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#Post#: 19459--------------------------------------------------
Sheriff Lonestar's PPV of the Week; Shooting for the Moon
DIR By: SheriffLonestar
Date: October 12, 2013, 2:49 am
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So this isn't really a PPV, it was an event that happened before
PPV was really mainstream. It still stands as the biggest
wrestling show ever to happen in the America's and when you
consider that's two continents worth of wrestling that is quite
an achievement, but the thing that made it stand out aside from
its enormity is the fact that so many calculated risks where
taken in its inception. The show of course is Wrestlemania III.
The second biggest show of all time, and the biggest show that
had paying guests as opposed to an audience forced to be their
by a dictatorial communist government, no kidding this actually
happened.
As well documented Vince McMahon risked everything on the first
Wrestlemania. His own family's considerable fortune amassed as
the lead promoters of the New York territory in an effort to
make wrestling a major national contributor to popular culture.
Wrestlemania 2, while an incredible effort in logistics, three
events ran in three different cities coast to coast, was merely
a stepping stone to the all conquering, record setting,
humungaloid freak of a show that was Wrestlemania III, but if
you look down the card there was political intrigue at every
turn. A main event that could have been a disaster waiting to
happen, an IC title match that was planned to the finest detail,
wrestlers on the verge of physical breakdown and at the head of
it all one man whose belief in his abilities as a booker would
serve him well for the next twenty years when he would rule the
wrestling world and set the tone for everyone else to follow
with this one spectacular night.
Let's start at the bottom and work our way up;
The Can Am Connection vs. Cowboy Bob Orton and Don Muraco.
This had potential to be a good opener and really it set the
tone, the soon to be gone Tom Zenk was a good partner for Martel
but not as good as Tito Santana (more of him later) in the
Strike Force team that was just around the championship corner,
but a solid opener.
Billy Jack Haynes vs Hercules
The sign of things to come; two very good looking and actually
very solid workers producing a submission based brawl that would
be the blue print for the Warlord Davey Boy Smith feud some
years later that seemed to go on for years. Looking back now you
remember two things; one they where 'roided to fuck and two guys
that muscled can't go that hard for long. So you get an
entertaining but short match.
Hillbilly Jim, The Haiti Kid and Little Beaver vs King Kong
Bundy, Little Tokyo and Lord Littlebrook
Well where do you start? What King Kong Bundy had done to
deserve this nobody knows, but going from the main event to this
comedy spectacular was not on the long term cards and Bundy was
done in mainstream wrestling after this débâcle. Just goes to
show what comes up must come down.
The Junkyard Dog vs Harley Race (with Bobby Heenan and the
Fabulous Moolah)
If one match epitomises what Vince had done to wrestling, this
is it. JYD fresh from his stadium filling run in Mid South.
Harley Race then the most successful NWA champion of all time,
Bobby Heenan the greatest manager in AWA history, and The
Fabulous Moolah the longest reigning NWA Women's Champion ever.
Faces from different times and places brought together under one
company. Race hadn't been there long. He had been promoting
Saint Louis, taking over from the Thesz family, in the 80s. He
didn't like the idea of giving up the business to go with Vince
and fought it tooth and nail, threatening WWF promoters with
acid and slashing tires at one point. The bitterness may have
stemmed from how Vince handled Starcade two years earlier.
Knowing that Mid Atlantic where going to get the jump on the WWF
with a major nationally televised show with Starcade where Race
was due to drop the NWA title to Ric Flair, Vince made Harley an
offer he thought he couldn’t refuse. This happened over a polite
dinner in New York. It ended up with Vince begging on his knees
when it turned out that it was indeed an offer Harley could
refuse. Being loyal to the NWA was part of Harley's deal and he
wanted to be there for Ric. The result was that Starcade was a
huge success and the wrestling wars lasted about 15 years longer
than they would have done if Harley had signed then and there as
the NWA champion. So you have JYD who wasn't that good to start
with and an under appreciated Harley Race, so you can imagine
how this one worked out.
