So after posting my first review I realized in that going over a lot of the old school wrestling stuff, a lot of terms and references to events will pop up more than once. So to provide a bit of context I am putting together this shotgun history of professional wrestling in the United states.
Our story starts in the 1930's. Wrestling at the turn of that century had been very popular but the secret shift from legit competitions to predetermined matches and the media uncovering these shady dealings with promoters along with some very public trials in courts, left the public with a bad taste in it's mouth. As a result the attendence for wrestling shows nosedived. Starting in around 1905 and leading up to this point there was an informal recognition of the "World Champion" but due to polotics of wanting to promote "World Championship" matches in their area to drum up business, the title had become fractured. Promoters from Boston, Michigan, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Kansas City, The New York State Athletic Commission, and the wrestling arm of the National Boxing Ascociation (known as the National Wrestling Ascociation) all lay some sort of claim as having a "World Champion" all during the 30's and into the 40's. With so many versions of the world title it devalued the titles and lead to a lot of confusion amongst fans. But in 1948 a group of people would get together to try to put an end to it.
In 1948 a group of a six of the most influential and powerful Pro wrestling promoters came together for a meeting (spearheaded by Midwest promoter "Pinkie" George). The result of this meeting was the formation of the National Wrestling Alliance. The NWA was a collective effort by these promoters to opeerate under one banner for the better of the business but more importantly to put money in their pockets. Under this new collective these promoters would operate under a set of rules such as they wouldn't operate in each others' territory (area in which they promoted shows), they would do business in trading talent, and more importantly they would recognize one single world champion that would travel to the different territories for limited amounts of time to add business to the shows those promoters operated. These world champions would be determined by a vote of the NWA members during their annual meetings and only with a majority vote would a champion be named.
Once the groundwork was laid down the NWA then had the task of trying to unify all the different version of the world title. Two names emerged from these matches, National Wrestling Alliance World Champion and board member Orville Brown, and National Wrestling Ascociation Champion Lou Thesz. The alliance wanted to put the title on Brown and a unification match was to be held in 1949. However weeks before the match Brown was involved in a horrific car accident and was forced to retire, leading to Thesz being made the NWA Champion (and putting an end basically to the National Wrestling Ascociation).
By 1952 the NWA world title (held by Thesz) was the only Wrestling title left standing in the US. With the NWA the dominant governing body in the country (And soon stretching into Japan, Mexico, and Canada as well) and wrestling's new found popularity thanks to television pro wrestling was seeing a boom in business not seen since the early 1900s. With the "territory system" now in full effect many local TV stations carried some form of wrestling show, since wrestling often times was a ver inexpesive form of programming for TV stations to provide. All they needed was a studio that could seat a few dozen fans, 2 cameras, and maybe a local news personality to call the action. The stations didn't have to pay the wrestlers anything and the wrestling organziation used these show to promote the local house shows (Where the real money was in wrestling). Besides TV on the local level, the nationally viewed Dumont Network also carried a wrestling show as well. Through the 50's pro wrestling and the NWA (by now covering almost all the country and several international organizations as well) reaped the benefits.
But it wasn't to last, at least as it had before. The biggest problem facing the NWA was the investigation into Monopolistic practices by the US government. The NWA was (rightly so) accused of stifling competition, blackballing those from the inudstry who did not conform to their mode of business and several other accusations. A deal was reached in 1956
but the NWA and it's board was very wary not to incite the government again. Not to much longer after this cracks formed in the Alliance. As with any organization with that much power politics and ego disagreements arose over the direction of the World Championship. Since whomever booked the world champion controlled the NWA, there was a lot of struggle and competition for the promoters to push their top wrestlers to win the world title. A major rift was growing with several NWA members backing long time champion Lou Thesz while others (most notably the Stetcher family of the Minnesota Territory) wanted to give the Title to Verne Gagne. Gagne was a former amateur champion who made the 1948 Olympic greco roman wrestling team and had been the head promoter and top star of the Dumont Network's wrestling show. However Gagne didn't garner enough of the NWA's support over fears that the Stetcher's would keep Verne for their own territory. Dismayed over not being able to win the World Title, Verne bought out the Stetcher's and split their territory away from the NWA completely. Taking political and booking control of the newly formed American Wrestling Association Verne named the now current NWA Champion Pat O' Conner the AWA world Champion. O' Conner and the NWA ignored this complelty and Gagne became the champion of his own promotion for the first time. Another major split from the Alliance happened soon after. After a dispute over the result of a match between defending NWA Champion "Nature Boy" Buddy Rodgers and former Champion Lou Thesz. Thesz won the match and the title in a single fall, where world championship matches at the time were the best two of 3 falls. Promoter's in the northeast, lead by second generation promoter Vincent Jess Mcmahon refused to recognize the title change (and the fact that Roidgers was a major draw in the Northeast) split from the NWA and formed the World Wide Wrestling Federation and named Rodgers as their first champion in early 1963. However big the dissagreements though, The now 3 major promotional entities in the United States stayed on relatively friendly terms and although not in direct business with each other stayed out of each others way. Eventually Mcmahon was brought back into the NWA but was allowed to continue to promote the WWWF title as a world title.
