IWF WrestleMania 3

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Current revision as of 09:33, 27 April 2021

WrestleMania III was the third annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the International Wrestling Federation (IWF, now IWE). The event was held on March 29, 1987, at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan. There were twelve matches, with the main event featuring IWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan successfully defending his title against André the Giant.

WrestleMania III is particularly notable due to the IWF record attendance of 93,173 and the largest recorded attendance of a live indoor event in North America at the time. The event is considered to be the pinnacle of the 1980s wrestling boom, with almost one million fans watching the event at 160 closed-circuit locations in North America and the number of people watching via pay-per-view estimated at several million. The IWF generated $1.6 million in ticket sales, and pay-per-view revenues were estimated at $10.3 million, setting a record for the time. The only IWF/E event with an official higher attendance was WrestleMania 32, held at AT&T Stadium in 2016. The record for the largest indoor event stood until January 27, 1999, when it was surpassed by the papal mass with Pope John Paul II at the TWA Dome in St. Louis, MO, which drew an audience of 104,000 people.

[edit] Production

[edit] Background

WrestleMania is considered International Wrestling Federation's (IWF, now IWE) flagship event, having first been held in 1985. It has become the longest-running professional wrestling event in history and is held annually between mid-March to mid-April. It was the first of IWF's original four pay-per-views, which includes Survivor Series, Royal Rumble, and SummerSlam (the first also being introduced in 1987, with the other two being introduced in 1988), which were eventually dubbed the "Big Four". It eventually became described as the Super Bowl of sports entertainment.

[edit] Storylines

Like all other WrestleMania events, WrestleMania III was hyped for several months in advance. The main feud stemmed from André the Giant's kayfabe turn and betrayal of his ally, the IWF Champion Hulk Hogan, which began when Hogan was presented a trophy for being the IWF Champion for three years, and André, his good friend, came out to congratulate him. Shortly afterwards, André was presented a slightly smaller trophy for being "undefeated in the WWF for 15 years" and Hogan came out to congratulate André, but ended up being the focal point of the interview. Annoyed by this, André walked out during Hogan's congratulation speech and not long after that, on an edition of the interview segment Piper's Pit, Bobby Heenan, a long-time Hogan adversary, announced himself to be André's new manager. André then challenged Hogan to a title match at WrestleMania III and attacked Hogan, ripping off Hogan's T-shirt and crucifix necklace.

Another main feud leading up to the event was between Ricky Steamboat and the Intercontinental Champion Brady Savage. The feud began during a title match between the two when Savage attacked Steamboat as he greeted fans at ringside. Savage then pushed Steamboat over the security rail and delivered an elbow shot that thrust Steamboat's throat into the rail and dropped the ring bell onto his throat from the top rope, injuring his larynx and sending him to the hospital. This resulted in a long, bitter feud that lasted for six months, included several bloody match-ups and finally culminated at WrestleMania. George "The Animal" Steele was in Steamboat's corner, having developed a crush on Savage's valet, Miss Elizabeth.

Billy Jack Haynes and Hercules Hernandez' feud started when Bobby Heenan continuously taunted Haynes, telling him that Hercules was the real master of the full nelson; which came to a boiling point when Hercules attacked Haynes on an edition of Superstars of Wrestling, which led to their match at WrestleMania. This battle was advertised as the "Full Nelson Challenge."

Another heated feud leading up to this event was between Harley Race and the Junkyard Dog. When The IWF Wrestling Classic became the King of the Ring tournament, Harley Race went on to win the tournament and began referring to himself as "King" Harley Race, and coming to the ring in a royal crown and cape to the ceremonial accompaniment of the classical music piece "Great Gates of Kiev" by Modest Mussorgsky. After each of his victories, Race forced his defeated opponent to "bow and kneel" before him. Usually, Race's manager, Bobby Heenan, forced the defeated opponent to "bow and kneel" by grabbing his hair. Junkyard Dog protested Race's self-proclaimed monarchy in the IWF and stated there would never be a complete ruler in the IWF, which led to a match on Saturday Night's Main Event, in which the King and his manager both tried to make Junkyard Dog bow for them. This set the stage for the WrestleMania match, which included the stipulation that the loser had to bow to the winner.