The Fabulous Rougeaus (Jacques and Raymond) vs The Dream Team
(Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake) (with Johnny Valiant and
Dino Bravo)
This one was another short but fun packed effort with the
struggling face Rougeaus up against the dream team plus Dino
Bravo. It was kind of a French Canadian hoe down, with a turn
for Brutus Beefcake which would morph into more successful
things down the line. However it never hurts to be friends with
Hulk Hogan I have to say.
Roddy Piper vs Adrian Adonis (with Jimmy Hart)
And now we get into the card proper. Piper had announced this as
his retirement bout (oh how we laughed), really he was taking
time off to film They Live and Hell Comes to Frogtown, two
wonderfully bad movies that you should take a look at from a
guilty pleasure point of view. Here he is with the late great
Adrian Adonis working a homosexual gimmick that looks
ridiculously dated in this day and age. We live in more
enlightened times but this one had heat down to Roddy who was of
course the most hated wrestler on the planet two years before
and now one of the most beloved. Piper was that talented it was
hard not to root for him even as a heel, so why not turn him
face? Not his greatest moment in the ring, he needed Bret Hart
for that, but a wonderful crowd popping with genuine emotion, so
well worth a watch.
The British Bulldogs (Davey Boy Smith and The Dynamite Kid) and
Tito Santana vs The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart)
and Danny Davis (with Jimmy Hart)
This could have been a classic. Three of the competitors where
world class, but it never really got going because of the time
issue. Dynamite said in his biography that he wasn't happy with
the match because it involved Tito and Danny Davis. Davis was a
heel referee who had fast counted on The Bulldogs and Tito
costing them the Tag and IC titles respectively. Dynamite didn't
dislike either Davis or Santana his main issue was that they had
to split the money three ways on each team instead of two which
to a man who had just spent three months in hospital with spinal
fractures, was a bitter pill to swallow. This was good but not
great. Dynamite was on the slow downhill slide to being in a
wheel chair and the extra members on board hurt a match that
could have flown, but hey the all got on the biggest card in
company history and not everyone got that opportunity.
Koko B. Ware vs Butch Reed (with Slick)
This one was what Vince calls a palette cleanser. He anticipated
that the six man would be a great match, it was good but not
great, and this was the throwaway fluff to get you back on
track. Not bad for throwaway fluff mind. Koko was always
underrated as was Reed. Koko, as popular as he was, never found
his groove in the WWF, but he was the man who brought the
Brainbuster to prominence in the US. Even if it is banned now in
the WWE.
Ricky Steamboat (with George Steele) vs Randy Savage (c) (with
Miss Elizabeth)
For many this was the real main event of Wrestlemania III. The
pure wrestling match a lot of people anticipated and it
delivered. It was a match well planned in advance. In an
interview Ricky Steamboat once was asked what was the difference
between wrestling Savage and wrestling Flair (whom he feuded
with later over the NWA title and had numerous 5 star matches
with). Steamboat replied “it was just different, with Randy I
had to remember 25 spots in a row, with Ric we just made it up
as we went along”. Savage was notorious for planning his matches
to the minutest of details and this one was no different. That
preparation paid off as the delivered this classic that still
stands up today as how to tell a roller-coaster ride of a story
and deliver in the ring. Almost perfect.
Jake “The Snake” Roberts (with Alice Cooper) vs The Honky Tonk
Man (with Jimmy Hart)
This one was a long way from perfect. Though Jake was a
competent wrestler he was never blinding for in ring action. His
understanding of psychology though was second to none. Honky
could go when he wanted to, and in this setting he was going to
do well or look awful, but the tone of this match was a set in
an interview months before on The Snake Pit when Honky hit Jake
with a guitar so hard it smashed two vertebrae. The result was a
much slower moving Jake, though you possibly couldn't notice
because he had a lot of tricks to cover his tracks. This was
again what it said on the tin, a revenge story that was simply
and effectively told, but could have been so much better, if
someone had got Honky a K Mart special in that interview.
The Killer Bees (B. Brian Blair and Jim Brunzell) vs The Iron
Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff (with Slick)
Palette cleanser number 2, just well what can you say? Terrible?
Doesn't really cover it, just really really bad and the B's
where not at fault.