As with any fads in Television the Novelty of Wrestling wore out with the national audience. Locally however business was strong with many territories around the country. Besides Gagne's AWA covering the northern Midwest and Vincent Mcmahon's WWF covering the northeast region of the country, several of the NWA terrtories emerged as major players in the 60's and 70's including Jim Crockett's Mid Atlantic Championship wrestling in the Carolinas, Virginia, and Maryland; Bob Geigel's Central States territory based out of Kansas City: Florida Championship Wrestling promoted by Eddie Graham; amongst others. There were a few attempts to compete directly against the NWA, most notably the IWA promotion that was established in direct competition to many NWA territories around the country in 1975. The promotion fell apart within a year and tried to compete against Jim Crockett's territory but came up short and dissipated by 1976.
As the 70's turned into the 80's more players began to make themselves more influential as Fritz Von Erich's World Class Championship Wrestling out of Texas, Bill Watts's Mid South Wrestling, and Joe Blanchard's Southwest Championship Wrestling in San Antonio became to grow in influence. In 1982 Blachard's Promotion was picked up by the USA Network for a weekly timeslot and Jim Barnett's Georgia Championship Wrestling began to beam nationally when the Ted Turner owned TBS began to beam to a national audience as the Wrestling business entered the cable Television industry.
Another big step in the industry first appeared in this time. "Spot Shows" or special events a promotion would put on outside of their regular promotional schedules had been occurring for decades. These shows would go above and beyond their usual shows often featuring the end of the territories major feud, a world title match, or big names from outside the territory to bring in the special attendances, often at higher prices. Typically these shows revolved around major holidays such as Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas
but promotions were promoting more of these supershows year after year. The Cow Palace near San Francisco played host to an annual 20 man battle royal beginning in the late 60's, Fritz Von Erich prmoted several "Starr Wars" shows several times a year, Vinceent Mcmahon hosted 3 "Showdown at Shea" stadium shows during the 70's and the Crockett Promotion held annual supercards on Thanksgiving and Christmas. In 1976 a collaborated effort between Vincent McMahon, Japanese promoter and wrestler Antonio Inoki and several promoters around the country brought about the first international closed circuit telecast of a wrestling show. Closed circuit telecasts entailed an event being broadcast through satellites to large location around the country (or even the world) such as theaters, arenas, and exhibition halls where a crowd was charged to view the event. The promotion behind the event would receive half (or more) or the money brought in while the individual venues got the remainder of the share. The first of these events was the much hyped Boxer V/S Wrestler match between boxing world Champion Muhammad Ali against Inoki in a mixed rules match from Japan. This match was paired with another match with Andre the Giant facing boxer Chuck Wepner. These two match were shows on big screens and in many cases live wrestling matches were offered in arenas carrying the show. The match itself was considered a bust by American fans but made a lot of money for promoters around the country. Jim Crockett was the next to take on closed circuit when he took the traditional Thanksgiving card Mid Atlantic Championship Wrestling would promote and turned it into Starrcade '83 built around the first time the NWA title would be defended inside a steel cage with reigning champion Harley Race defending against "Nature Boy" Ric Flair in the main event of a show featuring many stars from other promotions and became the first step in a change in the business.
But as I';ll write about later on, something was looming on the horizon that no one expected and would set about a change never seen before.
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