“Bigger! Better! Badder!: Wrestlemania 3 and the Year It All Changed” review
93,173. That number has been in the professional wrestling lexicon since it was announced by the legendary “Mean” Gene Okerlund to those in attendance of WrestleMania 3. The World Wrestling Federation (now called WWE) held the event in the Pontiac Silverdome on March 29, 1987. For some reason 93,173 is the center of a storm of controversy and I’m serious. So much so that renowned author KEITH ELLIOTT GREENBERG wrote an entire book on the events surrounding WrestleMania 3 entitled BIGGER! BETTER! BADDER!: WRESTLEMANIA 3 AND THE YEAR IT ALL CHANGED (ECW PRESS 3/25/25, $22.95)
Mr. Greenberg has written extensively on professional wrestling for decades, so he is the perfect writer to undertake this journey into the past. The jouney isn’t just about the Pay Per View (now called Premium Live Event by WWE) but how lots of the stars on the card and people in the seats got there. Plus how former WWE chairman Vince McMahon and his staff got to that fateful day in Michigan.
Don’t worry each match is covered in detail with comments from the participants. The journey takes you from how McMahon and his wife Linda acquired the family business from father Vince J McMahon and began to build out of a regional business to a nationwide one. Mr. Greenberg also covers the other family businesses (or territories) McMahon conquered on the road to WrestleMania 3. AWA run by the Gagne family, Mid-Atlantic/NWA run by the Crockett family to name a few. He covers how they reacted to Vince’s hostile takeover of wrestling, morphing into sports entertainment. The PPV couldn’t be come to being if it wasn’t for three icons of the ring, manager Bobby “the Brain” Heenan and wrestlers Andre the Giant and Hulk Hogan. Without any of them the event doesn’t get to 93,173 or whatever it really is.
Be prepared for a good history lesson from Mr. Greenberg and the many people he interviewed. I will save the subjects for you to find out but some are quite candid on the event. Thanks ECW Press for the preview into this fascinating book. It is on sale through www.ECWPress.com plus other bookstores 3/25/25. For more work from Alan Wojcik check out www.Facebook.com/KayfabeWrestlingRadio or MyNameisWojcik on Twitter/X.
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BIGGER! BETTER! BADDER!: WRESTLEMANIA III and the Year It All Changed by Keith Elliot Greenberg will be published by ECW Press on March 25, 2025.
On an overcast day in 1987, the pro wrestling landscape was altered forever when a reported 93,173 fans converged on the Pontiac Silverdome outside Detroit to see Hulk Hogan defend his championship against André the Giant. For several years, Vincent Kennedy McMahon had been transforming old-time rasslin’ into mainstream “sports entertainment,” incorporating A-list celebrities into storylines and forcing even cynics to follow the proceedings. But the massive turnout for WrestleMania III convinced sponsors, licensees, and media conglomerates that the company that would become World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) was no longer a fringe diversion for the unwashed masses; it was now legitimate physical theater worthy of global attention. From this point forward, it would be acceptable for devotees to make the annual pilgrimage to WrestleMania from the far corners of the Earth, the way others journeyed to the World Cup or Super Bowl.
BIGGER! BETTER! BADDER! is the story behind the seminal event, told from the perspective of company executives, wrestlers who appeared on the card, fans who attended the show, and other wrestling personalities. But wrestling author and historian Keith Elliot Greenberg also examines the entire industry at the time, including insights from representatives from the rival promotions McMahon was putting out of business as pro wrestling transitioned from a regional phenomenon into an international juggernaut.
Keith Elliot Greenberg is a New York Times bestselling author, as well as a monthly columnist for Inside the Ropes Magazine. A lifetime New Yorker, he co-authored the autobiographies of “Classy” Freddie Blassie, Ric Flair and “Superstar” Billy Graham, as well as two editions of the WWE Encyclopedia of Sports Entertainment. His previous books for ECW Press include Too Sweet: Inside the Indie Wrestling Revolution, Follow the Buzzards: Pro Wrestling in the Age of COVID-19 and Best Seat in the House: My Life in the Jeff Healey Band, co-written with Tom Stephen. He regularly appears as a wrestling historian on A&E’s WWE documentary series.
