History of professional wrestling
Encyclopedia : H : HI : HIS : History of professional wrestling
The history of professional wrestling dates back to be well over 100 years old and has many significant moments during that period of time. Through humble beginnings in the late 1880s the sport quickly grew throughout the 1970s and peaked during the 1980s in which the World Wrestling Federation became an international wrestling giant.
Throughout the 1990s professional wrestling as a whole hit a financial and popularity peak in amidst the Monday Night Wars, as well as the introduction of hardcore wrestling, which came into existence in the early 1990s.
As the millennium turned, fans began to become more aware of backstage politics and wrestler's work rates thanks to a spark of popularity in the Internet Wrestling Community.
Despite its status as one of the oldest and most enduringly popular sports in history, professional wrestling has been pushed to the background of the current sports scene. Most people today would have a hard time even considering wrestling (with some of its modern theatrics) in the same terms as track and field or boxing. But until the 1920s, wrestling stood as a legitimate professional sport, and a widely practiced amateur one as well. Its past respectability may not have endured, but the advent of cable television in the 1980s offered the sport a renewed opportunity to play a determining role in popular culture. This opportunity was not wasted, and wrestlers now assume places in politics and film at the highest levels.
Beginnings
The first known form of professional wrestling is believed to be in 1873 in Paris, France where wrestling's first masked wrestler enters the ring. He was known simply as the Masked Wrestler. In 1874 Viro Small, a former slave from Beaufort, South Carolina, becomes North America's first known African American professional wrestler. Small's training involved hauling beer barrels around New York City.
In 1878, the first known case of an amateur wrestler earning pay (thus making him professional) was found. William Muldoon won the Greco-Roman wrestling championship from French champion Christol in two straight falls of 10 and 17 minutes. He also wins about $2,000 in side bets.
In 1887, the first professional wrestling championship was created when Evan "The Strangler" Lewis defeated Joe Acton in Chicago, Illinois to win the American Catch-as-Catch Can Championship.
In the 1890s professional wrestling's first great wrestler emerged. Frank Gotch would become the success story of the era, winning various championships throughout the United States. Tom Jenkins also emerged as a firm performer. The first epic meeting between the two occurred on February 22, 1903.
In 1901 San Francisco promoters introduce tag team wrestling to improve the sport's entertainment value. Another Californian innovation was an 18-foot padded mat laid atop risers, which is still being used today in North American professional wrestling, but didn't become popular until the 1930s.
On May 5, 1905 World Greco-Roman champion, George Hackenschmidt, dominated American Heavyweight Champion, Tom Jenkins, in two straight falls, in Madison Square Garden in New York City in a match to crown the "World Catch-as-Catch Can Heavyweight Champion." This match is the origin of the first "World Heavyweight Championship" in the United States.
On September 4, 1911, three years after their controversial first match, Frank Gotch defeated George Hackenschmidt in Chicago, Illinois at Comiskey Park to retain the World title after Hackenschmidt injured his knee during the match. The live gate was $87,053, the biggest gate during that time.
In 1925 Jess McMahon promoted his first boxing card in the "old" Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. This became the first signs of the McMahon wrestling empire beginning to build. In the late 1920s professional wrestling began to become a internationally renowned sport when it was introduced to Australia in 1927 and Great Britain in 1930. In 1934 South Africa banned professional wrestling in the country because it was "brutal and degrading".
1935 became one of the more significant years in professional wrestling history. Not only did Jim Crockett, Snr. form Jim Crockett Promotions but Vince McMahon, Snr. promoted his first wrestling card. Mud wrestling was invented in Seattle, Washington by mistake. Promoter Paul Boesch added too much water with dirt to have a "Hindu Match" between Prince Bhu Pinder and former World Champion, Gus Sonneberg. Mud wrestling then moved to San Francisco. Women's mud-wrestling soon followed.
The legacy of Lou Thesz first came into context in the mid-1930s by winning the National Wrestling Association's World Heavyweight Championship.
Japan and Mexico
Japan's first American-style professional wrestling match was held at Susaki Baseball Stadium in Tokyo. The main event was Korea's Ken Gen against former Japanese Olympian Kiyoshi Kose. The first "Texas Tornado" match was also held the same year in Houston, Texas. It was the brainchild of Morris Sigel. The Texas Tornado match is a tag team match where all four wrestlers are in the ring at one time. The first match was Milo Steinborn and Whiskers Savage against Tiger Daula and Fazul Mohammed.
On March 15, 1946 El Santo defeated Pete Pancof in Mexico City, Mexico for the NWWA World Welterweight Title. El Santo would go on to become the most famous wrestler in Mexican wrestling history.
