Chapter 3 - Matt Borne vs Ricky Steamboat

2 Down...Infinity to go....Let's Go...

So far I've enjoyed both matches in their own way. Can the streak continue?

We start with Mean Gene interviewing both competitors once again starting with...

MATT BORNE

Matt Borne on the left

Guess when Matt was hired by the WWF? If you guessed the same month as WrestleMania just like King Kong Bundy, The Executioner and kind of Jimmy Hart then you win!!! I never realised how many new stars their were on this show. It must of been quite weird for the crowd but I guess there has been a wrestler in each match so far that has been around for a while so that works. Let's hope Matt's opponent wasn't hired this month although Matt probably hopes that because it looks like he hasn't won a match since joining the WWF. 

Borne, who is another wrestler who is clearly nervous, says his opponent is one of the greats but he's to nice and that will be his downfall. It's weird because he directly talks to his opponent into the camera and then after he walks off his opponent just comes in from the other side....so he could clearly see him. Normal. Anyway, his opponent is...

RICKY STEAMBOAT

Ricky Steamboat on the right

Well unsurprisingly it looks like Steamboat also joined the WWF just before WrestleMania from the WWF's biggest rivals. The WWF must of spent a fortune bringing all these guys in. It's starting to make sense now how much of a gamble this show must of been. I assume they wouldn't of been able to afford to keep paying everyone had WrestleMania been a bust. It looks like Steamboat's been getting a lot of wins in the month he's been with the company so I wonder what today's result might be? Hmm. Ricky says he's going to prove his meanness tonight in response to Borne saying hes too nice.

THE BUILD UP

As tradition so far in the PPV, none of these matches have build up...unless you count these pre-match interviews. Is Steamboat to nice or can he beat the guy who hasn't won a match in the WWF? I wonder. Let's find out...

MATT BORNE VS RICKY STEAMBOAT

• As the competitors tie up, the commentators say that Matt is a 2nd generation star as his father is Tough Tony Borne. Cool....I don't know who that is but from a quick google he won a few titles in a different company.
• The athletic ability of the two guys is shown immediately with some crossovers and leapfrogs, again reminding me that my pre conceived conceptions of 80s wrestling was wrong.
• I nearly eat my words as the match slows down with a chin lock followed by a headlock but then Steamboat back flips a couple of times to shut me up. Impressive.
• Steamboats character comes out as he starts hitting karate chops which is something that makes him stand out compared to others with their general punches and kicks. 
• The match goes back and forth with some suplexes and slams before Steamboat hits the flying crossbody which the crowd loved and pins Borne for the 1,2,3.

2 POINTS

Steamboat wins as the commentators call him a youngster despite him being in his 30's at this point.

This was another fine match. Not to long and it did what it was supposed to do by making Ricky Steamboat look good. Just how Tito was made to look good and Bundy was made to look good. There's not much depth to the show just yet. This felt pretty similar to the 1st match and so far the only part of the show that really stood out was the Bundy squash match. Saying that I don't think anything has been terrible so far once you get past the age of the whole thing.

WHATS NEXT?

Ricky Steamboat will be featured at our next PPV and so far he is only the 2nd of the 6 wrestlers to actually be on the next card so that's not the best rate of success although I look forward to seeing both him and Steamboat.

Borne would hang around for a few more months without winning a match until leaving the company not long later. He would return to the company 7 years later under a new gimmick, and if we wait 8 years he will be at another WrestleMania. We will get there one day...hopefully. This is actually the first match where both wrestler return so it has that going for it.

TOP OF THE POPS

Top Wrestlers - 

Tito Santana - 7 Points

King Kong Bundy - 6 Points

Ricky Steamboat - 6 Points

The Executioner - 2 Points

SD Jones - 1 Point

Matt Borne - 1 Point

Top Matches - 

Tito Santana vs The Executioner at WrestleMania - 4 Points

King Kong Bundy vs SD Jones at WrestleMania - 2 Points

Matt Borne vs Ricky Steamboat at WrestleMania - 2 Points

Next Up...a Living Legends Son....

Chapter 2 - King Kong Bundy vs Special Delivery Jones

Welcome back. We've made it to the second match in history. Things started well last time with Tito Santana vs The Executioner which exceeded my low expectations with some pretty fast action and a super excited crowd. Will this next match keep the hype going? Let's find out.

