The Oral History of WrestleMania — Part Two: Bigger. Better. Badder
The following is a continued oral history of unsourced quotes from numerous interviews over the years about WrestleMania 2 and WrestleMania III, assembled by Wrestling Club with Darren & Brett, part of the non-profit radio station, WFMU.
Read Part 1: The Granddaddy of ’Em All
BRING HOME ALL THE ACTION
DON MURACO (wrestler)
“1985 you could say was the beginning of the changing of professional wrestling into the new era with the merchandising and the dolls, and there was a wrestling cartoon.”
KAREN WEISS (LJN product development)
“Wrestling was getting hot and people were talking about it,” Weiss says. A meeting between LJN executives and McMahon went well, and the two companies began working on a line of figures and accessories. We met with McMahon every six months and he’d tell us which wrestlers he was going to make popular. Those are the ones we’d go into production with each year. He’d say, ‘Hogan’s going to keep the belt, Roddy Piper’s going to be big.’”
GEORGE “THE ANIMAL” STEELE (wrestler, teacher)
“If you look at my action figure and the heels of the boots are worn out, and the butt’s got some paint worn off of it, you and I have a problem. If the toes are worn out, we’re in good shape. That means if the heels are worn out, you let me get pinned. If the toes are worn out, you let me do the pinning.”
HULK HOGAN (wrestler, actor)
“There have been like 40 different dolls. Stretch dolls, dolls that vibrated — which were quite controversial — dolls that talked, dolls that would ‘hulk up’ with the arms, dolls that would rip the shirt off. The coolest thing — and I have it at home — is a huge Hulk Hogan, pinball machine. When people come over they play it for hours. When you hit the bumpers and the bells ring it goes, ‘Oh yeah!’ The whole time you’re playing this machine it’s yelling and screaming at you, ‘What you gonna do, brother?!’ I think that’s the coolest.”
HILLBILLY JIM
“Everything came so fast at us in those days. It was surreal. The WWF was breaking ground in merchandising and marketing: cartoon series, action figures, board games, our pictures on notebook pads for kids. This record thing popped up real quick.”
DAVE WOLFF (music producer)
“We wrote some songs. Other guys picked classics, like ‘Mean’ Gene Okerlund, who covered ‘Tutti Frutti.’ Okerlund could really sing. So could Mouth of the South, who did ‘Eat Your Heart Out, Rick Springfield.’ Jimmy Hart had been a part of a band called The Gentrys who had a top five hit, ‘Keep on Dancing. He was a real rocker… Nikolai Volkoff was deadly serious about ‘Cara Mia.’ He had a somewhat operatic voice, stayed in pitch, and could really belt it out. It was heartfelt. Perfect.”
TITO SANTANA (wrestler, teacher)
“As the company started growing, they started spending more money, getting better people working with the cameras, and better cameras.”
HULK HOGAN
“I talked to Vince and [Dick] Ebersol about what they wanted to do [with Saturday Night’s Main Event]. I just knew if we could somehow sneak on prime-time TV, we would generate numbers that they had never seen before.”
SHAUN ASSAEL (writer)
“Vince’s MTV shows didn’t impress [NBC executive Dick Ebersol] and WrestleMania struck him as downright primitive. There would also be no more showing up at an arena with a single truck carrying a ring and some lights. Ebersol wanted four cameras at ringside with boom mikes to catch the grunts and groans that usually went unheard. He wanted state-of-the-art lighting rigs. He wanted concert quality sound.”
GEORGE “THE ANIMAL” STEELE
“Ebersol and his crew was producing and putting it all together. It took wrestling to a whole new dimension that Vince, later on, took into the regular product.”
JESSE “THE BODY” VENTURA (former Minnesota governor, wrestler)
“It was WrestleMania 2. Two weeks before it, all the publicity had gone out. The advantage was ours. I stood up in the dressing room and I gave a speech to the boys and this was at the time we were still battling Charlotte and I said, ‘if we go together and simply tell the media we are not wrestling unless union negotiators by federal law come in and give us the opportunity to unionize.’ The next night, I got a phone call from Vince who basically threatened to fire me if I ever brought it up again and read me the riot act. I did Predator and was a member of the Screen Actors Guild now, my union that I get retirement from now, healthcare from, all of that from. And so, when I came back, I told Vince pointblank, ‘Vince, I won’t ever bring up union again.’ And I said, ‘if these guys are too stupid to fight for their rights, I have my union now’”
“MACHO MAN” RANDY SAVAGE & MISS ELIZABETH
“MACHO MAN” RANDY SAVAGE (wrestler)
“I wanted to take my shot at baseball. When that didn’t work out, my dad, a wrestler named Angelo Poffo, said he could open the door for me in terms of taking a chance at wrestling…June 17, 1985 was when Vince McMahon guaranteed me an opportunity, a shot that if I did well, he would give me my chance at wrestling in the main events, and he was true to his word. I got lucky that the people identified with me, my style, my rebel style.”
BILL SIMMONS (sports analyst, writer)
“Wrestlers usually showed up in the WWF as unfinished products: They would make their mistakes, screw up a gimmick or three, find what worked, and stick with it. Not Savage. From day one, he carried himself like Superstar Graham, worked the crowd like Roddy Piper and used the ring like Ricky Steamboat.”
JIM ROSS (announcer, executive)
“Randy influenced many wrestlers through his work, ring attire and offensive sequencing during a match. Notwithstanding that, Savage’s voice is one of the most imitated within the industry.”
BILL SIMMONS
“Nobody — repeat, nobody — was more fun to imitate. Savage said everything in quick bursts, with his voice dropping low, then turning loud, then low, then loud, and any time he couldn’t figure out how to end a point, he just screamed, ‘Ooooohhhhhhhhh yeah!’ He used ‘ooooohhhh yeah!’ as a noun, verb and adjective. It never stopped being funny. Wrestling moved pretty slowly back then: lots of headlocks and clotheslines, lots of rolling around, lots of killed time, lots of fat rolls and labored breathing. Savage murdered that era almost overnight. He dragged 20-minute matches out of Hogan and took 90 percent of the bumps. He climbed to the top rope and delivered flying assaults to opponents outside the ring, which I can’t remember having seen before. His devastating finishing move (a flying elbow off the top rope) was so convincing that you always wondered, ‘Wait, is he actually hurting people when he does that?’”
BRUCE PRICHARD (producer, manager)
“Those were the days of, ‘Who’s my opponent? Where am I gonna be?’ Cut me a promo. And you could either sell tickets or you couldn’t. Randy could sell tickets.”
BILL SIMMONS
“Savage had a trump card: he became the first high-profile WWF wrestler to travel with a female manager, the gorgeous Miss Elizabeth.”
JAKE “THE SNAKE” ROBERTS (wrestler)
“Her character was so meek and so quiet. Randy, he was like the opposite, and she’s what made that work.”
“MEAN” GENE OKERLUND
“Elizabeth had a lot of magic to her. She was very attractive, and her low-profile entrance and everything, it was just a perfect marriage, no pun intended.
THE ULTIMATE WARRIOR (wrestler)
“The backstage environment is like a zoo. Elizabeth was one of the only women at the time that was in the backstage area. And I gotta tell you, man, I’ve never met a group of males with a greater tendency toward adultery, promiscuity, and even sexual perversion. Randy was just protective of the wife that he loved…”
GEORGE “THE ANIMAL” STEELE
“Honestly, Randy was the most jealous man I had ever met, and it created a real problem. He would lock her in the dressing room.”
