True Story of Wrestlemania DVD

[flyonthewall2983]

Honestly at this point I'm starting to believe the 93,173 claim more and more, because the "real" numbers that Dave has are all a bit too round. Would it really shock anyone if the internal records showed the smaller figure to screw someone over on money/taxes?

 

Also, Wade Keller was using 78,000 before Dave, if my memory of how Dave found out is correct.

78,000 seems low just by seeing everyone that was there that day. The Silverdome holds 80,000 for football. At the very worst, all the stands were nearly full and there was the large ringside attendance as well. Even if the WWF oversold the attendance that night, I'd estimate the actual figure would be well over 80,000 and probably in between the 85,000 to 90,000 range. The 93,173 claim doesn't seem all that bad in comparison to the 75,000 and 78,000 figures, IMO.

 

One reason I believe it's 93,173 is because no PPV carriers in Michigan had the show. This was one of the facts on the WM III special edition DVD released awhile back.

[jdw]

* Vince McMahon was pretty frank about what a big risk the first Wrestlemania really was. A direct quote from Vince: "If Wrestlemania 1 had not been successful, we would not be doing this interview." It was pretty amazing to see Vince be so candid about how the success of the company depended largely on Wrestlemania.

How true is this talking point? I've heard it forever as part of Official WWE History, but was it really that much of a risk? What would have been the specific consequences if it hadn't sold as well? The way the story's often phrased, it sounds less like an admission of vulnerability and more like Vince trying to retcon himself into a scrappy underdog who fought against the odds.

 

Dave has confirmed this many times. Vince was cash-starved at this point and had invested quite a bit in Mania.

 

This is a bit overplayed, and of course fits nicely into Vince's own myth making of himself as a scrappy businessman rather than an heir to a businessman.

 

There was a recent Torch Board / Mitchell Forum thread on this. Rather than re-write, here's part of it:

 

Bruce, I've often heard you and Meltzer say that Vince was betting the house on Wrestlemania 1. If Wrestlemania 1 was a failure Vince was going to go under.

 

Jim Crockett in the rise and fall of WCW DVD says that he paid for the first Wrestlemania by buying the TBS time slot. Not sure how true this is considering that the NWA didn't debut until after WM1, but maybe Vince recieved the $1,000,000 but had it put in the contract that he would be able to keep the time slot through Wrestlemania.

 

Anyways my question is, how do you know that this isn't just another piece of Vince McMahon propaganda that he uses to make himself look like a genius, just like the lies that Ted Turner had a personal vendetta against Vince McMahon, or that WM3 did 93,000 fans.

 

Vince Sr. had to have been worth millions. What happened to all of Vince Sr's money? Did Vince Jr. inherit it, or did it go to Juanita McMahon?

 

Vince Sr was selling out the Boston Gardens, The Spectrum, Madison Square Garden, The Capitol Center almost every month for years. Wrestling promoters are famous for "underpaying" talent. He had a summer house in Baltimore, a beautiful winter house in Florida. He had to have been a millionaire many times over.

 

Vince Sr died in mid 1984. Did Vince blow his fathers fortune in 6 months?

No. Not at all.

 

And the company wouldn't have died if Mania "bombed". It's quite overblown.

 

John

 

This thread is missing some big parts of the story. Vince McMahon bought the WWF from his father and his father's partners on the installment plan. If he missed paying the company reverted back to Gorilla Monsoon and co. He had also spent an enormous amount of money on the expansion and needed the influx of revenue that only a successful Wrestlemania would bring to make the nut. The success of Wrestlemania 1 bailing out McMahon is hardly a myth.

 

My earlier point is that it wouldn't have died. It wouldn't have.

 

The notion that Vince would have gone under is nutty as well. Reverting back to the "prior owners" misses the boat: Vince Sr was the primary shareholder, and Vince had those in hand. "Reverting back", if it ever had to happen, simply meant that Vince would have fellow shareholders/co-owners if they happened to not cut Vince slack in making payments. It's "highly unlikely" that Gino would have pushed the issue since he had a good gig. Others... perhaps.

 

That it would have happened also misses the boat on what companies do when needing cash to cover expense: take out loans. Or sell a small % of his 100% for some capital, which is better than losing % for nothing. Or he could have easily cut back on obvious Loss Leading aspects of the Expansion.

 

Would Vince have been smart enough to do that?