Lord Alfred Hayes again quickly introduces both men, King Kong Bundy and Special Delivery Jones. He calls the 450 lb Bundy a "Mighty Gent". Not sure gent is the most accurate description of what we are about to see. Hayes passes over to Mean Gene who has a short interview with both. First up...

SPECIAL DELIVERY JONES

Special Delivery Jones on the right

SD Jones had been wrestling in the WWF off and on since 1974 (11 years ago). Up until this point he hasn't really done anything of note. He had a few tag title shots which he lost and mostly fought against other mid to lower card wrestlers. In his interview with Gene, he is full of confidence despite Gene telling him that he's going to have his work cut out to defeat his opponent...

KING KONG BUNDY

King Kong Bundy joined the WWF not long before WrestleMania and had been dominating opponents, even asking the referee for a 5 count for a pin instead of the regular 3 count. When you first see him during his interview with Mean Gene, he definitely stands out at 450 lbs and completely pale white and hairless in a plain black singlet. He says he's the biggest man in pro wrestling (so far he's not wrong) and threatens SD Jones with an "Avalanche" and a 5 count. Bundy is accompanied by his manager...

The massive Bundy on the left and Jimmy hart poking out behind him

JIMMY HART

Jimmy was another person joining the WWF in 1985 which is crazy. I know we are only 2 matches in but so far a lot of people have joined the company right before WrestleMania. I guess the WWF were going all out to make this work and bringing in as much talent as they could. I'm curious to see how many more people at this event joined the company in the few weeks and months leading up to the show. I thought as a manager, Jimmy Hart would of done the interview before the match but it seemed Bundy managed that on his own so we will see what he has to do as we go. Bundy wasn't his first client when he joined the WWF and we will see who that other person is later in the show.

THE BUILD UP

Once again I don't think there's any build up here. I guess that's the problem with all these new wrestlers joining the company. The build up could just be, can this confident wrestler beat this huge monster who's been dominating in his short time. Let's find out...

KING KONG BUNDY VS SPECIAL DELIVERY JONES

• Gorilla Monsoon describes Bundy as a mountain with legs, feet and arms and says he's 500 lbs. Great descriptions....the weight is probably a lie but fuck it what a lie. Although if you're going to lie about something like a wrestlers weight, then you might as well go ahead and lie about a matches length as well. 

• I can actually do play by play for this match....in one bullet point.....Bundy rams Jones into the corner of the ring. He waits for Jones to stand and performs an Avalanche...a running splash into the corner. Jones falls to the floor where Bundy splashes him and Pins him 1, 2 and 3 (but not 4 or 5 as promised you big lying liar who lies).
• The commentators say its a record win time of 9 seconds beating the previous win of 26 seconds. That's a clear lie to anyone that can count to ten HOWEVER....who cares. Bundy is a star from this and I like it. He has a unique look that makes him stand out and now a dominant "record breaking" win on PPV in front of the world. I enjoyed this.
• The commentators say Jones probably has fractured ribs and after a replay or 2 the competitors head to the back.

Your Winner...King Kong Bundy. If they say it's a record then it kind of is until they say someone has beaten it. It might not be a real record but it will always be one in their record books.

2 POINTS

I enjoyed this match. But at "9 Seconds" it doesn't really have the time to accumulate many points from me. Two points is pretty good though. That's 1 point every 4.5 seconds ;) In the previous match Tito Santana had the crowd going crazy and felt like a star but Bundy also came across as a star, just in a different way and not just because he was a bad guy. I think his appearance gave him something special as well and I'm excited to see what happens next with him.

Avalanche to Jones

King Kong Bundy would miss the next PPV but would be back at the following WrestleMania so we will hear from him soon enough. SD Jones unfortunately must of taken the loss to Bundy badly, as he never got on a PPV card again. He did continue to wrestle on WWF TV for another 5 years but rarely won a match. Sadly he died of a stroke in 2008 but was inducted into the Hall of Fame last year (2019)

Special Delivery Jones -
Final Points - 1 Point
Best Match - 2 Points - vs King Kong Bundy at WrestleMania

TOP OF THE POPS

Top Wrestlers - 

Tito Santana - 7 Points

King Kong Bundy - 6 Points

The Executioner - 2 Points

SD Jones - 1 Point

Top Matches - 

Tito vs Executioner at WrestleMania - 4 Points

Bundy vs SD Jones at WrestleMania - 2 Points

Next Up.....?

