Wrestling-"Ring Rumbles and Body Slams: The Thrilling World of Wrestling Entertainment in WWF, WWE, IMPACT, and ROH!"
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World
Wrestling Federation
While the
World Wrestling Federation claims to have been the leader in "sports
entertainment for over fifty years," the WWF really was formed in the
early 1980s when Vince McMahon Jr. took over his ailing father's regional
wrestling promotion and transformed it into an international marketing success
story. McMahon Jr. is credited with taking professional wrestling out of the
"smoke-filled arenas" and putting it on the map as family
entertainment.
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McMahon's
father started the WWF (then called the WWWF) in 1963, breaking away from the
National Wrestling Alliance over disagreements about the booking of the World
Champion. McMahon Sr.'s home base was New
York's Madison Square Garden, and he ran shows all along the East
Coast. Playing to the heavy ethnic composition of his customers, he installed
Italian strongman Bruno Sammartino as his World Champion, and the promotion was
off and running. McMahon Sr. pioneered the big event card, holding two
successful shows at Shea Stadium, both headlined by Sammartino. By the early
1980s, McMahon Jr., who had been working for his father as an announcer but was
posed for something bigger for the business, had taken over the promotion.
(McMahon told New
York magazine that he "fell in love with it from the
first contact.") Eventually buying out his father's stock in the parent
company, Capital Sports, he changed the name to Titan Sports and proceeded to
revolutionize wrestling.
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McMahon broke
all the rules: he "stole" other promoter's talent, bought out their
television time, signed exclusive agreements with their arenas, and scheduled
shows opposite theirs. Soon the traditional wrestling territories started
drying up. McMahon's new company, headlined by Hulk Hogan as lead babyface and
Roddy Piper as lead heel, used the emerging cable
television industry to market his promotion across the country.
Shows such as WWF Superstars and McMahon's faux talk
show Tuesday Night Titans were the top rated shows on all
cable. He also set up syndicated shows that became the highest rated in
syndication. Attracting mainstream press, using celebrities like Liberace and
Cindy Lauper, merchandising wrestlers as characters (the WWF would copyright
and own each wrestler's gimmick), having wrestlers use entrance music, and,
finally, making wrestling a true "show" thrust the WWF into the
national consciousness.
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After 1985's
Wrestlemania I, a live event at Madison Square Garden covered by hundreds of
media outlets but also shown across the country via closed-circuit TV, McMahon
expanded his empire. He signed agreements for a cartoon show on CBS and inked a
series of license agreements to create all sorts of products, from lunch boxes
to trading cards, featuring the likenesses of his wrestlers. Rather than
appealing to adults, McMahon aimed his product at the family market. The WWF
scored a coup in landing a monthly spot on network TV with Saturday
Night's Main Event premiering on NBC in 1985 in the 11:30 p.m. time
slot. Forays into prime time began in 1988. Success followed success as the WWF
dominated in the United
States with events like 1987's Wrestlemania III drawing more
than 90,000 to the Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan, while wrestling became the
cash cow of the early pay-per-view industry. The WWF even "exposed"
the wrestling industry in a hearing in New
Jersey to rid itself of being taxed as a sport. A WWF official
testified that wrestling was indeed "fake," a headline which ended up
in the New York Times. McMahon didn't even attempt to put up
the façade any longer, telling New York magazine, "We're
storytellers—this is a soap opera, performed by the greatest actors and
athletes in the world. I'd like to say that it's the highest form of
entertainment."
The WWF subsequently expanded to more than 1,000 events a year. The wrestlers were divided up into the three "teams," the big stars headlining in the major markets and new talent headlining in small towns. Already successful in Canada, in the late 1980s the WWF started running TV all over the world and promoting live events in England, Germany, and Italy as well as in the Middle East. In 1991, more than 60,000 fans jammed into Wembley Stadium in England for the "Summer Slam" show, while events in other countries sold out both tickets and merchandise.
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While the
success of the WWF was built on many factors, one of its main selling points
was always the physique of its wrestlers. Champion Hulk Hogan bragged about
having the "largest arms in the world," and performers like the
Ultimate Warrior were touted not because of their ring talent, but because of
their bodybuilder physiques. McMahon marketed bodybuilders by developing the
World Bodybuilding Federation in 1991, a huge, and expensive, failure. More bad
times followed for the WWF with the arrest of a WWF-affiliated doctor for
trafficking in steroids. McMahon and the company itself were taken to court for
distributing steroids in 1994 after a very public three-year investigation.
About the same time the steroid scandal broke, former WWF wrestlers and
announcers were coming forth with stories of sex scandals involving WWF
officials. Jerry Springer, Geraldo, and other daytime talk
shows covered the story, as did the New York Post. McMahon was
on the ropes. The negative publicity from the scandals, coupled with the
shrinking nature of the top wrestlers' physiques and the departure of top stars
like Hulk Hogan caused a downturn in business. The WWF tried its old tricks of
involving celebrities like Chuck Norris, Jenny McCarthy, Burt Reynolds, Pam
Anderson, and even getting NFL Hall of Famer Lawrence
Taylor to wrestle in a Wrestlemania main event, but fan
interest was waning.
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After
dominating wrestling for more than a decade, the WWF faced its first serious
competition in 1995 when Ted
Turner's World Championship Wrestling challenged the WWF directly by
scheduling a show called Monday Nitro opposite the WWF's
long-standing Monday Night Raw. Losing talent, advertisers,
and viewers, the WWF was clearly the number-two promotion. The turning point
came when the WWF decided to abandon its family-friendly approach. It adopted a
new hardcore edge and marketing campaign, "WWF attitude," while
building the promotion around trash-talking Steve Austin rather than dependable
champion Bret Hart. When Hart decided to leave the promotion in the fall of
1997, McMahon took a bold gamble. During a championship match, which McMahon
and Hart had agreed would end in Hart NOT losing the WWF title, McMahon had the
timekeeper ring the bell and declare Hart's opponent, Shawn Michaels, the
winner and new champ. The controversy and interest in the finish, the emergence
of Austin as the most popular wrestler in the country as well as a mainstream
celebrity (showing up on awards shows, voicing MTV's Celebrity Death
Match, being profiled in Rolling Stone and People),
and lots of innovative promotion and matchmaking found the WWF back on top and
once again "the leader in sports entertainment."
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WWWF / WWF / WWE Results and Title Histories- 1960 thru 2015
This is an in-depth listing of WWE results dating back to the inception of the company in 1963 and continuing to the present day.
House shows, TV tapings, and pay-per-view cards are all included as well as inter-promotional cards which featured WWE title defenses.
The information contained within this section was taken from numerous accurate sources.
However, unless I was witness to the show or match listed, I cannot guarantee 100% accuracy to everything featured within this site.
There may be slight discrepancies regarding match finishes or dates of particular shows.
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Why Did the WWF Change Their Name to WWE?
WWF vs. WWE
If you hear the term WWF, do you think of the World Wildlife Fund (cute
animals, saving the planet, etc.) or the World Wrestling Federation (Hulk
Hogan, piledrivers, etc.)? This confusion and uncertainty is at the root of the
wrestling group changing their name from the WWF to the WWE. But how it
happened and the history behind it is a little deeper.
What is the WWE?
WWE,
which stands for World Wrestling Entertainment, is “an integrated media organization,” which seeks to offer global entertainment in the form of media, live
events, and consumer products. You probably know the WWE best as a professional
wrestling organization, but they consider themselves much more, branching out
into other fields like movies, real estate, and other business ventures.
Wrestling is still at the heart of the WWE though, and the company is a
dominating force in the promotion of wrestling. It organizes over 500 events a
year, held the world over. These events are purely entertainment-driven
enterprises, as opposed to being actual competitive bouts. The matches are
often scripted or choreographed, with many of them featuring risky and
crowd-pleasing moves. The wrestlers themselves are athletes though. They are
professionals who require a great deal of athleticism to pull off often
dangerous moves that can put them at risk if not performed correctly.
WWF to WWE
While the role and mission of WWE has always been the same – to offer
world-stage wrestling entertainment to its viewers – the name under which it
has operated has not always been so constant. In 2001, the World Wrestling
Federation (WWF) officially changed its name to World Wrestling Entertainment
(WWE). In many ways, this was the start of a transition to a new era, including
new top stars, new game attitudes, and new levels of entertainment.
However, this rebranding didn’t necessarily come voluntarily.
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Why Did the WWF Change Their Name to WWE?
The company we know today as the WWE was incorporated in 1980, and was previously known as Titan Sports, Inc. In 1982, Titan would acquire Capitol Wrestling Corporation, which was then the holding company for a wrestling league called the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). Vince McMahon, who had founded Titan, began to promote the WWF as the premier wrestling league in the world.
However, soon after beginning use of the WWF label, McMahon learned another company was using the same acronym. The World Wildlife Fund for Nature had been using WWF prior to McMahon and his wrestling league. In 1994, due to this conflict, McMahon entered a law-abiding agreement forbidding him from using WWF in relation to wrestling, and was only allowed to use it as spoken word on live broadcasts. The World Wildlife Fund agreed to drop any pending litigation against Titan Sports, Inc.
This seemingly amicable agreement turned sour in 2000 when the World Wildlife Fund claimed that the terms of the agreement had been violated, leading them to launch legal action. As a result, McMahon soon lost his rights to the use of WWF, and on an episode of Monday Night Raw in 2001, announced the official name change to WWE. The logo remained in a few shows and on some video games already produced until as late as 2003, before being completely left to the animals.
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The WWE Today
While it may seem a bit trivial to swap one initial, the World Wildlife Fund was adamant about the change, especially given that the violent nature of wrestling was in stark contrast to the ethos of a company that prides itself on acts of compassion and humanitarianism. Ultimately though, it ended up working in favor for the wrestling side as well, as the name allowed the company to emphasize entertainment. And that, says McMahon, is “it’s what our company does best.”
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Awesome article on Edge retirement
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