Mr. T in Wrestlemania II

So I started watching Wrestlemania II, taking notes (as one does) but eventually realized that it was all vanity and grasping for the wind. So I stopped. I stopped because there was no way to make note of everything going on here. There is way too much of everything. WikiPedia notes that Wrestlemania II has been criticized as being "excessive." Yeah, it is. If you ever want to watch something that's "excessive" check out Wrestlemania II. I will try to focus on a few things.

In Wrestlemania II, I theorize that the WWF made a marketing decision to try to bring more female fans in by including more women into the event. Joining Vince McMahon on color commentary duties is actress Susan Saint James of "Kate & Allie" fame...

Other women included were Joan Rivers, Elvira, Cathy Lee Crosby and Clare Peller. "Who's Clare Peller?", you ask? She's the "where's the beef?" lady. Oh, yeah. And that's in addition to the women wrestlers.

I figured this was worth mentioning because it affects the Mr. T match, which was my focus. Not that it affects the outcome but the experience of watching it. Having Kate (or Allie) doing commentary gives the entire event a strange and unnatural chemistry.  I'll put it this way: when you think "professional wrestling commentary", the phrase "cute as a button" is probably not the first thing that comes to mind.

On to T...

After Wrestlemania I, the WWF got the idea to have Mr. T be a "WWF Boxer" and to have a rivalry with Roddy Piper, who you might remember wrestled against him in said Wrestlemania. So Wrestlemania II features a Mr. T v. "Rowdy" Roddy Piper boxing match.

Going into it, I was surely intrigued. I really couldn't figure out what I thought they would do: would they script a fake boxing match or just say boxing is simple enough, let's give everyone the real thing. Even more perplexing was what happened next. Watching the match, it really looked real to me - I couldn't be sure about what I was seeing. Either it's really easy to fake boxing or they let them really box within a scripted framework because it just looked like boxing for the first few rounds.

It wasn't until Round 4 that the situation became crystal clear to me and everyone else. In Round 4, Piper and Mr. T drop their arms to their side and trade haymakers back and forth like it's a "Rocky" parody. With the sheen of realism completely gone, Piper loses his temper, bodyslams Mr. T and it devolves into a sort of street fight. The referee stops the match and Mr. T wins as Piper is disqualified. 

Overall, I found it pretty impressive. I have to say I was really fooled for a while there and it was pretty entertaining. Though the concept was a failure and the WWF never tried boxing again.