|
|venue =[[Pontiac Silverdome]]<ref name=slam/>
|city =[[Pontiac, Michigan]]<ref name=slam/>
|attendance = 78,000<ref name=notinflated1 />
|attendance = 93,173 (disputed) <ref name=factstats/><ref name=MTV/><ref name=80s26/><ref name=ecw/><ref group="disputed">According to [[Dave Meltzer]], WWE's figure was false and the total audience was above 78,000.</ref>
|lastevent =[[WrestleMania 2]]
|nextevent =[[Survivor Series (1987)|Survivor Series]]
'''WrestleMania III''' was the third annual [[WrestleMania]] [[professional wrestling]] [[pay-per-view]] (PPV) [[List of WWE pay-per-view events|event]] produced by the [[WWE|World Wrestling Federation]] (WWF, now WWE). The event was held on March 29, 1987, at the [[Pontiac Silverdome]] in [[Pontiac, Michigan]]. There were 12 matches, with the main event featuring [[Hulk Hogan]] successfully defending his title against [[André the Giant]].
WWF claimed that paid attendance was 93,173, which would have made it the largest crowd for a WWF event as well as the largest recorded attendance of a live indoor event in North America at the time; however, althoughretrospective analyses of the numberevent hashave beendetermined disputedthe actual attendance to be around 78,000.<ref name=notinflated1 /> The event is considered to be the pinnacle of the [[1980s professional wrestling boom|1980s wrestling boom]],<ref name=MTV>{{cite web|url=http://newsroom.mtv.com/2010/03/29/wrestlemania-attendance/|title=WrestleMania III Breaks Attendance Record: Wake-Up Video|last=Anderson|first=Kyle|publisher=[[MTV]]|access-date=2010-09-08|date=2010-03-29|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100404010718/http://newsroom.mtv.com/2010/03/29/wrestlemania-attendance|archive-date=2010-04-04}}</ref><ref name=about>{{cite web|url=http://prowrestling.about.com/od/wrestlemania/p/wm3.htm|title=WrestleMania III|last=Cohen|first=Eric|publisher=About|access-date=2007-10-19|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080222140334/http://prowrestling.about.com/od/wrestlemania/p/wm3.htm|archive-date=2008-02-22}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.canoe.ca/SlamWrestlingGuestColumn/schramm_99may7.html|title=A history of crowds|last=Schramm|first=Chris|publisher=SLAM! Wrestling|access-date=2007-07-27|date=1999-05-07|archive-date=2012-07-29|archive-url=https://archive.today/2012.07.29-125638/http://www.canoe.ca/SlamWrestlingGuestColumn/schramm_99may7.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> with almost one million fans watching the event at 160 closed-circuit locations in North America and the number of people watching via pay-per-view estimated at several million. The WWF generated [[United States dollar|$]]1.6 million in ticket sales,<ref>{{cite book|title=Sex, Lies and Headlocks: The Real Story of Vince McMahon and the World Wrestling Federation|publisher=[[Crown Publishing Group]]|last1=Assael|first1=Shaun|last2=Mooneyham|first2=Mike|page=[https://archive.org/details/sexliesheadlocks00shau/page/72 72]|year=2002|isbn=978-0-609-60690-2|url=https://archive.org/details/sexliesheadlocks00shau/page/72}}</ref> and pay-per-view revenue was estimated at $10.3 million, setting a record for the time.<ref>{{cite book|title=Ringside: A History of Professional Wrestling in America|first=Scott M.|last=Beekman|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=2006|isbn=0-275-98401-X|page=[https://archive.org/details/ringsidehistoryo00beek/page/128 128]|url=https://archive.org/details/ringsidehistoryo00beek/page/128}}</ref> The promotion's only event with an official higher attendance was [[WrestleMania 32]], held at [[AT&T Stadium]] in 2016. The record for the largest indoor event stood until January 27, 1999, when it was surpassed by the papal mass with [[Pope John Paul II]] at the [[The Dome at America's Center|TWA Dome]] in [[St. Louis, Missouri]], which drew an audience of 104,000.
==Production==
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