7. The ‘Blue’ Cage Made Its Mania Debut
The steel cage match in wrestling at the time was known for being the most brutal and dangerous in the sport. Having steel mesh around the ring for wrestlers to throw each other into usually led to a lot of bleeding as well as serious injury. In latter years fans almost treat the cage match like it’s a Sunday School picnic, mostly because it’s been so overdone.
In 1986 though the cage match was still a big deal, which is why it was so odd to see the ring crew in Los Angeles roll out a blue structure that didn’t look like a normal fence cage that was the standard, but a cage with large squares that no one had ever seen before.
The reason behind the new more modern cage was so the massive 468-pound King Kong Bundy could fit in the cage (huh?), which made no sense whatsoever. Likely it was just a cosmetic thing for television and closed circuit folks watching on TV, as the large squares gave a better shot for cameramen to get Hogan and Bundy.
The blue cage was used throughout the years, with its biggest appearances being on a Saturday Night’s Main Event in 1987 between Hogan and Paul Orndorff, and a match at SummerSlam in 1997 between brothers Bret and Owen Hart for the title. I can’t recall the last time seeing the cage, other than in ‘Toys R Us’ for sale for kids to create matches from years gone by.
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Robert
April 7, 2021 at 2:21 pm
On the poster for wrestlemania 2 that you posted they have a picture of Pat Patterson but its has him named as Don Muraco.😂
Supermutant2099
February 3, 2022 at 8:31 pm
I actually knew this because I had 2 record from Showtime. I accidentally recorded over it but still had a little bit with showtime symbol on it.