6. The First Two Matches in Chicago Had Just 3:30 of Wrestling Involved
Years ago wrestling and more so WrestleMania’s were very different in terms of the time of matches. Now most matches at Mania seem to get at the very lest 5-6 minutes, and longer matches are 14-20 minutes. Back when Mania would have 12-15 matches, you usually had some matches were the ring intros were longer (in some cases by far) than the actual wrestling matches.
In WrestleMania 2, the first two matches in the Chicago portion of the event went a whopping 3 minutes and 30 seconds combined, meaning a long bathroom break or stand to get a hot dog would have cost you two of the four matches you paid for in your live portion of the event.
The first match saw WWF Women’s Champion The The Fabulous Moolah defeat Velvet McIntyre in 1:25. If you go back and watch, the two things about this match that stand out is the fact that McIntyre clearly had her foot on the ropes when the count was made, and that the ‘referee’ in the match was a guy who looked like he was about 80 and was wearing a strange combo of a white dress shirt and blue pants.
The second short match was between two bitter rivals that only a WrestleMania could contain Corporal Kirchner and Nikolai Volkoff. The worn out USA vs Russia storyline was on display in a ‘Flag Match,’ which basically meant whatever wrestler won could wave around their flag after the match. Yawn.
To his credit, Kirchner was actually a former United States Army paratrooper, but his in-ring skills were nothing to write home about. A number of wrestlers didn’t want to work with him as he was not the easiest guys in the ring to take a punch from, and his WWF career ended when he tested positive for drug use in 1987.
The match with Volkoff went 2:05, and ended when Freddie Blassie tried to throw his cane in the ring, Kirchner picked it out of the air, and hit the Russian with it, gaining the pin. Again, not one the Mania’s most requested matches of all-time, but it was short and sweet.
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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.