Chapter 1 - The Executioner vs Tito Santana

Welcome back to my blog of minimal information because I'm playing it in the style of "we only know what's happened in the past and only in the WWE bubble". If doing one blog per match wasn't niche enough then all my other tendencies are surely enough to drive you all away. Don't worry we will cover each wrestler, title and promotion as they come up, and I might even get to the NWA PPVs after (at time of writing) the 332 WWE PPVs and all their matches :/

So where did we leave off? The first match in WWE History was about to occur at the original WrestleMania PPV. We met all our commentators, interviewers and ring announcers.

Lord Alfred Hayes

Lord Alfred Hayes announces our participants and throws to Mean Gene for interviews with each wrestler.

First Up....

TITO SANTANA

Tito joined the WWF in 1979 where he had success in the tag ranks including a six month title reign as champ. He left a year later for about 3 years before returning as a strong singles competitor which included a mid card title run and a feud for that title right up until this match although he lost the title (stuff like not mentioning the titles name is probably annoying but I will get there...one day) a few months before WrestleMania.

Mean Gene says he knows nothing about Santana's opponent and so does Tito. Tito says his opponent may be big but he hasn't been in the big leagues. He says he has goals and nothing will stop him.

Tito Santana on the right

We then cut to an interview with his opponent...

THE EXECUTIONER

As I said earlier, Mean Gene and Tito don't really know anything about The Executioner, and neither do we. He's had one previous match for the company at a live event and so hes a relative unknown coming into this match and the event. Interesting.

Looking at the Executioner, I thought he might be the kind of wrestler who is completely silent and I think Mean Gene might of thought that too as he says something along the lines of " we wont find out much about..." before being interrupted by the Executioner who stutters his way through a promo. With his face covered by a mask and all black clothes, he just came across as the mysterious type especially as Tito and Mean Gene knew nothing about him but as soon as he spoke he changed my whole perception of him and it just didn't seem right. The Executioner says he's going to go after Tito's leg that was hurt by a previous opponent, Greg Valentine (we will get to him). Spoiler Alert....If he hadn't said this, I wouldn't of known Tito had a hurt leg....and I don't think he does.

The Executioner on the Left

THE BUILD UP

I'm pretty sure there was no build up here and that it was just thrown on the card with one job. For Tito to get the crowd excited to open the show.

THE EXECUTIONER VS TITO SANTANA

Howard Finkel introduces both wrestlers although The Executioners height and weight are unknown...despite the fact someone could of just asked this wrestler who definitely talks and seems to wear a mask for no reason.

Ding Ding. The Bell rings to start the match.

I'm not going to do a play by play because you know....just watch the match if you want that, however I will shout out my highlights that lead up to the matches final score.

Mid Dropick

• The match started pretty fast, sort of...I mean compared to my expectations of this era.
• Tito Santana hits an awesome dropkick which I certainty didn't expect in this era, maybe my expectations were set to low but forgive me, I was -3 years old at this point, my brain had not formed. Or maybe Tito is just a brilliant underrated wrestler...OR MAYBE I shouldn't say that, 1 move into the first match of 35 years of history.
• Tito dominates as Gorilla Monsoon says he (Tito) wants the title and is proving himself. He also says The Executioner is disappointing. 
• Tito has Executioner backed up against the turnbuckle and is threatening to hit him and the crowd are just going wild. Again, I have nothing to judge this against but Tito seems to be massively over with the crowd. They love him and it's strange to see the crowd going wild for such a simple spot.
• As I was taking notes, Gorilla says "Ring my bell". I don't know what context that was in and I didn't rewind to find out. Fun!
• After some back and forth action and a few rest holds Tito hits The Executioner with a flying forearm which is another fast cool looking move. Love it.
• Straight from the flying fore arm, Tito locks in a figure four leg lock to make The Executioner quit whilst also sending a message to Greg Valentine who also uses the move.

