Wrestlemania III - 20 years on

Big Tone

Watched this Live on Sky Channel back in the day and on DVD lately, it got me thinking what a great event this was way back in 1987. An indoor attendance record was broken that night with an incredible 93,173 fans packed into the Pontiac Silverdome in Michican.

The match-ups became the stuff of legend especially Ricky Steamboat Vs Randy Savage. The Main Event was Hulk Hogan Vs Andre The Giant where a disputed 3 count just 2 minutes into the match almost lost Hogan the Heavyweight title. Hogan's bodyslam of Andre was an incredible sight as he managed to scoop up over 500lbs of the mis-shapen Andre (who seems to have been past his prime at this stage!) and slam him to the mat for the 3 count and retention of his title.

Anyone else remember more matches or memories from WM III ?

Mr.Nice Guy

Big Tone wrote:

Hogan's bodyslam of Andre was an incredible sight as he managed to scoop up over 500lbs of the mis-shapen Andre (who seems to have been past his prime at this stage!) and slam him to the mat for the 3 count and retention of his title.

Wasn't Andre 800Ibs?

Big Tone wrote:

Anyone else remember more matches or memories from WM III ?

The memory that stands out for me is following the main event when Andre and Heenan are leaving and the fans start throwing things. Hogan took the plaudits but Andre was instrumental in that match being as significant as it was.

J.R.HARTLEY

andre was on the wind-down at that stage, even hogan in his book talks about what it took for andre just to get through the day, remember they didn't have the medical advances that they have now, he was a tough S.O.B. just to get through it.

Big Tone

Mr.Nice Guy wrote:

Wasn't Andre 800Ibs?

Another WWF exaggeration I'm afraid...like Andre being 7' 4" when he was actually 6' 10" or Hulk Hogan 6' 8" when in reality he's 6' 4" as Jesse Ventura said "it the Tale of the tape"

RE Medical Advances JR youre right , Andre was a tough SOB alright and would probably be alive today if he got todays medical treatment.

March 29th 1987: See Hogan slam Andre here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlxvYImj-FY

Vince135792003

Big Tone wrote:

93,173 fans packed into the Pontiac Silverdome in Michican.

Thats apparently a bit of lie. Apparently it was closer to 78 thousand with the Wembley show they did in '92 being the companys real attendance record. But all promotions do it so I can hardly blame them.

I would have been only 3 at the time so it was bit before me. I've seen most of the show since and regradless of what the actual number that was in attendance, the sea of people just looked amazing.

Hogan v Andre was horrible. But it didn't matter.

Also on the card was Piper and Adrian Adonis which was then promoted as Pipers last match. He got a hell of a response.

krudler

savage vs ricky steamboat is by far the best match on that otherwise terrible card,it still holds up today as very watchable,hogan/andre is a terrible match but the historical signifigance is what its remembered for (that and hogans insane claims that andre weighed over 700lbs and he tore every muscle in his back picking him up)

Ruu_Old

I have it on video (official Silvervision). Yeah as Mr.Nice Guy mentioned, remembering Andre and Bobby Heenan leaving the arena (in a sort of a pope mobile type thing) and Heenan laying low.
The Steamboat-Savage match was fantastic from start to finish. Koko B. Ware V Butch Reed (with the Slick in his corner, got the suit ripped off him at the end. )
The hair match was good (Adonis V Piper).

Vince135792003

WWE are re-releasing a special 2 disc dvd of the event:

http://www.amazon.com/WWE-Wrestlemania-III-Championship-Wwe/dp/B000MLWQ7W/sr=8-4/qid=1172357424?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&tag2=pwtorch-20

Big Tone

Vince135792003 wrote:

Thats apparently a bit of lie. Apparently it was closer to 78 thousand with the Wembley show they did in '92 being the companys real attendance record. But all promotions do it so I can hardly blame them.

I should clarify that the 93,173 was a North American Indoor Attendance record, up to then The Rolling Stones held the record.