BILL SIMMONS
“Every time, we were freaked out that Elizabeth — more beautiful than just about anyone in 1985 with the possible exception of Kelly Preston, by the way — might get roughed up by her jealous boyfriend.”
THREE TIMES THE MANIA
BASIL DEVITO (executive)
“Wrestlemania I made its money in closed circuit; at the time there just weren’t many pay-per-view houses available. So there was not a prescribed plan on how pay-per-view would go or if it even made sense for us to be on pay-per-view.”
VINCE MCMAHON
“We wanted to have a presentation for the New York area, Chicago, and then the Southern California area in Los Angeles. A three-hour event.”
HOWARD FINKEL (ring announcer)
“There were many logistical challenges in topping the inaugural WrestleMania. For a three-location event, Point ‘A’ had to flow into Point ‘B,’ which had to flow into Point ‘C.’ If one thing went wrong, it could have a domino effect on the entire evening.”
VINCE MCMAHON
“Each site would have its own respective main event. We began on the east coast at the Nassau Coliseum, where fans in the other two venues watched the show via closed-circuit. When the show in New York ended, giant projector screens descended from the arena ceiling and projected what was taking place at the other WrestleMania sites. It was a technological feat for that era.”
GEORGE “THE ANIMAL” STEELE
“I was sitting right next to Vince when the satellite for Wrestlemania 2 went from New York to Chicago. He jumped out of his chair and screamed, “Yeah” when the connection worked. If it hadn’t worked, he was broke. He had all his eggs in one basket and if that hadn’t worked, he would’ve been out of business.”
DICK EBERSOL (television executive)
“It was very complex having to shift between all these places. Artistically, it was okay, but I don’t think Vince or I were completely happy with it and I don’t think anybody ever wanted to do it spread out over three cities again.”
VINCE MCMAHON
“Just the technology alone today would be extraordinary if you could pull that off. But this is way back when.”
“ROWDY” RODDY PIPER
“Nassau Coliseum had magic happen to it. I had more fights on the way to the ring than I did in the ring at Nassau.”
BASIL DEVITO
“Several celebrities such as Aretha Franklin, Reba McEntire and Boyz II Men have sung America the Beautiful over the years, but perhaps no rendition was more memorable than that of the late, great Ray Charles.”
“ROWDY” RODDY PIPER
“Now, the commentating. Vince and this lady, and this lady had no experience at it, it was really bad.”
JASON POWELL
“Susan St. James was a popular actress who co-starred with Jane Curtin in the sitcom “Kate & Allie” when this event took place. More importantly, she is married to Dick Ebersol, the NBC executive and longtime business ally of Vince McMahon. She added nothing to the broadcast.”
WWF INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP: GEORGE “THE ANIMAL” STEELE vs “MACHO MAN” RANDY SAVAGE
“HACKSAW” JIM DUGGAN (wrestler)
“From the eating of the turnbuckles, to the green tongue, hairy body and the ‘mine’ stuffed animal, George [Steele] was a showman. He was really a throwback even for that time.”
GEORGE “THE ANIMAL” STEELE
“My character becoming a ‘good guy’ was not planned. I thought being in the six-man with Sheik and Volkoff was going to be my exit. They beat me up for losing the match, and the fans started to cheer because I went at them, the anti-American villains. Captain Lou comes in, I put my head in his stomach, like he’s consoling me and people blew the roof off the place. I think Vince saw something in that…Randy was the heel and I had become a loveable cartoon character. It soon became apparent the possibilities were endless, and most of them revolved around Miss Elizabeth. George “The Animal” Steele was smitten with her. Of course, my ring character could not express his emotions very well.”
LANNY POFFO (wrestler, Randy Savage’s brother)
“Randy had been working with Steele, because George liked to pander to his gimmick. George was a great athlete in his day, but he wrestled in a day where people liked to eat the turnbuckle.”
GEORGE “THE ANIMAL” STEELE
“Typically, we would be in the middle of a heated match when, all of a sudden, I would stare, owl-eyed, at Elizabeth. I would go from hammering Randy to ham-handedly approaching Elizabeth. I might go over and stroke her hair the way a child might pet a Labrador retriever. That would incense Randy.”
“MR. WONDERFUL” PAUL ORNDORFF vs THE MAGNIFICENT MURACO
GEORGE “THE ANIMAL” STEELE
“Don [Muraco] was special. He was there before this all started. He fit into it very, very well. Very intelligent inside and outside the ring. Just a great guy on the road. Just a real great pro.”
“MR. WONDERFUL” PAUL ORNDORFF
“My style didn’t mesh well with Muraco’s. Every so often, he had to be cooled down occasionally to keep the fans interested.”
GEORGE WELLES vs JAKE “THE SNAKE” ROBERTS
DIAMOND DALLAS PAGE (wrestler)
“No one had better ring psychology than Jake Roberts. There’s certain guys that are unbelievable talkers and their work was good, but besides Ric Flair and Steve Austin, there weren’t many guys who were the best talkers and the best workers. As great as Hulk Hogan was, he still wasn’t that great a worker. His work was good, but it wasn’t Jake. Jake was on a different planet.”
JAKE “THE SNAKE” ROBERTS
“I hated [snakes]. I’m terrified of them! But in Mid-South I came up with the idea to use one…I thought, ‘Jake ‘The Snake’? Kind of fits. Then Bill Watts was quick to tell me that ‘this isn’t a damn circus.’ ‘We’re not going to have any circus clowns or circus geeks carrying snakes!’ [WWF] said, ‘Have you thought about this before?’ Next thing you know, I’ve got a damn snake… There was a guy in Stamford, Connecticut named Albert that supplied all the snakes. What a miserable damn job that was, carrying my wrestling gear and clothes…and a 100-pound snake in a box.”
JOAN RIVERS (comedian)
“It’s not every day you bump into a man with a 12-foot python around his neck before you go onstage. It was a big reunion — I was carrying the python’s cousin as a bag.”
JASON POWELL
“This was one of the early Roberts matches in the WWF, as he debuted just a month earlier. Wells was mostly a prelim guy, and this was merely a showcase match for Roberts. Afterward, Jake pulled Damien the snake out of the army green bag and dumped it in the ring. Roberts wrapped the snake around Wells, who had all sorts of mucus coming out of his mouth, which made for quite the visual.”
JAKE “THE SNAKE” ROBERTS
“It’s funny what alka-seltzers will do for you.”
BOXING MATCH: MR. T vs “ROWDY” RODDY PIPER
“MEAN” GENE OKERLUND
“Roddy Piper despised Mr. T. And to be very candid, Mr. T wasn’t especially enthralled with Roddy either. But remember one thing, they both had boxing backgrounds. Sets it up pretty nicely, doesn’t it?”
JASON POWELL
“Ring announcer Howard Finkel introduced comedian Joan Rivers as the guest ring announcer for the New York main event. Rivers introduced NBA player Darryl Dawkins, jazz singer Cab Calloway, and G. Gordon Liddy, convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and refusing to testify as part of the Watergate scandal, as the judges for the boxing match. Herb was introduced as the timekeeper. Herb was someone from a Burger King ad.”
“ROWDY” RODDY PIPER
“They had me make a fist and then they taped up my fist and then they put my fist in the glove. So this is what’s going through my head. ‘I want to take this guy out, but if take him out, what are the consequences? But if I can get him to do anything, hit me with an elbow, just anything I can justify it.’ Vince isn’t giving me anything or anybody else.” Now, they want me to get at least knocked down by T, in maybe the second or third round. What I was going to do, was T was going to left hook me, and I was going to go out through the ropes onto the floor. I have thumb-less gloves on, I can’t hook the rope. I’m kind of looking and I’m, oh I don’t know seven to ten feet and it’s coming, here we go, and I just went for it and…he missed the left hook. Are you kidding me? You missed the punch? And I’m in flight. Okay. I got back up and in the next round I took the stool and I threw it at him as hard as I could… It took a hunk of meat out of him.”