And your winner. Tito Santana. So much for the undefeated Executioner. 

Figure Four Leg Lock

4 POINTS

I'm going to give the match 4 points. What that means right now, I do not know. It's going to be hard to really understand my point system until quite a few matches are in their and we can compare but right now this is the best match of all time. So it has that going for it. It did feel like this whole thing was more of a Tito showcase to help highlight his feud with Greg Valentine who we haven't met yet but keeps getting name dropped. I don't know what people generally thought of this match at the time but I thought it was a great start to the show and was pretty impressed by Tito. Executioner, not so much. His promo was awkward and strange and he didn't really do anything in the ring to impress, but I guess he did his job of making Tito look great. Hopefully it was worth it and we get some Tito vs Greg Valentine in the future...we will see.

The Executioner was never seen in the WWF again. However the man behind the mask, Buddy Rose featured on WWF TV throughout 1990 in his own name but pretty much lost every match. His retirement match was in 2005 and he sadly died in April 2009 of natural causes. After only 1 match we already have our first final appearance.

The Executioner -
Final Points - 2 (half of his only match total)
Best Match - 4 Points vs Tito Santana at WrestleMania (his only match)

Tito Santana will return at the next PPV and we will find out everything in between then.

TOP OF THE POPS

Top Wrestlers -
Tito Santana - 7 Points (5 for a win and 2 for 1/2 the match points)
The Executioner - 2 Points

Top Matches -
Tito Santana vs The Executioner at WrestleMania -  4 Points

Let's see who's up next as we head back to Lord Alfred Hayes...

Where it all began...WrestleMania (1985)

Hello and welcome to the most ambitious wrestling blog in the history of blogs. One that shall collapse in on itself almost immediately from the pressure of it's unrealistic ambition. An overly detailed look at the history of the WWE via each and every PPV they have put on and each and every match on those PPVs. What could go wrong? Other than me loosing interest before the end of the first match and quitting. I have faith. 

So, whats the plan? One Blog for each match from every WWE PPV in chronological order, starting with the original WrestleMania on the 31st March 1985. I'm following the order on the WWE Network so if anyone is as strange as me they can watch along. That is why I'm starting with WrestleMania despite some objecting to it not actually being a PPV. 

As we go I'm going to rank each match, not on a star rating but with endless points where every time I'm entertained I give it a point so potentially a great match can get a massive score. I'm going to keep track of all the matches in a giant ranking as well as the best wrestlers which will be decided by the points they get for their matches, as well as successful wins and defences. What else?

We are going to live in the moment. We don't talk about the future, so when it's WrestleMania in 1985 we don't talk about what's to come for each person HOWEVER I will give a detailed look at each person's career up to their match and in future PPVs we will talk about what happened between the two PPVs which in the early days is a long period of time.

I think it's a good way to relive WWE History especially as at time of writing, an extremely well developed world champ has just lost in a couple of minutes to an old man in Saudi Arabia. But we will get there in 35 years. Enough of the future. Let's head back to where it all began....

Today we aren't actually going to talk about the first match as we have some background to start off with. First a brief history of the WWE until this point.

The World Wide (an extra W at the time) Wrestling Federation, or the WWWF, was formed in 1963.

In 1979 the 2nd W was dropped and the WWWF became the Now (as in 1985) WWF.

In 1983 the Wrestling world was changed forever when the WWF left the governing body of independent wrestling promotions, the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). War was about to begin. The WWF started buying syndicated TV in other wrestling promotions areas and then used the money from these TV Deals to secure talent from these other promotions. In this era, everyone respected everyone else's territory and so the WWF was committing a big No No. 

The WWF started touring nationally around the country and this would come at an expense and put them in a bad financial position, one that would be solved by a a huge leap of faith and a giant risk.....

WrestleMania

At the time, the biggest competition to the WWF was Jim Crockett Promotions (JCP), a major member of the aforementioned NWA. JCP had their own PPV event named "Starrcade" which had aired in December of 1983 and 1984 and now the WWF wanted to counter this successful PPV with an event of there own...WrestleMania. The WWF's competition mocked them and at the time it was a huge risk that could of completely bankrupt the company if it had failed.