Hulk Hogan vs André the Giant (with Bobby Heenan)
As political stories go, this one tops the lot. So much could
have gone wrong with this one match. Vince had it in mind for
quite some time, all of these shows where planned nearly a year
in advance so as the curtain closed on WM2 Vince must have been
thinking how can I really grab people's attention? André was the
only nationally known star anywhere near Hogan's popularity by
this point. The number two baby face for the company, but he had
no way of getting up that ladder. He also knew he was getting
close to the end of his time in the spotlight. 15 years a main
eventer, 15 years of blood sweat and toil on three continents
and not one title to show for it. André was the show, he
travelled just like the NWA champion did but never wore the
belt. So Vince surmised correctly that a title match for André
would be big business, and something André would be very
interested in, he was correct. The thing is André was beloved by
fans in the US, so they had to turn him heel, which to American
fans was a revelation. Being given a chance to be creative André
excelled in this new role. In actuality he had been a heel for
years in Japan and had the psychology down to a T, he was just
being given chance to prove it. Vince also knew he had to be in
shape to look like a threat to Hogan. So Pat Patterson would
pick up André every day and drive him to Vince's house to make
sure he used the gym. It was part of the deal André had to make
to get the biggest match of all time.
On the other side of the equation, Hulk Hogan was a worried man.
Sure he was main eventing the biggest match in North America
ever, he was riding high in popular culture as well as the
wrestling world, but André the Giant? That's something else. As
a former IWGP Heavyweight Champion, Hulk was more than aware of
what André was capable of when the mood took him. He could get
drunk, he could get angry, he could get angry AND drunk, usually
the worst André as Akira Maeda found out. What if André went
into business for himself? There really is nothing you can do
with a man that size when he decides not to cooperate.
Thankfully for all involved there was no incident. André did his
job and everything went happily.
No man was happier that night than Vincent Kennedy McMahon. Pat
Patterson tells the story that as a co creator of this event he
wanted to get the feel and emotions of the fans. So he stepped
out into the crowd during the main event, as he realised the
magic happening before him a tear filled his eyes and as he
wiped them away he looked over and there was Vince, crying as
well. He said “you did it” Vince replied “I am glad we did
because I put it all on the line tonight”, for the second time
in three years Vince gambled his company on one night and really
one match. With that match thought he stacked the deck in his
favour, and had the boss hand for another ten years.
Enjoy the show.
HTML http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q4-TqEu66w
#Post#: 19460--------------------------------------------------
Re: Sheriff Lonestar's PPV of the Week; Shooting for the Moon
DIR By: tnagirl
Date: October 12, 2013, 11:55 am
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You are very old school when it comes to the US wrestlers you
choose .lbut it is a very good read like always
#Post#: 19467--------------------------------------------------
Re: Sheriff Lonestar's PPV of the Week; Shooting for the Moon
DIR By: SheriffLonestar
Date: October 12, 2013, 12:22 pm
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It gets harder to write interesting stuff since the end of WCW,
because the back stories don't necessarily come out till someone
has retired. There is some stuff we will never know of course
to. I will do a more up to date one soon though :).
#Post#: 19615--------------------------------------------------
Re: Sheriff Lonestar's PPV of the Week; Shooting for the Moon
DIR By: ROBERT LAIRD
Date: October 15, 2013, 8:37 am
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Very good article. Made me wonder if you are a journalist by
trade. One thing about that match between Andre and Hogan that
Hogan had mentioned years later was "I hope that Andre doesn't
kill me".
#Post#: 19627--------------------------------------------------
Re: Sheriff Lonestar's PPV of the Week; Shooting for the Moon
DIR By: SheriffLonestar
Date: October 15, 2013, 12:02 pm
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Why thank you sir :). No I am a guitar teacher and Music
Teaching Assistant by trade but I have a Masters in Film Studies
so I do like a good narrative arc. I view wrestling in the same
way, each director has ticks and nuances that you see over a
cycle of his films and each wrestling booker has ticks and
nuances. Some obvious like The Dusty Finish some less so like
Vince's palate cleanser. If you look at any WWE card the semi
main is never followed by the Main they put something into give
you a rest to help the pace of the card :).
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