The 10 Best Things
The WWF in 1986 is a mixed bag, but anything Macho Man Randy Savage does is great. Hulk Hogan was the top guy, but after Savage’s successful debut in mid-1985, he continues to light up any screen he is on. The WWF Champion was the guy, but the Intercontinental Champion was carrying the bill just as much – if not more. More TV at least. And Savage took advantage, providing a ton of great promos, matches, and moments.
Macho Man is a performer: loud, colorful, amped up, angry, funny, infuriating, and with the exception of maybe Piper and Hogan he more than any other wrestler in history feels like he is from another planet. This is the template for pro wrestler right here, and nobody committed as hard as Savage. He is also a complete asshole to his wife and manager Elizabeth, who stands by her man all shy and only able to speak when he allows her. Liz plays her part brilliantly, and this dynamic is what puts it all over the top.
Saturday Night’s Main Event remains a spectacular production, a quarterly kick in the ass for the WWF which has only occasionally found a rhythm for week-to-week television. Vince McMahon is shouting and crowds are screaming as all the glorious mid-80s craziness fills the screen: insane opening promos, a Water Slide Contest, the original Real American music video, Jesse Ventura’s fashion, prime Hulk Hogan title defenses, Roberts lays out Steamboat, Piper Saves Hogan, Savage gets interviewed at a pool, Paul Orndorff gets interviewed in a sauna, Jake Roberts gets interviewed in a shower.
In 1986 they start using it even more to move stories along, and the March 1 episode substitutes a lot of week-to-week TV by laying out all the big matches for WrestleMania 2: King Kong Bundy lays out Hulk Hogan (the SHOCK), Mr. T boxes Cowboy Bob Orton to setup a boxing match with Piper, and the Tag Team Champions get a cheap win over the up-and-coming The British Bulldogs. The Bundy/Hogan angle in particular is incredible, with Hogan in a more dire situation than EVER – until the next WrestleMania, probably.
Hulk Hogan was really interesting to watch before his formula ate itself. He won the WWF World Heavyweight Title in January 1984, and he’d hold it until 1988. Hulkamania was wildly over in 1986, post-MTV but still present in the consciousness. Hogan had an active schedule with main events opposite all the WWF’s midcard heels, but Hogan on TV was a rarity. When he is seen on Saturday Night’s Main Event or a random Garden show, it is astounding how rabidly popular he is.
I’d argue that either the Real American music video’s debut or the “THIS IS WHERE THE POWER LIES!” promo were the most important things that happened for him, but the rivalries with Bobby Heenan, King Kong Bundy and Paul Orndorff helped too.
The Brain went after Andre the Giant in 1985, and in 1986 he aimed the only place higher – Hogan. This was all while he took on more duties as a “voice” of the WWF. Whether he was on the TNT set, Piper’s Pit, Saturday Night’s Main Event commentary, or eventually hosting Prime Time Wrestling alongside Gorilla Monsoon – Heenan was bringing it with the promos and quick wit. He was the talker of all talkers, an immaculate mix of sliminess, humor, and occasional menace. On the rare occasion he got physical, he revealed an agile man willing to eat absolute shit for this BUSINESS.
Heenan lights the way for King Kong Bundy, a man embedded in my brain for two reasons: 1) he had prime spots at OG Blockbuster rentals WrestleMania 1-3 and 2) LOOK AT HIM. He is tall, wide, bald, and scary, a thick-necked monster for Heenan to stand behind and talk shit. Bundy might not be the dynamic guy you want, but he’s the villain Hogan needs. The week-to-week TV also reveals a sense of humor to him that adds a layer to the big scary guy. He and Hogan main event WrestleMania 2 in the big blue Steel Cage, and it might not be an in-ring clinic but a classic in its’ own weird way – a throwback to when things weren’t so extra.
Incredible, alluring, tremendous – another legend born in 1986. Jake Roberts joins the WWF from Mid-South in March 1986, just in time to have a dominant performance against George Wells at WrestleMania 2. He goes on to completely blow WWF audience’s minds by being unlike anything they’ve ever seen: he’s tall and lanky, with the energy of both Luke Perry and a pervert carny. He goes against the WWF grain as when he speaks into a microphone, it is softly. So they pay attention. His wrestling style is based around timing, mind games, and the DDT. He also carries around a bag with a snake. A real snake. That snake is used for those mind games. And then after he wins he takes the snake, a big-ass python, out of his bag, and he lays the thing over the poor guy who just wanted a quick payday with the World Wrestling Federation (Prime Time 5/12/86) for a real nasty one.
