History of professional wrestling
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The history of professional wrestling spans well over 100 years and has had many significant moments during that period. From humble beginnings in the late 1880s, the sport boomed throughout the 1970s and peaked during the 1980s, when the World Wrestling Federation became an international wrestling giant.
Throughout the 1990s, professional wrestling as a whole reached financial and popularity highs with the Monday Night Wars and the increased exposure of hardcore wrestling.
In North America, professional wrestling has been pushed to the background of the current sports scene. Most people today 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 an influential role in popular culture. This opportunity was not wasted, and wrestlers now assume places in politics and film at the highest levels.
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[edit] Beginnings
Many of the terms that are used today in pro-wrestling are derived from terms used in the carnie days. Kayfabe refers to a language that was used by carnies to prevent the general audience from understanding what they were talking about.
In 19th century carnivals, there would often be exhibitions in which a skilled wrestler would lay out open challenges to audience members. Spectators from the audience would then step up and try to beat this carnie, but usually they would lose. Occasionally, there would be an audience member with some actual fighting expertise that would be able to match up with the carnie. Therefore, carnivals would bring in a ringer, known as a hooker, and "hook the amateur up", in a competitive match where the amateur wouldn't win.
The first form of professional wrestling as it is known today is believed to have appeared in 1873 in Paris, France where wrestling's first masked wrestler entered the ring, known simply as the Masked Wrestler.
In 1874 Viro Small, a former slave from Beaufort, South Carolina, became one of North America's first known African American professional wrestlers. Small's training involved hauling beer barrels around New York.
In 1878, the first known case of an amateur wrestler earning pay (thus making him professional) occurred. William Muldoon won the Greco-Roman wrestling championship from French champion Christol in two straight falls of 10 and 17 minutes respectively. He also won 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 to win the American Catch-as-Catch Can Championship.
In the 1890s, professional wrestling's first great wrestler, Frank Gotch, emerged. Gotch became a huge success story of the era, winning various championships throughout the United States. Tom Jenkins also emerged as a strong performer. The first epic meeting between the two occurred on February 22, 1903.
In 1901, San Francisco promoters introduced 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 used today in North American professional wrestling, but didn't become popular until the 1930s.
On May 5, 1905, European Greco-Roman champion Georg Hackenschmidt, defeated American Heavyweight Champion Tom Jenkins in two straight falls at Madison Square Garden, in a match to crown the "World Catch-as-Catch Can Heavyweight Champion." This match saw 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 at Comiskey Park to retain the World Title after Hackenschmidt injured his knee during the match. The live gate was $87,053, the highest gate recorded during that era.
In 1925, Jess McMahon promoted his first boxing card in the "old" Madison Square Garden. In the late 1920s, professional wrestling began to become an 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, Sr. form Jim Crockett Promotions, but Vince McMahon, Sr. promoted his first wrestling card. Mud wrestling was invented in Seattle 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 was begun in the mid-1930s when he won the National Wrestling Association's World Heavyweight Championship. In the late-1940s/early-1950s Thesz was chosen by the board of the NWA to carry out the important, but difficult, task of unifying the various World Heavyweight Championships in the United States into that of the new National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). Some promoters were reluctant to give up their titles, and the NWA needed a champion who would be sure to win, even if his opponents and their promoters decided to try to "shoot", that is fight for real to try to win to make themselves look good.
[edit] Japan and Mexico
Japan's first American-style professional wrestling match was held at Susaki Baseball Stadium in Tokyo on September 29, 1937. The main event was Korea's Ken Gen against former Japanese Olympian Kiyoshi Kose. The first "Texas Tornado" match was held the same year in Houston. 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.
Early Mexican professional wrestling was organized and promoted by Salvador Lutteroth. Starting in the 1930s, Lutteroth promoted wrestling shows under the banner of Empresa Mexicana de Lucha Libre, bringing American wrestlers to Mexico. Based in Mexico City, Lutteroth became the dominant promoter in the country, loaning his stars to independent promotions in the rest of the country. Officially established in 1935, EMLL was the dominant promotion in Mexico for several decades, and, under its current name of Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), is the longest-running wrestling promotion in the world.
