The Big Event - Hulk Hogan v Mr Wonderful Paul Orndorff

A special bonus episode of the Retro Wrestling Review Podcast as Gus pays tribute to the late Mr Wonderful Paul Orndorff by reviewing The Big Event from August 1986 in front of over 60,000 fans in Toronto, Canada.

You an watch along with this episode on the WWE Network  https://watch.wwe.com/episode/The-Big-Event-1986-10819

Any feedback or questions, email Gus Edwards retroreviews@hotmail.com

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Transcript

Hello everyone, I’m Gus Edwards and welcome to the Retro Wrestling Reviews podcast.  This is a special bonus episode today.  I had some emails over the past week or so asking me to review some older WWF shows.  I had decided to review Summerslam 1991, which was the show that made me a fan for life.  Unfortunately, while watching the show, the sad news broke about the passing of Mr Wonderful Paul Orndorff.  I decided to switch things up and review something that Mr Wonderful was most famous for – his feud with Hulk Hogan.  I didn’t realise that the Big Event show was on the WWE Network, and I’ve never seen it before, so it made perfect sense to review this show as a tribute to Paul.  The Summerslam 1991 show will still happen but will probably be delayed by a week.

When I first started watching WWF in 1991, Paul Orndorff was already gone from the company.  But I always remember the first three wrestling videos I bought – Greatest Hits, Ultimate Warrior and Wrestlemania’s Greatest Matches.  That video had matches from the first 4 Wrestlemanias (Honky Tonk Man v Brutus Beefcake at Mania 4, Bulldogs/Santana v Harts/Davis from Mania 3, the Battle Royal with NFL players at 2 and from the first Wrestlemania it had the main event of Paul Orndorff & Roddy Piper v Hulk Hogan & Mr T).  First impressions in life always count, so seeing Mr Wonderful in a main event of Wrestlemania meant I always saw him as a big star.  I never saw him consistently though until early 1993 when he went to WCW and won the TV title.  He was very over with the fans at the time, mainly due to the Paula chant that the fans did.  Once we move on to Mid South Wrestling in our reviews we will see more of Orndorff as he was a regular there until he went to WWF.

The Big Event 28 August 1986, Toronto Canada

The show opens with Mean Gene in a helicopter flying over Toronto, with clips of the show interspread.  This is an outdoor arena and is packed with over 60,000 fans and it looks incredible.  

First match is Killer Bees v Hoss & Jimmy Jack Funk w/Jimmy Hart.  Hoss Funk of course is Dory Funk Jr and Jimmy Jack Funk is Jesse Barr and not a member of the Funk family.  The Commentators for tonight are Gorilla Monsoon, Ernie Ladd and Johnny Valliant.  Blair and Hoss start off and Blair takes care of Hoss and Jimmy Jack with a couple of bodyslams which cause the heels to bail.  Dory is 45 here, but as always with Dory he looks at least 20 years older.  Jimmy Jack tags in as does Jim Brunzell, he doesn’t get anywhere so brings Hoss back in.  Bees getting a good bit of shine to start the match, which babyfaces should get, especially in the first match of the show.  Brunzell gets Jimmy Jack in a sleeper, but the ref gets distracted and Hoss hits a knee to the back of Brunzell to start off the heat segment.  Match gets clipped here and it cuts to the Bees on the outside putting their masks on.  Bees do a switcheroo and Brunzell gets the pin on Jimmy Jack with a small package.

Next match is King Tonga (Haku) v Don Maurco w/ Mr Fuji.  This is around the time when Fuji and Maurco are doing these hilarious skits on Prime Time wrestling, the most famous of them was Fuji Vice.  If you haven’t seen them before you need to check them out.  Tonga hits a great dropkick, you forget how agile he was in his early years.  This is another clipped match, so its difficult to get into a flow.  Match slows down to a crawl during the heat segment as Maurco puts on a nerve hold.  They clip again and come back to Tonga still in the nerve hold.  I dread to think how long he was in it for.  Tonga makes his comeback out of the hold but its short lived and he misses a charge into the corner.  Maurco starts working over the leg and then puts on a figure 4 but Tonga gets to the ropes.  At this point I’m begging for more clipping.  Maurco goes to the top rope but gets caught by Haku and is slammed off.  Real comeback time by Tonga and he hits a crossbody off the top rope before the bell rings and it’s a time limit draw.

Tony Garea v Ted Arcidi.  This could be bad.  Garea is the definition of ‘dad bod’ 30 years before that became a thing.  There is something happening in the crowd which has caused half of them to turn their backs on the ring.  It could be this match though.  Arcidi grabs Garea in a bearhug and gets a quick submission.  Thankfully they kept this short.

Adrian Adonis w/ Jimmy Hart v Junkyard Dog.  Dog starts off fast, attacking Adonis with the chain, which for some reason is not a DQ.  For his size, Adonis could still take some great bumps.  Dog pushes the ref, which again is not a DQ, but the distraction allows Hart to spray the perfume in Dog’s face and Adonis gets the heat.  Adonis hits a knee off the second rope for a 2 count.  They fight outside the ring, but seem to get in before the 10 count, Adonis gets in before Dog and they keep fighting.  Dog ducks a charge by Adonis and he hits Hart and goes over the top rope.  The bell rings and they give the match to Dog via countout.  Something tells me the finish might have been a little bit botched. 

Dick Slater v Iron Mike Sharpe.  Despite being Canada’s greatest athlete, Sharpe still can’t get any cheers from the Canadian fans.  Slater draped in the confederate flag also gets boos from the crowd.  Sharpe is always on everyone’s lists of favourite job guys.  This show has still not kicked into gear yet and I don’t think this is going to be the match to change things.  Slater hits a horrible spinning neckbreaker, then hits an elbow off the top rope, not the Randy Savage elbow, Sharpe is standing up straight and takes it to the back of the neck for the pin.  Thankfully another match that is kept short.

6 man tag team match.  The Machines (Super & Big) & Lou Albano v King Kong Bundy, Big John Studd and Bobby Heenan.  Super Machine is Bill Eadie, who will soon go on to become Ax in Demolition and Big Machine who is Blackjack Mulligan.  On the outside is Giant Machine who is of course Andre the Giant.  Super and Studd start the match off.  Big and King Kong Bundy tag in.  Blackjack Mulligan is one of those guys who people really underrate the size of.  Studd gets Big Machine down, so this allows Heenan to get in.  He tries to get the mask off the machine but Super Machine makes the save and Heenan bails.  The story here is that Heenan knows that Andre is one of the machines, and if he can unmask him and prove it then Andre would be suspended permanently.  They get the heat on Super Machine, he makes the tag to Albano, so its Heenan and Albano facing off.  Heenan takes a great flip bump into the corner, then goes for the eyes of Albano and makes the tag to Studd.  They are working over Albano in the corner so Andre runs in for the save and cleans house for the DQ.  

Jake Roberts v Ricky Steamboat in a Snakepit Match.  This is no DQ, anything goes.  Of course we have been watching both these guys in our Mid Atlantic reviews.  Roberts attacks Steamboat at the start, but of course that doesn’t work out well and Steamboat gets the advantage.  This is already the highest paced and best match of the show so far.  Steamboat is great.  He works over the arm of Jake, then goes for some highspots to keep the crowd alive and then goes back to working the arm.  They end up outside and fight over a chair.  Steamboat gets the chair and hits Jake with it.  This gets a big pop because you hardly seen chair shots at this time.  Back inside and Steamboat goes back to the arm.  Jake gets the heat by throwing Ricky over the top rope.  Jake doesn’t capitalise straight away as he is still selling the beating that he has had so far.  They fight on the outside and Jake catapults him into the ringpost.  Plenty of fighting on the outside, taking advantage of the lack of rules.  Back in the ring and Steamboat is bleeding.  Nice short clothesline from Jake.  Jake hits a gutbuster and goes for the pin.  He gets cocky and straddles Steamboat, who reverses it into a cradle for the win.  Excellent match.

