WrestleMania, sequentially known as WrestleMania I, was a 1985 professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE). It was the inaugural WrestleMania that took place on March 31, 1985, at Madison Garden in New York City, New York. The attendance for the event was 19,121. The event was seen by over one million viewers through a closed-circuit television, making it the largest PPV showing of a wrestling event on closed-circuit television in the United States at the time.
The event consisted of nine professional wrestling matches. In the main event, Hulk Hogan and Mr. T defeated Paul Orndorff and Roddy Piper. Also, Wendi Richter (accompanied by manager Cyndi Lauper) defeated Leilani Kai to win the WWF Women's Championship, and Nikolai Volkoff and The Iron Sheik defeated The U.S. Express (Mike Rotundo and Barry Windham) to win the WWF Tag Team Championship. Celebrity guests included former heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali as referee, baseball player/manager Billy Martin as ring announcer, and musician-actor Liberace as timekeeper.
Retrospective reviews of WrestleMania I have been mixed, with critics generally ranking it as one of the most average WrestleManias in history. While the main event earned generally positive reviews, many of the undercard matches were negatively received. Despite this, its success led to a follow-up the next year, and set the stage for more over forty annual follow-ups.
Production
thumb|The inaugural [[WrestleMania was held at Madison Square Garden in New York City.]]
Background
During the 1980s, the World Wrestling Federation's (WWF, now WWE) main competition in the professional wrestling industry was from Jim Crockett Promotions. Vince McMahon countered Jim Crockett's successful Starrcade annual events, which began airing in 1983, by creating the WrestleMania franchise. A rights agreement which Barry Diller, head of USA Network and co-owner of Paramount, pushed by 1983, also allowed for better access to programming at Madison Square Garden, including on any regional pay television network.
For the first WrestleMania, McMahon began cross-promoting with MTV, which aired two wrestling specials. The inaugural broadcast was entitled The Brawl to End It All and aired on July 23, 1984, in which a match from a live Madison Square Garden broadcast was shown on MTV. Wendi Richter, allied with Cyndi Lauper, defeated The Fabulous Moolah, backed by Lou Albano, to win the WWF Women's Championship on the card. At the second MTV broadcast, entitled The War to Settle the Score on February 18, 1985, Leilani Kai, accompanied by Moolah, defeated Richter, once again accompanied by Lauper, to win the Women's Championship. Aside from Lauper, other celebrities also appeared during the buildup to and at the event; most notably, Muhammad Ali, Liberace (with The Rockettes), and Major League Baseball manager Billy Martin all appeared during the main event.
WWF announcer Gene Okerlund sang the national anthem, while Gorilla Monsoon and Jesse Ventura provided commentary. Okerlund also conducted interviews backstage, while Alfred Hayes conducted interviews near the entrance to the locker room, right outside the ring. Howard Finkel served as the event's ring announcer. The opening theme for the event was the instrumental portion of the Phil Collins and Philip Bailey hit "Easy Lover", while the closing theme for the credits was "Axel F" by Harold Faltermeyer. Celebrity guests in attendance included Billy Martin, Cyndi Lauper, Mr. T, Muhammad Ali, and Liberace accompanied by The Rockettes. Three championships were defended at WrestleMania: the WWF Women's Championship, WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship, and the WWF World Tag Team Championship.
Leading up to the event, Greg "The Hammer" Valentine had feuded with Tito Santana over the Intercontinental Heavyweight belt. Valentine defeated Santana on September 24, 1984, for the championship. Mike Rotunda and Barry Windham won the WWF Tag Team Championship three months before WrestleMania from the team of Adrian Adonis and Dick Murdoch.
In the months leading up to the first WrestleMania, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper began a talk-show segment on WWF television entitled "Piper's Pit". On one episode of the show, Piper would hit Jimmy Snuka over the head with a coconut after verbally berating him, leading to a heated feud between the two men. As part of the storyline, Piper recruited "Cowboy" Bob Orton to be his bodyguard. Some time later, during another episode of "Piper's Pit", Piper spoke out against the burgeoning Rock 'n' Wrestling connection, which led to a confrontation with Hulk Hogan. In February 1985, the two men faced each other in a WWF Heavyweight Championship match at The War to Settle the Score, where the reigning champion, Hogan, won by disqualification after interference by Paul Orndorff and Mr. T. Their ongoing feud led to their match at WrestleMania.
As part of the promotion for the event, Hogan appeared on a talk show entitled Hot Properties four days prior to WrestleMania, where he put host Richard Belzer into a front chinlock. It was a move that cuts off the flow of blood to the brain, as a way to prove to Belzer and the audience just how real professional wrestling is. Belzer, however, fell to the floor unconscious and began to bleed profusely. His injury required eight stitches. Belzer later sued Hogan for $5 million, but they eventually settled out of court. The night before WrestleMania, Hogan and Mr. T hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live to help promote the event.
Event
Preliminary matches
thumb|upright|Tito Santana vs. The Executioner
Gene Okerlund opened the event by singing the national anthem. The originally intended singer, a celebrity guest that Okerlund and Vince McMahon refused to name, failed to appear.
