Old School - MSG - 3/17/85 Recap

I watched the March 17, 1985 WWF MSG show that recently aired on WWE 24/7. This was about two weeks before WrestleMania 1. Solid show. Second half was better than the first half. On commentary was Gorilla Monsoon and Mean Gene Okerlund. Opening match had Rocky Johnson defeating Charlie Fulton with a sunset flip. Barry O defeated Rene Goulet with a small package. Jim The Anvil Neidhart with Jimmy Hart defeated SD Jones with a powerslam. King Kong Bundy was next taking on Jose Luis Rivera. Wow, did this scream squash match when I saw the participants. Jimmy Hart was in Bundy’s corner. Bundy hit the avalanche and dropped a big elbow for the win. In classic Bundy fashion, he demanded that the ref count to five instead of three. Next was Piper’s Pit. This was a lot of fun. I’m almost positive that I’ve never seen this Piper’s Pit before. Maybe bits and pieces but not the full version. Either that or I forgot. As if Piper needed any more heat, he ripped on New York City saying that there was 13 million people there and they couldn’t find 9 decent people to play baseball for the Yankees. He introduced his bodyguard, Ace. That always cracks me up. Piper gave a big introduction for his guest which was Mr. T but the introduction ended up being for Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff. The three of them talked for a bit and then Piper brought out Mr. T. Mr. T brought Hulk Hogan and Jimmy Snuka with him to the ring. Piper asked Mr. T if he was afraid to come by himself and Mr. T asked him the same thing. Piper eventually asked if they could have all of their men back off so they could talk. He said that he had looked into Mr. T’s background and realized what all he had going for him in his career right now. Piper offered him the chance to back out of WrestleMania as a way to keep from humiliating himself and hurt his career. Mr. T responded by saying that he had been training and offered Piper the chance to back out. Funny moment when Piper asked Mr. T if he could speak Snuka’s language and tell him “whoa” as Snuka and Hogan had started edging back to the middle of the ring. Piper and his crew started showing drawings of what was going to happen to Mr. T which had him in various casts and told him to just give up. Piper then put on a Mr. T wig and mocked him. This fired up Mr. T and his crew. Piper and his gang stepped out of the ring and backed off. Piper then grabbed a drink from the announce table and hurled it at all three while leaving. It was great stuff. Mr. T then talked to MSG about all of his training and how he would do at WrestleMania. Next match was just “eh”. I’ve never been into David Sammartino at all and he defeated Matt Borne when he countered a slam into a cradle for the win. Six man tag team match was next with Andre The Giant, Junk Yard Dog, and Jimmy Snuka taking on Big John Studd, Ken Patera, and Jesse Ventura. This was a fun match. Andre went right for Studd as the match started. Everytime Andre got in the match, he just cleaned house on everyone. The fans kept popping for every babyface that entered the match. Great crowd. The finish had Andre getting the hot tag. He pounded on Studd with big chops in the corner. He had Studd up for a bodyslam but it was broken up by Patera. Remember that there was a money reward at the time on if you could slam Studd. Andre eventually got that money when he slammed Studd at WrestleMania. Ventura tagged into the match and Andre hit a big foot on him. That set up Snuka for the big splash getting the pinfall. After the match, they all rammed the three heels in the corner over and over. Ricky Steamboat defeated Terry Gibbs after he hit the high crossed body from the top turnbuckle. Main event time as Greg Valentine with Jimmy Hart defended the Intercontinental title against Tito Santana in a lumberjack match. No surprise here as the heels kept helping Valentine while the faces helped Santana. I always loved Gorilla’s commentary and he always made logical points. He brought up how he always looked for the right spot to go out of the ring in those matches cause the wrong spot could cost you the match. Valentine tried to bail at the end of the match but the faces which included JYD threw him back in the ring. Tito hooked the figure four and then Jimmy Hart jumped up on the apron. The distraction led to Studd helping Valentine get to the ropes to break the hold. Tito then started hammering on Studd and Valentine hit Tito from behind. After bouncing off the ropes, they hit head to head knocking each other out. Tito landed first and Valentine landed on top of him. The ref made the three count and Valentine retained the title. Fun match. Things to see on the show are obviously Piper’s Pit, the six man tag, and the Intercontinental title match. The rest is just mostly filler as far as viewing.