Remembering WM3

jaykhunter

What was the actual attendance at WrestleMania 3 at the Pontiac Silverdome?

gimmick

About 100 million according to WWE anyway.

Charisteas

Unless there is enough evidence to suggest otherwise, then you can't argue against 93,173.

drayme

Charisteas wrote: »

Unless there is enough evidence to suggest otherwise, then you can't argue against 93,173.

You can it was around 78,000

Charisteas

drayme wrote: »

You can it was around 78,000

Says who?

drayme

Charisteas wrote: »

Says who?

Zane Bresloff the promoter of the event.

93,173 was a kayfabe number WWF made up so it could beat the attendance figure set by the Pope and the Rolling Stones.

jaykhunter

drayme wrote: »

You can it was around 78,000 - says Zane Bresloff, the promoter of the event. 93,173 was a kayfabe number WWF made up so it could beat the attendance figure set by the Pope and the Rolling Stones.

That's exactly right. Been sleuthing this morning on it; i needed to ask here before leaving my findings. Here's a pretty end-of discussion piece!!

OK so here's a recount by WrestleView's co-webmaster Ryan Droste; of when Dave Meltzer, when compiling wrestlemania numbers, spoke to and received documents from the promoter of WM3 (Zane Bresloff) that the number was in fact 78,000.

OK....this has been debated for so many years, but the number is definitely 78,000. 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.

Source

parker kent

No the attendance was 100 million. Andre was 8 feet 7 inches tall and Hogan bodyslammed him to Australia and back.

rossie1977

drayme wrote: »

Zane Bresloff the promoter of the event.

93,173 was a kayfabe number WWF made up so it could beat the attendance figure set by the Pope and the Rolling Stones.

except the pope got more (93,682) and that event happened 6 months after the mania 3, September 18, 1987

superbowl 16 in the same venue 4 years earlier had 81,270 with nobody on the field

jaykhunter

The Pope's number is also a work, made up by the Silverdome people to seem most impressive. Vince himself (in the WM book) said the Pope got 88,000. (lol!)

Thought this was a hoot -
Silvervision Preservation Society

"for 25 years the Pontiac Silverdome hosted the Lions, the Bad Boys, the King, the Pope, the Stones, the Nuge, the Hulkster and anyone else big enough to pack 80,000 people under a fiberglass roof."

Another point to consider is that Vince announced the figure DURING the show; but a final tally of tickets (this is 1986, remember) wouldn't be known until days - if not weeks afterwards.

Also, Vince is full of sh!t and is a multi-millionaire by exaggerating everything - heights, weights, emotions, conflict etc. WrestleMania 3 was marketed as Hogan's first match with Andre; despite them having wrestled each other in a singles match IN THE WWF in 1980 in Shea Stadium! (history repeated itself this year with First Time Ever at Mania HHH/Taker)

I'd take independent reporter over ruthless promoter for this kind of thing any day.

rossie1977

jaykhunter wrote: »

The Pope's number is also a work, made up by the Silverdome people to seem most impressive. Vince himself (in the WM book) said the Pope got 88,000. (lol!)

Do you think you can legally put 12,000 into the space of a football field?

i didn't say i thought the 93k number was legit, whether the pope number was a work or not dave never even bothered to look back and see that the pope appeared a long time after the mania number was announced, i would say the real number given that the seating capacity in 1987 was 82,500 and there was no titantron to block seats (like at manias today) was probably low to mid 80k



anyway its a complete moot point, what isn't is the fact andre and hogan was massive draw in 1987-88 the likes of which we will never see again most likely, 33 million tuned in to see the rematch of andre and hogan at snme in 1988

jaykhunter

rossie1977 wrote: »

except the pope got more (93,682)

rossie1977 wrote: »

i didn't say i thought the 93k number was legit

:eek:...:P

Anyway, yeah WM3 is considered to be the pinnacle of the 'hulkamania era' (WM6 for me) I don't see why Vince has to lie about such an impressive number.

It's not a moot point, it's one of the most well-known "facts" in wrestling. I brought it up to dispel the myth; and also a lesson in how powerful the effect of WWE repeatedly ramming ideas down our throats.

Charisteas

jaykhunter wrote: »

OK so here's a recount by WrestleView's co-webmaster Ryan Droste; of when Dave Meltzer, when compiling wrestlemania numbers, spoke to and received documents from the promoter of WM3 (Zane Bresloff) that the number was in fact 78,000.

Ryan Droste wrote:

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.

jaykhunter wrote: »

I'd take independent reporter over ruthless promoter for this kind of thing any day.

If Bresloff says he has an official document from the Pontiac Silverdome stadium saying that the attendance was 78,000, then how come the official website of the Silverdome gives the same figure as WWE do; 93,173.

http://silverdomeevents.com/about-us/history.html

Sounds like Bresloff has been telling porkies, not Vince!

jaykhunter

Nevermind that Bresloff has the documents to prove it (lol) but how likely is it that the Bresloff would undersell the attendance? Why would he do such a thing!

The capacity of the Silverdome (check wikipedia or that site u mentioned) is just over 80,000. It's hard to think that the Pope and the WWF added over 10-13,000 more - Surely such a thing would be a safety hazard.

i reckon Silverdome just left the worked numbers as is to seem more impressive?

Charisteas

Even if Silverdome were to fax official documents to a journalist (not sure why they would) then wouldn't they have just faxed him the 93k figure, regardless of whether or not it's a legit number?

Has Bresloff uploaded said documents online? Maybe send Meltzer an e-mail and ask for the document!

I can believe that 10,000 were seated on the field of the stadium. Heck, this week I saw 40,000 people squeezed into College Green

jaykhunter

well it's Bresloff (not the silverdome) giving meltzer the docs if that makes sense! I bet if he rang up the Silverdome he'd get 93,000! I'd imagine in WWE as well they have a "real" and a "fake" record of events/gates/receipts. Sure one of the reasons why Bruno Sammartino fell out with Vince Sr is because he found out he was being screwed on gate percentages!

a lot of companies fudge the numbers to seem more impressive. LOL yeah about College Green, i was pretty much sequestered in my appartment! i'm quite satisfied with meltzer's account of 78,000. I can't believe a number would be inflated so much! what would bresloff have to gain by reducing the figure! now that would be a mystery!

I think WCW did it once. I can't remember it but their worked number was 1,000 fans lower than the real one (it was in the Death of WCW book)

drayme

There is reason that this topic has been locked for editing on wikipedia due to these types of arguments. :P

- Wade Keller used the 78,000 way before Meltzer as he knew Zane before Meltzer

- Some others say Zane had a vendetta against WWE by the time he spoke to Meltzer

- As jaykhunter the football capacity is 80,000. There were loads more seats on the floor for the WM3 confrigoration and the stands seemed nearly completely full each side of the area






- rossie1977 Meltzer has said that the Pope actually drew (brother) 80,000

- This guy makes the case for 93k http://bleacherreport.com/articles/69939-the-93173-debatemy-take

jaykhunter

the author puts forward a very cogent argument!

Wnat's this about a vendetta like i can't grasp why someone would work a figure lower than the actual one...

that 2nd picture, do u think there's 15,0000+ surrounding the ring?

drayme

jaykhunter wrote: »

Wnat's this about a vendetta

He was working for WCW by that point. He "jumped" in the mid 1990s like a wrestler would.

Just background for others on here Zane Bresloff was a live event whiz who worked for WWF in the 80s-mid 90s then jumped to WCW. He helped broker lots of exclusive arena deals that would block WCW from promoting in those arenas. When he went to WCW he got those deal scrapped and had tremendous success in promoting WCW to youths and college crowd making the product hip. He was also a wheeler dealer who secretly promoted the first UFC without WWF knowing.

