Stranglehold on your Attention

Thu 5 April 2012

Stranglehold on your Attention

Filed under: #satscene —— Sylvia @ 14:08

On the 31st of March in 1985, the first Wrestlemania was held in Madison Square Garden, heralding the start of the World Wrestling Federation. The main event was a tag-team match between the WWF Champion Hulk Hogan and Mr. T. The event was a major success, which catapulted the World Wrestling Federation above competitive wrestling associations in the US. The WWF continued to hold larger and larger events, culminating with WrestleMania III.

Basil V. Devito Jr. wrote about Vince McMahon’s planning for the event in his 2001 book WrestleMania: The Official Insider’s Story, with the main event of Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant.

WrestleMania III remembered – part 1

“We’re going all the way,” he 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?”

The WWF excluded the state of Michigan from pay-per-view access to the event, so fans in Michigan could only see the competition if they attended. WrestleMania III set the world indoor attendance record of 93,173 fans and was also the largest paying attendance in the history of professional wrestling for its time.

Meanwhile, twenty-seven years later (ouch!) on the 31st of March in 2012, the following knock-down awesome photographs were taken: