WrestleMania III (1987): The Night WrestleMania Finally Became WrestleMania

WrestleMania III opens with exactly the sort of match a twelve-bout card needs: enough movement to wake up the building, enough recognizable talent to feel important, and no delusions about requiring fifteen minutes. Rick Martel and Tom Zenk work quickly, using double-team offense and athletic counters against the heavier, more methodical Bob Orton and Don Muraco. The contrast gives the Can-Am Connection a clean babyface identity without requiring elaborate storyline exposition. Martel ultimately catches Muraco with the crossbody while Zenk provides the trip that helps finish the sequence. It is not a deep match, but the pacing is crisp and the crowd responds immediately. After WrestleMania 2 opened with a double count-out, a straightforward five-minute babyface win feels like WWF has already learned something.

The Full Nelson Challenge is more feud punctuation than technical showcase, but Billy Jack Haynes and Hercules at least understand the physical argument. Both men are trying to prove ownership of the same hold, so the match is built around strength, positioning and repeated attempts to establish control rather than around a broad move set. That simplicity works until the finish sends both men outside and into a double count-out, one of the show's more obvious territory-era escape routes. The post-match violence is better than the official result: Bobby Heenan attacks Haynes, Hercules uses his chain, and a bloodied Haynes is trapped in the full nelson. The angle keeps the issue alive, but WrestleMania would have benefited from a decisive answer to the challenge advertised in the match's name.

This match is difficult to separate from the era's presentation of little-person performers as novelty attractions. Within that framework, Little Beaver is clearly the engine: he refuses to stay intimidated by King Kong Bundy, repeatedly irritates the giant, and generates the reactions the segment is designed to produce. The problem is that the eventual payoff is Bundy physically attacking Beaver, drawing the disqualification after the match's special rules prohibit the larger wrestlers from doing exactly that. The crowd responds, but the spectacle depends on physical difference more than wrestling and ages far less comfortably than the card's best material. At barely three and a half minutes it does not derail the show, which may be the kindest structural compliment available.

Harley Race and Junkyard Dog rely almost entirely on character clarity. Race is the self-appointed king demanding submission; JYD is the popular babyface who refuses to recognize the monarchy. The wrestling is rough and brief, with Race taking his customary alarming bumps and Bobby Heenan creating the distraction that allows Race to secure the pin with a belly-to-belly suplex. The stipulation then provides the real payoff. JYD bows as promised, immediately attacks Race, steals the robe and leaves to a huge reaction. Strictly speaking, the babyface honors the letter of the agreement and then ignores every implication of sportsmanship. The Silverdome does not appear troubled by the legal distinction. The match works as a four-minute character sketch rather than an important WrestleMania contest.

The Dream Team and Rougeau Brothers get four minutes to wrestle and several months of storyline movement to communicate around it. Raymond and Jacques supply the pace, Greg Valentine provides the reliable physical base, and Brutus Beefcake's accidental contact with Valentine pushes the existing Dream Team tension closer to its breaking point. Dino Bravo ultimately interferes from the top rope while the referee is occupied, allowing Valentine to steal the pin. The more important image comes afterward when Valentine, Bravo and Johnny V leave without Beefcake. That abandonment begins the turn that will make Beefcake part of Roddy Piper's celebration later in the show. The match itself is too compressed to become much, but WrestleMania III is unusually good at making short undercard bouts carry story consequences.

Roddy Piper's billed retirement match is not a technical classic and does not need to be. The crowd treats Piper like one of the biggest babyfaces on the planet, and Adrian Adonis gives him exactly the kind of flamboyant, irritating opponent the farewell requires. They use Piper's belt, brawl more than they wrestle, and build to Adonis prematurely releasing the sleeper because he thinks the match is over. Jimmy Hart's celebration creates the opening for Brutus Beefcake to revive Piper, who locks in his own sleeper for the submission. Beefcake then cuts Adonis' hair, completing both Piper's revenge and Beefcake's emerging babyface identity. The match succeeds because the emotion is honest even when the retirement is not permanent. For six minutes, the Silverdome believes it is saying goodbye.

