WWF on MSG Network

January 23, 1984

Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

Announcers: Gorilla Monsoon & Pat Patterson

The Setup 

The show and moment that really kicked off the WWF going national: Hulk Hogan winning the WWF title from Iron Sheik a month after he won it from Bob Backlund in the same building. 

There was a Santana-Muraco singles match that wasn’t in the show video, so I’ve added it below as well. There was a midget 2/3 falls match I didn’t even bother with. 

The Business

They drew an announced 26,292 (Sellout, including over 4,000 watching via closed-circuit inside the Felt Forum), so the show was a huge success in NYC.

The Results

Tony Garea def. Jose Luis Rivera in 6:46 1/2*

Mr. Fuji & Tiger Chung Lee drew The Invaders (Invader I & Invader II) in 20:23 *

The Masked Superstar def. Chief Jay Strongbow in 7:26 *1/4 

Sgt. Slaughter def. Ivan Putski via DQ in 10:13 **

WWF Intercontinental Title: Tito Santana DDQ Don Muraco (C) in 16:03 *

Paul Orndorff def. Salvatore Bellomo in 14:06 **1/4

WWF World Heavyweight Title: Hulk Hogan def. The Iron Sheik (C) in 5:40 **1/2

Jimmy Snuka def. Rene Goulet in 3:54 *1/2

Andre the Giant, Rocky Johnson & Tony Atlas def. The Wild Samoans (Afa, Sika & Samula) in 5:29 **

Notable Happenings

Hogan won the title. Duh. 

Orndorff made his MSG debut, and he and Piper together got a ton of heat. Some good heels got strong reactions on this show, including Slaughter and Superstar, but you can see why the decision to run with Orndorff and Piper was such an easy one. 

Best, Worst, and Most Underrated of the Night

Best: The presentation of Hogan winning the title was tremendous, from the babyfaces dousing him with champagne, then later bringing his parents in for an interview. They did everything they could to make this seem like the biggest thing possible. 

Worst: Tony Garea and Joseph Luis Rivera served almost no purpose and didn’t provide any excitement. They mistimed a Rivera dropkick so badly at one point that the crowd loudly booed. The other bad matches were just way too long, with too little happening, but at least something did. Santana and Muraco also at least brawled outside after the long snoozer.

Most Underrated: Piper as a manager for Orndorff was tremendous. The heat those two had was nuclear. 

Rating

5.5/10

This might be slightly generous, but the Hogan stuff was all incredibly well done. The show did get better as it went along, too, mostly because we got rid of the long, drab WWF-style matches. The wrestling wasn’t great, but the presentation made up for it. Par for the WWE course. 

The Show