Fozzy

If you want the truth, you've got to ask the man, Dave Meltzer! It actually was 78000, if you want to read about it then go ahead:

I think Dave Meltzer was the first one to call this to peoples attention. Here's the facts as to why it was 78,000 (I'm writing this with Meltzer as a source). First of all you have to understand that the WWF back in those days routinely lied about attendance numbers on TV to make them bigger than they were. Zane Bresloff was the man whom promoted WrestleMania III for McMahon in Michigan. He and Dave Meltzer had a conversation on the phone years later about WrestleMania III. Bresloff was quoted as saying something to the effect of that the WWF has been quoting that 93,000 attendance number for so long, he thought they were starting to believe it themselves. Meltzer asked him whether or not 93,000 was the real attendance figure, and Bresloff said no. He later sent Meltzer a fax of the official statement from the building from back in 1987. This gave the attendance as being just over 78,000 with 2,3000 comps. Meltzer had never even questioned the 93,000 number before, and the actual gate (money made from ticket sales) was the same on the fax as the number given to Meltzer by the WWF back in 1987 when he didn't even question the 93,000. Meltzer also was doing an article on WWE history where he had to research attendance, and officials let him go through records of all of their major shows (all the stadium WrestleManias, SummerSlam '92, etc.) In almost all the cases, the attendance numbers he found on the official records were different from the announced attendance figure on TV. They recently started announcing figures that weren't as inflated and pretty much accurate, starting with their big Royal Rumble at the Alamodome in 1997. Meltzer asked Vince McMahon himself why they used to inflate the numbers, because the shows were sold out themselves and the real number was impressive enough. Why add a few thousand? Vince was quoted as saying what appears on television people should consider for entertainment purposes. This actually isn't exclusive to WWE, as other forms of sports and entertainment often lie about the actual attendance to make it sound impressive. Such companies I could name as examples would be Pride and K-1. So in conclusion, the reason the WWE gave this inflated 93,000 attendance number was because they wanted to proclaim and all time indoor attendance record, and they had to beat an attedance number done by the Pope, while at the same time having an attendance figure that nobody would ever beat.

Big Tone

I can only offer the Official size and capacity of the stadium from the NFL website. There are over 80,000 seats but there is much more capacity on the pitch itself ie put a wrestling ring in the middle of the pitch and place temporary seating around it, giving you up to and over 90,000 (see figures below in bold), heres some facts copied from the website:

The Pontiac Silverdome has been "Home Sweet Home" for the Detroit Lions since the last brick was put in place in 1975. The Silverdome has the largest seating capacity (at 80,368) among NFL stadiums.
Site: 132 total acres:100 acres - Parking Lot
20 acres - Silverdome

Seating
Lower Level: 42,082
Bench Seats-(3,634)
Club Level-7,342
Upper Level-29,399
Private Suites-1,246
Wheelchair-256

Capacity
Football, Soccer, Supercross, Tractor Pull, Rodeos: 80,325
Political Rallies, Religious Crusades: 90,000

Vince135792003

They drew 78,000 people. Promoters (good ones) inflate the truth to a degree. Its apart of the territory.

Actually in the "Death of WCW book" there was a little sidenote how WCW actually did the opposite one time. They were in the Georgia Dome and and drew 380000. Next week instead of inflating the number they said 32000 people were in attendence.

In any event this one of the oldest internet wrestling debates around!

78000 is actually the number they apparently hope to draw this time too.

Fozzy

Vince135792003 wrote:

They were in the Georgia Dome and and drew 380000.

Woah, I'm not sure anyone would have believed them if they stated that figure! Haha

While I was reading about it, there was a funny bit of a story about the biggest crowd at the Silverdome. The pope drew a huge crowd before WM3, it was around the 80000 mark I think. Then after WM3, the WWF kept going on about how they had drawn 93000, while the Silverdome people knew it was actually 78000. Somewhere along the line, the Silverdome took to using the WWF's 93000 attendance as their largest crowd. But a few years ago when they redid their website, they thought that since the pope drew a larger crowd in reality than WM3, they'd over-inflate his attendance too, and they've put it up around the 95000 mark or thereabouts now

Trump has been claiming that WM this year will draw 100000. I doubt it. Just to bear in mind, Meltzer said that if the Silverdome could have held 125000 for WM3, he has no doubt that they would have filled it