Lutteroth's greatest success was El Santo. On March 15, 1946, El Santo defeated Pete Pancof in Mexico City, Mexico for the NWA World Welterweight Championship. Santo went on to become the most famous wrestler in Mexican wrestling history.
[edit] First Golden Age
Don Owens began promoting wrestling cards that aired on television in Portland, 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. Promotions across North America and in a few other places held membership in the NWA, giving them the right to use the NWA name, with the World Championship recognized as the highest championship in the promotion. The world champion toured member promotions, working with their top stars to draw large numbers of fans. 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, Sr. 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 America. 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. The new promotion became the forerunner of 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 was the last singles match Rikidozan ever lost. On October 15, Bobo Brazil vs. Tino Tim Anderson marked the first professional wrestling match involving black wrestlers in Tampa. 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. 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 managed to body slam André the Giant. André was presumed to weigh 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 wrestlers 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 retired from active wrestling after successfully defending his World Championship against Nick Bockwinkel. He forfeited the title shortly thereafter and focused on the office duties of the promotion full-time.
[edit] Second Golden Age
In 1982, TBS changed their wrestling TV show from Georgia Championship Wrestling to World Championship Wrestling, a name synonymous with 1990s professional wrestling. In June of the same year Vince McMahon, Jr. 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 Championship 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 in the finals of the first IWGP League. 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 Heavyweight 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 very well. Hogan's run as WWF 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 dying. 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. Furthermore, the advent of nation-wide television had weakened the territory system. Wrestlers could no longer travel to a new market and establish a new persona, since fans there already knew who they were. Vince McMahon, meanwhile, took advantage of this phenomenon by purchasing promotions all over the continent, in order to produce a widely-popular nation-wide television program. For example, Stampede Wrestling, who had a success story for five decades, was bought out by McMahon's WWF who 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] The road to WrestleMania
On February 21, 1985, ABC aired a report in which John Stossel interviewed "Dr. D" David Schultz. Schultz was asked what he thought 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 lawsuit. 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, was held at Madison Square Garden 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 WrestleMania 2 was in the works. Hulk Hogan went onto appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. After the swimsuit issue, it was the magazine's best seller. In May, professional wrestling returned to network television after a 34-year absence 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.
[edit] 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 Chōshū 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 Hulk 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 television after a 33 year absence with a broadcast of WWF's The Main Event on NBC. The show was taped from Indianapolis 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 July 16, 1988, Bruiser Brody was stabbed to death 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 and faded out of professional wrestling quietly.
[edit] A decline in success (1991-1993)
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, who was now President of both WCW and the NWA. Flair went 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 was 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 in WCW 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 for its flagship show, TripleMania. And most importantly the WWF signed an agreement with the USA Network for a weekly one-hour wrestling show called Monday Night RAW, which would be live twice a month (it would be live one week, with the next week's show taped).
A former commentator of the AWA and longtime WCW employee, Eric Bischoff was appointed as Executive Vice President of WCW in late 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.
[edit] Monday Night Wars and ECW
When Bischoff entered his position in WCW, he was given full access to Ted Turner's checkbook 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 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 X, 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 big 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.
In November, WCW cooperated with the Mexican lucha libre promotion AAA in promoting the latter's seminal PPV When Worlds Collide, widely credited with introducing the theatrical and high-flying Mexican style to a mainstream U.S. audience.
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. He threw down the NWA World Title, picked up the ECW Heavyweight Championship and proclaimed himself ECW World Heavyweight Champion.
In North 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. This event also featured appearances by WCW superstars like Flair, Bischoff, Chris Benoit, and Scott Steiner. WCW would later air this show on pay-per-view as "The Kollision in Korea."
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, Jr. 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 (despite the critical success of When Worlds Collide) but were given their break thanks to ECW who pushed them onto better things.
[edit] 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 Hog Wild 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.
[edit] ECW becomes renowned
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. 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 "boring" 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.
[edit] 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 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. 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.
