Post by The Ultimate Nullifier on Apr 8, 2015 0:03:21 GMT -6
Some today in history notes for April 7th,1986
WrestleMania 2 was 29 years ago today. The only WrestleMania to take place on a Monday, it was held at three arenas: The Nassau Coliseum in Uniondake, NY, the Rosemont Horizon in Rosemont, IL (now the Allstate Arena), and the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Only Nassau (billed on TV as "New York" the same way Rosemont is "Chicago") sold out, with the other two arenas bing noticeably darkened for TV. While the first WrestleMania did air on pay-per-view in a small handful of markets, it was primarily a closed circuit affair. This show had much wider PPV distribution, though it wasn't until WrestleMania III that PPV really started to take over.
The show itself is not considered one of the best of the early WrestleManias. Unlike Starrcade '85 the previous Thanksgiving, which alternated between Greensboro and Atlanta for each match, WrestleMania 2 featured miniature cards, each with its own main event, and the live crowd sat there watching the CCTV presentation before and/or after their live card. There were a number of production problems thanks to juggling the satellite feeds, and not much in the way of good matches until later in the card.
They also went way overboard with celebrities, finding a role for everyone who they could get to do the show, including color commentary since their own teams were spread so thin: Susan St. James (wife of Saturday Night's Main Event producer Dick Ebersol) was Vince McMahon's color commentator in New York, Cathy Lee Crosby joined Gorilla Monsoon and Gene Okerlund in Chicago, and Elvira was teamd with Jesse Ventura and Lord Alfred Hayes in Los Angeles. All told, including New York main eventer Mr. T and the football players in the Chicago battle royal, there were 25 celebrity guests. All criticism aside, it's actually an interesting show to watch with a unique atmosphere, and it moves along quickly thanks to the short matches.
In a somewhat obscure piece of trivia, replaymons of the show aired on Showtime starting a few weeks after it took place, and it seems like it was in their programming rotation for several months.
WrestleMania 2 was 29 years ago today. The only WrestleMania to take place on a Monday, it was held at three arenas: The Nassau Coliseum in Uniondake, NY, the Rosemont Horizon in Rosemont, IL (now the Allstate Arena), and the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Only Nassau (billed on TV as "New York" the same way Rosemont is "Chicago") sold out, with the other two arenas bing noticeably darkened for TV. While the first WrestleMania did air on pay-per-view in a small handful of markets, it was primarily a closed circuit affair. This show had much wider PPV distribution, though it wasn't until WrestleMania III that PPV really started to take over.
The show itself is not considered one of the best of the early WrestleManias. Unlike Starrcade '85 the previous Thanksgiving, which alternated between Greensboro and Atlanta for each match, WrestleMania 2 featured miniature cards, each with its own main event, and the live crowd sat there watching the CCTV presentation before and/or after their live card. There were a number of production problems thanks to juggling the satellite feeds, and not much in the way of good matches until later in the card.
They also went way overboard with celebrities, finding a role for everyone who they could get to do the show, including color commentary since their own teams were spread so thin: Susan St. James (wife of Saturday Night's Main Event producer Dick Ebersol) was Vince McMahon's color commentator in New York, Cathy Lee Crosby joined Gorilla Monsoon and Gene Okerlund in Chicago, and Elvira was teamd with Jesse Ventura and Lord Alfred Hayes in Los Angeles. All told, including New York main eventer Mr. T and the football players in the Chicago battle royal, there were 25 celebrity guests. All criticism aside, it's actually an interesting show to watch with a unique atmosphere, and it moves along quickly thanks to the short matches.
In a somewhat obscure piece of trivia, replaymons of the show aired on Showtime starting a few weeks after it took place, and it seems like it was in their programming rotation for several months.