This six-man tag is one of the smartest undercard matches because every participant has a reason to dislike Danny Davis. The disgraced referee had helped cost the Bulldogs their tag titles and had previously been involved in Tito Santana's Intercontinental Championship loss, so the babyfaces spend the match trying to turn righteous revenge into legally sanctioned assault. Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart do what they do best: control the pace, break up falls and create openings for the least experienced wrestler on their team. The match spills into the expected six-man chaos before Davis uses Jimmy Hart's megaphone and pins Davey Boy Smith. The heel victory is frustrating by design, and because the story is so clear the shortcut actually produces heat instead of merely avoiding a conclusion.

Butch Reed versus Koko B. Ware is the card's most obvious connective-tissue match. Koko brings movement and enough crowd sympathy to keep the short bout alive, while Reed works the stronger heel role and eventually reverses a high crossbody into a pin while grabbing the tights. The post-match sequence again matters more than the official contest: Slick attacks Koko, Tito Santana runs in, and the babyfaces send Reed and Slick retreating. Nothing is offensively bad, but four minutes after a strong six-man tag and immediately before Savage-Steamboat is an unforgiving place to be ordinary. The match functions as a reset before the card's masterpiece, which is valuable to the running order and not much of a reason to revisit the match itself.

Savage and Steamboat wrestle as though fourteen minutes is an insultingly small amount of time and they intend to use every second anyway. The match is fast without becoming frantic, rehearsed without looking mechanical, and full of near falls that emerge from actual counters rather than ritualized finisher trading. Steamboat's injured-throat history gives Savage's attacks direction. Savage's desperation gives the late referee bump and ring-bell attempt a reason to exist. George Steele's intervention prevents another assault, but the championship still changes through wrestling: Savage tries a scoop slam, Steamboat rolls through into the small package, and the building detonates at three. Its influence has been discussed so often that praise can sound ceremonial. The important thing is simpler: the match still works. It remains crisp, emotionally legible, economical and genuinely exciting almost four decades later.

Jake Roberts versus Honky Tonk Man is another example of WrestleMania III understanding that presentation can rescue ordinary wrestling. Roberts enters with Alice Cooper and Damien, Honky has Jimmy Hart and the guitar, and the feud already carries the real-life residue of the guitar shot that injured Roberts. The match itself is solid rather than spectacular, built around Roberts hunting the DDT while Honky tries to escape long enough for Hart to alter the result. Hart eventually grabs Roberts' leg, Honky rolls him up with illegal rope leverage, and the heel gets away with the win. The post-match chase gives the crowd the better memory: Honky escapes, Hart is stranded, and Alice Cooper joins Roberts in tormenting the manager with Damien. Celebrity involvement actually supports the wrestling instead of replacing it.

The final undercard match is built around one of WWF's simplest 1980s buttons: Nikolai Volkoff tries to sing the Soviet anthem, Jim Duggan appears with an American flag on his two-by-four, and patriotism immediately becomes a weapon. The Killer Bees and Sheik-Volkoff wrestle a basic tag match while Duggan remains at ringside, guaranteeing that the actual teams will eventually become secondary to his involvement. That happens when Duggan chases Volkoff into the ring and hits Sheik with the board directly in front of the referee, causing the Bees to be disqualified. The crowd cheers the nationalistic payoff, but the finish makes the nominal babyface team lose because their ally cannot stop committing extremely visible felonies with lumber. It is efficient period-specific heat and little more.

Grading Hogan versus Andre strictly by athletic execution misses the match while grading it strictly by history avoids the match. What actually happens is remarkably simple and carefully chosen. Hogan attempts the slam almost immediately and fails, giving Andre the closest near fall of the match. Andre then controls with size, pressure and a bearhug while Hogan spends most of the bout making survival look increasingly expensive. The comeback is built from milestones rather than combinations: Andre hits the post, Hogan finally knocks him off his feet, the crowd realizes what might be coming, and Hogan lifts him for the slam that becomes the night's permanent image. The leg drop ends it. Andre's physical limitations are obvious, but the match never asks him to hide them through speed he cannot produce. The Silverdome supplies the velocity. As spectacle-based professional wrestling, it is extraordinarily effective.