Going into watching all this WWF 1986 stuff, I had a loose idea of most of the beats but I was not prepared for Big John Studd being easily picked up and slammed by relative newcomer King Tonga, soon to be known as Haku. This led to Bobby Heenan ducking Tonga for the $15,000 he was still offering anyone who could slam Studd, and created the perception of a budding midcard babyface before his skills were determined more useful for the WWF’s tag team division, and The Islanders were formed. If you want to see a hot angle, you go and check out Prime Time 6/16/86.
I am 99.999% sure that Piper’s Pit was the first use of the format in wrestling where a backdrop is propped up in front of a live wrestling audience and a skilled talker welcomes guests to either flesh out characters or move stories forward. When Piper took time off after WrestleMania 2, Adrian Adonis and Jimmy Hart stepped in with their take on the talk show format: The Flower Shop. After a few months experimenting with makeup and various stages of dress, Adonis had came out as gay earlier in the year, which was handled weirdly tastefully only to veer into the territory you’d expect of pro wrestling. Because he was gay, that meant he liked flowers.
While Piper usually free-wheeled with Cowboy Bob Orton stoically standing behind him, Adonis liked having company – Jimmy Hart and eventually Bob Orton himself participated, and Bobby Heenan was a frequent guest. These interview segments drive a lot of the WWF’s story, though there aren’t a lot on the WWE Network as they primarily aired on All-American and Championship Wrestling. What we do see is quality, and the eventual confrontations when Piper returns are tremendous. This goes all the way to WrestleMania 3.
The WWF had World Tag Team Championships since 1971, but my cursory understanding of the WWF in the 1970s leads me to believe that for a long while the WWF’s tag team division was based around one, maybe two teams. After a dominant run by Adrian Adonis & Dick Murdoch, the WWF tag team division of 1985 was pretty much Iron Sheik/Nikolai Volkoff, The U.S. Express, and eventually the throw together but very inspired “Dream Team” of Greg Valentine & Brutus Beefcake. For 1986, Vince McMahon seemed to say: let’s ramp that up pal.
The British Bulldogs and The Hart Foundation are the centerpiece of this. The Bulldogs are another act that feels unlike anything seen yet in the WWF, all high octane and high-flying and British. They get the big PUUUUSH in 1986, downing The Dream Team for the Tag Titles at WrestleMania 2 with no less than Ozzy Osbourne in their corner. Their Stampede buddies The Hart Foundation provide not just quality tag matches but quality singles matches, especially a young but incredible Bret Hart. Sheik/Volkoff are still around, Dan Spivey replaces Barry Windham as Mike Rotundo’s partner in The U.S. Express, and the number of acts keeps growing: The Islanders, The Killer Bees, The Fabulous Rougeau’s, and The Moondogs all make towns for the WWF.
Over a decade removed from his last WWF World Heavyweight Title reign, Bruno Sammartino had been doing commentary for the WWF and working the very occasional Northeast house show while the WWF tried and failed at re-capturing the Sammartino magic in Bruno’s son David. In 1986, Bruno got the in-ring itch again and in addition to another few Northeast house shows, he worked two-month programs at Boston Garden early in the year and Madison Square Garden in the summer. They are AWESOME, real to-the-point matches with great performances and some of the most classic babyface/heel dynamics you’ll ever see. The crowds are all in on it too as Bruno remained the Lord and Savior of those arenas.
I’m sure the reason for the return was something cynical like the WWF just needed a dra, but I like to think Bruno was inspired by the WWF’s new crop of heels, particularly Roddy Piper and Randy Savage. Bruno and Paul Orndorff lost to Piper and Bob Orton via countout (Boston Garden 1/11/86), then he beat Piper bloody in a Steel Cage (Boston Garden 3/8/86). Later in the year, Bruno and Tito Santana (what a team of babyfaces!) lost to Savage and Adrian Adonis, again via countout (MSG 6/14/86). A month later, Bruno and Tito beat that ass in a Steel Cage (MSG 7/12/86).
The WWF has a formula – wrestling has a formula. If you watch enough of it, it begins to be about how that formula is used or how it is deviated from. Outside of main events, and even in them sometimes, the WWF doesn’t like to move. In 1971, in 1986, in 2020. So watching the WWF in 1986 on the WWE Network occasionally calls for the fast-forward button, but it’s worth it for the random greatness just sitting there waiting to be navigated to by any WWE Network subscriber there is.
Newcomer Jake Roberts creates a low key masterpiece with Jose Luis Rivera on the same show that Ricky Steamboat and Bret Hart create a legitimate masterpiece on the same show that Dump Matsumoto and Bull Nakano wrestle on. Boston Garden – March 8, 1986. It was a special night.