 

Considering:

 

* he was re-active in cutting expenses in the early 90s as the business declined

* he took out loans to cover major expenses in the 90s

* he sold several % of his company to raise capital in the 00's

* he has been pro-active in cutting expenses in the 00s to max profits

 

Of course he would. Any one of those things, or as he has in the 90s and 00s a combination of several.

 

"Vince Fails Without Wrestlemania" is one of those myths like "Vince Took Wrestling Out Of Smoke Filled Arenas".

 

A failure of Mania would have just slowed down the train and altered it the high points.

 

On "really making money with WM3", that's more a relative thing. Relative to any promotion in the US that had come before him, he was really making money in 1986 as well, and the turn of 1987 before they even got to Mania.

 

John

Oddly enough, the thread died at that point.

 

Vince would have been in a bind if it bombed. But if anyone takes five minutes to step back and think about it, they'll see it's a rather easy bind to work with. That post of mine is actually *short* on the details of what Vince could (and obviously would) have done if it bombed.

 

I want to be very clear because I'm sure folks would read that as "There wouldn't have been any problems if Mania bombed". There would have been a major hiccup. But the company would have survived, Vince still would have owned it (and all of it again eventually), they would have still ended up dominating wrestling, and the rivals would have all slowly gotten picked off.

 

John

[Sean Liska]

Also wasn't the expansion costing a fortune?

 

I do not get the hate for Wrestlemania 8 when 9 and 11 are right there.

Yeah, it's really odd. It's like they felt like they needed to say something bad about one of the Manias to seem objective, so they just decided to pick on 8 and use the Hogan-Flair story. Maybe they didn't want to use 9 since they had all of the behind the scenes footage, and 4 was too historicaly important.

[Matt D]

One element to dave's coverage leading up to Wrestlemania is that WWF and Vince had really created a media understanding of how big wrestling was... basically they had created a flim-flam style and then that in itself brought the substance. He changed and created his own reality through the media. He convinced the media that there was buzz and in doing so he actually created the buzz in the first place.

[jdw]

What Slaughter claims is that he wasn't supposed to get the Title. It would still be Hogan vs Slaughter with Sarge as the heel (which he was disappointed about) but not for the title. That might have just been ego on his point in that he claims that he didn't need the title in 84 and he didn't need it for this feud either, but the claim is that it wasn't until Macho's hand was injured that he started to get cycled into house show matches with Warrior and the Rumble match crystallized.

Not sure if this makes sense at all.

 

Looking backwards, it looks like Savage-Dusty climaxed in September 1990, and the earliest known Warrior-Savage in this cycle of the feud was 9/29/90. Savage in subbed in for Ax in several of the Warriors vs Demolition matches in October. The feud started started on TV in mid/late October.

 

Savage wrestled Warrior on: 11/1 (twice), 11/3, 11/4, 11/5, 11/9, 11/10, 11/11 (twice), 11/16, 11/17 (twice), 11/18 (twice), 11/21, 11/23, 11/24 (twice), 11/25, 11/30, 12/1, 12/7, 12/8, 12/11, 12/12, 12/13, 12/14, 12/15, 12/26 (twice), 12/27, 12/28, 12/29 (twice), 1/3, 1/4, 1/5, 1/12

 

Savage also wrestled on: 11/19, 12/10, 1/7, 1/10,

 

The 12/16 - 12/25 is because Graham has only three cards from that period, all on 12/16.

 

Two nights after the Rumble, Warrior-Savage in a cage headlined MSG.

 

The Warrior-Slaughter starts here:

 

12/15/90 WWF Superstars: included the naming of the final 10 participants for the Royal Rumble match; featured the announcement that the Ultimate Warrior would defend the WWF Championship against Sgt. Slaughter at the Rumble

 

That appears like it might be an production insert rather than something that was tapped at the TV Tapings.

 

The angle at the TV tapings started several days earlier, but aired later in December:

 

12/11/90 TV Taping

12/29/90 WWF Superstars: included Gene Okerlund conducting an interview with Sgt. Slaughter and Gen. Adnan, with Slaughter unveiling a pair of boots personally sent to him by Saddam Hussein and saying he would wear the boots during his match with the Ultimate Warrior at the Royal Rumble

 

12/11/90 TV Taping

1/5/91 - included Hulk Hogan as a guest of the Brother Love Show, discussing his participation in the Royal Rumble match; featured an 'Update' segment focusing on the Ultimate Warrior / Sgt. Slaughter WWF Title match at the Royal Rumble, with footage of Gene Okerlund interviewing the Warrior about the match and comments from Randy Savage about the match; included the previous week's interview conducted by Okerlund of Sgt. Slaughter & Gen. Adnan

 

Key thing to note on the Hand Injury Explanation:

 

12/11/90 TV Taping

WWF World Champion the Ultimate Warrior defeated Randy Savage via count-out when Savage walked out of the match

 

12/12/90 TV Taping

WWF World Champion the Ultimate Warrior pinned Randy Savage (w/ Sensational Sherri) at around the 10-minute mark

 

So on the same show that they're taping the Warrior-Slaughter Angle to launch the Rumble match, there's Savage wrestling Warrior in their standard 10 minute matches.

