We are just days away from WWE WrestleMania 42, and over the past few weeks we here at Wrestling Inc. have traveled back through the history books to not only get ourselves excited for the "Grand Daddy of Them All," but to also celebrate some of the biggest moments that made WrestleMania what it is. For this one, we are going back, way back, to an event that recently celebrated its 40th anniversary.You have to feel bad for WrestleMania 2 because it is sandwiched in between two of the most historic events not just in WWE history, but wrestling as a whole. It was the sequel to the very first WrestleMania that took place one year earlier in 1985, but was the prequel to what was the biggest WrestleMania ever until the 2000s, WrestleMania 3 and the Pontiac Silverdome. Those two shows are so recognizable, so important that you can sometimes forget that there was a show with a unique concept of its own right in the middle of them.To try and make WrestleMania 2 feel bigger than its predecessor, the show took place in three different venues spread across three different cities. One was the Rosemont Horizon (now the Allstate Arena) in Chicago, Illinois which played host to WrestleMania 13 and 22. The second was the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California which ended up hosting WrestleMania 7, and the Nassau Memorial Veterans Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, which never hosted WrestleMania after this night.For this spotlight, we will be traveling to the main event of the Chicago portion of the show for a WWE Tag Team Championship match between The British Bulldogs and The Dream Team of Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake. Valentine and Beefcake won the vacant titles the previous August had actually defended their crowns against The Dynamite Kid and Davey Boy Smith twice (one of the wins was by disqualification), but after being challenged to one more match, the champions accepted and just like that, we have ourselves a mid-show main event type of deal.With all of that out of the way, let's shine a spotlight on The British Bulldogs vs. The Dream Team for the WWE Tag Team Championships from WWE WrestleMania 2!
Remember how we said earlier that WrestleMania 2 never really gets mentioned because the shows either side of it are so big and important? That is all true, but what we didn't mention is that WrestleMania 2 just isn't that good. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that if someone came up to me and said that the worst WrestleMania of all time is WrestleMania 2, I wouldn't disagree with them to be honest.But despite how bad this show is as a whole, there had to be some sort of silver lining, and this was that silver lining. Full transparency, this match is good at best. It's not going to make any "Greatest WrestleMania Matches"lists or anything, but there are certainly worse ways to spend 15 minutes.Starting off with The British Bulldogs, it's only when you go back and watch a match like this right after watching something from the modern day that you realize that they were truly ahead of their time. Dynamite and Davey have got such creative offense for the time, they utilize the quick tags, they cut off the ring, basically all of the fundamentals of tag team wrestling can be found in The British Bulldogs, but they've mastered the fundamentals to the point where they can flesh out their offense to make it stand out at the time. Dynamite especially has an explosiveness that we would go on to see from so many people who got their big breaks in Japan.Valentine also puts in a great performance here as the workhorse of the match, never really tagging in Beefcake and taking the bulk of the punishment here. It's not his greatest performance or anything like that, but for being the heel and bumping all over the place to make challengers look even more credible was very well done. Beefcake is the weakest in the match, but even then that's not saying he's bad here, he just doesn't get the spotlight enough. Funnily enough, the little detail of him trying to break up the pin that would win The British Bulldogs the titles, but getting his boot caught in the rope so he just falls over was a nice touch. It did look like he tore his ACL trying to execute that detail, but it worked like a charm.Davey and Dynamite get the win here with Valentine being thrown into Dynamite (who takes a nasty spill to the outside), which knocks Valentine out and Beefcake can't make it in to save the day. We have new champions at the end of what was a good match. However, what we did get was Ozzy Osbourne chewing his gun so hard that his jaw was at all three WrestleMania venues on this night when celebrating with Dynamite and Davey. Ozzy holding the belt upside in celebration, and Cathy Lee on commentary saying things like "I've never watched wrestling, but my dad really did like that Gorgeous George," because of course we did, it's WrestleMania. Seek out this match if you want, just don't watch the rest of the show.
