Mean Gene Can't Sing and Five More Things You Don't Remember From WrestleMania I

Hulk Hogan bodyslamming Andre The Giant. Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart going move for move for over 60 minutes. The Rock and Stone Cold’s heartstopping battles. Edge spearing Jeff Hardy off of a giant ladder. Brock Lesnar’s Shooting Star Press attempt. Ric Flair’s emotional retirement match. The Undertaker’s legendary streak

These are the moments we remember WrestleMania for. Every spring since 1985, WrestleMania has been the cornerstone event of the WWE. Sports Entertainment’s trademark show has established a legacy of providing the memorable moments that stay with fans for decades.

But over 26 WrestleManias there have been 262 matches between hundreds of unique wrestlers. What happened in all of those other matches? Are there some great forgotten WrestleMania Moments? Over the next few weeks I’ll be opening your eyes to some of these missing moments that don’t always get mentioned. 

You remember all of the classics. Now I want to show you Six Things You Don’t Remember About Every WrestleMania, starting with the original:

Mean Gene Can't Sing

The job of singing "America The Beautiful" at WrestleMania has gone to some of music's finest voices – Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and Willie Nelson, to name a few.

But at the very first WrestleMania the song was never even heard. In fact, the first WrestleMania is the only time where someone sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" instead. And believe it or not, none other than Mean Gene Okerlund was tapped to belt out the anthem.

Okerlund kicked off the event with his less-than-golden pipes and encouraged the crowd to sing along with him. Unfortunately, no one really took him up on his offer. The Hall of Fame announcer rushed through the song as quickly as possible and rushed toward the back to resume his job of backstage interviewer, a place where he was far more comfortable.

After watching Mean Gene mangle the "Banner," it's clear that Christina Aguilera doesn't need to worry about going down in history as the worst National Anthem singer of all time. 

The First WrestleMania Match Ever Was a Waste of Time

In recent years, the Money In The Bank Ladder Match has served as an amazing opener to the WrestleMania card. A half dozen wrestlers fly across the arena with innovative maneuvers trying to steal the show as they vie for the ever-important Money In The Bank title shot. The opening match at the original Wrestlemania was not nearly as exciting. 

After being subjected to an ear-piercing rendition of the National Anthem, the fans at Madison Square Garden were then privileged to a snoozer of an exhibition between Tito Santana and The Executioner. Never heard of The Executioner? Neither had Mean Gene, who before interviewing the masked wrestler claimed that he knew "absolutely nothing about the man."

The Executioner was as generic a jobber as could be and lost to Santana within a matter of minutes. It took the WWE a few years to really perfect the art of the WrestleMania supercard and eliminate filler matches like this one. However, Tito Santana and The Executioner will always have their spot in history. 

9 Seconds Is a Lot Slower Than You Think

One of the most memorable moments on the first WrestleMania card came when the massive King Kong Bundy took on "Special Delivery" S.D. Jones. The spunky Jones knew he was mismatched in every way, so his strategy was to use his speed and take out King Kong Bundy as soon as the bell rang. But when your opponent is the Walking Condominium, it doesn't matter how fast you go. Bundy proceeded to smash Jones with his patented Avalanche splash in the corner and get the pin in a record-setting nine seconds!

Except, the match wasn't even close to nine seconds. From bell to bell, the action lasts a good 17 seconds, almost double what the announced "record" time was.

Even if you only start the clock after Bundy and Jones make contact, the match is still 14 seconds long. Yet for years, announcers claimed this "nine-second" squash as the shortest match in WWE history, irritating all those who had seen the contest with their own two eyes – all 17 seconds of it. 

The First Gimmick Match At WrestleMania Was All About a Bodyslam

Andre The Giant was a major draw on any card he competed on, and the first WrestleMania was no different. At the time Andre was feuding with Bobby "The Brain" Heenan who taunted Andre by hiring a giant of his own: Hall of Famer Big John Studd. 

Studd was one of the few men in wrestling who could nearly stand eye to eye with Andre, and the arrogant Studd was so confident he could be the first man to bodyslam Andre that he put up $15,000 of his own money in a Bodyslam challenge match.

The rules were simple – the first man to execute a bodyslam on the other would win the money. But Andre had to agree to one final stipulation: if he lost, the Eighth Wonder of the World would have to retire. 

In the end, the retirement stipulation made the result of the match pretty obvious. Still, Andre vs. Studd was one of the most electric and captivating matches on the show. Seeing Andre lift Big John over his head is still mighty impressive to this day. And it was matches like this one that put WrestleMania on the map as the place where legendary showdowns happened. 

Every Title Was Defended (Except the Most Important One)

You might think that on the biggest wrestling supershow of all time the main event would be a legendary WWE Championship throwdown. Your thinking would be wrong. In fact, the biggest title match on the first WrestleMania was the Women's Title match between Wendi Richter and Leilani Kai.

Yes, the WWE Championship has been defended in one of the main events at all 25 other WrestleManias (and presumably will be at every WrestleMania from here on out).

The first WrestleMania, however, was headlined by a tag team battle pitting Paul Orndorff and Roddy Piper against Hulk Hogan and Mr. T. 

To be fair, the build-up to this match was excellent. Piper and Mr. T had amazing chemistry together while Hogan and Orndorff had a great feud brewing between them. On the outside of the ring, Cowboy Bob Orton and Superfly Jimmy Snuka added to the drama of the match in each team's corner, respectively. And the Garden came unglued when Orton's interference ran astray leading Hogan and T to pick up the win.

But looking back on the card it's extremely strange that the most important title in wrestling was not defended on the most important wrestling show of its time. 

Never Mind the Wrestlers, The Celebrities Are the Stars

Celebrities haven't played as big a factor in the WrestleMania promotion in recent years, but the entire point of WrestleMania used to be the mingling of mainstream celebrities with the WWE superstars. Vince McMahon and company have always gone gaga when any celebrity graces them with their presence. The thinking is the appearance will boost the WWE's mainstream credibility by having an A-lister (or even a D-lister) on the show. You can look at the recent Raw Guest Host experiment as a perfect example. 

1985 was no different. Before it became the Super Bowl of Wrestling, the place where all the great feuds of the year came to an end, WrestleMania was as Gorilla Monsoon put it on commentary the "Woodstock of wrestling."

Yankees Manager Billy Martin, Cyndi Lauper, Liberace and even the great Muhammad Ali got roped into the action in various roles as for the first time the WWE tried to branch out from producing wrestling to creating sports entertainment.

The whole point of the show was to establish the WWE as a legitimate entertainment brand, not to put on stellar in-ring action. As such, the first WrestleMania is not a great wrestling show. It is though, as the announcers kept calling it, quite the happening and sight to see. The fawning over celebrities mixing it up with the wrestlers continues to this day, but never was it more evident than at WrestleMania I.