WrestleMania III

Background in Pontiac, Michigan. WrestleMania is considered the World Wrestling Federation's (WWF, now WWE) flagship professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event, having first been held in 1985. It is held annually between mid-March to mid-April. Unlike the previous year's WrestleMania 2, WrestleMania III was only scheduled to be held at one location: the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan on March 29, 1987. Storylines Like the previous WrestleMania events, WrestleMania III was promoted for several months in advance. The main feud stemmed from André the Giant's heel turn and betrayal of his friend, the WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan, which began on an episode of ''Piper's Pit'' when WWF President Jack Tunney presented Hogan with a trophy for being the WWF World Heavyweight Champion for three years. André, Hogan's good friend, came out to congratulate him but cryptically remarked: "Three years to be a champion, it's a long time". A week later on another episode of ''Piper's Pit'', Tunney presented André with a visibly smaller trophy for being "undefeated in the WWF for 15 years", George Steele was in Steamboat's corner, having developed a crush on Savage's valet, Miss Elizabeth. Billy Jack Haynes and Hercules' feud started when Bobby Heenan continuously taunted Haynes, telling him that Hercules was the real master of Haynes' finishing move, 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." After each of his victories, Race would force 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 their hair. Junkyard Dog protested Race's self-proclaimed monarchy in the WWF and stated there would never be a complete ruler in the WWF, which led to a match on ''Saturday Night's Main Event IX'', 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 WWF Tag Team Championship to The Hart Foundation in a match that saw the Dynamite Kid so debilitated with a back injury that he was virtually carried to the ring by Davey Boy Smith and did not see any physical activity after being knocked out by the Harts' manager, Jimmy Hart, who had hit him with his megaphone as the match began. Danny Davis was the referee and allowed The Hart Foundation to use illegal double-team maneuvers. After being given some time off for Dynamite to recuperate, the Bulldogs continued their rivalry with The Hart 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. This event began Roberts' 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 WWF in mid-1986, 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 Bob Orton, 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. ==Event==

WWF owner Vince McMahon claims that as he was about to announce "Welcome to WrestleMania III," he felt the spirit of his father Vincent J. McMahon, who had died three years earlier. After McMahon welcomed the audience, he introduced Aretha Franklin, who opened the show singing a rendition of "America the Beautiful." The next match that aired was Hercules (with Bobby Heenan in his corner) against Billy Jack Haynes in the "Full Nelson Challenge." The match ended when Haynes locked Hercules in the full nelson outside the ring and both were counted out. The Mixed Tag Team Match between King Kong Bundy and his professional wrestling midget team of Lord Littlebrook and Little Tokyo against Hillbilly Jim and his own team of the Haiti Kid and Little Beaver was next. The rules were that only midgets could fight midgets and that neither Bundy nor Hillbilly was allowed to attack the midgets, though at one point, Bundy tagged in and Little Beaver refused to tag out immediately, even hitting the "Walking condominium" with a dropkick to no effect before bailing with a tag to Hillbilly Jim. King Kong Bundy's team was disqualified when Bundy attacked Little Beaver because Bundy was not supposed to be in the ring with the midgets. During the match, the two battled back and forth, with Race even trying unsuccessfully to give the prone Dog a falling headbutt which naturally failed. Following this, Race recovered enough to give the Junkyard Dog a belly to belly suplex when he was distracted by Bobby Heenan to get the win. Due to the pre-match stipulation, JYD did a little bow and then hit Race from the blindside with a steel chair to a rousing ovation from the crowd. After attacking Race, Junkyard Dog took the King's royal robe and left the ring with it in hand to a standing ovation. Footage of an interview with Rowdy Roddy Piper was aired as Piper made his way to the ring to face Adrian Adonis, who was accompanied by Jimmy Hart, in Piper's retirement match. Piper got the victory, and after the match was over, Brutus got in the ring and cut Adrian Adonis' hair as Piper held Jimmy Hart down. This match is considered by many to be one of the greatest matches in WWE history. the final match pitted WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan defending the title against André the Giant. ==Reception==

The event has received positive reviews. In the years after WrestleMania III, the Savage vs. Steamboat match has been ranked by critics and other wrestlers as one of the greatest matches in professional wrestling. Pro Wrestling Illustrated and Wrestling Observer Newsletter named it 1987's Match of the Year. IGN ranked it at number 6 in their Top 20 Matches in WrestleMania History. Steamboat described the match as "the moment in time that defined me as a wrestler." Thomas Golianopoulos of Complex Sports ranked it at number two in his list of the 50 Greatest Matches in WrestleMania History, citing that "Both guys worked lightning fast and everything from Steamboat's aggressiveness to the involvement of George "The Animal" Steele played off their part." David Otunga picked it as WWE.com's Five-Star Match of the Week in December 19, 2012. The main event between Hulk Hogan and André the Giant is regarded as one of the pivotal matches in the history of the WWE, with Hogan's body slam on André having become an iconic moment of both wrestlers' careers as well as of the 1980s professional wrestling boom overall. Despite its historic importance, the match was also criticized for its quality. At the time, it received a negative four star rating from Dave Meltzer and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter named it the "Worst Worked Match of the Year." Meltzer would later increase his rating to one star out of five. In 2020, 411Mania's Larry Csonka gave the match one star, stating "The match is not good in any way shape or form; but is one I completely appreciate for its historical importance." Kevin Pantoja, also a writer for 411Mania, gave the match two stars in 2019, stating "Technically, this isn't any good. However, I don't think it's nearly as bad as some people do". The match will be inducted into the 2026 WWE Hall of Fame in the Immortal Moment category. There have been numerous claims that the quoted attendance figure of 93,173 — which established a world record attendance for an indoor event — was false and that the real attendance figure was only around 78,000. Meltzer pointed that 78,000 is attributed to Zane Bresloff, the local promoter for the event. Officially, WrestleMania III remained highest-attended event in WWE history until surpassed by WrestleMania 32 in 2016, with an official figure of just over 101,000 in attendance. As with WrestleMania III, this figure has also been disputed, with subsequent analyses assessing the actual number between 93–94,000. ==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. 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). 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. The event's Hogan/Andre match would into the WWE Hall of Fame's class of 2026 by Jimmy, with Hogan's son Nick and Andre's daughter Robin accepting the induction of their parents; both Andre and Hogan were by this point in time deceased. ==Results==