Dancor

drayme wrote: »

He was also a wheeler dealer who secretly promoted the first UFC without WWF knowing.

You are not suggesting that there could be a link between early MMA and pro-wrestling are you! :eek:


:pac:

Charisteas

jaykhunter wrote: »

that 2nd picture, do u think there's 15,0000+ surrounding the ring?

Well as Rossie said, the stadium had approx 82,500 bleacher seats in 1987, so there would be closer to 10,500 pitch surface seats rather than 15,000 on the field.

There looks to be 18 blocks of seating on the two sides of the floor, and it's pretty hard to see, but it looks like approx 30 rows in each block, with about 15 seats per each row. So lets say 450 people to each block, multiply by 18 would give about 8000, with approx 2000 in the huge block around the ring.

Maybe i'm way off here!!

Charisteas

Drayme yesterday you said 78,000 and now today your putting forward arguments for the 93k number :D

I guess the real answer is that we will never know the real number, but certainly more evidence points to 93k rather than 78k

drayme

Charisteas wrote: »

Drayme yesterday you said 78,000 and now today your putting forward arguments for the 93k number :D

I guess the real answer is that we will never know the real number, but certainly more evidence points to 93k rather than 78k

Like I said before it is/was a major debate on the net.

thebostoncrab

Because what promoter in their right mind would go with the smaller number, even if it the correct one?

The fake number sounds alot better and is in enough peoples minds that they will believe it. It's not the first time wrestling numbers have been lied about, Japan is really bad for it. The recent NJPW pulled a few hundred fans, but the company told their home crowds and press that a few thousand people were at the shows each night.

jaykhunter

If I'm presented with two numbers, and the larger one Hogan is touting, I'm taking the less impressive one, brother!

Anyway, WWF/E's largest uncontested audience is in the UK, SummerSlam 92 at Wembley Stadium (80,355). Absolutely criminal they haven't done something like this since; even if it was on a smaller scale. I'm not asking for WrestleMania, just another SummerSlam......2012 would be great

citytillidie

No way would they hold a PPV in the UK because of the time difference

jaykhunter

citytillidie wrote: »

No way would they hold a PPV in the UK because of the time difference

Do you think the results being out for a few hours earlier would impact the general PPV-buying audience? Like what amount of the PPV audience will go on the net, see the results, and then not buy the PPV? See, I think if the hype is good, most Americans won't actually cop that the PPV won't be live! Does anyone ever go "hang on, where is this PPV being held?" :pac:

Like have the PPV start at 7pm GMT, that's 11am in California.Worst comes to worse they could air it live at 11am and again at the usual PPV time (5pm in California)

davrho

"He later sent Meltzer a fax of the official statement from the building from back in 1987. "

Well let us all see it then.

If you have signed, official documentation why would you hold it back?

jaykhunter

davrho wrote: »

"He later sent Meltzer a fax of the official statement from the building from back in 1987. " Well let us all see it then. If you have signed, official documentation why would you hold it back?

feel free to e-mail Meltzer i doubt even seeing the fax, anyone believing it to be 93k would change their mind! Much like EVERYTHING in the dirtsheets; the only thing proof-positive in wrestling is the match results......on videotape!

drayme

jaykhunter wrote: »

feel free to e-mail Meltzer i doubt even seeing the fax, anyone believing it to be 93k would change their mind! Much like EVERYTHING in the dirtsheets; the only thing proof-positive in wrestling is the match results......on videotape!

*facepalm*

jaykhunter

...

thebostoncrab

jaykhunter wrote: »

...

I honestly couldn't have said it better

rovert

BUMP!



Does this change things?

Charisteas

Not for me, i'm a 93,173 guy.

rovert

It looks like 931,730

rossie1977

if dallas gets mania 29 (and its one of the three cities in the running along with toronto and for some unknown reason st louis) wrestlemania 3 attendance record kayfabe or not will be smashed should they fill that arena which is 111,000 capacity

jaykhunter

that's a fúcking amazing pic.

