True Story of Wrestlemania DVD

[kjh]

Dave on the board, getting more and more flustered:

 

It 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 money people.

Hey, that's what I told Bix last night via IM!

 

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.

Why doesn't somebody bother Bryan about this.

 

It's not like the promoter of the event didn't tell him what the real number was.

[Bix]

Did anyone bring up the possibility of skimming in the thread? What questions was he specifically asked (especially by people who already knew the story he was telling?)

 

As indicated by the stuff I posted yesterday, the contemporary articles available on Google News Archives all say 90,000 or 95,000 (and one article beforehand specifically said that they could seat 93,000) including major papers and the AP. I guess Dave may have seen smaller estimates, but that's what I've found. I guess it's possible that a story a few days later that's not archived gave a turnstile count or a new estimate, but for an event like this that isn't a for-profit sports or entertainment event, I don't know how realistic that is and why an official number couldn't have been given sooner if they were keeping count.

 

Looking up SilverDome.com on The Wayback Machine, there's no reference to either event on the crawled versions of the site until then 6/2/03 capture, which lists the higher Pope number along with the Wrestlemania number. The last one up before that was 4/10/03. So if the Silverdome put up a smaller official Pope number as the record, it happened at some point during that period of almost 3 months.

 

I know what the documents Dave has say, but if the Pope numbers were significantly larger AND legit, then people at Titan and the Silverdome was doing SOMETHING sketchy. Going by photos and video of WM3 and photos of the Pope's mass, there is no way they could've fit another 7,000 to 10,000 (at the very least) people in the building.

 

The Silverdome site had a couple more photos, which I grabbed and put on Photobucket.

 

WM3:

 

Pope:

 

It's a little more clear that yes, the floor seating at the mass was closer together. But does filling up the WM3 aisles really give enough room for seats for another 7,000-10,000 people on the low end and 15,000 to 17,000 on the high end? More people, maybe. But not that much more.

 

Doing more digging to see what numbers were used after the initial coverage of the visit and before 93,682 was used:

 

- An AP story from 1/4/02 said the both WM3 and the Pope "drew more than 93000 people."

- In a 1/28/99 St. Louis Post-Dispatch story, it was written that "News reports gave estimates of 90000 to 100000 for the pope's Mass at the Silverdome at the end of a 10 day visit to the United States in September 1987."

- 2/3/91 Buffalo News: "In regal vestments he stood surrounded by thousands of flowers and 90000 Catholic faithful."

 

Meanwhile, a 5/26/91 LA Times article about the bidding for the 1994 World Cup had the Silverdome's soccer capacity at 76,000. A football field is an acceptable size for soccer, so that's interesting, at least.

 

I haven't found any kind of pre-2003 official figure. I would guess that whatever Dave is using is the original Silverdome.com number. After 93,682 started being used, it became common.

 

I'm sure Dave's telling the truth about the documents he has and what he's been told. I don't think he's lying about anything. That said, I also don't think the smaller figure fits, especially if any of the numbers for the mass are legitimate. I'd at least like to know what the original Silverdome.com number was...

[sek69]

I'm skeptical on that, because I've always heard that the company wanted to get the title back to Hogan because the Warrior experiment didn't work.

I started to look at the late 90-early 91 Observers to check but I decided to stop and do some actual work after the first sighting of "Bore-us Zhukov" for some reason.

 

 

This is apropos for nothing, but seeing this made me wonder if Chris Jericho was mining back issues of the WON for his promo material in WCW since I just watched the Nitro where he was talking about Dean's dad Bore-us Malenko.

[Victator]

Sid in his shoot said that it was in his contract he main event Wrestlemania. That was the thing that made him leave WCW because they had nothing that could match that.

[El-P]

This 93000 people or not talk is well and good, but the main issue no seem to talk about here is all about Andre weighing 700 pounds or not. Hulk says it's true.

[Ditch]

Well Andre was what, 7'5", maybe more, so sure he was 700 pounds. That's why Hogan ripped and/or broke every muscle/bone in his torso doing the slam.

[El-P]

Good point. It was also the first time Hulk slammed Andre. And the first time anyone slammed Andre.

[Loss]

Jim Ross's indignation at the "700 lbs" thing the night of the Hogan/Rock angle was outstanding.

