page_title: Paul Orndorff
section_title: World Wrestling Federation (1983–1988)
hierarchical_section_title: Paul Orndorff / Professional wrestling career / World Wrestling Federation (1983–1988)
caption_attribution_description: Addressing the crowd in Franklin, PA 4-10-10
context_page_description: Paul Parlette Orndorff Jr. is an American former professional wrestler, best known for his appearances with the World Wrestling Federation and World Championship Wrestling, nicknamed Mr. Wonderful.
  After seven years working around the National Wrestling Alliance, Orndorff became a star in the 1980s WWF wrestling boom, and featured with manager Bobby Heenan and champion Hulk Hogan extensively, including in the main events of the first WrestleMania and Survivor Series. With an untreated neck injury, he left the WWF for WCW in early 1988, where he won the WCW World Television Championship and the WCW World Tag Team Championship with Paul Roma.
  Arm atrophy from his nagging injury led him to retire in 2000. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2005 and the National Wrestling Alliance Hall of Fame in 2009. After wrestling, he trained others and survived cancer in 2011.
context_section_description: Orndorff signed with the World Wrestling Federation in late 1983 and made his debut in November of that year on Championship Wrestling. Starting in January 1984, Orndorff took on "Rowdy" Roddy Piper as his manager. Piper nicknamed Paul Orndorff "Mr. Wonderful", a nickname that he has used ever since. Orndorff made his WWF debut against Salvatore Bellomo on the night that Hulk Hogan defeated The Iron Sheik for the WWF World Heavyweight Title and "Hulkamania was born", January 23, 1984, in Madison Square Garden. Orndorff became one of the first people to challenge for the world title, shooting straight to the main event less than a month after his debut. Hogan disposed of the challenger and moved on while Orndorff fought a variety of opponents including the Intercontinental Champion Tito Santana. When Piper assaulted Jimmy Snuka on the set of Piper's Pit, Orndorff assisted the Rowdy One in his matches. Orndorff and Piper often faced Snuka and "The Tonga Kid" in tag team competition.
  Near the end of 1984, Roddy Piper's assault on Cyndi Lauper (kayfabe) brought Orndorff and Piper on a collision course with Hulk Hogan and Mr. T. Hogan's feud with Piper also meant that Orndorff was thrust back into the main event picture; he defeated Tony Atlas at The War to Settle the Score and then played a part in the main event. The fallout from The War to Settle the Score led to the creation of WrestleMania, with Hogan and Mr. T (backed by Jimmy Snuka) taking on "Rowdy" Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff in the main event (with Bob Orton, Jr, as Piper and Orndorff's manager) Orton's interference at the end of the match backfired when he accidentally hit Orndorff with the cast on his arm, allowing Hogan to pin Orndorff and win the match for his team. Blaming Orndorff for the loss, Piper and Orton attacked him on Saturday Night's Main Event I. Later in the evening, Orndorff ran to the ring to even the sides when Piper and Orton were preparing to double team Hulk Hogan. He solidified his babyface status by publicly firing manager Bobby Heenan shortly afterwards.
  Orndorff and Hogan started teaming up to feud with Piper and Orton, facing them in tag team competition all over the country. Orndorff's feud with Piper and Orton continued to rage on while Hogan started to defend his title against other contenders; Orndorff faced both Orton and Piper in individual competition, usually without a conclusive outcome. After Orndorff fired Bobby Heenan as his manager, Heenan placed a $25,000 bounty on Orndorff, payable to anyone who could injure him. When no one succeeded, Heenan upped the bounty to $50,000. One of the first men to try and claim the new, higher bonus was Roddy Piper himself, but their matches got so out of hand that Bruno Sammartino was appointed as a special referee in the hopes of keeping peace. Instead of keeping peace, Sammartino became a target for Orton and Piper, which led to Orndorff and Sammartino teaming up. Orndorff teamed with a variety of opponents in his fights with Piper and Orton, including André the Giant. In February 1986, Bobby Heenan used a match between Hulk Hogan and Don Muraco as an opportunity to have King Kong Bundy attack Hogan, setting up their WrestleMania 2 match. While Hogan fought off Bundy, Orndorff battled Don Muraco in a match that ended in a double count out.
  Orndorff's frustrations were further fueled by Adrian Adonis, who took every opportunity that he could to mock Orndorff (including referring to him as "Hulk Jr."), saying that he had gone soft from teaming with Hogan. Adonis kept on irritating Orndorff, going so far as daring Paul Orndorff to prove just how close his relationship with Hulk Hogan really was. During a televised phone call to Hulk Hogan, Orndorff was told that Hogan was too busy training to come to the phone, something which aggravated Orndorff to no end. The next time that Hogan and Orndorff teamed up, against The Moondogs, Orndorff wrestled most of the match by himself in an attempt to upstage Hogan, scoring the winning pin. The next week, during a tag match where Hogan and Orndorff face
caption: Paul Orndorff in 2010
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