pay Piper the extra money and have him do the job for Hogan. Despite the short matches and horrible announcing I found myself enjoying the PPV slightly more than the first one so I'm going to give it a 4/10.

Rankings so far:
Wrestlemania 2- 4
Wrestlemania 1- 3.5

Just a reminder Wrestlemania 3 opens up tonight, so don't give up yet. We're about to get to some good WMs.

It really is amazing that after those first two weak shows, they cranked one out that may still hold up as a top 5 Mania ever. Anybody who hasn't watched WM III is in for a treat.

These at least feel short. I assume it's going to be worse with some mid 2000s four hour Manias.

You won't have to wait nearly that long. WrestleMania IV felt like it was never going to end.

Wrestlemania 3: March 28, 1987 from the Pontic Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan







Rankings and reviews will remain open until after Raw July 14th.

WrestleMania III

Can-Am Connection vs. Bob Orton & Don Muraco: Fun opener. Crowd showed a lot of promise from the word go. The teams kept up a good pace, the psychology followed well, solid ending. **1/2

Billy Jack Haynes vs. Hercules: Pretty fun brawl. The desire to submit each other with their respective full nelsons provides a good backdrop for a well-told story. Nothing special technically, but I definitely thought it was a solid match. Lame to not pay it off with a real ending though. **3/4

King Kong Bundy/Little Tokyo/Lord Littlebrook vs. Hillbilly Jim/Haiti Kid/Little Beaver: Quite the step up in the world for Bundy after main eventing last year's Mania. Anyway, I don't mind this as a comic relief match; it is what it is. *3/4

JYD vs. King Harley Race: Too short to turn into much, but it wasn't terrible or anything in the few minutes it got. *1/4

Rougeau Brothers vs. Dream Team: Not bad. Kind of a slightly lesser version of the opening tag match. Would have rated the match higher if they just end on that double-team spot where Raymond flips through for the cradle pin instead of the strange booking where the Dream Team wins as they break up. **1/4

Roddy Piper vs. Adrian Adonis: I've always really liked this match, and it was the start of what makes me one of Adrian Adonis's biggest advocates in this forum since it was my first exposure to him. Unfortunately he died in a car crash the following year. Not only was the action good here, but using this as a vehicle to propel Brutus Beefcake's face turn was a nice bit of booking. Match loses a little because of Piper's many comebacks into the ring, because it was a truly perfect blowoff match for his career otherwise. Still, in my opinion this had a very short-lived reign as best WrestleMania match to date until Steamboat and Savage took the big stage shortly after and blew this one out of the water. ***1/2

Hart Foundation & Danny Davis vs. British Bulldogs & Tito Santana: It strikes me in having watched a decent bit of old stuff recently that I've underrated Tito over the years as a worker, but also that the WWF underused him as well. He was certainly one of the best in-ring workers in the company during the 90s, and while he didn't have much mic skill he was still charismatic and over. Last year at Mania he's thrown randomly into a tag match as JYD's partner, this year he's a throw-in opposite Danny ****ing Davis in a 6-man?

Anyway, as stacked as the talent in this match was, it just never really panned out into anything special. It was okay, but it never drew me in like I would expect given the names involved. **

Butch Reed vs. Koko B. Ware: Obviously too short to ever get going if it would have anyway, which I'm not convinced it would have. Butch Reed was never remotely interesting to me. 1/2*

IC Title: Randy Savage (c) vs. Ricky Steamboat: I'm sure I've written enough about this match already by now. One of the GOAT, holds up beautifully today. *****

Honky Tonk Man vs. Jake Roberts: Alice Cooper with Jake Roberts was a great pairing. Match is alright, but has a lengthy lull in the middle when the overall match length is relatively short. I also think that unless they had designs on making Honky the next IC Champ at this point (which I don't think they really did, even though that's how it turned out), Jake should be winning the blowoff here. **

Iron Sheik & Nikolai Volkoff vs. The Killer Bees: The Sheik & Volkoff's third and final Mania tag match is the weakest one, but it still isn't bad. They were a very fine tag team, solid workers with lots of heat. The rub that Duggan got from this was a pretty good one too. **

Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant: As a technical display, this match was pretty awful. As a spectacle and a historically important match, it was one of the true GOATs. It certainly accomplished everything it set out for, but I guess I'll just stick with more of a stand-alone rating. The atmosphere and the epic bodyslam spot probably do enough to earn something like *1/2.

Overall: Absolutely blows the first two Manias out of the water, and a strong contender for being a top 5 Mania of all time. I'll be curious as to where it lands overall once I get through with all of them. Savage-Steamboat obviously stole the show by being incredible, but this show is all kinds of solid apart from that too. There's very little dead weight here.

WrestleMania Rankings
1. WrestleMania III
2. WrestleMania
3. WrestleMania 2

Can-Am vs. Ace and Muraco

A decent opening match that does the basic job but not much more. Does ring technician simply mean a wrestler that is not especially fast or strong but not a complete stiff? Overall, it wasn’t hard to watch and had a good ending. 2 ½ stars

Hercules vs. Billy Jack

I like the premise over who does a move better, and Billy Jack had on one hell of an outfit on the way to the ring.

However, it seems as if both wrestlers and the fans were tired about a minute into this match. This is the type of match (two muscle guys that aren't anything special in the ring) that should be really short and wasn’t. Jesse makes a snide comment about the wrestlers both using so many clotheslines so I think even he was bored. ½ star

Fat guy, Midgets, Hillbilly.

I did remember this match, unlike the first two, so I guess it left an impression. The announcers joined by Uecker made it better. 1*

JYD vs. Harley Race

The gimmick and outfit made Harley look ridiculous and were very unfitting to his personality. Good stipulation. JYD had some very strange mannerisms: hopping as part of selling, how he falls down, etc. Harley takes some bumps and maybe even oversells but JYD was a superhero/cartoon character type figure at the time so it made sense to make his offense look that strong. This match had nice storytelling overall and they didn’t ask JYD to ask more than he could do. 2*

Adonis vs. Piper

I tend to like this haircut stipulation generally, as it gives the match a real life consequence. Despite the body shapes and sizes, Adonis is the far superior wrestler, athletically speaking. The match is better if you a brawl and managers and fatasses taking bumps and don’t care if the rules are followed. 2 1/2*

Harts+Davis vs. Bulldogs and “Chico”

The referee gone bad storyline was fresh and good. But this match wasn’t. Seeing what Bret and Dynamite did while in the ring together was very disappointing. Bret just kept punching him. What a way to spoil an opportunity to have two of the best wrestlers in the federation do something, anything interesting.

It was entertaining to watch Davis take all those moves. But they buried those moves somewhat by having Davis be anything but unconscious after that series of patented moves. 2*

Very effective promo from Andre and Bobby

Butch Reed vs. Koko Ware (Somehow Koko B Ware sounds much better)

Generic match that has the camera on the bird often. The crowd was pretty interested in seeing Slick get roughed up. 1*

Randy Savage vs. Ricky Steamboat

One of the GOAT Mania matches, and the first Wrestlemania match that was comparable to a great NWA match in terms of in-ring work. ~5*

Jake vs. Honky Tonk Man

Nobody will confuse HTM for a great worker but they started this match pretty well. However, it quickly gets boring and they let the match go on for too long without much of anything interesting occuring. 2*

Killer Bees vs. Nikolai/Sheiky Baby

Boring, bad ending, pointless. ½ star.

Andre the Giant vs. Hulk Hogan

The main event had arguably the greatest build ever. Hogan had not been beaten in years and wrestling was very regional the last time he had. Andre had not been beaten on any on any well known card in ages. Compare that to today, where a guy who gets beat in front of an audience of millions every year is the guy that is mocked for never losing. The booking of these two makes Cena look like a jobber in comparison. To so many of the fans, this was the irresistible force meeting the immovable object. On top of that, Andre had been one of the biggest faces in wrestling for years and years, and the turn was just brilliant.

I actually enjoyed the first few minutes of the main event, and I certainly enjoyed the announcing beforehand. Jesse giving the measurements, and Gorilla with his line “the greatest professional athlete in the world today” which should still be mandatory nearly every single time the world champion is on camera.

Andre was a good actor by wrestling standards. He had good mannerisms and facial expressions. But by this time he was an atrocious athlete. Some botches and bad execution occurred. Also, why is the great hero such an arrogant idiot? Hogan gets himself hurt twice trying to pick up the giant early on. In the end, he overcomes his stupidity to still win, with the very moves that failed twice, providing a ‘great’ lesson for all the youngsters about courage having the power to overcome lack of foresight and wisdom.

This match really doesn’t fit on the standard scale. It is such an outlier; so different. Overall I think it adds more to the show than any match outside of Steamboat/Savage.

Overall, this Mania mostly is filled with average and below average matches but is still miles ahead of the first two and perhaps seems better than it is because of the comparison. The announcing and promos are good. This event, and the popularity and success thereof, is partially responsible for all of the oversized slow guys being pushed.

Wrestlemania 3>>I>II