WWF WrestleMania III

WrestleMania III brought the World Wrestling Federation to the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan, on March 29, 1987. After WrestleMania II spread its matches across three cities, the third event gathered everyone under one roof. Singer Aretha Franklin opened with “America the Beautiful” before a twelve-match card featuring championship challenges, personal grudges, and a main event between former friends.

The opening match pairs The Can-Am Connection, Canadian Rick Martel and American Tom Zenk, against veterans Bob Orton Jr. and The Magnificent Muraco. Martel and Zenk bring speed and coordinated teamwork against two opponents with Mr. Fuji in their corner. Next, Billy Jack Haynes faces Hercules in a dispute over their shared finishing hold. Both use the full nelson, which traps an opponent’s arms while applying pressure behind the neck, and each claims he’s the stronger man.

Hillbilly Jim then joins Haiti Kid and Little Beaver against King Kong Bundy, Little Tokyo, and Lord Littlebrook. This six-man tag team match combines two heavyweight wrestlers with four wrestlers of short stature. Its rules require Jim and Bundy to wrestle each other, while their smaller partners compete against one another.

Pride is at stake when Harley Race meets Junkyard Dog. Race adopted a crown and royal robes after winning the 1986 King of the Ring tournament, then demanded that opponents bow before him. Junkyard Dog wouldn’t accept that treatment. Their WrestleMania match makes the demand an official condition, with the loser required to bow to the winner.

Tag team wrestling follows as former champions The Dream Team, Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake, face The Rougeau Brothers, Jacques and Raymond. The French-Canadian brothers also have to account for the presence of The Dream Team’s manager, Johnny Valiant, and fellow wrestler Dino Bravo.

For Roddy Piper, the evening is advertised as a farewell. He’s announced his retirement, but first he faces Adrian Adonis in a Hair vs. Hair Match, with the loser facing a haircut. Their rivalry grew out of competing television interview segments. During Piper’s absence, Adonis’s Flower Shop took the place of Piper’s Pit. When Piper returned, his former bodyguard Orton sided with Adonis, and the two joined Muraco in attacking him. Piper’s final advertised appearance gives him a chance to settle that betrayal.

A former referee becomes a target in the next match. Danny Davis had allowed illegal teamwork when The Hart Foundation, Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart, took the WWF Tag Team Championship from The British Bulldogs. Now Davis teams with the champions against the Bulldogs, Davey Boy Smith and Dynamite Kid, and Tito Santana. Santana also blames Davis’s officiating for an earlier championship loss. Davis can’t rely on a referee’s authority to keep these opponents away from him.

Butch Reed and Koko B. Ware follow in singles competition before the card reaches its Intercontinental title match.

“Macho Man” Randy Savage defends the WWF Intercontinental Heavyweight Championship against Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat, whose challenge follows a vicious attack. Months earlier, Savage drove the timekeeper’s bell into Steamboat’s throat, leaving him injured and unable to compete. Steamboat’s return gives him a chance to take the championship from the man who’d put him out of action. He also has support from George “The Animal” Steele, another rival of Savage’s. Steele’s affection for Savage’s manager, Miss Elizabeth, had already caused repeated confrontations between them.

Another attack explains Jake “The Snake” Roberts’s match against The Honky Tonk Man, a wrestler whose appearance and act imitate Elvis Presley. Honky had struck Roberts with a guitar during an appearance on Roberts’s interview segment, The Snake Pit. With Honky’s manager Jimmy Hart at ringside, Roberts brings rock singer Alice Cooper into his corner.

The last tag team match pits The Killer Bees, B. Brian Blair and Jim Brunzell, against The Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff, former tag team champions whose Iranian and Soviet personas antagonize the American crowd.

The main event brings Hulk Hogan face to face with André the Giant for the WWF World Heavyweight Championship. Hogan is the company’s leading fan favorite and has held its top title for more than three years. André had been his friend, but their relationship deteriorated as Hogan received recognition that André felt overshadowed his own achievements.

André then appeared on Piper’s Pit with Bobby Heenan, a manager who’d spent years opposing Hogan. He demanded a championship match and tore Hogan’s shirt and crucifix necklace from his chest. Hogan enters WrestleMania defending his title against a former ally whom WWF presents as undefeated for fifteen years.

The Silverdome setting gives WrestleMania III a scale that helps explain its place in wrestling history. WWF announced an attendance of 93,173, although later reports put the actual attendance at approximately 78,500.

Either way, the large crowd showed how far the event had grown in just its third edition and helped establish the stadium spectacle associated with WrestleMania.