The War to Settle the Score 

Date: 02/18/1985

Location: MSG in NYC 

Announcers: Gorilla Monsoon and Gene Okerlund 

The Setup

After building Piper up as a heel versus Rock n Roll, Cyndi Lauper, and the world in general, Hogan was defending the WWF title against him live on MTV. Piper even broke a gold record on Lauper’s head on TV in an earlier angle to really get some heat. When you add the Piper-Snuka coconut angle, you can see they made Piper a man that needed to be stopped and saved him for Hogan.

This show was only about six weeks before Mania and their return to MSG. 

The Business 

The show did a 9.1 cable rating, becoming the highest-rated show on MTV to that point and higher than the previous year’s The Brawl to End it All. They really did a spectacular job building Piper and saving Hogan for him. 

The event sold out with over 22,000 fans. 

Results/Ratings 

Moondog Spot TLD Rick McGraw in 14:34 *1/2

Johnny Rodz def. Jose Luis Rivera in 10:15 1/2*

Hillbilly Jim def. Rene Goulet in 5:58 *1/4

Women’s Title Match: Leilani Kai def. Wendi Richter (c) in 12:02 *1/2 

David Sammartino def. Moondog Rex in 12:32 DUD 

Nikolai Volkoff def. Swede Hanson in 5:54 DUD 

Jimmy Snuka def. “Cowboy” Bob Orton in 9:24 **3/4 

Paul Orndorff def. Tony Atlas in 5:20 *3/4 

World Tag Team Title Match: Barry Windham & Mike Rotunda (C) def. The Assassin & The Spoiler in 0:36 NR 

Don Muraco def. Sal Bellomo in 2:42 NR 

WWF Title Match: Hulk Hogan (c) def. “Rowdy” Roddy Piper by DQ in approx 7:00

Snap Bumps

-The main was perfect for what it was, although not a good wrestling match. They had some action and a lot of heat in the short match, but most of it was an angle setting up Mania. Piper and Orndorff attacked T with Hogan, and T eventually clearing the ring. Cyndi Lauper got involved at one point, forcing T out of the front row to confront the heels, leading to the beating. There was mega heat for all of this. 

-At the end of the show, they did many celebrity interviews, including one with Hogan, T., Capt. Lou and Lauper, which was very good. 

-Piper interrupted Danny Devito, made a reference to “da plane” to mock Devito as if he was Tattoo from Fantasy Island, and cut a fucking fire promo on Hogan. God damn, I miss Roddy Piper. 

-This wasn’t the only angle Cyndi Lauper was involved in, as she also had Moolah attack her, then lay out Richter in the women’s title match, setting up Richter winning the strap back at Mania. Given this was MTV, double-dipping in both matches made a ton of sense and worked well. 

-Snuka and Orton had the only truly good wrestling match on the card. Honestly, people say this was a glorified MSG house show, but it’s actually a much worse version of an MSG house show. I’ve seen quite a few 1985 WWF house shows, and this was well below that standard. There were two late squashes on top of half the matches, which were underwhelming or one-sided.

-Snuka vs. Orton was a battle of two seconds in Mania’s main event. 

-I don’t know why they felt like they needed this many matches on the show, particularly with the WWF pattern being the prelim matches getting more time than the main events. No one needs to see David Sammartino vs. Moondog Rex and Nikolai Volkoff vs. Swede Hanson five and six marches into a show. I guess you can argue if they need to be seen at all, since both sucked. 

-The Don Muraco squash of Sal Bellomo was at least entertaining, with Muraco hitting a sick power slam and then a one-handed tombstone for the finish. 

-The Spot vs. Rick McGraw match had the elements of a good match, but it was dragged out because that’s what you did in a WWF house show opener then. They also did the lame WWF time limit draw with no countdown or warning after the babyface hits a big move. 

-Orndorff and Atlas could have been much better if given time, which also would have made the show better. Atlas was a pushed guy to lose so quickly. 

-Man, you would think Hillbilly Jim wouldn’t work well as a gimmick in NYC, but the fans loved him. It’s too bad he ended up hurting his knee so soon. 

The Verdict: Thumbs Down

Yes, everything to set up the Mania main event and Women’s title match worked and gave the fans what they wanted, but this show was so fucking painstakingly long. Yes, the show clearly worked as building interest for Mania, but it’s not like a good undercard would have hurt that. It didn’t look good on paper. 

Watching this is a waste of time. Just track down the two main title matches and angles.