[soup23]

Did anyone bring up the possibility of skimming in the thread? What questions was he specifically asked (especially by people who already knew the story he was telling?)

 

As indicated by the stuff I posted yesterday, the contemporary articles available on Google News Archives all say 90,000 or 95,000 (and one article beforehand specifically said that they could seat 93,000) including major papers and the AP. I guess Dave may have seen smaller estimates, but that's what I've found. I guess it's possible that a story a few days later that's not archived gave a turnstile count or a new estimate, but for an event like this that isn't a for-profit sports or entertainment event, I don't know how realistic that is and why an official number couldn't have been given sooner if they were keeping count.

 

Looking up SilverDome.com on The Wayback Machine, there's no reference to either event on the crawled versions of the site until then 6/2/03 capture, which lists the higher Pope number along with the Wrestlemania number. The last one up before that was 4/10/03. So if the Silverdome put up a smaller official Pope number as the record, it happened at some point during that period of almost 3 months.

 

I know what the documents Dave has say, but if the Pope numbers were significantly larger AND legit, then people at Titan and the Silverdome was doing SOMETHING sketchy. Going by photos and video of WM3 and photos of the Pope's mass, there is no way they could've fit another 7,000 to 10,000 (at the very least) people in the building.

 

The Silverdome site had a couple more photos, which I grabbed and put on Photobucket.

 

 

 

WM3:

 

Pope:

 

It's a little more clear that yes, the floor seating at the mass was closer together. But does filling up the WM3 aisles really give enough room for seats for another 7,000-10,000 people on the low end and 15,000 to 17,000 on the high end? More people, maybe. But not that much more.

 

Doing more digging to see what numbers were used after the initial coverage of the visit and before 93,682 was used:

 

- An AP story from 1/4/02 said the both WM3 and the Pope "drew more than 93000 people."

- In a 1/28/99 St. Louis Post-Dispatch story, it was written that "News reports gave estimates of 90000 to 100000 for the pope's Mass at the Silverdome at the end of a 10 day visit to the United States in September 1987."

- 2/3/91 Buffalo News: "In regal vestments he stood surrounded by thousands of flowers and 90000 Catholic faithful."

 

Meanwhile, a 5/26/91 LA Times article about the bidding for the 1994 World Cup had the Silverdome's soccer capacity at 76,000. A football field is an acceptable size for soccer, so that's interesting, at least.

 

I haven't found any kind of pre-2003 official figure. I would guess that whatever Dave is using is the original Silverdome.com number. After 93,682 started being used, it became common.

 

I'm sure Dave's telling the truth about the documents he has and what he's been told. I don't think he's lying about anything. That said, I also don't think the smaller figure fits, especially if any of the numbers for the mass are legitimate. I'd at least like to know what the original Silverdome.com number was...

I commented in the thread that the only three options I see for the actual attendance at the three events is one of the following:

1. Pope legit had 93,600 in the building and WM had legit 93,172 or close to it

2. WM had 78,000 and Pope had anywhere from 78,000 to 80,000

3. The numbers are in between those and the difference between the two events is less than 2,000 or so

 

I was then given responses such as " 7,000 - 9,000 people could not be accounted for due to the naked eye"

 

I was also given the common tow line of that the promoted and the WWE internal have the figures, why would they lie? This is especially comical to me that someone with the ethics of WWE would overinflate any numbers they can to make the company look good but either wouldn't have the savvy or ethics to underinflate the number internally for some financial gain.

 

I think the main problem that no one challenging the argument can grasp is that no is saying with 100% certainty there were 93,172 at WM. All the people are bringing up is that based on historical data compiled for football capacities and other sources the 78,000 number seems low, AND that it seems not plausible that 7,000-9,000 more people were in the building for the Pope than WM based on photographic evidence. Are all wrestling promoters shady except in this one case where everyone 100% is telling the truth in the 78,000 figure?

[flyonthewall2983]

Good point. It was also the first time Hulk slammed Andre. And the first time anyone slammed Andre.

Did WWE at the time ever imply directly it was the first time Andre was slammed?

[Bix]

Something else I've been thinking about with the Silverdome talk:

 

Ok, let's say the legit attendance was ~78,000 and the football capacity of ~80,000 is a work. What's the real football capacity?