Boston Garden in general usually delivered. The November 1 show has a great early Savage/Steamboat match, a war between in Piper and Muraco, and one of the best Bulldogs/Hart Foundation matches there ismatches there is.
Anytime Ricky Steamboat, Jake Roberts, Randy Savage or Bret Hart are on screen, it is very possible a match is going to exceed expectations. Randy Savage vs. Hulk Hogan for the WWF Title rules. Jake Roberts essentially molests poor Scott McGhee with the python, the ultimate post-match snake assault (Prime Time 4/28/86). I am a better person for having seen Randy Savage vs. Gary Starr, vs. Bob Marcus, vs. Jerry Monti. Bret Hart is usually not just in great stuff but the best part of anything that isn’t.
And the promos. The PROMOTION. See WWE Matches and Angles Worth Watching in 1986 for ALL OF THEM.
Honorable Mentions: Mean Gene Okerlund, Fuji Vice, Gorilla Monsoon & Bobby Heenan, Honky Tonk Man’s Fan Vote, Russian National Anthem
The 10 Worst Things
This is the WWF’s big summer angle, and it kills the summer. Whispers begin in June on Prime Time Wrestling (6/30/86) of a new masked tag team from Japan coming to the WWF, and after Mean Gene Okerlund puts on his tuxedo and searches the streets of Tokyo for them he finds what appears to be a pair of fellows wearing masks, one of them obviously Andre the Giant. The shtick isn’t very good and Andre gets injured almost immediately, so in comes another Machine and you’ve just got Ax and Blackjack Mulligan having a bunch of bad tag matches. Occasionally Hulk Hogan or Roddy Piper donned the mask for a big 6-man, but nobody seemed to care.
On a Monday night in early April 1986, WrestleMania 2 took place in three different arenas across the United States in an ambitious simulcast overwhelmed by celebrity cameo and just OK wrestling. Hulk Hogan vs. King Kong Bundy in a Cage rules, but across twelve matches only The British Bulldogs’ Tag Titles win and weirdly the WWF vs. NFL Battle Royal completely deliver. It’s funny to watch some of the celebs try and play along, but there’s a reason the gimmicks got scaled back after this. For a little bit.
I like an experiment, but the experiments that succeed in wrestling or anything outside of actual science eventually aren’t called experiments. The ones that don’t succeed, it is one of the more polite ways to refer to them. The WWF has pretty much always been a special beast of trying to introduce their stars to the world through what can only be interpreted as moderately to severely misguided. Wrestling history recalls the good stuff, and the WWF in 1986 had a lot of it, but they also tried out (and in most cases, stubbornly went with for a few months) a lot of acts that didn’t click at all: Sivi Afi, Jimmy Jack Funk, Corporal Kirchner, The American Express. Dirty Dick Slater was brought in as a babyface Confederate. The 3-location deal for WrestleMania 2 was a special flop of execution too – imagine what it took for Vince to take the L and say, never again.
The in-ring of 1986 has flashes of brilliance but way more matches where it feels like the intent is for them to actively not be fun. The WWF’s infamous TV style that they continue to try and scientifically perfect at the Performance Center is in its’ full 1980s bloom here, with hours and hours of chinlocks and armbars. Savage, Steamboat, Roberts, Hart, and plenty of other guys are really good, but the WWF had no problem absolutely boring a crowd to death before the big pop for Hogan.
Just as soon as he arrived, he was gone. Terry Funk came to the WWF in 1985, talked shit, fought Hulk Hogan and Junkyard Dog, teamed up with his brother Dory (or Hoss) at WrestleMania 2, and left. Jimmy Jack Funk had since joined The Funk Brother crew, and he becomes a pale imitation as Hoss’ partner the rest of the year. It makes the whole loss of Terry presence in the WWF worse.
Poor Sivi Afi is brought in as Jimmy Snuka’s cousin, but the problem was Snuka was fired six months ago and the people only want Snuka. He’s a completely solid wrestler but the WWF is just not reading the room. He gets WE WANT SNUKA chants at his first Boston Garden show in January, and pretty quickly settles into an enhancement role for a couple years.
WWE Network likely edited out more egregious stuff, but it’s not like the WWF was ever “with it” or “not jackasses.” Piper and Blassie are heels, but go hard on the race-baiting. Babyface Piper meanwhile goes hard on not wanting his children to have to watch gay Adrian Adonis on television. It all hurts.
The audience Q&A’s with heels are cool, as the WWF’s heels are mostly skilled improvisers. But TNT moving from Vince McMahon messing with production guys to Mean Gene Okerlund yucking it up for a live audience made TNT’s demise in 1986 not so disappointing.
From MSG 10/25/86, this match aired on Prime Time 9/15/86 and features the son of Gene Kiniski go toe-to-toe with Les Thornton in just the dirt worst match that is pretty much all Nick who if he isn’t being grappled to the mat or having his ribs smacked is applying a hammerlock. A long, gosh dang hammerlock. The crowd gets fed up pretty quicky and Gorilla ethers the referee for a decision or two to try and provide something interesting out of this. Kiniski gets a very unsatisfying debut win with a German suplex hold and would not last long, though longer than you’d think.
I can’t wrap my head around what the WWF was trying to do bringing Candice Pardue, a Moolah trainee who only wrestled a few matches for them, onto TNT (1/17/86) where Vince walked her through the most comatose interview in wrestling history before she looked to display her strength in an arm wrestling contest with a random guy in the audience, who soundly defeated her.
I’m Not Sure
Paul Christy worked with Randy Savage in the ICW and came to the WWF in the middle of 1986 for enhancement work, which led to an appearance on TNT. He joins the set and goes for some Andy Kaufman I AM NOT OF YOUR REALITY gimmick that is both compelling and uncomfortable. As Mean Gene tries to get an interview going, he refuses to sit on the couch and engage in questions, opting to repeat a manifesto about the three most powerful things: sex, money, and power.
It’s vaguely brilliant, but then he keeps going. Mean Gene grows more frustrated as he keeps going, lying that he is a magician at one point, before he is finally cut off. Can’t tell if it was on purpose or a legitimate trainwreck. Don’t want to know.
In the thick of WrestleMania 2 build (TNT 2/28/86), Vince McMahon opts to bring Scott McGhee and Les Thornton onto TNT to bicker about which of their towns is better.
A weirdly great match, from Prime Time Wrestling (4/28/86). A standard match, with the matwork maybe more cute than normal, but then Lanny handstands out of a headscissors and does the cheesiest “got ya, pal” pose possible. Goulet slaps him and bumbles to the apron, then snakes his way down the corner post towards the floor with a creepy smile on his face as they go to commercial. Once they return Goulet ends up crotched on the ropes and falls backward onto the apron and floor. It’s half boring holds and half a fascinating way of killing 20 minutes. Poffo takes a couple crazy bumps and actually misses the moonsault en route to winning. Poffo can work and Goulet brings the weird.
On two occasions, the WWF presented their version of The Mating Game on TNT: first with the entire Hart Foundation (TNT 5/28/86), then with only Jim Neidhart themselves (TNT 7/9/86). All of the Foundation are game for the foolishness.
On TNT (6/11/86), a visit from Junkyard Dog is reason enough to hold a live dog training session, complete with a runway and jazz music blasting over what appears to be some great banter between Mean Gene, Lord Alfred, JYD, and the foxy dog trainer Beatrice Connelly.
This is a pretty infamous match aired on Prime Time Wrestling (12/11/86), where newcomer Honky Tonk Man works babyface opposite the masked Mr. X (played by Danny Davis) in Toronto and is very loudly booed anytime he does anything, in sharp contrast to the uproarious cheers anything the one-note Mr. X does. I’m not sure if this match’s reaction was deliberate or not, but Honky Tonk Man staring at the fans with dead eyes after his win doing the obnoxious Elvis dance is pro wrestling gold.
Is there joy in the fact that King Curtis Iaukea came to the WWF in the fall of 1986, managing both Kamala and Samoan Sika, claiming he was the reincarnation of the recently passed WWF manager Grand Wizard? Seriously, is there?
In 1986 Jack Foley was young and handsome and just getting started in this business, and he is getting wrecked during one of his three WWF enhancement matches on the WWE Network (Prime Time 9/22/86) teaming with Les Thornton against reigning WWF World Tag Team Champions, The British Bulldogs.
Deep in the prime of his run opposite Hulk Hogan, Paul Orndorff has a vignette on Prime Time 10/21/86 where he bullies a poor young woman for being out of shape before he flexes in the mirror for a few 20-somethings and the camera closes in on his biceps and dick. It is both must-watch and never watch.
Look – a squash for The Moondogs won’t exactly get your professional wrestling show rocking, but Spot scratching his dandruff-ridden head for a bit prior to locking up with a 15-year-old-looking jobber on Prime Time 6/9/86 is very much professional wrestling.
