The Getting Over series aims to detail the psychological rules that the world of pro wrestling has developed over the past 100 years to draw the biggest houses and biggest fan reactions possible.
Rule No. 1: It's all about the money
Rule No. 2: Fans will hate a heel more if he can make them respect him
Rule No. 3: A baby face should be billed as a believable underdog
Rule No. 4: Always exaggerate, even when the truth is impressive
Rule No. 5: A heel should have no redeemable qualities
Rule No. 6: A heel should use flawed logic to justify his actions
Rule No. 7: A great babyface needs a great heel to truly get over
Rule No. 8: The top job of an announcer is to get the on-air talents over
Rule No. 9: A wrestler's character should match true personality traits
The Hulk Hogan versus Andre the Giant battle at WrestleMania III is one of the few matches that can truly contend for the honor of greatest main event in sports entertainment history.
It was the kind of bout that could have sold out the Pontiac Silverdome no matter what was on the undercard, but the WWE still stacked the rest of the show because of the next rule in the Getting Over series.
Rule No. 10: Always overload supercards with great matches and unique elements
Every wrestling card can be billed as a big deal, but only one card per year can be billed as the biggest annual event. The built-in rarity makes it imperative to get this show over at any cost. As famed announcer Jim Ross once told Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez in a Wrestling Observer podcast, "You can't afford to waste a holiday with a bad show. You got to do everything you can to load it up. Either with new talent, outside talent, blow off matches, unique stipulations, something to make it have a special feel."
Doing everything possible to add a slew of compelling additional elements was certainly the WWE's plan for WrestleMania III. It started with the huge buildup for the Randy Savage-Ricky Steamboat feud that ended with Savage and Steamboat planning and executing one of the greatest championship battles of all time.
Next up was Roddy Piper's "retirement" match against Adrian Adonis. Past experiences with this type of stipulation jaded long-time fans of the squared circle from believing Piper was actually going to hang up the tights for good, but the last Piper's Pit before WrestleMania had to give them pause. Piper gave a heartfelt, emotional speech during which he said hearing his 4-year-old daughter plead with him to stay home made him want to call it a career. His evident determination to get off the road and go home to his wife and children had to put some doubt into fans' minds at that time as to if or when he would ever return and thus sold the importance of this match.
The show also saw Motown legend Aretha Franklin open the festivities by singing "America The Beautiful," Detroit rock star Alice Cooper team up with Jake "The Snake" Roberts, and the 6-foot-4, 458-pound King Kong Bundy bodyslam 4-foot-4, 60-pound wrestler Little Beaver and then crush him with an elbow drop. Add in a hair versus hair stipulation to the Piper/Adonis matchup, and it shows the WWE was going all out to make every facet of this card as memorable as possible.
1980 Showdown at Shea
Vince McMahon Sr. was just as dedicated to this rule as his son.
Nowhere was this more evident than in the 1980 Showdown at Shea card. This was the third in a series of Shea Stadium shows that were especially notable because they were held in a time when it was very rare to see pro wrestling cards in huge outdoor venues.
Larry Zbyszko's cheap shot attack on his former mentor Bruno Sammartino led to a white-hot feud that would fill plenty of seats in any arena, but putting that match in a steel cage guaranteed a violence level that could fill a significant portion of the cavernous stadium.
That main event didn't keep Vince Sr. from building an impressive 12-match undercard led by an earlier incarnation of the Hulk Hogan-Andre The Giant feud, albeit with Hogan as the heel and Andre as the babyface.
The promotion also made full use of the value of title belts, as it had four championship matches on the card. The most notable of these would be the tag-team title bout, as Bob Backlund became the first WWF world champion to concurrently hold a portion of the WWF world tag-team title belts when he and Pedro Morales defeated the Wild Samoans in two straight falls.
Throw in an Intercontinental title match between Ken Patera and Tony Atlas, and Japanese superstar Antonio Inoki successfully defending his NWF belt against Larry Sharpe, and it assured that fans attending the 1980 Showdown at Shea were going to see something unlike anything they had seen before.
Old-school rules are still in effect
WrestleMania 33 is the perfect retort for those who say that today's WWE doesn't follow the old-school rules enough, as the promotion has stacked this card in the same manner as its predecessors.
This process begins with the blockbuster Bill Goldberg-Brock Lesnar confrontation. Lesnar has done the job for Goldberg on consecutive occasions, so is this the time Lesnar finally gets his revenge? The WWE recently moved its Universal title over to Goldberg in an effort to make the stakes in this matchup even higher.
The Undertaker's skirmish against Roman Reigns has plenty of interesting elements, including whether The Deadman will pass the baton by putting Reigns over or whether Reigns will use this battle as an opportunity to make a full-blown heel turn.
Chris Jericho and Kevin Owens may have been the most entertaining tandem on WWE broadcasts in many years, so their potential feud-closing confrontation could end up as the most entertaining match on this card.
This event also has its share of potential show stealers. Tops on this list could be the RAW women's title triple-threat battle between Bayley, Charlotte Flair and Sasha Banks. A close second here could be the Bray Wyatt-Randy Orton match for the WWE championship, as these third-generation wrestlers may be able to meld old-school action into a match in a way that many of today's viewers have never seen. Add in Shane McMahon's potential daredevil stunts in his clash with AJ Styles, and what could be a highly compelling cruiserweight title bout between up-and-coming stars Neville and Austin Aries and it shows the WWE still stacks great matches when putting together a WrestleMania card.