Booking Dangerously: Looking Back At Wrestle Party ’85

Brian Damage

Every success story has their humble beginnings. Long before he became a successful manager named Paul E. Dangerously and even longer before revolutionizing wrestling in the late 1990’s as booker of Extreme Championship Wrestling…there was an event promoted by a young Paul Heyman called Wrestle Party ’85. Today, we look back at this event and how it helped launch the career of Paul Heyman.

During the “Disco Era” of the 1970’s, there was arguably no nightclub on earth hotter than Studio 54 in New York City. It was the the place to see and be seen. Not everyone was allowed through the doors that were heavily guarded. If you were one of the lucky people to be ushered in, you were exposed to a whole new world of sex, drugs and disco dancing. Many celebrities hustled there way into Studio 54 during that era including the likes of Woody Allen, David Bowie and Andy Warhol. Studio 54 was the be all and end all of night clubs in the entire world.

As the disco era faded out, so did the popularity of Studio 54. Its owners, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager were arrested for tax evasion and the once chic nightclub became just another venue. By 1985, many of the club’s top employees left the sinking ship and joined a rival club in the area. This left open an opportunity for a young, ambitious 19 year old photographer named Paul Heyman to try his hand at becoming the club’s promoter on the much coveted Friday nights.

One of Heyman’s big ideas to attract business for Studio 54, was put together a party that combined music, dancing and of course….professional wrestling. In the summer of 1985, pro wrestling was a very hot commodity with the emergence of the WWF and Hulkamania. Just a few months removed from the very first Wrestlemania, which saw all the stars come out to watch…was very reminiscent of the old Studio 54 heyday. Heyman wanted to capitalize on this and used his connections in the wrestling business (being a photographer at Madison Square Garden) to incorporate wrestling and music in a nightclub setting. The event was to be called Wrestle Party ’85 and took place on Friday August 23, 1985.

Heyman reached out to Vince McMahon to get the biggest star in all of wrestling…Hulk Hogan to appear at his event and receive a ‘Man of the Year’ award. Having a bonafide star like Hogan would certainly bring people in droves to his event. Unfortunately for Heyman, the WWF was on the west coast during this time and could not commit Hogan or any other one of its stars. So, Heyman did the next best thing and reached out to NWA promoter Jim Crockett Jr. The NWA was in the nearby area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for a show….so Heyman was able to convince Crockett to lend him some of the NWA’s top talent including Dusty Rhodes, Magnum TA and ‘Nature Boy’ Ric Flair. It would be Flair who would replace Hulk Hogan and receive the fictitious Man of the Year award for 1985.

Heyman booked the musical act of Otis Day and the Knights to perform. The band was famous for their appearance in the 1978 movie ‘Animal House’ and their songs ‘Shout’ and ‘Shama Lama Ding Dong.’ As for the pro wrestling aspect of Wrestle Party ’85…Flair, Magnum TA and Dusty Rhodes did not compete in the ring. Instead, Heyman reached out to a wrestling school in nearby New Jersey called ‘The Monster Factory’ run by former wrestler and now trainer “Pretty Boy” Larry Sharpe. Sharpe provided the talent to actually wrestle for the event.

One of which, was his top student…a wrestler named Bam Bam Bigelow. This would be Bam Bam’s first ever official wrestling match. According to Bam Bam in a shoot interview, he wrestled a gauntlet match that night against five other of Sharpe’s students.

Also in attendance was Guardian Angel and wrestler in training Lisa Sliwa and aspiring actor Christopher Meloni who worked Studio 54 as a bartender/bouncer years before hitting it big on the TV show Law & Order: SVU and OZ.

From all accounts, it doesn’t appear that there is any actual video footage of Wrestle Party ’85…just photographs. In any case, this was Paul Heyman’s initiation into the world of professional wrestling as a promoter. He would learn the art of booking by sneaking into meetings that involved Dusty Rhodes and also sat under ‘Hot Stuff’ Eddie Gilbert’s learning tree.