 

I'm thinking that Slaughter is quite wrong here. There isn't any evidence that Savage couldn't work Rumble opposite Warrior due to a hand injury: he'd been working with Warrior at all points between November to the Rumble, and then instantly after the Rumble.

 

I suspect that the WON even had items about Slaughter-Hogan for the title going back before the December tapings.

[Matt D]

I have no idea how I, of all people, hadn't realized there had been Savage/Smash/Crush vs Warrior/LOD matches.

[jdw]

the claim is that it wasn't until Macho's hand was injured that he started to get cycled into house show matches with Warrior and the Rumble match crystallized.

Looking at this a bit more given that item...

 

Slaughter-Warrior worked together for the first time on 01/07/91, which was a TV taping dark match that's available. The WWF often did "run throughs" like that. They also worked 01/10/91, and that looks to be it as far as known matches prior to the Rumble. Slaughter was booked with the Duggan feud in the time period where Savage-Warrior was ging on, with some Dusty matches thrown in as well. The Duggan feud continued through most of the balance of January.

 

What Slaughter is likely remembering is this:

 

WWF @ Youngstown, OH - Beeghly Center - January 31, 1991

WWF World Champion Sgt. Slaughter (sub. for an injured Randy Savage) defeated the Ultimate Warrior in a steel cage match at 9:22 when Slaughter escaped the cage

 

WWF @ Richfield, OH - Coliseum - February 1, 1991 (8,000)

WWF World Champion Sgt. Slaughter defeated the Ultimate Warrior in a steel cage match

 

WWF @ Springfield, MA - Civic Center - February 2, 1991 (matinee) (5,000)

WWF World Champion Sgt. Slaughter defeated the Ultimate Warrior via disqualification

 

WWF @ Boston, MA - Boston Garden - February 2, 1991 (8,500)

WWF World Champion Sgt. Slaughter (sub. for Randy Savage) defeated the Ultimate Warrior in a steel cage match after Sensational Sherri interfered

 

Bingo!

 

Savage got hurt, it would appear, on the 1/30/91 card. May have gotten hurt earlier than that, but that would be where he took a break after.

 

Savage came back on 03/15/91 for a cage match with Warrior in Milwaukee. Slaughter subbed for Savage throughout that whole period prior to that (with an exception of one by Earthquake at a TV taping), and that 03/15/91 match was the only Warrior-Savage prior to Mania and the only time Savage worked between 01/30/91 and Mania. Possibly a bit of a dry run to see how the hand was coming along.

 

So there was an injury, and the feud was transitioned to Slaughter. It just happened after Slaughter already won the title and Warrior-Savage in cages were booked all around the country.

 

John

[soup23]

One of the things I have never understood on the WM 3 attendance thing is that Dave and Co act like the Pope 93,000 number is a legit total. If that number is a legit total then how can WM 3 be at 15,000 less people based on pictures of both events. The evidence has to point to that they are not as many fixed seats in the Silverdome as claimed and that both events had worked numbers. This also does not make sense to me though as John in some other thread somewhere brought up Superbowl attendance numbers and it seemed like they no motive of fixing Superbowl attendance numbers because they decreased in some years and increased in others.

[jdw]

This discussion reminds me of what Bruce has often said/written about Wrestling History vs Good Wrestling Stories. We don't have any of the details about the matches above. All we know is that they happened. And it puts a hole right through what was otherwise a Good Wrestling Story of Sarge.

 

John

[jdw]

This also does not make sense to me though as John in some other thread somewhere brought up Superbowl attendance numbers and it seemed like they no motive of fixing Superbowl attendance numbers because they decreased in some years and increased in others.

Exactly.

 

The pope's number could be cooked to a degree. I don't know. But the NFL numbers, especially the Super Bowl number, give us a reasonable number for how many people are in the stadium when it's sold out and *none* of those seats happen to be on the Football Field.