Charisteas

rossie1977 wrote: »

if dallas gets mania 29 (and its one of the three cities in the running along with toronto and for some unknown reason st louis) wrestlemania 3 attendance record kayfabe or not will be smashed should they fill that arena which is 111,000 capacity

Would they sell out 111,000 tickets though?

DM_7

Charisteas wrote: »

Would they sell out 111,000 tickets though?

Did they sell out this years tickets?

Charisteas

DM-ICE wrote: »

Did they sell out this years tickets?

I don't think so, but it wasn't far off.

The attendance for WM27 was 71,617 and the capacity listed for football is 71,228 but obviously the football capacity is without all the seats on the field.

steelcityblues

Whatever the attendance figure, it must have been a real bummer for the guys to go wrestling here, then to Trump's little casino for the next two years.

rossie1977

DM-ICE wrote: »

Did they sell out this years tickets?

well there was no tickets on general sale for mania 27 in early march http://www.letstalkwrestling.com/2011/03/tickets-for-wrestlemania-27-sold-out.html

Machismo Fan

jaykhunter wrote: »

that's a fúcking amazing pic.

Unfortunately it came from HulkHogan.com so it's more than likely been Photoshopped to include 100,000 extra people.

GTR63

Machismo Fan wrote: »

Unfortunately it came from HulkHogan.com so it's more than likely been Photoshopped to include 100,000 extra people.

thats almost as much work as Linda Hogan has got done.

Charisteas

jaykhunter wrote: »

that's a fúcking amazing pic.

Has it swerved you from a 78,000 guy to a 93,000 guy?!

jaykhunter

ha, good one rich mate - u know how trusting i am about anything WWE say as "fact"

Charisteas

jaykhunter wrote: »

ha, good one rich mate - u know how trusting i am about anything WWE say as "fact"

It's not to late to join the 93,000 club Jay, room for one more! One of us, one of us, one of us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y_KNYNzN6A

rovert

Bit of a bump but given the week that is in it what the hell.

Dave Meltzer on the Legacy of Wrestlemania 3:
http://bostongardenbalcony.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/transcript-of-my-wrestlemania-iii-interview-with-the-observers-dave-meltzer/

An extract covering everyone's favorite the attendance figure:

Wallask: Finally, last question here. They often mention the attendance of WrestleMania III was 93,173 and they’ve really hammered that number for years. However you reported in the Observer many years back, that the real attendance was closer to 78,000 or so. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Meltzer: Sure. I remember — it’s funny, because at that time in ’87, I was getting all the gates of all the WWF shows from WWE. And they would say like, “Blah, blah, blah, blah” and they gave me the gate of $1,599,000. And I said, “What was the real attendance?” And I just remember it’s funny because they just said there were 2,300 freebies. But I was never actually told 93,173, and it was sort of like, well, what was the real number. And just kind of the subject was changed. So, I just figured 93,173 was probably the real number. Nobody else had ever questioned it. It wasn’t like anybody came up with a, you know — like now, now every year at WrestleMania they announce a number and six weeks later I get the real number, and it’s 8,000, 10,000, 12,000 different. They make up the number to have the record for the building, even though usually they don’t have the record for the building because they got the big stage. For a football game, you actually can get more people for a football game than you can for a WrestleMania, than if you have a Final Four or something like that at some of these indoor stadiums, where you don’t have the big screens or anything. You draw out far, far more people.