 

The Silverdome was, for it's time, the biggest domed stadium or among the biggest domed stadiums, hence the idea that nobody could ever beat ~93,000 (until Cowboys Stadium was built). If it held ~78,000 for a sold-out wrestling card, then at least using WWE's numbers, the football capacity was ~65,000, which wasn't as out of the ordinary. How well does this scale to other stadiums if they are or aren't worked?

 

Were the figures of 75,000+ for The Who and especially 77,000+ for Led Zeppelin also works or did cramped standing room make up for the large amount of seats that got blocked off?

[jdw]

Meanwhile, a 5/26/91 LA Times article about the bidding for the 1994 World Cup had the Silverdome's soccer capacity at 76,000. A football field is an acceptable size for soccer, so that's interesting, at least.

 

Futbol attendance at the WC:

 

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/archive/editi...051/report.html

18 June 1994: United States 1-1 Switzerland

73,425

 

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/archive/editi...062/report.html

22 June 1994: Romania 1-4 Switzerland

61,428

 

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/archive/editi...068/report.html

24 June 1994: Sweden 3-1 Russia

71,528

 

http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/archive/editi...080/report.html

Brazil 1-1 Sweden

77,217

 

Capacity was listed by FIFA as 77K, which they hit with the big draw of Brasil.

 

There is an article here:

 

Fifa Dictates Sodden Changes For Us Stadium

 

That indicates the Silverdome capacity (along with other stadiums) was being lowered because of the pitch size difference between futbol and football. So a drop from the football config of 80K to 77K for the World Cup isn't odd. Also not that the attendance figures vary, and they didn't try to fluff the Team USA game into a sellout attendance.

 

There's a shot of the Who's concert in this thread:

 

http://www.talkbass.com/forum/f203/wall-sound-441274

 

Bix: I'd recommend grabbing it and putting it in your photobucket for future reference. Who knows when that board might die.

 

People are packed in the infield, and any of us that went to any of those old festival setting gigs in stadiums know that it was SRO on the field. The field was fucking packed. On the other hand, the stage blocks off the entire end of the stadium. No one back there.

 

Zep put more than The Who into the stadium:

 

http://www.oldbuckeye.com/pontiacsilverdome77

 

Zep's own site:

 

http://www.ledzeppelin.com/show/april-30-1977

 

The best shot:

 

http://www.ledzeppelin.com/image/photos-ho.../pontiac-1977-0

 

Again, a massive amount of the seats blocked off by the stage, as was standard back then. But they also pack the field.

 

Of course those figures were likey worked on some level

 

But we're talking about a stadium that in the non-field portion sat 80K for the Lions, 81K for the Super Bowl, and 77K when *lowered* in seats for the World Cup. We have Dave often saying that the WWF sold all their tickets and could have put 125K in the building if there were enough seats. The pictures show all of the non-field seats looking packed.

 

The *baseline* is 77K to 80K in the stadium seats, less about 1500 for suites and wheelchairs... though I don't think any of us doubt the WWF / Promoters / Stadium wouldn't want to sell those 1500 suite and wheelchair seats as well, especially when it would be easy to pipe the PPV feed into the suites and those are freaking highroller suites.

 

So a baseline of 77K to 80K, plus all those people on the field for Mania.

 

78K for Mania is off.

 

John

[soup23]

Definitely enjoy the World Cup data John. While, I think there were more than 78k in the building for WM, I can accept that one true answer will more than likely never be established, what I have a harder time grasping is how one could think there was 78k for WM and 86 for Pope.

[jdw]

One additional thing, which I think may go past Dave because he doesn't work for a corporation or know anything about corporations financial systems.

 

The "I saw the WWF's computer printouts" in 2001, and that they reflected data going all the way back to 1986 (i.e. Hogan-Orndorff) is a hoot. The WWF wouldn't be working off the same finacial program in 2001 that they were in 1986. They're not like Dave still working off Word Perfect or Word.

 

My company is larger than the WWF. We handle more transactions than the WWF. I can't get "computer" data going back to 1986/87. That wasn't the last system. It wasn't two system ago. It was three systems ago.