First Golden Age
Don Owens began promoting wrestling cards that aired on television in Portland, Oregon, the first televised professional wrestling in history. The National Wrestling Alliance was first formed in Waterloo, Iowa. The first NWA President was P.L. "Pinkie" George. Orville Brown was recognized as the first World Heavyweight Champion. The NWA worked under a revolutionary "territory" system, similar to a franchise of a business. The promotion owned a large sum of promotions in different areas of the world, with the World Championship recognised as the highest championship in the promotion. The champion was permitted to go on tours of member's promotions. The system was very successful. Stampede Wrestling, a promotion based out of Calgary in Canada was an early admittance in 1948 and was run by the famous Hart family.
On November 26, 1956 Vince McMahon Senior promoted his first card. A poor crowd of 10,400 came to see the event. The American Wrestling Association formed in 1960 with Verne Gagne being the promoter and the promotion's biggest stars. Throughout the decade the AWA became one of the most respected and popular promotions in North American. In 1962 the first use of a ladder in the sport was used when Ray Stevens performed a "Bombs Away" drop from a ladder onto Pepper Gomez' throat, injuring him.
1963 started to show some significant changes and moves in the sport. On January 24 Lou Thesz defeated NWA World Heavyweight Champion, Buddy Rogers, in one fall in Toronto, Ontario, Canada for the title. Shortly after, promoters from the Northeast broke away from the NWA to form the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF). WWWF Promoters continued to recognize Rogers as World Champion. This became the forerunner for today's WWE. On May 19, The Destroyer defeated Rikidozan in Osaka, Japan in one of the most famous matches in Japanese wrestling history and became an instant legend in Japan. It's the last singles match Rikidozan would lose. On October 15, Bobo Brazil vs. Tino Tim Anderson marks the first professional wrestling match involving black wrestlers in Tampa, Florida. On December 8, the father of Japanese professional wrestling, Rikidozan, died from stab wounds.
Between 1963 and 1971, Bruno Sammartino set the record for the longest World Championship reign in professional wrestling history, holding the WWWF Heavyweight Championship for 2,803 days. This record has never been broken. Between 1968 and 1975 Verne Gagne held the AWA World Heavyweight Championship for 2,625 days but this was the closest anyone has ever got to breaking the record.
In 1967 Bearcat Wright eliminated Ray Stevens to win the first famous battle royal at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, California. New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW) and All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) were formed in 1972. The Destroyer became the first American wrestler to wrestle in Japan with a five year stint between 1972 and 1977.
On October 4, 1975 Ric Flair suffered a broken back when a Cesna 310 he was riding in crashes in Wilmington, North Carolina. Also on the plane were Johnny Valentine and Bob Bruggers. Doctors said Flair will never wrestle again. The next year Danny Hodge (a legend to the NWA junior heavyweight division) suffers a broken neck in a car accident near Monroe, Louisiana and never wrestled again.
On October 6, 1978 Harley Race manages to body slam André the Giant. André was presumed to weight somewhere between 450 and 600 pounds at the time of the slam. The next year, Bruiser Brody began to become one of the most popular wresters in the world after a successful tour of Japan with AJPW. The World Wide Wrestling Federation dropped a "W" and became the World Wrestling Federation. Four years after being told he would never wrestle again; Ric Flair uses the figure four leglock to defeat former World Champion Buddy Rogers to claim the title of being the "Nature Boy".
In 1981 AWA legend and promoter Verne Gagne successfully retired from wrestling by defending his World Championship against Nick Bockwinkel. He forfeited the title shortly thereafter and focused on the office duties of the promotion full-time.
Second Golden Age
In 1982, TBS changed their wrestling television program from "Georgia Championship Wrestling" to "World Championship Wrestling", a name synonymous with 1990s professional wrestling. In June of the same year Vince McMahon Jnr. and Titan Sports purchased Capitol Wrestling Corporation (WWF) from his father and its shareholders. In one of the most memorable and dramatic moments in Madison Square Garden, Jimmy Snuka performed his "Superfly" leap from the top of the steel cage onto Bob Backlund in a WWF World Title match. Snuka missed and Backlund left the cage and retained the title.
In Japan in 1983, the name Hulk Hogan began sweeping the nation as he defeated Antonio Inoki for the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship. On November 24 the first ever "StarrCade" event was held in Greensboro, North Carolina and shown on closed-circuit television throughout the Mid-Atlantic. The event would become the most significant event in the National Wrestling Alliance and the first annual professional wrestling extravaganza anywhere. On the card, Ric Flair defeated Harley Race inside a steel cage to win his second NWA World Championship.
By the end of January 1984, Hulkamania was created as a term to describe Hulk Hogan's legions of fans and was dominating professional wrestling. Vince McMahon's idea of an all-American babyface had worked a treat. Hogan's run as World Champion lasted four years (the longest in more than twenty years) and sold out arenas all across the United States, making the WWF millions of dollars and making the number one entity in all of professional wrestling.
It was around this time that McMahon began to reveal the unspoken secrets of professional wrestling; the sport was scripted. McMahon also dubbed his product "sports entertainment" so that the uses of extravagant characters such as Hogan were acceptable.
Meanwhile, the National Wrestling Alliance's renowned and highly successful territory system was slowly dieing. While the WWF had their major stars at almost all of the shows they performed the NWA could only manage to have one or two of its stars at one show at a time as to promote the product in every territory. Stampede Wrestling, who had a success story for five decades, was bought out by Vince McMahon and took all the talent from the promotion (including talents like Bret Hart, the British Bulldogs and Junkyard Dog) and continued to make the WWF the only viewing choice in professional wrestling.
Black Saturday
While the WWF powerhouse continued along, McMahon began buying out other rival promotions with the money he was earning. World Championship Wrestling owned a cable deal on TBS and was becoming a successful promotion. While still running steadily, major stakeholders Jack and Gerald Brisco sold their entire stock in the business (including the TV deal) to Vince McMahon. The WWF show on TBS was a ratings disaster. WCW's core audience hated the WWF's soap opera approach, preferring a more athletic style.
Despite originally promising to produce original programming for the TBS timeslot in Atlanta, McMahon chose instead to provide only a clip show for TBS, featuring highlights from other WWF programming. In May 1985, McMahon sold the TBS timeslot and WCW name to Jim Crockett, Jr., under heavy pressure from Ted Turner after McMahon was in desperate need of money.
The road to WrestleMania
On February 21, 1985 the ABC aired a report in which John Stossel interviewed "Doctor D" David Schultz. Schultz was asked what he though of the sport being "fake". Schultz then proceeded to slap Stossel across the ears asking him if he thought the sport was "fake now". Stossel sued the WWF and received $28,000 from the promotion in a law suit. On March 9 of the same year, the Road Warriors (Hawk & Animal) made their debut in Japan and were an instant success. Meanwhile, Bruiser Brody jumped from AJPW to NJPW.
"WrestleMania", the WWF's flagship show and answer to the NWA's "StarrCade" show is held at Madison Square Garden in New York City and was available on 135 closed-circuit networks. The show was a huge success. In the main event, Hulk Hogan and Mr. T defeated Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff when Hogan pinned Orndorff. Almost immediately a second WrestleMania was in the works. Hulk Hogan went onto appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. After the swinsuit issue, it was the magazine's best seller. In May, professional wrestling returned to network television after a 34-year abscence as WWF's "Saturday Night's Main Event" premiers on NBC. ESPN also began airing professional wrestling for the first time by airing various AWA shows. In 1986, The Four Horsemen, one of the most famous professional wrestling groups of all time, form consisting of Ric Flair, Tully Blanchard, Ole and Arn Anderson.
In November 1985 the first ever professional wrestling pay-per-view, The Wrestling Classic occurred. The idea of a one-night tournament was a huge success and would become a regular event starting in 1987 with the first ever King of the Ring tournament. Pat Patterson also invented the idea of the Royal Rumble Match. Similar to a battle royal, competitors would enter the ring at timed intervals rather than all at the same time. The idea became one of the marquee events on the WWF calendar.
The competitors emerge
By February 1987 NJPW were beginning to show that they were the more dominant product in Japan. Stars like Masahiro Saito, Kuniaki Kobayashi, Super Strong Machine, Hiro Saito and Riki Coshu moved to New Japan. On April 9 Jim Crockett Promotions purchased the Universal Wrestling Federation, a promotion on the verge of becoming a national threat to the WWF but ran into financial difficulties and eventually were bought out. JCP also took the NWA's pay-per-view names and began using the best of the NWA talent such as Ric Flair, Barry Windham and Ricky Steamboat on their shows to try and compete with the WWF. McMahon and the WWF had the answers though, replying by holding WrestleMania III at the Pontiac Silverdome. In front of 93,173 fans and one of the largest pay-per-view audiences in history, Hullk Hogan defeated André the Giant to retain his WWF Championship in what is considered one of the greatest wrestling shows in history.