So, the point is, yeah, at that time I didn’t know and it really wasn’t until, God, I don’t know seven or eight years later that I remember this. There had been, and I don’t know if it was E! or somebody who did a True Hollywood Story on Hulk Hogan. And Hogan was out there talking about 93,000, and I got a phone call while I’m watching the show from Zane Bresloff, who promoted that show. And he just goes — and he and Hogan are tight, they were good friends — and he just goes, “God, Hogan probably really believes that number.” And I go, “Isn’t that the real number?” And he goes, “No, of course not!” Because when I was getting numbers from WWE, the numbers, even for the indoor WrestleManias, the numbers that they have on their computers and the numbers that they announce are always different.

But in ‘87, as I told you, they kind of like, in the conversation, I think one of the things is that they didn’t want me to know that number, so they didn’t tell me that number. So, that was my first time, seven or eight years later, because Hogan was already on WCW by then, so it’s probably ‘95, I’m thinking — maybe ‘94, ‘95, ‘96. And he just goes, “No, no the real number is 78,000.” And I go, “Really?” And he goes, “Yeah, we made up 93,000,” because, whatever it was, the Rolling Stones had drawn like 87,000 or something like that. Maybe the Rolling Stones was after it, but they knew it was coming.

But there was the pope and the Rolling Stones and them, so they’ve created a number that neither of those groups could have and nobody could have because you couldn’t get that many people in the building. So it was a number that was created before the show ever started and it was a number — I mean, they did sell out. The sellout was real. And the truth of the matter is, that if the building was big enough to where they could put 93,000 in, they really would have. But you could say that about a lot of WrestleManias. Of all the WrestleManias, the one that would have put the most people in the building was the one at the Astrodome with Rock and Austin, because that one, they sold out every ticket as soon as they put tickets on sale. Whereas this WrestleMania, you know, they might have sold 20,000 tickets the first week at the Pontiac Silverdome, the WrestleMania with Rock and Austin, they sold like, I don’t know what it was, like maybe 50,000 tickets the first day. You can’t even compare the two. That one would have sold the most.

But the Astrodome was smaller than the Silverdome, so they didn’t get as many people in. But anyway, since then I’ve talked to many people there, and I’ve talked to Vince about it once. And he said, “The numbers that we give you are the real numbers, and the numbers that we say on television are for entertainment purposes only.” And that was the answer. So, it’s for entertainment purposes only, that number, so they could claim the record. You know for a long time they would claim the largest indoor, whatever, the largest indoor sport crowd in the history of the world or something. So, they claimed that for a while and everything. But that was the story behind that. I mean the fact is, like I said, they probably could have got, I don’t know how many people, maybe a 100,000 there. They probably could have gotten 120,000 there maybe for the Austin match. But who knows? No one really knows because they filled up the stadium, that’s all you can say. And how many extra they would have gotten, no one really knows.

Charisteas

This story is Pro Wrestling's version of The Da Vinci Code.

So Meltzer changed his mind about the attendance figure due to a phone call out of the blue from Zane Bresloff in 1995. But didn't you say that by 1995, Bresloff was working for WCW? So maybe he had some bad blood with his previous employer Vince McMahon and saw this as a good time to sabotage Vince's beloved 93,000 number.

Did Meltzer not ask for some official proof, or did he take Zane as a man of his word?

I'm sure you said last year that there was an official document that Bresloff faxed to Meltzer..... has it ever surfaced online?

jaykhunter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFJJLnFb40g

rovert

Charisteas wrote: »

This story is Pro Wrestling's version of The Da Vinci Code.

So Meltzer changed his mind about the attendance figure due to a phone call out of the blue from Zane Bresloff in 1995. But didn't you say that by 1995, Bresloff was working for WCW? So maybe he had some bad blood with his previous employer Vince McMahon and saw this as a good time to sabotage Vince's beloved 93,000 number.

What shoots that theory down is Zane telling Wade the story in the early 90s.

Charisteas wrote: »

Did Meltzer not ask for some official proof, or did he take Zane as a man of his word?

I'm sure you said last year that there was an official document that Bresloff faxed to Meltzer..... has it ever surfaced online?

You'd have to ask someone else. But it hasnt.