WWF WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP: VELVET MCINTYRE vs FABULOUS MOOLAH
THE FABULOUS MOOLAH
“Velvet McIntyre was full of energy, she had her mind 100% on wrestling.”
VELVET MCINTYRE (wrestler)
“There was a trip for [Moolah’s wrestlers] to Kuwait.But I was told, ‘Nope, you get to stay here and do Wrestlemania’, so I was pretty bummed out. I didn’t really care for my opponent.”
CORPORAL KIRCHNER vs NIKOLAI VOLKOFF
JASON POWELL
“Kirchner was Vince McMahon’s attempt to create a new Sgt. Slaughter. It didn’t work, though you wouldn’t have known it here because the crowd was receptive to him. The part was played by Michael Penzel, who was a U.S. Army paratrooper.”
CORPORAL KIRCHNER (wrestler)
“[Nikolai Volkoff] could pick me up like a kid back in the day — over his head like nothing. He could put you in your place in a second, but that night was tremendous.”
WWF TAG TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP: THE BRITISH BULLDOGS vs THE DREAM TEAM
DIANA HART SMITH (wife of Davey Boy Smith)
“Davey and Dynamite were actually not even interested in going to join the WWF in 1984. It took a lot of persuasion between Vince and my dad [Stu Hart], and my dad with the Bulldogs.”
BRET “THE HITMAN” HART (wrestler)
“[The Dynamite Kid] was the impetus, the inspiration for a whole generation of guys who would have otherwise been considered too small, but became big stars, guys like Owen and Bret, Davey Boy. His matches with Tiger Mask completely changed the whole dynamic [in Japan].”
DIANA HART SMITH
“I thought they innovated, and they kind of revolutionized an era of high flying and power. They had a lot of the English, and the Japanese style, and the Calgary style. Their determination to prove they were the best helped. I don’t think Jim, Bret, Davey and Dynamite got enough credit at first. Then they got put into programs like working with Brutus Beefcake and Greg Valentine.”
BRUTUS BEEFCAKE
“[The WWF] wound up putting [Greg Valentine and I] together to work some tag team matches and were really surprised at how well we gelled as a tag team. Everybody said ‘No, you can’t put Beefcake and Valentine together, they’re two different things and they won’t work.’ It worked so well, they ended up making us World Tag Team Champions.”
GREG “THE HAMMER” VALENTINE
“The matches with the Bulldogs were as good as any singles match I had in my career.”
BRIAN SHIELDS (writer)
“Ozzy Osbourne backed his UK brethren as a corner man for the British Bulldogs.”
OZZY OSBOURNE (musician)
“I’ve been doing arenas and gigs and festivals for the best part of 30, 40 years. The fucking fans of wrestling go absolutely crazy. I thought nobody could get louder than a rock concert, but was I ever wrong!”
BRUTUS BEEFCAKE
“I loved the Bulldogs but I don’t think they were ready to run with the belts and that was a mistake.”
WWF vs NFL BATTLE ROYAL
RIC FLAIR (wrestler)
“[Jim Neidhart] legitimately was a world-class athlete. I mean he threw the shot put at UCLA close to seventy feet. He played for the Raiders, he was a 500-pound bench presser any day of the week.”
BRET “THE HITMAN” HART
“We had always been close friends from the first time we met in Stampede Wrestling. We never fought or argued about anything and we were always in agreement.”
JIMMY HART
“I remember when I was managing Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, and Vince McMahon came in and told me, “This is your newest member.” And it was Bret Hart. It was such a thrill. I knew from Day One that Bret was going to be a megastar because the girls loved him so much and the fans loved him so much.”
BRET “THE HITMAN” HART
“I was initially told quite excitedly, that I would be wrestling Ricky Steamboat, which was a dream for me, that would have been a big moment for me. Then they changed it about a month before WrestleMania, you are going to be in the battle royal with the football players, and I remember going, ugh, that’s not going to be near the same thing.”
WILLIAM “THE REFRIGERATOR” PERRY
“Today, I do a lot of public appearances, and still, after all these years, WrestleMania is all the fans want to talk about.”
BASIL DEVITO
“Imagine there’s a knock at your door and it’s someone who’s almost seven feet tall and 400 pounds. Big John Studd saw a WrestleMania ad in a paper, and it featured the NFL players. Studd lifted me in the air and put me against the wall. He said, ‘Don’t you know who sells the tickets? We do! Not them!’ The idea of ‘sports-entertainment’ was new, and not everybody was ready to embrace it.”
BRET “THE HITMAN” HART
“On the big day, I was in the dressing room in Chicago as Andre explained to me how he wanted to go into the finish. I ran his idea through my mind before innocently suggesting to him that if Jim and I doubled up on him, we could go for our sandwich move and he could give me the big boot from there. Andre thought about it while his huge fingers worked the laces tight. The dressing room was suddenly quiet. I saw a frozen stare on [The Dynamite Kid’s] face, and I wondered what I said wrong. Then Andre smiled and said, ‘Yeah, boss, I like that better.’ A few minutes later, Tom told me that it was unheard of for anyone to suggest the slightest change to Andre.”
JASON POWELL
“The timekeeper was Clara Peller, who tried to say her “Where’s The Beef?” line that was really over back in the day, but her mic wasn’t on. Oops. NFL great Dick Butkus was the ringside enforcer, as was NFL great Ed “Too Tall” Jones.”
PAT PATTERSON (wrestler, producer)
“The NFL players were really good guys and respected what we did. They understood the concept of the match in that you would be eliminated by being thrown over the rop rope.”
JIM “THE ANVIL” NEIDHART (wrestler)
“Russ Francis had some experience in the ring. His dad was a promoter in Hawaii, and for some reason Russ had a problem with being thrown over the ropes.”
RUSS FRANCIS (football player)
“I decided I took enough of a beating during the football season. I didn’t need to take one in the offseason.”
JIM “THE ANVIL” NEIDHART
“He insisted it had to be done a certain way. We tried to tell him the way he wanted to go was the most dangerous, but he wouldn’t let up. Andre told Bret and me to keep Russ away.”
RUSS FRANCIS
“I went to pick up [Andre’s] leg, just playing around like I’m going to throw him over the top rope. And he drilled me right between the shoulder blades, just flattened me to the mat. I bounced back up but I was hurt. I looked up at Andre and said, ‘I thought we were friends.’”
JASON POWELL
“[Bill] Fralic actually had a natural heel charisma and actually made Studd look normal sized when they stood face to face. The key was getting members of the Chicago Bears, who were fresh off their Super Bowl win.”
WILLIAM “THE REFRIGERATOR” PERRY (football player)
“Winning the Super Bowl, scoring a touchdown in the Super Bowl, and being in WrestleMania all in the same season? It was incredible. It was like someone wrote a Hollywood script for the Fridge.”
JIM “THE ANVIL” NEIDHART
“I remember how fast ‘Refrigerator’ Perry was. He moved like a cat. He loved being in the ring. They all couldn’t believe how big Andre the Giant was.”
HILLBILLY JIM
“When you were in a Battle Royal with Andre the Giant, everybody was small.”
RICKY STEAMBOAT vs HERCULES HERNANDEZ
CASSANDRA “ELVIRA” PETERSON (actress)
“I had a lot of fun with a couple of the wrestlers, especially Jesse ‘The Body’ Ventura. He was great! We had a blast together… For a lot of people that was their first exposure to Elvira. So, it was actually kind of a big boost for me at that time.”
RIC FLAIR (wrestler)
“Steamboat was in phenomenal shape. He just never stopped, he was the Energizer Bunny. Steamboat was 230 all day long. He could bench press 450. He was just a gifted guy.”
JASON POWELL
“A good live opener for the Los Angeles crowd. Steamboat sold well for Hercules’ power and his own crowd pleasing offense got the crowd going.”
UNCLE ELMER vs ADRIAN ADONIS
JIMMY HART
“Adrian Adonis — phenomenal in the ring. Now if they did a character like that, I don’t think it would be so flamboyant. Times have changed, and people see things different nowadays…people can still have fun and not hurt others.”
JASON POWELL
“Elmer worked as Plowboy Frazier in Memphis. He was just a big, slow guy that worked in the Hillbilly Jim family spot, which had run its course by this point.”
COUSIN LUKE (wrestler)
“They called me for WrestleMania and I still had my cast on. At the time, I guess I should have said yes, but I said no. They used Elmer against Adrian Adonis, and I think he beat Elmer in 45 seconds.”
TITO SANTANA & THE JUNKYARD DOG vs TERRY & HOSS FUNK
TOMMY DREAMER (wrestler)
“Terry Funk helped the wrestling business more than most people know. He told Hulk Hogan to call Vince McMahon to start Hulkamania, he has helped so many get their breaks in the business. He is so giving and unselfish. He was NWA Champ when that meant you were the best wrestler in the world. I have nothing but the utmost respect for Terry Funk. He has been there for me and so many others. He is amazing both in and out of the ring.”
DAVE MELTZER (journalist)
“I don’t think there are any perfect records in pro wrestling dating back that far, but during his run, [Dory Funk Jr.] was considered almost the perfect world champion in the way he wrestled. He had the ability to make the world title seem like something legit.”
DORY FUNK JR.
“Tito and Junkyard Dog were a hot team. Tito being the great worker and Junkyard Dog the character personality. This was the final match for a feud that began with Terry and Junkyard Dog and was enhanced when the Booker, George Scott called and asked if I would come in for WWF and work a program. My first match ever for WWF was at the TV taping in Poughkeepsie where I interfered in a Terry/Junkyard match and beat the Hell out of Junkyard Dog. This began a program that culminated in the Wrestlemania 2 match. When we got to WrestleMania, I had no idea of the size of the production. The locations, the celebrities — it was spectacular. JYD and Tito were so popular with the fans that when we cheated to beat them, people hated us even more. It was great.”
TERRY FUNK
“I’ve wrestled on as big of events in Japan, national television, 20,000 to 30,000 people sell outs time after time after time, I’ve wrestled in Germany to sellouts and everything. It did not impress me, WrestleMania.”
WWF CHAMPIONSHIP STEEL CAGE MATCH: HULK HOGAN vs KING KONG BUNDY
KING KONG BUNDY (wrestler)
“Hulk got me my job in the WWF. I was set to go work for Verne Gagne up in Minneapolis when it was still a viable territory, but it was going downhill fast like all of the territories. I was set to go up there and I met Hulk in Japan and he talked me into coming. He called Vince for me and greased the skid there for me to get in there because I’d much rather do that than go to Verne.”
HULK HOGAN
“I’ve always said if you’re going to be a main event guy, you have to have something different. King Kong Bundy had everything. He was a monster. When Bundy dropped an elbow or bodyslammed you, the whole arena would explode. He was easy to work with as far as crowd reaction, but if he kicked you it was like his boot was going through your chest. Whenever I knew I was going in there with him, I knew I would come out in different physical shape then when I went in.”
PAUL ORNDORFF
“[King Kong Bundy] was 400-plus pounds. He could take some of the best bumps. I mean the guy could take some bumps, and he didn’t fall over his feet.”
HULK HOGAN
“Vince built this new cage that had iron squares. A chain link fence cage is very forgiving. You can get hurt, but it has some give to it. I remember getting my fair share of bumps and bruises in that steel cage against Bundy. But in the end, Bundy was a bloody mess. I even got to drag his manager, Bobby Heenan into the ring. When it was all over I had won and Hulkamania was running wilder than ever.”
KING KONG BUNDY
“If you check the tape, you’ll see that my feet hit the floor first — I never lost! I should have been the champion!”
BUBBA RAY DUDLEY (wrestler)
“I remember walking to the car after the event and telling my dad and uncle, ‘That’s gonna be me someday.’”
BIGGER. BADDER. BETTER.
BASIL DEVITO
“In planning for WrestleMania III, Vince McMahon once again had a distinct vision: it had to be even bigger. This presented something of a problem, since WrestleMania 2, for all its problems, was undeniably huge.”
HOWARD FINKEL
“We felt the momentum at that time, and we wanted to go for the whole ball of wax. So that’s when we booked the Silverdome, and everyone was confident.”
VINCE MCMAHON
“We were doing things that no one had ever done in this type of business. So why not go for the biggest venue we could possibly find?”
BASIL DEVITO
“We had the biggest venue in the country, and we were to draw the biggest crowd in history. To complete the picture, Vince wanted one of the biggest stars in Hollywood, a larger-than-life character. He wanted Arnold Schwarzenegger. So that day, Vince McMahon, Dick Ebersol and Jesse Ventura — former wrestler and future governor of Minnesota, as well as one of Arnold’s co-stars in the movie Predator — climbed aboard a Learjet and flew to some remote jungle where Arnold was filming his latest film. Unfortunately, they got to the area later than they intended, and the pilot spend considerable time circling and sweating, looking for a tiny landing strip in the fading light. Finally, Vince said, ‘Just put this thing down somewhere!’ and the pilot found the airstrip with a hut as a control center and animals on the runway. He put the plane down safely and the unlikely trio went off in search of Arnold. They found him, spent the night, but ultimately weren’t able to persuade him to participate in WrestleMania III.”
THE IRRESISTABLE FORCE, THE IMMOVABLE OBJECT
SHANE MCMAHON (executive, wrestler)
“Obviously, going into WrestleMania III, and I don’t know if lots of people know this or not, but Andre was in not-so-great health. His back was really messed up and Andre was shooting a movie with Billy Crystal called The Princess Bride. They were shooting somewhere in Europe, and Vince flew and had a conversation with Andre and said to Andre ‘I had this amazing idea. I have a dream. I want to fill the biggest stadium, the biggest event of all time and there’s no one that should be a part of that more than you. And it’s you versus Hogan.’ And Andre lit up.”
HULK HOGAN
“Hulkamania was hot as hell and I was at the pinnacle of my popularity — the biggest attraction in wrestling at the time. And the guy I was going up against had been the biggest attraction in wrestling up until that time.”
DAVE MELTZER
“You’ve got to remember that you had two guys larger than life who have been protected forever. I mean, Hogan, when he came back at the end of ’83, and this is already now early ’87, had not lost one match by pin, submission, or anything like that. Andre nobody had ever seen lose; he lost in foreign countries or he lost in the ‘70’s at a house show here and there for the Sheik or something, that nobody even remembers.”
BASIL DEVITO
“[Vince said], ‘Find out what the record is for the largest indoor crowd in history — for any event. Then make sure we can put enough seats in the Silverdome to break it.’ Then he paused and smiled. ‘What do you think?’ I swallowed hard. ‘Well, Vince, to be honest… I’m scared to death.’ With that, Hulk stopped, put down his bags, and turned to face us. He walked right up to me, not in a menacing way, but in a very serious way. He leaned down, put his nose a few inches from mine, and said in that sandpaper voice of his, ‘Ain’t you heard who the main event is, brother?’ That was the last time I voiced my concern out loud.”
DAVE MELTZER
“It wasn’t an instant sellout like WrestleMania is now, but they did sell out… They had a huge, huge attraction. It was the right time, wrestling was strong, the two characters were super strong. When they introduced the angle, I knew it was gonna do well. It wasn’t going to fail, though it could’ve been less successful.”
BASIL DEVITO
“The lineup of celebrities included rock star Alice Cooper — a Motor City fixture, Entertainment Tonight host Mary Hart, the First Lady of Soul, Aretha Franklin — in keeping with the Motown theme, and [Bob] Uecker.”
RICK MARTEL (wrestler)
“I know what this match meant to both of them, in particular for Andre, who was passing on the torch of the superstar of wrestling to Hogan.”
SHANE MCMAHON
“Andre knew that he’d have to go have surgery, back surgery. And that’s exactly what happened. So, to make a long story short, the back surgery was successful. The amount of anesthesia to put him out, the anesthesiologist was actually getting a little scared because it was basically the size of a small pony to keep a 500-plus pound man sedated.”
ANDRE THE GIANT
“It usually takes two liters of vodka just to make me feel warm inside.”
DAVE MELTZER
“It was a famous surgery where they had to get new tools, because the tools you’d use on normal human beings wouldn’t work for him. He was probably 6–10, and I would say in that ring on that night, probably 500 pounds.”
HULK HOGAN
“He was never 500 pounds… we weighed him at Detroit airport before WrestleMania III and he was 650 or something.”
SHANE MCMAHON
“The surgery was successful and then Vince got Andre back. He basically came to our house every day. My dad, obviously being very heavy into fitness, he had a huge gym and Andre came there every day and trained and rehabbed and got stronger and stronger.”
DAVID SHOEMAKER
“In 1987, Andre returned to WWF television on a Piper’s Pit segment in which Hogan and Andre both received trophies for their accomplishments — Hogan for his three years as champion and André for his career-long undefeated streak. Andre felt that Hogan had upstaged him — he had, actually — and the seeds were sown for André to turn. Andre brought on Heenan as his new manager — the ultimate signal of his turn to the dark side — and the following weeks were spent with increasingly dramatic interactions between the two men, mostly in interviews and stare downs on Piper’s Pit.”
“ROWDY” RODDY PIPER
“It was everyone contributing to this storyline, and you could feel right away this was going to be special. You just knew it.”
HULK HOGAN
“He reached up and ripped the crucifix right off my chest, then threw it on the ground. I had some Mentholatum on my finger and I was supposed to stick it in my eye to make it look like Andre’s ripping my crucifix off had made me start crying. But it was cool because when he ripped the cross off, his fingernails scratched my chest and blood came pouring out. When I picked up the cross a wave of emotion came over me, and the tears started to come out even without the Mentholatum.
AN ELECTRIC CROWD
GEORGE “THE ANIMAL” STEELE:
“This goes way back to when I was a student in Detroit [and wrestled] with a mask on. My wife goes to get her hair done and the hairdresser asks her, ‘Where are you going? Are you going out?’ And my wife says, ‘Yeah, I’m going to the wrestling,’ and the lady said, ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ like it’s a putdown that she’s going to wrestling. Years later, the same beauty parlor, same lady, my wife goes in, she’s getting her hair done and the lady says, ‘What are you getting your hair done for?’ ‘Well, I’m going to WrestleMania III.’ ‘Can you get me tickets!?!’ That’s the change that we had.’”
RICK MARTEL
“Everyone was talking about Wrestlemania III, all across the country. I think we were in Phoenix, maybe three or four weeks before the show, and this guy came in and started screaming that everything was sold out for Wrestlemania. We were all like kids (in the dressing room), because this was the first experience of something so huge for everybody.”
HOWARD FINKEL
“I didn’t get into town until Saturday night. If I recall, I didn’t see the building and the set-up until Sunday morning. What blew me away was that people were already out in the parking lot, partying. That was unheard of in our genre. It was a surreal feeling just to see people having a good time in the parking lots. I believe the gates opened at 8 a.m., and it was just an amazing, amazing happening. I remembered looking at the parking lots and I said to one of the guys, ‘This is just unbelievable.’”
VIOLENT J (musician, Insane Clown Posse)
“I was gonna sneak in. At this point, I had already become a master of sneaking in to the shows down at Joe Louis Arena. But the Silverdome was un-sneak-in-able. I’m walking all around it, it’s nothing like Joe Louis. There’s fences before you even get into the doors. And I remember, there were a bunch of us trying to get in, and this dude walked up with some form of bolt cutters, and he straight up clipped the fence open. And he bent the fence back and we all slipped in through there, and we ran up to a door, and it was open!”
HONKY TONK MAN (wrestler)
“The lead-ups for each match were the best piece of work I had ever seen. Each match was programmed with something special, a neat twist to each one. The sheer size of that audience in that huge venue will be a lasting memory of something I do not think any of us thought was going to be that big.”
HILLBILLY JIM
“The vastness of that building was unbelievable.”
B. BRIAN BLAIR
“The building was electric. When you strolled out there in a golf cart in your modified underwear, it’s quite a rush.”
JASON POWELL
“The wrestlers on this show rode carts made out to look like mini rings for their entrances.”
HARLEY RACE
The funniest thing was that Hogan came to the building in a limo with a hot tub. When the limo went down the ramp into the Pontiac Silverdome, all the water sloshed out of the tub into the rest of the limo. They then filled up the tub again and, on the way out, they did it again.
STEPHANIE MCMAHON
“ I remember sitting in the skybox and seeing that sea of people. And Andre, who I was most interested in watching, was like this big; he was so far away, he looked like a little matchbox.”
LINDA MCMAHON
“All you could hear was one singular roar from the crowd.”
VINCE MCMAHON
“When I first went out — if there’s tape of it, and there must be — I couldn’t speak at first because I was overwhelmed with the presence of my Dad, and how much that would have meant to him to be there.”
THE CAN-AM CONNECTION vs “COWBOY” BOB ORTON & THE MAGNIFICENT MURACO
RICK MARTEL
“Tom Zenk and I opened up that Wrestlemania against Don Muraco and Bob Orton. I remember that when I went in the ring, I didn’t look up — I just concentrated on my match and what was going on in the ring. And then, after the match was over, then I allowed myself to look up absorb the moment.”
JASON POWELL
“The Can-Am Connection started teaming in November 1986 and were the hottest team in the company when Zenk made an abrupt departure in July 1987. Zenk cited pay and contract issues, and he had a lot of negative things to say about the company after his in-ring career was over.”
TOM ZENK
“Who pinned them? — Martel of course! Everything was on cue and we did all the spots… I wasn’t satisfied. I got $10,000. Other guys in bad matches got $20,000. They even paid Mary Hart more. I asked Rick, ‘How much do you get paid’. ‘Uh, the same as you.’ Then I heard from the other guys what he really got paid. Between us we should have received $100,000. I never had any problem with Vince — he was a good pay-off man — but he still owes me.”
HILLBILLY JIM, THE HAITI KID & LITTLE BEAVER vs KING KONG BUNDY, LITTLE TOKYO & LORD LITTLEBROOK
HILLBILLY JIM
“My character was a big guy from Mudlick, Kentucky, who wasn’t supposed to be sharp or worldly. I didn’t have fancy moves. I had a gimmick: I’m a country boy. I got to buy my mother the first house she ever had. I got to buy her the first car she ever had. I wouldn’t have been worth my salt had I not done that.”
DAN GREENE (writer)
“For decades, performers from [Jack] Britton’s 40-man stable — Sky Low Low, Little Beaver, Lord Littlebrook, Fuzzy Cupid — toured the U.S. and Canada as special attractions. Money flowed. On shows heavy with wide-bodied bruisers and methodical grapplers, teams of four-footers chasing one another around the ring offered change-of-pace appeal. Many little wrestlers were talented athletes capable of impressive physical feats and compelling action, but instead a reliable formula formed around a series of crowd-pleasing slapstick spots, like dog piles and running between the referee’s legs — rare bits of unvarnished farce in an era when wrestling still insisted upon a veil of legitimacy.”
HILLBILLY JIM
“The match itself was kind of a novelty match, as you can well imagine. It seemed like it was over before it got started, brother. Boom boom boom, bam bam bam, next thing you know me and Bundy are locked up and the little guys are running around.
KING KONG BUNDY
“Well, I remember Little Beaver popping me with that moccasin and that thing stung like a son-of-a-bitch. So I was a little hard on the Beaver that night.”
BRET HART
“As I waited for my match, I watched on a backstage monitor as Bundy slammed Little Beaver and then delivered a 450-pound elbow drop on the ninety-pound midget. I couldn’t help but laugh when the three remaining midgets turned on Bundy and backed him off!”
HILLBILLY JIM
“I’m carrying Little Beaver to the back. He was as heavy as 50 stones, and I had to carry him all the way back to the dressing room because they didn’t have the little carts to take you back, only to take you out there. This ain’t no pun, he was dead weight. He was a little guy, but he was concentrated weight. It was like holding 130, 140 pounds in your arm, right next to you, trying to walk with your arms bent, like, 300 yards. It was like a strongman contest.”
ALICE COOPER (musician)
“They were yelling at ‘King Kong’ Bundy, who’s 7-feet-9, and one of them is going, ‘You said you weren’t going to slam us!’ And Bundy was going [affects sheepish voice], ‘I’m sorry.’ It was so funny.”
FULL NELSON CHALLENGE: BILLY JACK HAYNES vs HERCULES
JASON POWELL
“Haynes vs. Hercules was positioned as a battle of two masters of the Full Nelson, which was a finisher back in those days.”
BILLY JACK HAYNES
“A lot of people think I’m insane or crazy. I did do some crazy things.”
“LOSER MUST BOW” MATCH: THE JUNKYARD DOG vs KING HARLEY RACE
NICK BOCKWINKEL (wrestler)
“[Harley Race is] one of the hardest working, toughest, most rugged S.O.B.s that this profession has ever had.”
TRIPLE H (wrestler)
“Harley Race took the business from the era that it was in and moved it in a different direction. Harley changed the business in his generation, combining that technical expertise with a brawling, tougher-than-nails style. He was also an innovator in the business. There are still moves you see today that Harley brought to the table that really took the business in a different direction.”
HARLEY RACE
“When [the WWF pitching a gimmick for me] first came up, I thought the easiest way out of this was just for me to come up with an idea that was so far out in one direction or the other that Vince and his group wouldn’t go along with it.”
JASON POWELL
“Race became The King in the WWF by winning the second King of the Ring tournament in 1986. Jerry Lawler, who was the star of Memphis wrestling at the time, sued over the name and won.”
OLIVER BATEMAN (writer)
“Race was still in decent condition then, feeling ferociously strong after trying steroids for the first time (an admission made in his autobiography) and still working at a brisker pace than most of his fellow WWF performers of that period.”
JASON POWELL
“After the match, Race took a seat in the ring. JYD gave him a quick bow, then Race got up and played to the crowd. JYD picked up the chair and struck Race with it. JYD grabbed Race’s cape and the crowd cheered as he sauntered to The King music and then wore it on his way backstage…”
THE ROUGEAU BROTHERS vs THE DREAM TEAM
PAT LAPRADE (writer)
“The name Rougeau has been synonymous with the Montreal territory for more than 60 years.”
JACQUES ROUGEAU (wrestler)
“We tried so hard to have the people like us. Because we were French Canadians, I guess, it was hard.”
JASON POWELL
“The Dream Team had some heat, but the Rougeaus got a polite pop when they were introduced. Heenan was fun on commentary and gloating that it was his day considering he was managing Andre in the main event.”
“ROWDY” RODDY PIPER vs “ADORABLE” ADRIAN ADONIS
“ROWDY” RODDY PIPER
“I go back to what guys of the Gorgeous George era taught me; you heave a territory when it almost peaks, not when it peaks. Toward the end of the second round at WrestleMania 2, the fans made me a good guy by cheering for me, and I refused to take a dive. To stay on top, I needed to get out of the business completely. So I went and did They Live with director John Carpenter. I needed to do something in another form and then walk back in the front door.”
SHEAMUS (wrestler)
“The most entertaining match I’ve ever seen was Roddy Piper versus Adrian Adonis. The match lasted only about five minutes but the crowd was so into it. It was chaotic. Jimmy Hart got dragged into the ring. Brutus Beefcake came down and clipped Adonis’ hair. It was just such a fun match to watch.”
JASON POWELL
“Adonis was actually barking at him, presumably because it should have been cut with scissors first. And yes, this was, in fact, the birth of Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake.”
TITO SANTANA & THE BRITISH BULLDOGS vs THE HART FOUNDATION & “DANGEROUS” DANNY DAVIS
JIM “THE ANVIL” NEIDHART
“Anytime you’re wrestling with the British Bulldogs, you’re going to have a hell of a match, because there’s nobody better out there than Dynamite Kid and Davey Boy.”
JASON POWELL
“Danny Davis was a heel referee who cost the British Bulldogs the tag titles, and also cost Tito Santana the Intercontinental Title. The Bulldogs had their bulldog mascot Matilda chase the heels around the ring.”
BRET HART
“At the start of the match, The Bulldogs bumped me and Jim out of the ring, and then they picked up a terrified Danny Davis, hoisted him over their heads and threw him over the top rope. While I was trying to break his fall, Danny poked me in my right eye; after that, what should have been one of my greatest memories is nothing but a painful blur. For the finish, Danny clobbered Davey Boy with Jimmy’s megaphone for the cheap win.”
KOKO B. WARE vs BUTCH REED
KOKO B. WARE (wrestler)
“[His mascot Frankie B. Ware] started out as my late wife's idea. She really helped me get the idea of the ‘Bird-man’. As a matter of fact, I was the ‘Bird-man’ before I got the bird. I had birds on my tights. And one day she went to a pet store and she saw that blue & gold macaw and she said ‘this is what you need.”
JERRY BRISCO (wrestler)
“[Butch Reed] was the prototype athlete. Had it all…work skills, promo, body, charisma. One great man outside the ring.”
ARN ANDERSON (wrestler)
“He looked like the cock of the walk, no matter where you saw him — walking through an airport, the locker room, hotel lobby, or in the ring. Butch Reed is a guy that had confidence and was a good hand. He brought a lot to the table. If you pointed him out and said, ‘Hey, I wouldn’t mess with that guy’, I would take your advice.”
KOKO. B. WARE
“I’ll tell you the truth about it. I was so grateful being there. If only I could’ve made a good payday out of it. Nothing bad I’m going to say about them at all. But you take $20,000 and you split it, gave me ten, give Butch Reed ten. Is that a good payoff?”
THE KILLER BEES vs THE IRON SHEIK & NIKOLAI VOLKOFF
JIM BRUNZELL
“I was pretty nervous. I remember, of course, the match. We had worked with Volkoff and the Iron Shiek many times. It’s sort of like pulling teeth without novocaine. We managed to have a good match with them, a real rarity.”
B. BRIAN BLAIR
“Volkoff was a wonderful gentleman and the kindest of the kind, just not the greatest opponent that you would want to wrestle to please the crowd with. Although Jumpin’ Jim and I made the most of those two that we could. It wasn’t like working with Bret Hart.”
THE IRON SHEIK
“Brian Blair big time jabroni. He don’t have the balls. I wish I suplex him one more time.”
“HACKSAW” JIM DUGGAN
“I had been with [the WWF] a couple months, but just on a really basic level. They weren’t using me. I came down for the Killer Bees match when they were wrestling Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik. I came running down with my two-by-four and this little American flag taped to it. I worked over Nikolai and the Sheik with the board, it was one of the highlights of my career. Everybody in the place was yelling ‘U-S-A, U-S-A,’ it was the thrill of a lifetime.”
WWF INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPIONSHIP: RICKY “THE DRAGON” STEAMBOAT vs “MACHO MAN” RANDY SAVAGE
JESSE “THE BODY” VENTURA
“I’ve always said the greatest match that I’ve ever witnessed in my life was at WrestleMania III, ‘Macho Man’ against Ricky Steamboat. I don’t think there’s ever been a match on this planet that was better than that one. Believe me, I saw a lot of great matches.”
LANNY POFFO
“My brother always had a chip on his shoulder. He wanted to prove he was an athlete. He needed Ricky Steamboat to prove that with.”
BILL SIMMONS
“Everything peaked with his Steamboat feud, which started when Savage ‘crushed’ Steamboat’s larynx with the timekeeper’s bell.
RICKY STEAMBOAT
“From the time he dropped the bell on my throat until WrestleMania, we had a three-month buildup. In other words, we had the time to elaborate [on the storyline]. If you drill into their heads week after week and it goes for three months, people will have a better, fond memory of why these two guys are having this blow-off match. I don’t think too much today that the guys have that luxury.”
LANNY POFFO
“Randy was absolutely in love with Steamboat as far as a performer. When you finally get a good dance partner, it’s like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Can you imagine how great it felt to have another guy the same size as you with perfect chemistry?”
RICKY STEAMBOAT
“With Ric [Flair] and I, when the promoter came to us and said we were going to Broadway — we were going the hour — most of the time we wouldn’t even talk about the match. We’d look at each other in the locker room and he’d say, ‘Ok, see you in the ring…’ We’d go out there and just wing it. With Savage, it was, ‘We’re gonna do this step one through step one-hundred and fifty seven..’ Whether or not it works, we just keep going through the numbers… We got to the point where I’d turn a page in my notebook and I’d say, ‘Ok this is step one hundred and twelve…”
GEORGE “THE ANIMAL” STEELE
“They had been talking this match for three months. I was sick of it, because I don’t talk matches.”
RICKY STEAMBOAT
“We didn’t have very much time to work with each other because here I am, ‘injured,’ right? So through the days, weeks and months leading up to it, the things we thought would work in a match, we didn’t have time to test them out in the live audiences prior to WrestleMania III. We wanted to put together something that never was put together before in the fashion that we did. What I mean by that is the number of false finishes we had throughout the match. I think there was 21 false finishes in a match that went less than 17 minutes.”
LANNY POFFO
“The beginning of the match, because of the revenge factor, Ricky put Randy in the hangman — he grabbed him by the throat and choked him above his head. After Randy had put Steamboat in the hospital, you don’t expect a guy to say, ‘No, I’m not mad anymore.’ No, it’s, ‘I hate you. I’m going to grab you by the throat and throw you down.’ This is violence.”
BRET HART
“It was sold out for the wrestlers in the back. There was nobody that didn’t watch that match. Every single wrestler in the dressing room watched.”
LANNY POFFO
“Randy grabbed the bell and climbed to the top rope, but this time George Steele was there to make the save.”
RICKY STEAMBOAT
“The association [from Savage’s feud with Steele] warranted it. But George also understood the focus on this match was me and Randy, and any little part that he could play in it, he was just thankful for it.”
GEORGE “THE ANIMAL” STEELE
“I lived about 18 miles from the Silverdome. I’d rather have been in a match than standing in a corner in my backyard. The only thing I liked about the match was I got to stand across the ring and look at Elizabeth.”
LANNY POFFO
“When [Steele] pushed Randy off the top rope before the finish, you can’t say he was too early or too late. He was right in the nick of time.”
RICKY STEAMBOAT
“There was a momentary lull because we had so many false finishes — 1, 2, kick out! 1, 2, kick out! — and then there was the 1, 2, 3, and everybody was like, ‘Whoa!’ And then the eruption — here it comes, here it comes. Savage is laying there on the mat and he says to me, ‘Listen to ’em, Dragon, listen to ’em! Here they come. Oh yeah, we got ’em. We got ’em tonight, Dragon.’”
“MEAN” GENE OKERLUND
“It seemed like it was going to be the backup match, but as it turned out, in reality, it was the main event of WrestleMania III. All of a sudden, the Andre-Hulk thing kind of came out as a specialty match, if you will. Which it was, indeed.”
BILL SIMMONS
“In a memorable sports year that included Leonard upsetting Hagler, the Lakers outlasting the Celtics, Indiana shocking Syracuse, Elway unleashing The Drive and Calgary toppling Edmonton, I’d put Steamboat-Savage against any of them. It was that good. The full potential of professional wrestling, realized.”
RICKY STEAMBOAT
“After the show, Vince would have a big dinner party for all the boys and their wives and family. I do remember a bunch of old-timers like Arnold Skaaland and Gorilla Monsoon patting us on the back and saying, ‘God damn kid, what a match. God, I’ve never seen anything like that before. My God. How did you remember all of those false finishes? Oh Jesus!’ That was a great feeling, especially when you get it from the old-timers, even the salty ones.”
JAKE “THE SNAKE” ROBERTS vs HONKY TONK MAN
JAKE “THE SNAKE” ROBERTS
“Following Steamboat and Savage, for me, wasn’t that big of a problem. The only people that have a problem following a great match is a guy that doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. I can’t be Ricky Steamboat, I can’t be Randy Savage, but I do a damn good Jake “The Snake.”
BOB UECKER (sportscaster)
“I remember going to Los Angeles to do the promotion stuff. So I meet Jake “The Snake” Roberts, who incidentally, he says, ‘Uke, why don’t you take a picture with Damien?’ I said, ‘Who’s Damien?’ He says, ‘He’s in the bag.’ I said, ‘Well so am I, give me a couple more beers.’”
JAKE “THE SNAKE” ROBERTS
“When I think about WrestleMania, I think about Alice Cooper. What the hell? Give me a break! This was Alice damn Cooper, bro. I’m from the ’70s, man, so that was my music. School’s out for summer was the hottest thing going at the time.”
ALICE COOPER
“I was famous for the boa constrictor, and I was famous for being from Detroit. It was a perfect fit. And it was our kind of theater anyways, so I fit right in with this whole thing.”
HONKY TONK MAN
“I liked the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. I grew up in Memphis and we were force-fed these movies of Elvis’ so [the ‘Honky Tonk Man’ character] was not something I wanted to do. The next thing I know, [the promoters in Calgary] brought me a jumpsuit to the matches and gave it to me for a Christmas present. I developed the character as a bad guy and I knew how to make it work [when I came to WWF], but Vince didn’t see it that way. Six weeks later they had to switch me.”
ALICE COOPER
“To me, it was just a gig. I was going, ‘OK, I’ll show up.’ I really didn’t have any idea the scope, the vastness of this thing. I’m used to playing in front of a lot of people. But when we rolled out on the cart, 90,000 people at the Silverdome, packed, it was pretty amazing. That’s more than the Lions ever drew.”
JAKE “THE SNAKE” ROBERTS
“So I’m with Alice Cooper on that tiny little ring, and then all of a sudden I’m being clawed and scratched. And I look and it’s Cooper, and he’s sliding down my body, scratching me, and I’m like, ‘What are you doing?’ He whispers, ‘Too much rush, too much rush.’ I was like, ‘Dude, you’re Alice friggin’ Cooper, what do you mean, too much rush?’”
ALICE COOPER
“It was terrifying, and I remember telling Jake as we were riding that little ring on wheels down the aisle, ‘This isn’t my audience, my audience isn’t as crazy as this.’ It was one of the most terrifying things in the world — 90,000 people, wrestling fans, going nuts and screaming for blood.”
JAKE “THE SNAKE” ROBERTS
“Honky Tonk Man was really needling him. He was like, ‘Why don’t you get that jacket off and come up in the ring, I’ll tear your butt up you little skinny girl. You must be a girl, named Alice. What the hell’s going on?’ And Cooper got into it, he lost himself in the moment. And it was so funny, man, he ripped his jacket off. The guy might weigh 125 pounds. And it was so funny, when he ripped that jacket off, I was like, ‘Oh, God, put that back on.’ And “Honky Tonk” is dying laughing.”
ALICE COOPER
“Jake’s snake was one of the meanest animals I’d ever seen in my life. He treated it really rough. So when that thing came out of the bag, it would have taken your hand off. I had to grab him by the nose and hold his nose down just so he wouldn’t bite me.”
JAKE “THE SNAKE” ROBERTS
“At the end, Alice is going to put the snake on Jimmy Hart. The problem with putting the snake on Jimmy Hart is Jimmy Hart is terrified of that snake. And Alice could not get the snake over there, because the snake outweighed him. And he’s trying to pick the snake up and he can’t pick it up. Now Jimmy Hart, in the meantime, is blistering my shins with his kicks, because he wants away from this situation. And the longer Cooper took, the worse it got. If he’d just get it over with it would have been okay. It seemed like eternity. And he didn’t really get it on him, he just sort of laid it there, that was about it.”
WWF CHAMPIONSHIP: HULK HOGAN vs ANDRE THE GIANT
DAVID SHOEMAKER
“Jesse Ventura said from the commentary table that it was “the biggest match in the history of professional wrestling,” and there was no room to argue with him. This was Hercules versus Zeus, with immortality on the line.”
HACKSAW” JIM DUGGAN
“Nobody knew if Andre was gonna do the job for Hogan. He could be an irritable giant. Everybody knew the script and the way the script was going to go, but Andre hadn’t said ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ Nobody knew.”
RICK MARTEL
“There was definitely tension backstage. In fact, I remember Hulk talking to me about it. Andre was Andre, you know, he was a giant. He did whatever he wanted to do, whenever he wanted to do it, and no-one would stop him.”
HULK HOGAN
“I wrote everything out from A to Z. … I saw Vince that morning, and he said, ‘You’ll be fine. I think you need to go talk to Andre.’ I said, ‘Andre, what are we doing?’ ‘Don’t worry!’ ‘OK.’ A couple hours later, he’d give me a drink, and whenever he’s not looking I’m dumping them, bro. I’ll never make it out there…”
VINCE MCMAHON
He kept coming to me, ‘are you sure the boss is going to put me over?’ ‘No problem.’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘He’s going to do it, Terry.’”
DAVE MELTZER
“The pinfall was big, you had the bodyslam thing had been well built up. Hogan did it in the territory seven years earlier, 1980, when they did the Hogan/Andre thing. So, you’re talking a large percentage of that fan based had no idea that ever happened and in fact , part of the build-up of that match was pretending that whole 1980s period never existed, it was the first time they ever wrestled, and things like that. So, nobody had ever seen Andre slammed.”
HULK HOGAN
“‘Andre,’ I said, ‘Dude…your back’s bad…are we gonna do the slam?’ He goes, ‘I DON’T KNOW.’ I said, ‘What do you mean..’ ‘DON’T WORRY, BOSS. DON’T WORRY…I’LL TELL YOU…’”
VINCE MCMAHON
“André loved to bust balls and he was busting Hogan’s. And out of respect to André, I’m going to go right along with it, so Hogan was concerned all the way up to the day of the show.”
TITO SANTANA
“I can recall a bunch of us glued to the monitor — Jimmy Hart, Randy Savage, Ricky Steamboat, Brutus Beefcake and other guys in the locker room.
HULK HOGAN
“We get in the ring and everything I wrote out, he did. It was like he memorized it.”
HULK HOGAN
“The place is rumbling … just out of nowhere [Andre says], ‘Slammmmm!’ I go, ‘What?’ ‘He goes, ‘Slammmm! Slammmm, dammit!’ It was time to pass the torch and I was on fire at the time, and I did need to win.”
TITO SANTANA
“I can still see all of us watching and shouting a collective, ‘Wow!’ Andre had a lot of physical problems at this point, and that he was able to position himself in a way to be body slammed by Hulk was a true testament to his drive and ability.”
BOBBY “THE BRAIN” HEENAN
“He realized, I believe, that this was his last big pay-per-view he could’ve ever gotten and with who, Hogan, the hottest guy in the business, the biggest guy in the business. If he wanted to beat Hogan, he was gonna beat him. What he wanted to do was make his money on the way out.”
DAVE MELTZER
“To a lot of people, it is probably the most famous pro-wrestling match outside of Japan. For North Americans, if you ask what’s the most-famous wrestling match today, I think that match would probably win a poll.”
HOWARD FINKEL
“We knew where we were going, but did we want to go there softly? Nah. We wanted to go full bore. From my perspective, we just exuded confidence, but we didn’t want to be cocky about it. We wanted to make a statement. To have the 93,000-plus people in attendance, it’s an absolute statement that we made.”
DAVE MELTZER
“Zane Bresloff, who promoted that show, goes, ‘God, Hogan probably really believes that number.’ And I go, ‘Isn’t that the real number?’ And he goes, ‘No, of course not!’ 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.”
SHANE MCMAHON
“Vince being the visionary that he is, takes the largest indoor stadium ever and fills it with 93,173 people.”
STEPHANIE MCMAHON
“When I was a little girl, I was at WrestleMania III. I remember what 93,173 people looked like.”
DAVE MELTZER
“I’ve talked to Vince about it once. And he said, ‘The numbers that we say on television are for entertainment purposes only.’”
VINCE MCMAHON
“To see 93,000 people in that arena, it’s like, ‘OK, kid, all right, you made it.’”
KURT ANGLE (wrestler, Olympic gold medalist)
“Even though I wasn’t a fan back then — I didn’t start watching until I started, I was an amateur wrestler, I was told never to watch it — but that’s all I ever heard was WrestleMania III, when Andre got slammed by Hulk Hogan, how famous that year was, and how special that event was and how that kept wrestling alive.”
PART THREE: What The World Is Watching
Back to PART ONE: The Grandaddy of ’Em All
Wrestling Club with Darren & Brett is a podcast produced by WFMU.