 

When I have a subpoena or discovery request, I can get data off one of our current systems going back to 2001. Our prior system, which is now a legacy system and only accessable by restoring back up tapes, goes back to 1997 the last time I had to go back that far, which was a couple of years ago. It likely doesn't even go back that far now as the need for earlier data is done and we purge older data. The system before that? Gone. The one used in the 80s? Long gone.

 

I have limited hardcopy summary data in binders going back to the early/mid 90s. Those only exist because I took possession of the binders when finance was going to pitch them once they were outside their audit requirements.

 

80s hardcopy data? So long gone that it's not even funny. When we had cases in the mid-90s and hard to go look for that stuff, it was already gone to shreding once any IRS needs had passed.

 

Unless someone sent Dave a shitload of old "computer reports" generated back in the 80s, what Dave is working off of is something that someone *later* put together.

 

I suspect that what Dave is going to say next is that the WWF/WWE has been keeping an ongoing master spreadsheet (or more advanced relational db though that would go over his head) of all house shows going back forever, with attendance, paid, gates, merch, etc.

 

Somehow I doubt that.

 

But if it exists, I sure wish that Bix and others could use their contacts in the WWF to smuggle that out of the building. It sure would make stuff like Matt Farmer's research and Kris' WWF vs The World thread a hell of a lot easier.

 

 

John

[jdw]

Definitely enjoy the World Cup data John. While, I think there were more than 78k in the building for WM, I can accept that one true answer will more than likely never be established, what I have a harder time grasping is how one could think there was 78k for WM and 86 for Pope.

I basically think it's impossible to think there were 77K in the building for Brasil and 78K in the building for Mania when there were tickets sold on the field for Mania... and obviously not for the World Cup.

 

Here's the thing. I've been to the Rose Bowl for:

 

* Rose Bowl games

* UCLA football games

* Olympic soccer matches

* World Cup soccer matches

 

Setting aside that I've *played* on the field. I know what the building seats. FIFA didn't work it when they gave attendance figures between 90K to 94K for the eight games there. I've actually been in bigger crowds in Rose Bowl, such at the 1984 Olympics.

 

If FIFA wasn't working the Rose Bowl, where they had no desire to work a number to top the 100K+ that saw the 1984 Olympic Final, they weren't working the Silverdome crowds. They simply didn't give a fuck. The 1994 Copa was known that it would top the all-time attendance record for Copas even before the first game was played: demand was that high, and the size of the various stadium collectively topped what prior hosts had been able to roll out.

 

So...

 

77K for the World Cup is a real, not-worked number for the Silverdome. And articles prior to the WC were reporting that the Silverdome and other stadiums were having their capacity reduced by needing to meet FIFA pitch size requirements. So pre-World Cup, the seats in the building were more than 77K.

 

I agree with the notion that "we'll never know" how many people were really there. That's not what folks like Bix and I are saying. I agree with the notion that "the WWF worked the numbers". That's not what folks like Bix and I are saying, and frankly we probably though that long before Dave game up with The New Number.

 

What we are saying is the 78K is flat out wrong. The photos aren't Photoshopped. Dave admits every seat in the building was sold, and more could be put in if they could. We know there were 78K to 80K seats in the stands alone, and none of them look to have been blocked off or impacted. So 78K is the baseline before we start counting the people on the field and the suites and wheelchairs.

 

Set aside the pope. All the pope does is get us to he same ballpark that Sold Out Regular Seating + All Those Fuckers On The Floor + Almost Certainly Some Number for Suites + Almost Certainly Some Number for Wheelchairs gets us: comfortably more than 80K, into the mid-80s. Pretty much any number between 84K and 88K would sound reasonable to me. Under 80K? Just not possible for the number that was really in the building.

 

John

[Bix]

While, I think there were more than 78k in the building for WM, I can accept that one true answer will more than likely never be established, what I have a harder time grasping is how one could think there was 78k for WM and 86 for Pope.

This is also where I am. Even the most conservative Pope estimates don't seem possible if the lower WM3 number is legit. Plus, the media estimates for the mass were based on the same Silverdome football capacity (which Dave says is a work) that made the announced WM3 attendance plausible. From the photos, the mass is basically WM3 with the aisles between sections of floor seats filled up, and that's not enough room for another 7,000 or more people. I do believe that the Pope's attendance was higher, but not to that degree. Also, if the Silverdome came up with a new number for the mass to acknowledge WM3 while also declaring what the rightful record holder was, it's interesting that they chose to go just a few hundred people higher.

