10 Most Ambitious Wrestling Matches Of All Time
3. Hulk Hogan & Mr. T Vs. Paul Orndorff & Roddy Piper - WrestleMania I
Vince McMahon mortgaged his entire company on the main event of WrestleMania, and it, in no small part, became an empire on its financial strength.
The WWF may have survived, in some form or another, had the inaugural Showcase failed at the closed-circuit box office—but only had Vince McMahon taken on financial partners. Few would have worked alongside him, in this alternate timeline—wrestling would have looked non-viable, and wrestling people despised Vince—and Vince was never inclined to play well with others.
But succeed WrestleMania I did, through its absorbing blend of celebrity and a now-quaint brand of wrestling—and the eleventh-hour serendipity that comes with rendering a talk show host unconscious.
A symphony of anticipation and worlds-colliding action, the main event attraction delivered, by the standards of the time, playing broadly and beautifully to the naivety of a new audience unfamiliar with the smoke and mirrors of the industry - not that Hogan et al. didn’t perfect them in a match that, through the involvement of non-wrestling celebrity Mr. T, was ambitious on its own terms.
WrestleMania I was the storybook start to Vincent Kennedy McMahon’s ascent into the mainstream consciousness, the grand mythology behind which almost feels fabricated.
It is the most real tall tale WWE ever told.