 

So you start with that baseline. Then:

 

#1 - (a) subtract all empty seats, ( non-sold out seats, and © obstructed seats in the Football Seats

 

#2 - add in the people on the Football Field

 

Dave's own reporting is that there weren't any of 1(a) and 1(. Perhaps he'll feel the need to change that reporting.

 

The photos suggest that there wasn't much if any 1©. It's been years since I looked at the photos, or watched the tape... but I don't recall any obvious obstructions the WWF put up. It was not like the modern "stage" set up. My recollection is that we looked pretty hard for obstructions just to see if there was anything we could give Dave the benefit of the doubt on, and we came up airball.

 

So then you get to #2, and it's not like 500 people are dow there. It was quite a bit more. Several K.

 

Just doesn't add up to "78K In The Building".

 

John

[Ditch]

Dave and Co act like the Pope 93,000 number is a legit total.

There has to be a Bix article or Pro Wrestling Mostly thread in this somehow...

[soup23]

Well I did some more digging and looked through the records and it looks like Dave actually thinks that the 85,000 that the Pope's people announced is a "legit" number and that the Pontiac people just inflated that to over 93,173 since it was more than the WM audience. Still even with that assumption I do not see how there is 7,000 more people for the Pope than WM. The side camera angle shows close to capacity from that side and down and when Gorilla and Jesse introduce the whole side of the stadium shown there is full, so the audience looks like a full crowd and no evidence has suggested that there were a ton of seats taken by scalpers.

[jdw]

Even if they were taken by scalpers, they would then have been "sold". Scalpers typically resell tickets, not get handed freebies to in turn sell.

 

Again, I don't think Dave has ever said the event had Paper, and I don't recall him ever saying that there were 88K in the building by 10K were "comped" (which again would be an insanely high number of comp tickets). He wrote at the time, and a number of times since, that it was Sold Out.

 

John

[rovert]

Listening to Radican's review of it on the Torch two things popped up:

 

Vince's odd reference to "partying that night day" is pretty much carny for coke isnt it.

 

While Piper kind of get the shaft for someone so important for the first two Manias at least and as someone on a Legend deal with WWE.

[jdw]

Vince's odd reference to "partying that night day" is pretty much carny for coke isnt it.

He's said something similar in the past about how it was the 80s and all that entails.

 

Not sure that Vince cops to doing any of that stuff in the 90s.

 

John

[rovert]

Vince's odd reference to "partying that night day" is pretty much carny for coke isnt it.

He's said something similar in the past about how it was the 80s and all that entails.

 

Not sure that Vince cops to doing any of that stuff in the 90s.

 

John

 

Oh yeah I remember that promo Vince cut backstage sitting down with Shawn at the beginning of their Mania feud

[Jingus]

I have heard that it's often a common practice for the building owners to exaggerate how many people their arenas can hold. So it's entirely possible that the WWF, NFL, and Pope numbers for the Silverdome are all worked to some extent. Since we can't exactly go there and count the seats ourselves, there's no good way to confirm the exact figures.

 

But just basing from the NFL "sold out" numbers alone, I don't see how 93,000 is remotely possible in that building. There's a shitload of people sitting in the loose chairs on the field, but certainly not thirteen thousand of them.

 

Vince Sr. had to have been worth millions. What happened to all of Vince Sr's money? Did Vince Jr. inherit it, or did it go to Juanita McMahon?

I've never even thought about that before, but it's an incredibly point. What the hell happened to VJM's assets after he died? Did they go to VKM, or elsewhere? Has this ever been reported on?

[Bix]

Even if they were taken by scalpers, they would then have been "sold". Scalpers typically resell tickets, not get handed freebies to in turn sell.

 

Again, I don't think Dave has ever said the event had Paper, and I don't recall him ever saying that there were 88K in the building by 10K were "comped" (which again would be an insanely high number of comp tickets). He wrote at the time, and a number of times since, that it was Sold Out.

 

John

Years ago I went over a few things about the WM3 attendance in some emails with Dave after a DVDVR thread brought up how the Silverdome football attendance being worked to such a large degree had to be unlikely due to how things were being blacked out on TV locally.

 

Dave said:

 

WWE internal computer records as of 2001 had 78,300 in the buliding and 75,700 paid with $1,599,000 gross Same as the settlement the company got from the Silverdome two days after the show. If it's a fake number, the building and promoters are kayfabing each other.