[kjh]

Latest from Dave:

 

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.

[Dylan Waco]

Everyone's a liar except for Dave's source.

[Bix]

Everyone's a liar except for Dave's source.

Who secretly promoted the first UFC while working for the WWF.

[Bix]

Latest from Dave:

 

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.

That still doesn't explain why, if the listed Silverdome capacity for football was a work, he trusts the media estimates for the Pope's mass. The media estimates were based in part on the listed capacity for football.

 

Also, I know I'm not much of a sports buff, but not enough is made of attendance most of the time for there to be any reason to work it in regular/real/whatever sports, right? I don't necessarily think Dave was getting bogus numbers from Zane Bresloff as much as I'm just increasingly puzzled by all of this.

[Cox]

Yeah, that's a good question - who are the NBA, NHL, NFL, and MLB working with their fake arena/stadium capacities? Fans generally don't care how many people their favorite teams draw to games, unless attendance is particularly good (like a sellout streak) or particularly bad. Even in the "particularly good" column, how many fans know exactly how many seats their favorite team's stadium holds? I'm a Mets, Nets, Devils, and Cowboys fan, and I couldn't tell you the exact capacity for any of their home buildings, even a particularly gigantic stadium like Cowboys Stadium. There is no reason for the teams to work these numbers on the high end, as fans just don't care. If anything, I'd think it would be more likely for teams to work on the low end, for reasons cited here (skimming money for taxes).

[jdw]

I would be interested in exactly which cards Dave is talking about. Nitro, Thunder and the PPVs by 1998 had a stage and stuff blocked off. What non-Nitro/Thunder/PPV cards can he point to that we can go look up the capacity of that same arena for the NBA.

 

I don't recall WCW averaging 12K a card in 1998, and it certainly didn't in 1998 (peak month that year was 7,649, which was 1K higher than any month prior to that in the decade for WCW). They were drawing strong on the PPVs and TV, and did do well on certain house shows. But specifics.

 

John

[jdw]

On teams working numbers, there's plenty of that, and always has been. Teams often would inflate half houses to large numbers. Part of this is due to Season Tickets, and those people not coming. Part of it was jerkoff owners like Sterling when the Clips played in the Sports Arena. On the other hand, we knew what capacity was in the Sports Arena. Sterling could announce whatever he wanted, but if he said he put 20K in there we knew he was full of shit: he couldn't fit that many in there.

 

John

[Resident Evil]

Yeah, that's a good question - who are the NBA, NHL, NFL, and MLB working with their fake arena/stadium capacities? Fans generally don't care how many people their favorite teams draw to games, unless attendance is particularly good (like a sellout streak) or particularly bad. Even in the "particularly good" column, how many fans know exactly how many seats their favorite team's stadium holds? I'm a Mets, Nets, Devils, and Cowboys fan, and I couldn't tell you the exact capacity for any of their home buildings, even a particularly gigantic stadium like Cowboys Stadium. There is no reason for the teams to work these numbers on the high end, as fans just don't care. If anything, I'd think it would be more likely for teams to work on the low end, for reasons cited here (skimming money for taxes).

I don't agree with this. The higher the number people hear that an event took place in, the more likely they are to go and the more likely they are to get excited abouit the product. Is it the only variable a fan decides on before he goes to a sporting event? No, of course not but it is part of the equation for everyone knowingly or not knowingly even for people "who don't care" about how many people their favourite teams draw to games. It does increase attendance. How much is anybody's guess but it helps build a successful atmosphere which helps everyhting.

 

On the other side of the coin, hearing about bad attendance will hurt a sports team's attendance.

[Cox]

My point is more, fans aren't going to care if a building is set up for 18,000 people vs. 23,000 people. That's a distinction nobody cares about. I do think there is something to be said for a certain fan demographic wanting to buy the hot ticket, but even that is more predicated on a team winning more than anything else. Team winning drives increased attendance, which in turn drives up demand from casual fans as a ticket becomes "hot." But no fan is going to care about an arena's actual capacity. What benefit would it be to, say, the Dolans to claim that the number of seats available at Madison Square Garden for a Knicks game is 19,763, while the actual capacity is lower? There just seems to be no reason to do that to me.