Note: Here is some required Shea summer reading/watching while Kingman is off on summer holiday...
Baseball. Football. Boxing. Billy Graham Crusades. Spider Man's wedding. Shea Stadium has seen it all.
Of course, that includes professional wrestling.
Shea Stadium hosted three major WWF matches between 1972 - and 1980.
At the 1976 event, Andre the Giant squared off against boxer
Chuck Wepner, the inspiration for the Rocky
movies. Also during the same match from Tokyo, Muhammad Ali, the reigning boxing heavyweight champion of the
world, took on Antnio Inoki, Japan's top wrestler. The bout was shown
on closed circuit TV to the Shea wrestling faithful and across the
country.
The big "Wrestling Spectacular" happened August 9, 1980 at Shea Stadium. Among the highlights: Andre the Giant went up against the undefeated necomer Hulk Hogan. And Living Legend Bruno Sammartino defeated Larry Zbyszko. Here's some footage of that match.
And here is the TV promo for the Spectacular. Hulk Hogan was still perfecting his act:
