Paid Members Chris B Posted February 21, 2012 Paid Members Share Posted February 21, 2012 Awesome thread, but in the spirit of discussion, I was under the impression that Wrestlemania III's attendance number was famously inflated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JNLister Posted February 21, 2012 Paid Members Share Posted February 21, 2012 Long story short, 93,173 is definitely bogus as they came up with the number a few days before the show. The real question is how much they exaggerated by.  Most estimates based on the football capacity, the layout on the day, and the way it looked full suggest it was in the high 80s. WWF's own internal records (which were later shown by a company promoter Zane Brezloff to Dave Meltzer) listed the attendance at around 78,000. He's also noted that the football capacity and previous crowds for football games may very well have been exaggerated as well.  Funniest thing is that later in 1987 the Pope had a crowd announced as 85,000. A few years later they revised that number to 94,000 so that he'd be listed as the top draw.  Some Meltzer quotes:  (93,173) was a number that Basil DeVito, a WWE VP, came up with before the show. The idea was to set an indoor attendance record for any event that wouldn't be beaten since no indoor building at the time could hold close to that many people.  The Pope number when it took place was listed at either 85,000 or 87,000. The 93,682 number came about 18 years after the event as the Silverdome was tired of getting emails from wrestling fans asking why the all-time record in the building was whatever they were listing the Pope number as, so they made up a new number for the pope and stopped getting harassed by wrestling fans. Before if you e-mailed them about WWE they would say it wasn't a real number, then people would spaz out and insult them about not giving wrestling credit and lying. So then, they listed the pope number as a fake number, and didn't have to deal with it any longer.  There is a very good chance the football figures are works. In the late 90s, I got every WCW record in a form the night after a show and every arena included total attendance of the arena for wrestling (this was before they blocked off seats). Almost every arena for wrestling's total capacity was less than NHL and NBA capacity and announced attendances in those arenas, which makes no sense, seats on the floor and all. When asking how is this possible, the answer was the NHL and NBA capacities, like NFL capacities, are worked about the same as wrestling capacities and the claimed capacity of actual seats in most arenas is less than listed.  If you look in Observers in the late 90s when WCW & WWE were selling out everywhere and didn't put up stages for house shows, and check out the attendance figures which were real, they were always less than NBA & NHL numbers in those arenas. And yes, that would have been impossible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JNLister Posted February 21, 2012 Paid Members Share Posted February 21, 2012 BTW, give me a little time and I should be able to dig out most of the PPV numbers later today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators PowerButchi Posted February 21, 2012 Moderators Share Posted February 21, 2012 BTW, give me a little time and I should be able to dig out most of the PPV numbers later today. Â Hasn't Cawthon got them? I'll have a mosey around his site now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members JNLister Posted February 21, 2012 Paid Members Share Posted February 21, 2012 Nope. Pro Wrestling History has buyrates, but doesn't translate those into comparable numbers. I think I've got actual numbers for most/all of them, plus a good laugh at Sid-Undertaker. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators PowerButchi Posted February 21, 2012 Moderators Share Posted February 21, 2012 No, he hasn't has he? Colour me surprised. I'd have thought he'd have had them, truth be told. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chaosphere Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 I'd love to see how all the Mania's compare gate figures wide. I did find this whilst having a look round the net...   1. $7.2 million - Wrestlemania 25 in Houston, TX (April 5, 2009)  2. $6.6 million - Wrestlemania 27 in Atlanta, GA (April 3, 2011)  3. $5.8 million - Wrestlemania 24 in Orlando, FL (April 3, 2008)  4. $5.5 million - Wrestlemania 26 in Phoenix, AZ (March 28, 2010)  5. $5.3 million - Wrestlemania 23 in Detroit, MI (April 7, 2007)  6. $3.8 million - Wrestlemania 18 in Toronto, ON (March 17, 2002)  7. $3.5 million - Wrestlemania 17 in Houston, TX (April 1, 2001)  8. $3.4 million - Wrestlemania 6 in Toronto, ON (April 1, 1990)  {Wrestling Observer}  Apparently Mania 28 is expected to hit $8.5 million!   