I didn't really think about the roundness of the official WWE numbers at the time, but recently I looked at them and realized something had to be off. What're the odds that both the paid and paper come down to even hundreds? The gate at an even thousand is a little more likely depending on ticket prices, but still seems off. FWIW, the official football capacity was 80,311.

 

He also mentioned that the original Pope "estimate" was 88,000. Per Wikipedia via some footnoted sources (a Michigan newspaper in 2005 and a Detroit sports book), the number claimed now is 93,682. If it really was changed, then I guess it gives the Pope having more people in attendance some credibility at least, but still...

 

Ok, wait a second. Dave also said to me and in various message board posts that Basil Devito came up with the number to beat the Pope and also to have a number that could never be beaten.

 

The Pope's visit was almost six months later. So that part of the story is impossible since the 93,173 record was claimed AT Wrestlemania.

 

Since the photos from the DVDVR thread are gone, let's see what we can dig up.

 

 

One of the famous WM3 shots. Obviously, the building is as packed as it can possibly be.

 

Similar shot of the Pope's visit from a different side of the stadium (Works only as a link, not embedded): http://pictopia.com/perl/get_image?provide...photo_id=538901

 

There are not 10,000 to 15,000+ more people there. Move things around a bit and it's basically WM3.

 

 

Looking at this closer photo from before the building filled up for the Pope's visit, the seating arrangements look as if they could have even allowed for LESS people on the field than WM3.

 

Either way, it's close. There's no way there was a major difference between the two events. And if WM3 drew 78,300, then the Silverdome would hold...what, 65,000 for football? The Silverdome was not an average sized football stadium, which is what that figure would make it.

 

Contemporary pope ttendance talk from Google News Archives that I could dig up:

 

- The AP said "more than 90,000 were expected."

- The Richmond Times-Dispatch and Miami Herald said an "estimated 95,000 people" were there.

- The Milwaukee Journal said that crowds for all the stops on the Pope's visit that week "fell far below estimates made beforehand" (presumably for other visits since the Silverdome looked full) but didn't give a number for the Silverdome.

- The Sacramento Bee said "90,000 packed the Silverdome."

- In a guide to going to one of the Pope's three Detroit area stops that the Pope was making on his tour, the Toledo Blade said that the the Silverdome "seats 93,000 comfortably."

- The Dallas Morning News said "more than 90,000."

- The Chicago Tribune said "about 90,000."

- Another AP story said there was "a congregation of 95,000."

 

The only references to 88,000 that I can find are from a oft-used wire report about the sale of the building a few years ago that said it was the number of seats in the building. There's nothing about 93,682 until 2005.

 

Meanwhile, someone did a post at Bleacher Report a couple years back that brings up some interesting points.

 

At any rate: If the Pope numbers are close to legit, WWE's claimed WM3 number is close to legit. If the official internal records are lower, then there has to be a reason why they'd be made up. Some kind of skimming to pay less taxes?

[soup23]

Excellent post Bix, I think the number is close to 93,000 in the building and I also find it funny how everyone thinks its no surprise that Vince would inflate the number to be carny but would not actually deflate the number to defer obligation of payment for taxes and what not.

[jdw]

I've always been willing to believe somewhere between 85K to 90K depending on how many are in the infield.

 

That shot you have below is up in the corner... and it's packed. All of the other famous photos of the event show:

 

* packed

* no obvious group of empties

* no obvious group of impacted/blocked/blocked off seats

 

While there may have been empty seats in the building, all of the pictures tend to indicate exactly what you'd see in looking at pics of a sellout: no obvious empties, in the sense that if anyone didn't come they are so few that the empties are nearly impossible to see.

 

Dave's own reporting at the time, and I think what he's said since, is that it Sold Out. That other thread has him saying that it would have drawn 125K if they could fit that many in the building. So there were no unsold seats according to Dave.

 

The pic below isn't the best for seeing the infield, but it's enough to remind me what we thought at the time:

 

That's a shitload of people on the infield.

 

I'd forgotten just how widely they put seats down on the floor. I've seen a number of stadium shows since, such as Shea, that in my head the notion of "not too many seats" on the field with loads of grass showing is what I think of. The Silverdome had a ton of people on the floor.

 

I think what we were generally tossing around was 78-80K in the stands (based on whether suites and other things were counted in), and 8K+ on the floor. I think someone even did an attempted seat count on one of the easier blocks of seats on the floor, and it wasn't a small number.

 

The rounded numbers stand out as odd, but that also may be *Dave* rounding.