And that's where we begin. From this point on, the background basics are covered and we can start the show. I will cover from the first second of the show to the start of the first match on this blog which might sound like nothing but we have some pretty important members of the WWF to introduce before the matches can begin.

Let's start the show...

We start with some extremely generic music with a black starry background until a picture of what I'm guessing is the Empire State Building appears in one corner (the show is in New York), the classic WWF logo appears in the other corner and the words WrestleMania appear in the centre of the screen. Immediately I get the feeling this is old as hell...and it is. It aired 35 years ago :o This may take some getting used to compared to the glitz and the glamour that will eventually appear (Spoiler).

The music continues to play as still photos of each wrestler that will be on the show appears but without any commentary over the top or even text on the screen to say who each photo is. Maybe that's a limitation of the era but it's eerily silent besides the horrendous music.

We are then welcomed by Gorilla Monsoon who introduces his commentary partner Jesse Ventura before they hand over to Howard Finkel, the ring announcer. That's three legendary names to start us off. Let's start with Gorilla...

Gorilla Monsoon had been with the WWF since 1963 and was one of the promotions top bad guys (heels). He was a large man, surpassing 400 lbs but had great agility and stamina and regularly feuded with the top champions of his era whether he was a good guy (face) or a heel. On the 23rd August 1980, Monsoon lost a retirement match and retired from in ring competition a few weeks later. Monsoon converted to a backstage roll for the company before becoming an announcer in 1982 and teaming up with another recently retired wrestler in Jesse Venture by 1985.

Gorilla Monsoon on the Left, Jesse Ventura on the Right

Speaking of Jesse Ventura, he didn't join the WWF until 1980 so didn't have the lengthy WWF career that Monsoon had. He initially started in the tag team ranks before branching out on his own and earning shots at the world champion. Unfortunately in 1984 his in ring career was ended due to blood clots in his lungs which he blamed on exposure to Agent Orange during his time in the Vietnam war. He moved into a commentary position alongside Gorilla Monsoon and that's our two man commentary team for the night. Apparently Ventura was a bundle of nerves at the start of the show and had to be held up by Monsoon until he could pull himself together.

Howard Finkel debuted as a ring announcer in the WWF in 1977 and by 1979 was the lead announcer for all major events.

Fun Fact: Howard Finkel actually came up with the name WrestleMania despite the owner of the company (who for now shall remain unnamed) wanting to call the event "The Colossal Tussle"

Howard Finkel

Finkel welcomes us to WrestleMania (via a very 80s era microphone from the ceiling) before asking the crowd to rise for the National Anthem sung by Mean Gene Okerlund.

Okerlund signed with the WWF as an interviewer at the end of 1984 and as an interviewer wasn't supposed to be the person singing the anthem at WrestleMania. Apparently the scheduled singer dropped out at the last minute and the WWF haven't revealed who it was supposed to be to this day. People have said that Okerlunds singing was bad but I didn't have a problem with it. You can obviously hear his nerves as he sings but can you blame the guy?

Fun Fact: This was the only time they sand the Star Spangled Banner at WrestleMania. After this point, America the Beautiful is the opening song for WrestleMania....Spoiler Alert.

Mean Gene Okerlund

Jesse and Gorilla then pass us over to Lord Alfred Hayes who starts to explain about the upcoming match but we will continue with that in our next blog.

Lord Alfred Hayes joined with the WWF in 1982 and started as an interviewer at the tail end of 1983. He was a sidekick on a WWF chat show type program but served as an interviewer at WrestleMania.

Lord Alfred Hayes

So that's our two commentators, our ring announcer and two interviewers. We have our background to the company and the set up to the PPV which leaves one thing....the Wrestlers.

When going right back to the start like this you can definitely feel how dated it is but you have to start somewhere and it will be cool to see the evolution of the company through it's ups and downs even if it takes a million years. The world changes as well as the WWF and it will be interesting to see how that effects the company but it's going to take a long time. But now it's time to start the actual wrestling and I'm excited to get going. Who else is exited? The Hell's Angels. What? Yes...rumour has it that just before the show started, a group of Hell's Angels entered the building from the back area and that the WWF just went ahead and got them seats so they could enjoy the show. Fair Play.

So let's see who Lord Alfred is going to introduce....next time.