TNT - March 14, 1985

Lately I haven't enjoyed the WWE 24/7 episodes of Tuesday Night Titans. But this latest episode contained some decent promos and hype for WrestleMania 2. Most significant, they only did ONE "Lord Alfred Hayes is so darn goofy" joke: a little bit where Vince McMahon kids him about never going higher than the first rope.

The recently arrived Jake "the Snake" Roberts makes his first TNT appearance and turns in a noteworthy performance. He mentions why he doesn't have to shout in his promos (he's confident enough that he doesn't feel the need) and how he relates to snakes ("they don't have or need any friends"). In his in-ring highlight clip, he hits the DDT (to no pop) then tosses Damien out on his opponent. But in the TNT studio, Jake has brought along Lucifer-- Damien's big brother. Neat trivia, since I always thought Lucifer didn't appear until Damien "died" at the hands of Earthquake in 1991. Was this 1986 Lucifer the same snake as the 1991 version? Or did one snake play all three parts? Suckas gots ta' know.

Smokin' Joe Frazier also comes on to promote the Roddy Piper- Mr. T WrestleMania 2 match (Frazier will be in T's corner). Frazier does some ...strange... promo work by messing around with a rubber chicken dressed up like Piper. They cut to the WrestleMania 2 Press Conference, where Piper cuts an awesome promo on Mr. T, citing the way he perms the middle of his mohawk. Lou Duva then comes up to add to the promo. Piper concludes with a semi-rascist bit about "I DO play Sun City". Definitely a contemporary reference, right there. If I remember correctly, Sun City is/was a casino town in South Africa that was strict anti-black. Alot of US performers refused to play there, as a way to protest Apartheid. Steven Van Zandt (Silvio from "The Sopranos") even organized an all-star jam track called "I ain't gonna' play Sun City".

Anyways, TNT ties up with some quality segments with the Funk Brothers, Big John Studd and Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat. For more trivia, they announce Dino Bravo as a particpant in the WrestleMania 2 Battle Royal (I don't think Bravo was even on the card). There's also a weird video on NFL'er Russ Franics. But darn if Steamboat doesn't seem like the nicest guy in the world. He slips in a lttle foreshadowing, too. Steamer's segment follows Roberts' and Vince asks him if he'd ever bring a dragon to the ring, like Damien or Lucifer. Steamboat energetically mentions that he's "looking for one!" I think the Roberts/Steamboat feud would begin right after WrestleMania 2.