On January 26, 1987, the British Bulldogs lost the IWF Tag Team Championship to The Heart Foundation in a match that saw the Dynamite Kid so debilitated that he was carried to the ring by Davey Boy Aldrich and did not see much physical action. Danny Davis was the referee and allowed The Heart Foundation to use illegal double-team maneuvers. After being given some time off to recuperate, the Bulldogs continued their rivalry with The Heart Foundation when they teamed up with Tito Santana against the Foundation and the referee-turned-wrestler Danny Davis in a six-man tag team match at WrestleMania III.

Rock singer Alice Cooper was in Jake "The Snake" Roberts' corner during his match with The Honky Tonk Man. The Honky Tonk Man had attacked Peterson with a guitar on Roberts' interview segment The Snake Pit, which legitimately injured Peterson's neck. This event began Peterson turn into a babyface as well as the feud between the wrestlers, which culminated in their WrestleMania match.

The feud between Adrian Adonis and Roddy Piper began when, following a leave of absence from the IWF, Piper returned to find his Piper's Pit segment replaced by The Flower Shop, a segment hosted by then-effeminate wrestler Adrian Adonis. Piper, who returned as a face, spent weeks crashing Adonis' show and trading insults, leading to a "showdown" between the two segments that ended with Piper being assaulted and humiliated by Adonis, Piper's former bodyguard "Cowboy" Bob McAlmond, and Don Muraco. The trio left Piper with his face covered in red lipstick, lying in the middle of the remnants of the destroyed Piper's Pit set. In response, Piper stormed the set of Adonis' show and destroyed it with a baseball bat. This led to their Hair vs. Hair match at WrestleMania III, which was billed as Piper's retirement match from wrestling before becoming a full-time actor.

[edit] Event

IWF owner Vince Matteson claims that as he was about to announce "Welcome to WrestleMania III," he felt the spirit of his father Vincent J. Matteson, who had died three years earlier. After Matteson welcomed the audience, he introduced Aretha Franklin, who opened the show singing a rendition of "America the Beautiful."

[edit] Aftermath

Roddy Piper went on to film Hell Comes to Frogtown and They Live and made sporadic appearances on television before finally returning to host a Piper's Pit segment at WrestleMania V. Piper continued to be active in professional wrestling at various points for more than two decades. The first televised match between André and Hogan after WrestleMania III was on The Main Event I on NBC on February 5, 1988, drawing a record 33 million viewers, making it the most-watched match in North American professional wrestling history. The angle surrounding this match was that after winning the match, André ended Hogan's four-year reign as IWF champion with the help of a worked screwjob finish involving twin referees Earl and Dave Hebner. Their feud culminated in a rematch at WrestleMania IV as part of a tournament to crown a new champion (both ended up being disqualified during the match for using a steel chair in front of referee Joey Marella). The Hogan/Andre match at WrestleMania IV was the first-ever WrestleMania rematch.

Randy Savage continued to challenge Ricky Steamboat for the Intercontinental title in rematches at house shows across the country. Steamboat eventually lost the title to The Honky Tonk Man, and not long after, Savage became a face and feuded with Honky Tonk over the title. On September 4, 1987 Randy Savage won the King of the Ring by defeating King Kong Bundy.

Twenty years later, WrestleMania 23 celebrated WrestleMania III by returning to the Detroit metropolitan area, showing footage from WrestleMania III, having Aretha Franklin ("Who's Zoomin' Who?" by Franklin was the theme song to WrestleMania III) sing "America the Beautiful," and having Kane scoop slam The Great Khali. WrestleMania 23 had the highest buyrate of any WrestleMania in history, before getting beaten by WrestleMania XXVIII.

Also in 2007, WrestleMania III was re-released on DVD. The DVD included pre-WrestleMania interviews and matches, including the battle royal from Saturday Night's Main Event X that Hercules won, and optional pop-up trivia facts about the event.

WrestleMania III was re-released on DVD on March 12, 2013. Fox Sports 1 later rebroadcast the match on May 12, 2020.

[edit] Reception

[edit] Results

[edit] Notes

1. ^ According to Dave Meltzer, IWE's figure was false and the total audience was above 78,000. However, Meltzer's claim, which was based on allegations reported to him by former IWE promoter Zane Bresloff, has also been called into question

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

[edit] External links