{| class=wikitable style="font-size:90%; margin: 0.5em 0 0.5em 1em; float: right; clear: right;"
|+Other on-screen personnel
|-
!Role:
!Name:
|-
|rowspan=2|Commentators
|Gorilla Monsoon
|-
|Jesse Ventura
|-
|rowspan=2|Interviewers
|Gene Okerlund
|-
|Lord Alfred Hayes
|-
|rowspan=2|Ring announcers
|Howard Finkel
|-
|Billy Martin
|-
|rowspan=5|Referees
|Jack Lotz
|-
|Dick Kroll
|-
|Joey Marella
|-
|Pat Patterson
|-
|Henry Terranova
|-
||Special Guest Timekeeper
|Liberace
|-
||Special Guest Outside Referee
|Muhammad Ali
|-
||Special Guests
|The Rockettes
|}
The opening match was between Tito Santana and The Executioner (Buddy Rose). Santana won the match by submission after applying a figure four leglock on The Executioner, which was a shot at current Intercontinental Champion Greg Valentine, as the figure four was his finishing move.
Following the opening match, King Kong Bundy (accompanied by Jimmy Hart) and Special Delivery Jones made their way to the ring. After crushing Jones against the turnbuckle and executing a big splash, Bundy won the match. The WWF's official time for the match is a then-record time of 9 seconds (a record since surpassed by The Rock defeating Erick Rowan at WrestleMania 32),
thumb|left|Junkyard Dog (left) vs Greg Valentine (right)
The first championship match of WrestleMania was between Junkyard Dog and the reigning WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion Greg Valentine, who was accompanied to the ring by his manager Jimmy Hart. Junkyard Dog began the match in the offensive position, performing headbutts and punches on Valentine. As the action went back and forth, Hart climbed on the ring apron, where Valentine accidentally hit him. Later, Valentine pinned Junkyard Dog with his feet on the ropes for leverage, which is an illegal maneuver. As a result, Tito Santana ran down to the ring and explained to the referee what had happened and the match was restarted. Junkyard Dog eventually won the match by count-out as Valentine failed to re-enter the ring. Valentine, however, kept his title as titles do not change hands through count-out.
thumb|Volkoff (right) and Sheik (left) celebrate winning the WWF Tag Team Championships with manager Blassie (center).
The following match was for the WWF Tag Team Championship. Nikolai Volkoff and The Iron Sheik, accompanied to the ring by Freddie Blassie, challenged the reigning champions, The U.S. Express (Mike Rotundo and Barry Windham), who were accompanied by Lou Albano. The U.S. Express dominated the early part of the match until Volkoff and The Sheik began to gain the offensive advantage over Rotundo. Rotundo then tagged in Windham, who performed a bulldog on The Sheik. After nearly being pinned, The Sheik hit Windham in the head with Blassie's cane as the referee had his back turned. After Volkoff got the pin, Volkoff and The Sheik were crowned as the new tag champions, becoming the first wrestlers to win a championship at WrestleMania.
Reception
The attendance at the event was 19,121. In addition, the event was seen by over one million viewers through closed-circuit television,
John Powell of Slam! Wrestling rated the event as average, citing that it "wasn't the greatest". Despite his overall rating, he praised several moments, including Orton hitting Orndorff with his cast, King Kong Bundy's win, and André the Giant throwing the money into the crowd. Powell listed Mr. T wrestling as his least favorite moment of the pay-per-view, saying the main event match, in which Mr. T took part, was humorous despite its lack of technical wrestling.
In the December 2002 issue of Wrestling Digest, the main event match-up was listed as number five in the most memorable twenty-five matches of the past twenty-five years. Echoing John Powell's thoughts, Kevin Eck of Wrestling Digest stated, "The match itself was far from a technical-wrestling classic, but it delivered in terms of entertaining the crowd."
Several of the undercard matches received a more negative reception. Reviewing for tjrwrestling, John Canton rated the Body Slam Challenge between Big John Studd and Andre The Giant as a "Dud", stating it needed "to be two minutes tops" and noting how limited both men were. Reviewing for 411mania, Kevin Pantoja was mildly more positive, highlighting the "novelty of someone possibly body slamming Andre The Giant" and its nature as "pure spectacle", but stated it had plenty of "plodding moments".
Aftermath
Approximately three months after WrestleMania, on July 6, 1985, Greg Valentine lost the Intercontinental Championship back to Tito Santana in a cage match. At about the same time, Nikolai Volkoff and The Iron Sheik lost the WWF Tag Team Championship back to The U.S. Express. They held the titles until August, when the team of Brutus Beefcake and Greg Valentine, later known as the Dream Team, became the new champions. Later, the team of Studd and Bundy teamed up in Handicap matches—a two against one wrestling match—against André, which renewed the feud between André and Studd.
In late 1985, Wendi Richter lost her WWF Women's Championship in controversial fashion. Following the advent of Survivor Series in 1987 and then Royal Rumble and SummerSlam in 1988—WWF's four original pay-per-views—the four would eventually be dubbed the "Big Four", with Money in the Bank becoming a part of the "Big Five" in the early 2020s. WrestleMania would eventually be described as the Super Bowl of sports entertainment.