Then there's PPV buyrates -  1 - WrestleMania 23 - 1,250,000 (Highest Buyrate Record) 2 - WrestleMania 21 - 1,085,000 3 - WrestleMania XXVII - 1,042,000 4 - WrestleMania XXIV - 1,041,000 5 - WrestleMania X-Seven - 1,040,000 6 - WrestleMania XX - 1,007,000 7 - WrestleMania 22 - 975,000 8 - WrestleMania XXV - 960,000 9 - WrestleMania XXVI - 885,000 10 - WrestleMania X8 - 880,000 11 - WrestleMania III - 450,000 (Closed Circuit Television) and another 400,000 on PPV 12 - WrestleMania 2000 - 824,000 13 - WrestleMania XV - 800,000 14 - WrestleMania V - 767,000 15 - WrestleMania XIV - 730,000 16 - WrestleMania XIX - 560,000 17 - WrestleMania VI - 550,000 18 - WrestleMania IX - 430,000 19 - WrestleMania X - 420,000 20 - WrestleMania VII - 400,000 21 - WrestleMania 1 - 398,000 (Closed Circuit Television) 22 - WrestleMania VIII - 360,000 23 - WrestleMania XI - 340,000 24 - WrestleMania 2 - 319,000 (Closed Circuit Television) 25 - WrestleMania XII - 290,000 26 - WrestleMania 13 - 237,000 (Lowest Buyrate Record) 27 - WrestleMania IV - 175,000 (Closed Circuit Television)  source: http://www.thewrestlingcafe.com/wrestleman...tes-history.php  Interesting that Mania 13 drew their lowest PPV buyrate yet a year later they'd do nearly 3 times that amount of buys for Mania 14! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
300 Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 When did international buys add to the total? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Foale Posted February 21, 2012 Paid Members Share Posted February 21, 2012 Brilliant read, so interesting, thanks so much! Although isn't Edge's win/loss record 6-4? He lost MitB at WM23, Taker at WM24, Cena at WM25 and Jericho at WM26. Also, Hardcore Holly won the Hardcore title scramble-type match at WM16 as well as the Hardcore triple threat match at WM15 didn't he? Â (I may be wrong here, so please feel free to tell me to go do one). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Up Chuck Posted February 21, 2012 Author Paid Members Share Posted February 21, 2012 Spot on for both. I'll change that. Â As for WMIII, I was aware of it being an inflated attendance, but unlike the 24-second "9-second match", I can't check it, so it's being left as the official figure. And I will definitely resist the temptation to try and find a phone number for whoever ran the Silverdome. Probably. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Magnum Milano Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Rick, you're missing John Studd from your list of dead wrestlers. I was also going to say Lord Littlebrook aswell, but was surprised to see he is still going strong into his 80s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jas Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Great stuff on here - anybody have any access to WrestleMania payoffs? Â I'm guessing big celebs such as Mayweather, Tyson & Trump etc walked away with $1m+ for their involvement but what about the wrestlers.. Â Is Hogans $500,000 payday for his match with Savage at WM5 still the highest anyone has earnt at WrestleMania? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dopper Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Fantastic post, some really interesting stuff in there. Â Somehow one tiny detail did catch my eye: Â And, just for laughs, let Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Up Chuck Posted February 21, 2012 Author Paid Members Share Posted February 21, 2012 Cheers, will change that too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
300 Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Great stuff on here - anybody have any access to WrestleMania payoffs? I'm guessing big celebs such as Mayweather, Tyson & Trump etc walked away with $1m+ for their involvement but what about the wrestlers..  Is Hogans $500,000 payday for his match with Savage at WM5 still the highest anyone has earnt at WrestleMania?  I read that Orton got $500,000 for his main event vs Triple H at 25. Also read that The Rock and Austin got $1 Million each for Mania 17. Any truth to that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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