Skip to main content

WWF Championship Wrestling March 9th, 1985

March 9th, 1985

Your hosts are Bruno Sammartino and Vince McMahon.

In action this week is the Iron Sheik & Nikolai Volkoff, as well as Hillbilly Jim. Also, we will see a training session with Mr. T and Hulk Hogan.
 


A.J. Petruzzi vs. Junkyard Dog

The camera pans to the dancing fans in the audience. JYD shoves Petruzzi into the ropes before chopping him down. Petruzzi ducks out for a breather and JYD works the arm when he gets back inside. AJ falls down after head-butting JYD then gets caught with clothesline. Vince is cackling on commentary as JYD keeps talking to Petruzzi then JYD finishes things off with a powerslam (2:58). After the match, JYD teaches Howard Finkel how to dance, to the amusement of Vince. After that, he dances with a young child.

Thoughts: They continue to push JYD as a threat to Valentine’s Intercontinental Title. JYD is really over big with the crowds.

 

WWF Update with Lord Alfred Hayes. This week’s topic is Andre the Giant and how angry he is at Big John Studd and Bobby Heenan for cutting his hair. Hayes then brings up the $15,000 Bodyslam Challenge and how Andre swears that he will slam Studd at WrestleMania.

 

Peter Pompei vs. Don Muraco w/ Mr. Fuji

Muraco takes down Pompei and works a nerve hold. He bores the crowd by continuing the hold as Bruno puts over his martial arts skills. After a minute, he hits a poor excuse of an enziguiri before finishing of Pompei with a tombstone (3:00).

Thoughts: Bad showing for Muraco. They are now trying to put him over as someone who knows a lot of martial arts and it is laughable.

 

Freddie Miller is with Greg Valentine and Jimmy Hart. He asks them about Valentine’s lumberjack match against Tito Santana in Boston.

 

Charlie Fulton vs. Hillbilly Jim

The fans went absolutely nuts for Jim. Fulton bounces off of Jim a few times to start. Jim flexes and the crowd goes crazy. Jim breaks out of a full nelson by spinning Fulton around as Vince is in all his glory. Fulton lands a few forearms but Jim scoops him up for a slam then catches Fulton in a bearhug for the win (2:36).

Thoughts: Holy shit was Jim over. If he didn’t break his leg, who knows what would have happened with his push.

 

Miller is with Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik. They run down Windham & Rotundo and promise to beat them in the Boston Garden.

 

Iron Sheik & Mikolai Volkoff w/Freddy Blassie vs. Sean & Brian O’Grady

Sheik tosses around Sean for a bit. Brian tags in and Nikolai hits a backbreaker and they rough up Sean again then Sheik hits the camel clutch for the win (2:17).

Thoughts: Not much different than any other match involving these two. The Russian National Anthem bit still draws a lot of boos from the crowd.

 

Piper’s Pit with guest Paul Orndorff. They make fun of Mr. T and Hogan training together as Orndorff says he can easily match Hogan in the weight room. Orndorff then cuts a promo on Mr. T, calling him “Boy,” as Piper says that in three weeks at WrestleMania, they will destroy them.

 

Greg “The Hammer” Valentine w/ Jimmy Hart vs. Aldo Marino

Valentine take Marino to the mat then drops him throat-first across the top rope. He works the arm for a bit as Bruno puts over the aggressiveness of Valentine. The Hammer hits an inverted atomic drop then drops a few elbows before putting Marino in the figure four leglock for the win (2:48).

Thoughts: Nice showing for Valentine. They are playing up the idea that Jimmy Hart has made Valentine more aggressive than ever.

 

The first video advertisement for WrestleMania airs. Vince was doing the voiceover. It only lasted about 30 seconds and ended with Mr. T telling Piper that he was dead meat.

 

The video package of Mr. T and Hulk Hogan training airs. They are in Los Angeles as Hogan tells Mr. T he can only have one more taco as they have to start training. Gene Okerlund is with Mr. T and Hogan as they are now in Venice Beach. A lengthy package airs of them training that ends with them eating a picture of Roddy Piper. Wacky stuff.

 

Jack Reynolds runs down the WrestleMania card. He is joined by Bobby Heenan and John Studd, who is holding a stack of money and Andre’s hair.

 

Gene Okerlund is with Cyndi Lauper and Wendi Richter. Lauper doesn’t care if Moolah attacks her as Richter lets us know that it only takes eight pounds of pressure to break someone’s neck. Richter promises that Leilani Kai will be dancing like an “organ grinder’s monkey.” Cutting promos were not one of Richter’s strength.

 

Bruno and Vince run down next week’s show, including another training session with Mr. T & Hulk Hogan as well as Roddy Piper and Bob Orton in action.

 

Final Thoughts: They are really starting to promote WrestleMania strong. The last fifteen minutes were dedicated to the show. Besides that, nothing much happened but they have done a really good job building up the feuds for the show

Comments

  1. OH MY GOD the APA match. I finally isolated Bradshaw in the floor and won by count out once and it was the best day of my life.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I gotta call bullshit. Either you aren't even watching 2013 WWE (in which case, how would you know?) or you're actively watching a product every week that you think is insanely worse than a product that even WCW fans acknowledge as pretty fucking bad at that point.
    The three hour Raws can certainly drag on at times, but you usually get at least one 3 star match on every one (yes, this particular Nitro had one great match, but this is an exception to the rule at this point, if I recall correctly), and while the angles can occasionally be stupid, they're nothing compared to garbage like Flair in a mental asylum.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Me too. The way a great wrestling match transcends the medium in how effectively it tells a certain story (Hart-Austin, Shawn-Taker), great MMA fights do it too (with the obvious exception of being, you know, real). This fight did that.



    Gus coming in and working Jones over. Jones getting beaten to the punch but hanging in with kicks and elbows that wore Gus down until he couldn't defend Jones' attacks any more. Jones, beat up to fuck, but winning a WAR of attrition.

    ReplyDelete
  4. 1999 Nitro was not only some of the worst wrestling to appear on TV, it's among the worst thing to air on TV period. Just utterly miserable.

    I'll quote myself (from below):
    "Raw now could be a decent 90 minute or 2 hour show if they cut out the
    crap and kept the good stuff. If you cut the crap out of 1999 Nitro and
    kept the good stuff you'd have about 10 minutes left."

    ReplyDelete
  5. They would have had to turn it into a "Last Man Breathing" or some sort of gimmick, since I'm sure both of them would have refused to job cleanly.

    ReplyDelete
  6. BS. The crowds alone make for a better show in 99.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Or I just have a different opinion than you.

    ReplyDelete
  8. You mean like the 2013 WWE crowds that give Cena big reactions positive or negative, the crowd going crazy for D-Bry, some of the heat for the Shield six-mans?

    ReplyDelete
  9. No you're wrong. WCW 1999 was so bad that it killed the company. They produced some of the worst PPVs of all time. The booking was inexplicable at best.

    ReplyDelete
  10. You're welcome to your opinion, but if you're still watching a product that you claim is "1999 times worse than 2013 WCW", why in the world would you subject yourself to that? And if you're not watching it, then you really have no idea how the product is right now. That was my point. If it's the former, then yes, you're entitled to your different opinion even if I think it's insane, but I question what would possibly make you watch something you despise that much. And if it's the latter, then no, your opinion would not be valid because you wouldn't even be watching the product to know whether it's that bad or not.


    I guess I'm a bit annoyed with the people who flip out over any product, wrestling or otherwise, and claim it's 100% the biggest piece of crap around, then you find out they watched about 5 minutes of it, or stopped watching months ago. If that's not you, then my apologies, but do yourself a favor and stop subjecting yourself to something you despise.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Odd...the home page is stating there are ten comments to this post yet I see none even after reloading the page.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Yeah, I saw that too. The past few days, the comments number shown does not matchup to the actual amount.

    ReplyDelete
  13. The real amazing thing about how over Jim was is that it seemed to be almost based entirely on the fact that he came in as Hulk Hogan's protege. That's how over Hogan was at this time.

    ReplyDelete
  14. HEY! You don't think Hillbilly Jim would've been the perfect replacement for The Orange Goblin, JACK?

    ReplyDelete
  15. *Piper got the Tonga Kid over by association.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Tonga got into that whole angle when he was announced as Snuka's cousin after Piper attacked him. Without the association to Snuka, Tonga wouldnt have gotten over. I ttook him from a lower-card worker to a star overnight.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment