I was too young to enjoy the spectacle and drama of Wrestlemania III when it occurred in the spring of 1987. I was yet to find my fandom of professional wrestling and discover the delight it was spreading across the world in the late 1980s. Thankfully, the release of ECW Press’ Bigger! Better! Badder! Wrestlemania III and the Year It All Changed book by Keith Elliot Greenberg, is a must-have for someone like myself who didn’t live and breathe the sport back then, like I do now.
Who doesn’t love a history lesson in their favourite topic?
The author is a longtime pro wrestling writer and historian. He’s an encyclopaedia of knowledge when it comes to what he often refers to as The Sport of Kings or One True Sport. In particular, I enjoy his monthly column in Inside The Ropes magazine, amongst the plethora of content he’s produced in his time as a wrestling journalist.
Times They are a-changin’
Bigger! Better! Badder! is packed with bitesize chapters due to the story criss-crossing with regularity, such is the scale of the story the author is telling. It’s not just a telling of one individual event, but a story of how Vince McMahon transformed the business. He put an end to the territory system that had dominated the U.S. scene for decades.
This was a monumental change to the business; it would never be the same again. Not only did it change how the business functioned – it created a singular iconic annual event, celebrated by millions and millions, to this day.
“In years to come, fans would make the annual pilgrimage to WrestleMania from Antwerp to Auckland, Nice to Nagasaki, Taipei to Tegucigalpa,” the author explains. “But it was WrestleMania III that enshrined the event as an institution that could not be missed.”
A cavalcade of wrestling talent throughout the book proclaim their awe and individual memories of what was a generational event that helped professional wrestling become mainstream and a key part of popular culture.
Vince’s background is detailed, including an interesting story about he and Evel Kenievel, and how he wanted to change wrestling into entertainment, a project that ultimately succeeded.
Keith also explains terms and phrases to assist those not completely familiar with pro wrestling. And it’s a delight reading about how old school wrestlers’ differing views of kayfabe were, at a time when many lived and died by it. A world away from what we see nowadays.
He documents Hulk Hogan’s rise, and first interaction with André The Giant inside an AWA ring, and how a movie role changed Hogan’s aura within the business that defined the man who would become a household name across the globe; a man capable of carrying such a game-changing event as Wrestlemania 3.
He writes about how so many different moments, events and decisions in the business led up to Wrestlemania III. The explosion of popularity for Hulk led to unfathomable excitement that those who weren’t fans of Hogan believed would fail. Hulkamania was running wild.
Much like ECW Press’ previous couple of books documenting the lives of Ric Flair and Randy Savage, this is a treasure trove of information for a fan like myself, who wasn’t alive during this exciting era of the business.
Wrasslin’ vs. Sports-Entertainment
Dave Meltzer – the polarising journalist who was a pioneer in the 1980s as someone writing about the inner workings of the business – offers a considerable amount of content to the book and this interesting tidbit:
“You’d think that if you were giving people better matches, it would pay off in the end,” noted Meltzer. “I’d watch Ric Flair and it was usually a great match. Then, I would go to a Hulk Hogan match, and it wasn’t great. Like, he couldn’t go 30 minutes in the ring, non-stop, like Ric Flair. But the people would come back. And when the NWA would return to the same town, not as many people came back. And that’s when it started hitting me that the WWF guys had star power, and the average person saw them as the major league.”
This seemingly echoes the current product and how AEW fans believe it has superior workers to the WWE, but without the commercial success that the WWE enjoys in 2025.
Vince was changing the way the sport was being offered to fans. One unnamed promoter even openly spoke amongst other promoters about having Vince killed, not knowing Jim Ross was in a bathroom stall listening. Infighting stifled their attempts to work together to defeat McMahon, as the book tells us. It was no longer just wrestling, it was now sports-entertainment.
“No two celebrities of this magnitude had ever been so enmeshed in a wrestling angle,” Greenberg explained, “and Vince had truly accomplished his objective of getting the non-wrestling public interested. When the WWF announced that Mr. T had volunteered to be Hogan’s tag team partner at the first WrestleMania on March 31 against the duo of Piper and Orndorff — with Orton in their corner — no one who followed pop culture wanted to miss it.”
“Having survived the anxiety of presenting the first WrestleMania, the organization was barreling ahead,” continued Greenberg.
The book also delves into a lot of backstage names that not all fans will recognise. People who didn’t book the shows, but had a big hand in producing and creating Wrestlemania’s beginnings. Tales from territories all over the country intertwine like a thrilling movie to lead to Wrestlemania’s inception and success.
The sheer excitement of fans for the red-hot build of Wrestlemania III was palpable. This was a time when fans were 100% behind the stars and really believed in the product. It was a different time. A time when Kaye Fabe wasn’t just the director of the 1987 Slammy Awards. Hogan vs. André had captured the imagination.
“With no Internet available to cross-reference history, the WWF was able to invent whichever narrative worked best,” Greenberg wrote. “So fans were led to believe that Hogan and André had never fought before — even though a portion of the viewership had personally witnessed the matches.”
“But why let the truth get in the way of a good story?” he continued. “In an age when pro wrestling was still treated with amusement by the media, reporters were eager to buy whatever McMahon sold them.”
Vince’s planned narrative and how he pulled it off was sensational. No-one else was able to see what he could envisage. The book is also good at getting you to understand the event from different perspectives, not just those in WWF, but the opposition, as well as fans and media.
Stealing The Show
“Before WrestleMania had ever been conceived and the Macho Man was still a former minor league baseball player named Randy Poffo,” Greenberg tells us, “he’d been envisioning a match with Ricky ‘The Dragon’ Steamboat. At the time, the young wrestler would have accepted a preliminary encounter in front of 150 spectators in Owenton, Kentucky. Instead, Savage and Steamboat would set a new in-ring standard at the Pontiac Silverdome.”
Greenberg covers the rest of the card and discusses the oft-fabled attendance figure that is disputed to this day. He also delves into André’s declining health; the behind the scenes details of putting an event like this together: Randy Savage’s meticulous preparation for his classic match against Steamboat; the Silverdome’s unique roof; setting up the event and how much of a challenge that was; how badly it affected traffic in the local area, plus so much more.
Occasionally you forget what the subject of the book is, so wide and varied the story goes. That’s not a complaint, as I said, the book offers so much rich history about much more than just Wrestlemania III. Thoroughly recommended.
Bigger! Better! Badder! Wrestlemania III and the Year It All Changed is out now in the U.S. and Canada, and releases on April 24th in the UK.