On February 5, 1988 wrestling returned to prime-time network televisions after a 33 year absence with a broadcast of WWF's "The Main Event" on NBC. The show was taped from Indianapolis, Indiana where André the Giant ended Hulk Hogan's 4 year WWF World Championship reign.
In the first-ever Clash of the Champions on TBS, Ric Flair and Sting battled to a 45-minute draw for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship in Greensboro, North Carolina. On the same card, Lex Luger and Barry Windham defeated Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson to win the NWA World Tag Team Championship.
On the night of July 16, 1988 the first well known tragedy occurred in professional wrestling. Bruiser Brody was stabbed to in a locker room shower after a show when Jose Huertas asked him to come into the shower to discuss "business". What happened next is not precisely known however it is known Huertas stabbed him several times. It was believed Tony Atlas was a witness in the incident but never came forward and therefore Huertas was acquitted. In November of the same year, media mogul Ted Turner purchased Jim Crockett promotions from Jim Crockett Jr. and renamed it World Championship Wrestling.
Turner promised a more athletic approach to the product and made Ric Flair the marquee wrestler of the promotion and became very successful, both financially and critically. Young stars such as Sid Vicious, Sting, Scott Steiner, The Road Warriors, Brian Pillman, The Great Muta and Lex Luger were given big storylines and championship opportunities. However, as high quality as the WCW product was in terms of matches, it could not compete with Vince McMahon and the WWF.
Meanwhile, the AWA was falling desperately into nothingness. The AWA became inactive in the fall of 1990 after all of the main talent had moved elsewhere and the promoters generally just didn’t care anymore and shows became a mess. Verne Gagne attempted to revive it one more time in May 1991 but to no avail faded out of professional wrestling quietly.
A decline in success
In January 1991, WCW officially split from the NWA and began to recognize its own WCW World Heavyweight Championship and WCW World Tag Team Championship. However, in July Ric Flair left the promotion and/or was fired after refusing to change his image under the command of WCW President Jim Herd. Flair moved to the WWF and left WCW to fend for themselves. When Flair moved to the WWF, he took the WCW World Heavyweight Championship with him after being fired as champion. This caused a huge uproar as WCW were left with no heavyweight champion. On September 10, Ric Flair wrestled his first match for the WWF. Flair went on to become a big success in the WWF, capturing two WWF Heavyweight Championships including one by the winning the prestigious Royal Rumble Match. Flair returned to WCW in February 1993 after 18 months with the WWF.Later in July 1991 Vince McMahon announced that WWF wrestlers would undergo mandatory testing for anabolic steroids as part of its anti-drug policy. It was subject to much controversy as many big names were given consent so that the promotion would not take such a financial hit with the loss of such a big name but others who were less significant to the promotion were fined and suspended.
The idea of gimmicky characters that had made Vince McMahon millions of dollars was starting to take back seat to the athletic competition that was WCW around 1993. Following a steroid controversy involving McMahon himself and a sexual misconduct incident involving Pat Patterson and Terry Garvin the WWF was subject to plentiful amounts of criticism in the coming months.
The WWF wasn't the only one suffering. WCW was criticized for its bland storylines throughout 1992 and 1993 with Jim Herd and Bill Watts receiving the blame. The NWA's territory system was deemed officially dead, leaving it with virtually no means of promotion. There was some light that the professional wrestling world was in good shape. Eastern Championship Wrestling was formed in 1992 as part of the NWA. The promotion featured stars such as Jimmy Snuka and future prospects such as Shane Douglas and The Sandman and Asistencia Asesoría y Administración drew 48,000 fans to the Plaza de Toros in Mexico City, Mexico for its flagship show, TripleMania. And most importantly the WWF signed an agreement with the USA network for a 2 hour taped professional wrestling show called Monday Night RAW.
Enter Eric Bischoff. A former commentator and head booker of the AWA, Bischoff was appointed as Executive Vice President of WCW late in 1993. Bischoff was desperate to give the promotion a new direction and impressed Ted Turner with his tactics and business savvy. Things in professional wrestling were about to change forever.
Monday Night Wars and ECW
When Bischoff entered his position in WCW, he was given full access to Ted Turner's check book to try and defeat the WWF by any means necessary. With that in mind, Bischoff made his first move and signed Hulk Hogan from the WWF in early 1994. The WWF, without their biggest draw card of the last 10 years on the roster, began to suffer immediately and started building new stars out of the likes of Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Lex Luger, Razor Ramon and Diesel. Despite putting on a spectacular wrestling performance at WrestleMania's tenth anniversary, the WWF still could not draw fans. On June 11, Hogan officially signed with WCW and made an immediate impact by facing Ric Flair at the July pay-per-view "Bash At The Beach". Despite being a critical and financial success, the glory would not last long as the Hogan/Flair feud was only a one-off match. Five months later and after a decade with the WWF, Randy Savage was lured with a mbig money contract to WCW as well.
In July Vince McMahon began his trial on steroid distribution charges in Uniondale, New York. McMahon was acquitted of conspiracy to distribute steroids to wrestlers following 16 hours of jury deliberation.
Away from the war between the WWF and WCW, a new breed of professional wrestling was beginning. NWA Eastern Championship Wrestling renamed itself "Extreme Championship Wrestling" when Shane Douglas won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship tournament in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He threw down the NWA World title, picked up the ECW Heavyweight Championship and proclaimed himself ECW World Heavyweight Champion.
In Korea, Approximately 150,000 attend a New Japan Pro Wrestling event, setting an attendance record for one day as nearly 190,000 fans attend the second day of wrestling at the Korean cultural festival on April 28 and 29, 1995.
In 1995, Ted Turner granted WCW boss Eric Bischoff an hour-long show to compete against RAW. On September 4 of that year, WCW Monday Nitro premiered as a one-hour show on TNT. In it, Lex Luger, who had been working on a handshake deal with WWF boss Vince McMahon, made a surprise appearance and joined WCW. In the first six months of the war, RAW and Nitro had eleven wins each, with two ties.
WCW also began to sign talented wrestlers based in ECW. Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, Rey Misterio, Jnr. and Juventud Guerrera were just a few of the names to be recruited from the much smaller, lower budget ECW to the growing promotion known as WCW. Most of the talents signed had been scouted by ECW, more directly Paul Heyman.
Heyman was credited as a "wrestling genius" for introducing the hardcore style to ECW and scouting for talented wrestlers and using them to the best of their ability and creating new stars out of nothing. Mexican wrestlers for example were never used by any major promotion before ECW but were given their break thanks to ECW who pushed them onto better things.
New World Order
The war really began on May 27, 1996 when Scott Hall (who had previously been Razor Ramon in the WWF) interrupted a match and said he was taking over the show. When confronted by Sting by the end of the show, Hall promised a big surprise. The following week, Kevin Nash (who had been Diesel in the WWF) also showed up. They claimed they had a third man with them, but the man didn't show up for several weeks.
Finally at Bash at the Beach on July 7, the third man was revealed to be Hulk Hogan, who turned heel and declared in his post-match speech that he, Hall and Nash were "the new world order of professional wrestling." WCW proved to be the figurehead of professional wrestling by this stage and the WWF were no longer the most popular wrestling product in North America for the first time in 10 years.
The New World Order (shortened to nWo) run amuck in WCW and destroyed McMahon's product as WCW had came up with more legitimate, edgy storylines and characters over the WWF's cartoon style of character. With Hogan winning the WCW World Heavyweight Championship from The Giant at with help from Nash and Hall. The Giant joined the group weeks later and the nWo proved to be the most powerful faction in professional wrestling.
The nWo continued to dominate WCW, and new members soon appeared, including Ted DiBiase and Syxx. They even had their own referee, Nick Patrick. Legendary superstar "Macho Man" Randy Savage took the lead in the battle against the nWo, but in the end he lost to Hogan and disappeared.
The odds were too much to bear for WCW, and soon Rowdy Roddy Piper surfaced in WCW to battle old nemesis Hulk Hogan, who had now dubbed himself "Hollywood" Hulk Hogan. He shocked WCW further by exposing WCW President Eric Bischoff as the mastermind behind the nWo, one of the reasons the stable had such incredible clout.
ECW becomes reknowned
On February 24, 1997, ECW "invaded" Monday Night RAW from the Manhattan Center. They advanced a storyline, plugged their first ever pay-per-view and worked three matches in front of the WWF audience while Vince McMahon called the action with both Jim Ross and Paul Heyman.
The Manhattan Center in New York was peppered with a large number of ECW fans, who gave the WWF wrestlers "BO-RING" chants when they felt it was warranted. Likewise, when the ECW performers arrived, they popped and introduced the WWF Monday night audience to some trademark ECW group chants. It was said that this episode was the beginning of what would eventually be called The Attitude Era of the WWF.
After a series of struggles, on April 13, 1997, ECW broadcasted its first pay-per-view wrestling card, Barely Legal, highlighted by 53 year-old Terry Funk winning the ECW World Heavyweight Championship.
At the 1997 Wrestlepalooza event, Jerry Lawler, a noted critic of ECW made a surprise appearance at the ECW Arena (one of the most well known professional wrestling arenas in the world). Wrestlepalooza 1997 featured Raven's final ECW match before leaving for WCW. In this match, Tommy Dreamer finally beat his long time nemesis Raven. Dreamer's celebration was short-lived, though, as Jerry Lawler, along with Sabu and Rob Van Dam showed up to attack Dreamer. This set up a match between Tommy Dreamer and Jerry Lawler at the 1997 Hardcore Heaven PPV on August 17, which was won by Dreamer.
Montreal Screwjob
After months of WCW gaining plentiful power over the WWF thanks to its highly successful New World Order storyline, it became evident that after years of service to the WWF, Bret Hart was leaving for WCW. There was only one thing standing between Hart and his new found home; the WWF Heavyweight Championship. Hart, along with Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker had been the stronghold of the WWF throughout the nWo storyline and Hart had the title for a solid period of time.
Amidst all the drama, McMahon requested that Hart drop the title at Survivor Series against Shawn Michaels. Hart said he'd drop the title to anyone but Shawn Michaels; otherwise he would vacate the title the next night on Raw. McMahon accepted his decision and allowed Hart to continue on his way to Survivor Series. What was brewing in professional wrestling was something nobody except McMahon and a few associates knew.
The end of the match was decided. Michaels would get Hart locked in Hart's finisher, the sharpshooter, only for Hart to reverse it into a sharpshooter of his own before D-Generation X and the Hart Foundation came to the ring for an all-in brawl to end the show.
The match went ahead as planned and showed yet another display of technical brilliance from both competitors. However, as Michaels locked in the sharpshooter to finish the match, McMahon told referee Earl Hebner (who was supposedly in on the act) to "ring the damn bell!" Hebner then signaled to the timekeeper as if Hart had submitted to the hold, and Michaels was quickly awarded the match and the title as his theme music began to play. Hebner then bolted backstage from the ring, allegedly to a waiting car.
Astounded by the unexpected turn of events, Hart was immediately outraged. As Hart stood dazed in the ring, Triple H and Gerald Brisco came out to escort Michaels backstage as the fans threw garbage at him and rained boos. Michaels himself was told to act even more outraged than Hart because if he didn't, they feared, due to his bad temper, that Hart would attack and pummel him for real (as he had tried to do, but was unsuccessful at several months earlier backstage at a RAW taping). As ringside commentators Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler quickly departed their announce position, Hart looked down at McMahon from the ring, spit right in his eye, and shortly after destroyed several TV monitors at ringside before climbing the turnbuckles and signing the letters "WCW" to the rabid crowd.
In the days to follow, Hart left for WCW, and McMahon claimed that he could not trust Bret with the title, fearing that he would show up on the competition's TV show with the WWF Championship. Some WWF wrestlers left the promotion for WCW. Davey Boy Smith, Jim Neidhart, and a few others left the WWF as a result of McMahon's actions.
The popular opinion was that this was a deathblow for the WWF and a major score for WCW. The combination of a company screwing over a popular wrestler and angering many fans should have dealt a massive blow to the WWF and given WCW a great amount of hype to work from. Ironically, it went the other way around. McMahon harnessed the real-life hatred that fans had held for him afterwards and created the "Mr. McMahon" character. The WWF was about to strike back.
McMahon strikes back
When Bret Hart joined WCW after the Montreal Screwjob at the 1997 Survivor Series, it appeared WCW was going to push the WWF right off the map. WCW had seemingly the big stars people wanted to see: Hogan, Nash, Hall, Hart, Ric Flair, Sting, Randy Savage, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Jr., Lex Luger, Diamond Dallas Page, Raven, Syxx, the list goes on. But in 1998, the war turned in McMahon's favor. After the Montreal incident, McMahon was recast as the evil owner, Mr. McMahon, who feuded with Stone Cold Steve Austin, who was ironically fired by Bischoff in 1995 as not being marketable enough. Meanwhile, Mick Foley, another WCW castoff, was being cheered for playing the heel Mankind, and The Rock (who had flopped as the babyface Rocky Maivia) was making a name for himself as a catchphrase spewing member of the Nation of Domination. WWE programming featured edgy characters and reflected society which was at the height of the "Jerry Springer Era." The RAW storylines were now adult-oriented and RAW's ratings began to rise. Finally, on April 13, 1998, for the first time in 84 weeks RAW beat Nitro, thanks to a teased Austin/McMahon match that never took place.
WCW decided to get back into the lead with Bill Goldberg, known in the ring only by his last name, as the new big star. On July 6, 1998 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Nitro defeated RAW when Goldberg pinned Hogan cleanly to win the WCW World Heavyweight Title, even though a Goldberg/Hogan match could have made millions as a PPV main event. The match drew a 6.91 rating for the quarter-hour, the highest in the war up to that time. RAW took back the lead soon thereafter, but WCW would win for the last time on October 26 when the World Title match between DDP and Goldberg from the previous night's Halloween Havoc PPV was aired due to some PPV viewers losing the feed at 11 p.m.
The demolition begins
By the start of 1999, both shows were consistently getting 5.0 or higher Nielsen ratings, and over ten million people tuned in to RAW and Nitro every week. The WWF even struck a deal with fre-to-air netowrk UPN to start another show named after one of The Rock's catchphrases, "SmackDown!". Wrestling was the place to be, as wrestlers made the mainstream media, appearing on magazine covers like Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide. But on the first Monday of that year, the tide began to turn in McMahon's favor for good.
That Monday night, January 4, saw Nitro originate once again from the Georgia Dome. In the second of three hours (the show had expanded to two hours in 1996 and three in 1998), Bischoff revived a previous tactic he had used earlier in the war, revealing the outcome of matches on the taped RAW airing on USA. He ordered announcer Tony Schiavone to announce that Mick Foley (as Mankind) was going to defeat The Rock for the WWF Championship. Schiavone then said sarcastically that it would "put butts in the seats." When Schiavone said those words, over 600,000 viewers changed their channels to watch Foley win the title. Nitro's main event was the infamous "Fingerpoke of Doom" where Hogan tapped his finger on Nash (who had become the booker), causing Nash to lie down for Hogan to win the belt. It led to another heel turn for Hogan, and the reformation of the entire nWo. The match might have started Nitro's demise; the show would only get a 5.0 rating twice afterwards; its 5.8 rating on February 8 (on a night when RAW was pre-empted) was the last time it would get such a number.
By then, WCW's main eventers (Hogan, Sting, Flair, Savage, Luger, Hall and Nash) were in their 40s or pushing 40. Bret Hart had been misused so badly that he never really was allowed the chance to become a major player in WCW, despite an estimated $3 million a year contract. The likes of Jericho, Benoit, Guerrero, etc. were never given the chance to be elevated to main event status. In the summer of 1999, Jericho left WCW and joined the WWF, where a "Countdown to the Millennium" clock heralded his arrival. When he made his RAW debut, he got into a confrontation with The Rock, and RAW beat Nitro that night by four ratings points. This was now a pattern. RAW was dominating Nitro so much that WCW tried quick fixes to stem the tide, including hiring rapper Master P (who bombed) and bringing in Megadeth and KISS for concerts (both of which flopped in the ratings). Finally, in September 1999, Bischoff was removed from power. Meanwhile, RAW's numbers continued to rise; a 25-minute long This is Your Life themed skit between The Rock and Foley drew an 8.4 quarter-hour rating on September 27. That was the highest quarter-hour recorded by either show during the war.
On October 5, 1999, Vince Russo and Ed Ferrera, both of whom had written for the WWF, were lured away by WCW. Russo and Ferrera failed to capture the magic of their WWF days when they turned Nitro into more of a RAW clone, and they became known as "The Powers That Be." Ferrera even became a parody of Jim Ross called Oklahoma. Nitro's ratings failed to increase, and in January 2000, they were gone. Furthermore, the subsequent promotion of Kevin Sullivan to head booker caused an uproar among WCW's wrestlers. In spite of winning the WCW title at Souled Out, Chris Benoit quit in protest, along with Eddie Guererro, Perry Saturn and Dean Malenko, All four of them entered the WWF as The Radicalz, premiering on RAW's January 31 episode- the very next night after Benoit's title win.
The departure of the four led WCW down the road to ruin. WCW became even more desperate, even going as far as putting the belt on David Arquette, who was in the promotion's 2000 movie Ready to Rumble. Nitro was cut to two hours in January 2000 in an effort to bolster the aggregate ratings score, but the elimination of the third hour didn't mean higher ratings for Nitro, which now averaged around a 2.5 (while RAW got double or sometimes triple that amount).
In April 2000, Bischoff and Russo returned with equal power to work as a team and restructure WCW. The main story was that old way of life in WCW was over. Hogan, Flair, Luger, Sid, Sting, and DDP, etc. were The Millionaires Club, led by Bischoff, and were said to be afraid of losing their spots and to be keeping the younger talent down. Billy Kidman, Rey Mysterio, Jr., Booker T, Buff Bagwell, Shane Douglas, etc. were The New Blood, led by Russo, and would finally get an even playing field to breakout as big stars in wrestling. The new storyline interested some people, but it failed to turn the ratings tide with it.
By now, Ted Turner was no longer running the company, having been swallowed up by Time Warner in 1996 and then AOL in the 2000 merger of the two companies. In 2000, WCW was on its way to losing $62 million, due to the guaranteed contracts of their older performers, plummeting advertising revenues, dropping house show attendances, ridiculous booking decisions (like Russo booking himself to win the World Title in September) and abysmal pay-per-view buyrates. Also, bad luck hit the company: Goldberg had a botched heel turn at The Great American Bash, Hart retired from wrestling from a concussion, and Hogan left the company after the 2000 Bash at the Beach. In the fall, rumors began to spread that WCW was up for sale.
In September 2000, Russo left the company due to a concussion, and shows were written by Ed Ferrera, Bill Banks, Jeremy Borash, Disco Inferno, and various other wrestlers, and staff. Eric Bischoff would leave in the summer of 2000.
End of an era
Before the Monday night Wars officially ended, ECW was a financial wreck. The final pay-per-view was Guilty As Charged which aired on January 7, 2001. Living Dangerously was meant to air on March 11 but didn't as ECW were in serious financial trouble by that stage. On April 4, 2001 Extreme Championship Wrestling officially died when Paul Heyman filed for bankruptcy.Rumor has it that Paul Heyman didn't pay the wrestlers for well over a month as the company was dying. He supposedly never told the wrestlers the company was on its last legs. ECW performers saw Heyman on RAW and put two and two together. Moreover, Heyman allegedly wasn't even at the ECW shows. Towards the end of ECW's run, Tommy Dreamer had started doing much of the booking duties along with Raven and Lance Storm. He allegedly was able to buy himself time by telling everyone to be patient because he was out in California working on securing a new TV deal for ECW.
On March 23, 2001 Vince McMahon signed the contract to buy out World Championship Wrestling after more than 15 years in business and the biggest threat to the WWF to date. The agreement of the sale included trademarks, logos and the video library. Wrestler's contracts were not included as they were part of Time Warner's pay list, not WCW's and continued to be paid until their contracts expired.
WCW did get one last favor from Vince McMahon, the final Nitro. The main event saw Sting defeat Ric Flair with the Scorpion Deathlock as a culmination of their trademark feud, and then both men embraced one another at the match's conclusion. Following the match, Vince McMahon made his way to the Raw ring (the shows were cross-promoted) and progressed to announced that he had bought WCW. However, Shane McMahon appeared on screen and told Vince that he had in fact bought WCW. This began the much-criticized invasion storyline. Before this began though, Shane defeated Vince in a Street Fight at WrestleMania X-Seven days later, considered to be one of the greatest professional wrestling cards in history.
The Invasion storyline started in June after Mike Awesome showed up on Raw and won the Hardcore Championship under the 24/7 rule. After this, more and more WCW talents started showing up on WWE television to the point where Booker T vs. Buff Bagwell for the WCW Heavyweight Championship was organized for an episode of Smackdown.
The feud came down to a defining point in professional wrestling history on July 9, 2001. While a WWF vs. WCW match was about to get underway, ECW wrestlers Rob Van Dam and Tommy Dreamer (not contracted by WCW or WWF at this stage) invaded the ring and beat down Kane and Chris Jericho (WWF wrestlers) with Mike Awesome and Lance Storm (WCW wrestlers). More WWF wrestlers invaded the ring but again all turned on Kane and Chris Jericho and decimated them. All of the attackers were ECW wrestlers. Paul Heyman, who was on commentary then got out of his seat and proclaimed that ECW had joined the war.
Later in the night a 10-on-10 match between WWF/WCW vs. ECW was made in which the WCW wrestlers turned on the WWF wrestlers and Shane McMahon announced the "merger" of WCW and ECW, with Stephanie McMahon announced as the new ECW owner. This new group was simply known as "The Alliance".
While the Alliance seemed to dominate early proceedings of the feud the WWF slowly started to get ahead and the feud was ended at Survivor Series in a 5-on-5 elimination match where the WWF and WCW titles were merged and any remaining champions from the losing promotion were saved. The WWF won after The Rock pinned Stone Cold Steve Austin.
The only championships that didn't remain unified were the WWF Heavyweight and WCW Heavyweight titles. The WCW title was temporarily named the "World Championship" and was held by The Rock. The WWF Championship was held by Stone Cold. In a one night tournament on December 9, 2001 Chris Jericho became the first Undisputed World Heavyweight Champion.
References
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