 

Dave's / the WWF's number do include some comp: 2600. That sounds pretty reasonable.

 

But do we get from 86K/88K down to 78K?

 

Skim? Local Promoters / the stadium owners getting 8K to 10K as their cut? In a sense an old school version of PPV revenue where the PPV companies get their cut of the revenue?

 

John

[Bix]

I was under the impression Dave was giving me the numbers straight from his records, with flat-out "78,000" being the "rounded" version and the gate down to the thousand. I could ask, though. Even if you through out the round numbers issue, though, I don't think that the internal numbers fit.

 

EDIT: Found a old TSM post that said the 88,000 figure for the Pope was in a WWE book (maybe the WM coffee table book).

[Bob Morris]

Covering several of the topics discussed here:

 

* I don't know how relevant it is to the WM3 talking point, but I did look up the Silverdome's capacity a few years ago and some of that seating is "luxury box" seating. I put "luxury box" in quotes as it's not like what we think of regarding luxury boxes today... but I did wonder if those premium seats were used for seating or not.

 

That being said, those seats still weren't enough to take the 93,000 number down to 78,000. They amounted to a few thousand seats.

 

* On the Vince needing the first WM to succeed to help him financially, I do agree that Vince wouldn't have gone broke if WM didn't work out, but it might have allowed some of those other shareholders the opportunity to gain power... perhaps to the point that they could leverage enough of it to keep Vince from fulfilling his vision.

 

I know Vince had a lot of power back then, just as he does today... but in those earlier years, I suspect he wasn't the untouchable guy in power as he is today. It might have taken a lot of effort to get him out of complete control in the early years, but there might have been enough guys near the top using their political pull to gain leverage and alter the structure of the company... and who knows what Vince might have done in the long run if that had happened.

 

* Regarding Slaughter, he does mention on the True Story of WM DVD that, when Vince first approached him, he wanted him to do a program with Hogan. A few things to keep in mind regarding how Slaughter's character was developed when he returned in 1990.

 

First, Slaughter was not immediately positioned as the Iraqi sympathizer. The original idea was for him to be bitter about the Cold War coming to an end and declaring it only happened because America became soft. That was why they turned Nikolai Volkoff face and claimed he was from Lithuiana... to give Slaughter a foil to work with as they built to Slaughter/Hogan.

 

When Slaughter did return, it was still early in Warrior's title reign. I don't think the decision to get the title back on Hogan came before Summerslam... with Savage, the plan all along was Hogan would get the title back at WMV. With Warrior, the plan was to make him a champion for longer than that.

 

So it's possible that, going into Summerslam, Slaughter's understanding was that he would face Hogan at WMVII but the title wouldn't be involved.

 

Of course, the Iraq-Kuwait ordeal arose and WWF decided to have Slaughter be an Iraqi sympathizer in hopes of drawing more heat... and on top of that, it was become clearer that Warrior wasn't drawing as well as they had hoped.

 

So I imagine, around the time of Survivor Series, Vince and company were already planning to move the title back to Hogan, so the best way to do that was to have Slaughter win the title.

 

It's possible Slaughter wasn't informed he was getting the title until a few weeks prior to the Rumble... though I personally suspect he had an idea of what was going to happen shortly after Survivor Series. Because by the time Survivor Series came along, it was pretty clear Warrior wasn't the guy to hold the top title, and with Hogan/Slaughter already set in stone, Slaughter needed to win the title so Hogan could get at WMVII.

 

* I didn't understand the way they were negative regarding WMVIII. What I think should also be noted was that WWF signed Sid prior to gettting Flair and had an idea about doing Hogan/Sid for WMVIII. It's possible when Flair was signed that WWF was ready to change plans, but then went back to the original plan for several reasons... Hogan/Flair not doing well at house shows might have been one, but there was also the Zahorian steroid trial coming up and, if you wanted Hogan out of the title picture, he couldn't lose to Flair at WMVIII. Also, Hogan was flirting more with Hollywood at that point, thus another reason he couldn't win the title at WMVIII.

[soup23]

I posted a question on the F4W forum to Dave on whether he has seen the Pope's pictures and would argue that there was 7-9k more people in the building for that event than for WM.

[soup23]

In arguing with people about this on the board we also have found a wonderful new straw man defense, that based on the photos the "naked eye" could miss a 7,000-9,000 people difference.

[Bix]

Heard back from Dave, he was rounding from memory, "Although different sources have listed paid from 74,000 to 76,000."

 

Not sure what to make of that last part.