Billy Jack Haynes v Hercules Hernandez.  These two would end up wrestling again at Wrestlemania 3.  They start out doing some highspots including a couple of leapfrogs.  This is another clipped match.  Hercules is in control here, dropping elbows on to Haynes.  Billy Jack makes his comeback with more elbows and a back breaker.  Haynes goes for the full nelson, but Hercules counters with a low blow.  Back to another heat segment for Hercules.  This isn’t very good.  Haynes counters a neckbreaker with a backslide and gets the win.

Rougeau Brothers v The Dream Team (Greg Valentine & Brutus Beefcake).  Rougeaus are big babyfaces here.  They clean house early on and work over Valentine.  This referee is very slow with his counts.  Dream Team eventually get some heat on Jacques.  Monsoon is now burying the ref for his slow counts.  Even heel referees don’t count this slowly.  Heel communication lets Jacques make the tag.  They hit the somersault from the top which ended up being the Quebecers finish in the early 90s, but Valentine makes the save.  Match falls apart again, there has been real flow to this.  Dream Team work over Raymond on the outside.  This might be the proper heat segment here.  This match isn’t as good as I thought it would be going into it.  Jacques finally gets the hot tag and hits 4 dropkicks on the Dream Team but straight away gets cut off, then comes back with a double dropkick on them before missing a move off the second rope.  Hammer puts on a figure 4, Raymond breaks it up and it turns into a 4 way.  Valentine goes for another figure 4 on Jacques but Raymond counters it with a sunset flip and the ref counts at normal speed for the win.  

Harley Race v Pedro Morales.  This match would have been huge in the 70s, NWA Champion v WWWF Champion.  Not sure how it will be 10 years past their primes.  This isn’t that bad of a match, done at a decent pace.  We do have the slow count referee again.  Race picks up the win after pinning Morales with his feet on the ropes.  Was short, but decent.

And now the Main Event.  Paul Orndorff v Hulk Hogan for the WWF Title.  Orndorff and Heenan come out first to Hogan’s music, followed by Hogan.  When they show the long shot of the crowds it looks incredible.  I read last night that in the 7 days surrounding this match Hogan and Orndorff wrestled in front of a combined 150,000 fans which is an amazing number.  Orndorff starts off with a sneak attack, but Hogan comes back to clean house.  Crowd is going wild for this.  People always think of Hogan feuding with giants, but his two biggest house show runs were with Orndorff and Randy Savage.  Orndorff gets the heat after some interference by Heenan and goes to work with stomps on Hogan and a suplex on the outside.  One thing about Hogan is he is more than willing to sell for people.  This matched is well heated here, you can tell people believe Hogan and the title is in danger.  Wonderful goes for his piledriver, but Hogan counters with a backdrop.  This isn’t the comeback though, still more heat for Orndorff.  There are pockets of fans in the crowd who are behind Orndorff.  Hogan starts to hulk up and hit Orndorff with a running knee to the back which bumps the referee.  Hogan signals for a piledriver but Heenan runs in and nails Hogan with a wooden stool.  Wonderful has the visual pin on Hogan, but there is no referee.  Referee taps Orndorff on the back three times and he thinks that he has won.  He and Heenan are celebrating with the belt.  Finkel announces that Hogan is the winner via DQ, I’m guessing the ref saw Heenan hitting Hogan with the stool.  Wonderful beats down Hogan and goes to hit him with the belt, but Hogan blocks it.  Hogan hits the big boot and Orndorff bails.

Overall this wasn’t the best show in the world, but the fans came to see Hogan and Orndorff and that’s what they got.  The best match on the card was Ricky Steamboat v Jake Roberts.  Hogan and Orndorff was obviously the most heated match.  I hope you all have fond memories of Mr Wonderful.

Thanks again for listening, there will be a new regular episode of the podcast out on Sunday and next week’s bonus episode will be Summerslam 1991.  Take care of yourself and I will speak to you soon.  Rest in Peace Mr Wonderful Paul Orndorff