[edit] 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 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. WWF programming featured edgy characters and reflected society which was at the height of the "Attitude Era"[citation needed]. 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.
[edit] 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 free-to-air network 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.
On May 23, 1999, Owen Hart (as The Blue Blazer) was originally booked to challenge The Godfather for the WWF Intercontinental Championship. In keeping with the Blazer's buffoonish character, Owen was to be lowered to just above ring level, at which time he would release himself from the safety harness and then fall flat on his face. Though he had performed the stunt before, Owen was worried about performing the stunt at Kemper Arena due to the height involved (Owen had a fear of heights). However, after Owen performed a practice stunt earlier in the day, the stunt went forward on the show as scheduled. His wife Martha suggests that, by moving around to get comfortable with both the harness and his cape on, Owen triggered an early release and fell 78 feet (24 m) into the ring, smashing his chest on a ring turnbuckle. Viewers at home did not see the incident, as the WWF was transmitting a promotional package for the match at the time. Owen was transported to the Truman Medical Center in Kansas City, where he was pronounced dead on arrival (he actually died about six minutes after the fall, while still lying in the ring); the cause was later revealed to be internal bleeding from blunt chest trauma. The WWF chose to continue the event despite the accident, which drew a great deal of criticism over the following weeks.
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 Ferrara, 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 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, strange 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 Ferrara, Bill Banks, Jeremy Borash, Disco Inferno, and various other wrestlers, and staff. Eric Bischoff would leave in the summer of 2000.
[edit] 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.
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 onscreen and told Vince that he had in fact bought WCW. This began the Invasion storyline. Before this began though, Shane defeated Vince in a Street Fight at WrestleMania X-Seven days later. In May 2001, Triple H seriously injured his left quadriceps, tearing the muscle off the bone, putting him out of the Invasion storyline. Chris Benoit, who was expected to play a major role in the Invasion storyline, was injured in June.
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 WWF 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 at WWF Vengeance on December 9, 2001, Chris Jericho became the first WWF Undisputed Champion.
[edit] WWF dominance and the independent movement
With WCW and ECW both financially and storyline-wise dead, the WWF was now the dominant figure in the global professional wrestling market. The promotion moved into 2002 with the return of Triple H from a serious quadriceps injury in January and the return (or debut in the WWF) of the nWo.
It was around this time that the Internet Wrestling Community started to have more impact on professional wrestling than ever before. With most of the community supporting a wrestling-orientated product more over a product based around characters, gimmicks and microphone skills rather than pure talent, the WWF began to suffer for this after beginning to lose creativity in the product unlike the Attitude Era of years gone by. Popularity in general for professional wrestling took a massive decline in the U.S. simply because the product became boring to casual fans and they lost interest, leaving only the passionate fans to support it.
[edit] WWF brand extension
With a much larger roster than before the deaths of WCW and ECW, the WWF were now placed with some new faces representing the former promotions with the likes of Booker T, Rob Van Dam and the nWo now on the roster.
On March 25, 2002, Vince McMahon decided he could make his product by splitting the roster into two brands based on the two major shows, RAW and SmackDown! McMahon was chosen as General Manager for SmackDown! and Ric Flair (who had proclaimed he had bought Shane and Stephanie McMahon's stock during the WWF/WCW/ECW merger and claiming he was a co-owner) was General Manager of RAW. The two split the roster and only the WWF Heavyweight and WWF Women's Champions were allowed on both brands to defend their titles. This not only allowed fans to decide whether they liked either of the brands better (similar to the WWF/WCW situation) but would also allow more wrestlers a chance to gain more exposure and lighter work schedules.
The brand extension is not a concept that began with WWF. Indeed, one of the greatest successes of former WWF competitor World Championship Wrestling was its nWo faction, which, at the height of its success, was always referred to as its own promotion (going so far as to co-brand all pay-per-view events as "WCW/nWo"). Yet, the overuse of nWo led to little fan interest when a new nWo-exclusive show (which would become WCW Thunder) was proposed, and the nWo-exclusive Souled Out pay-per-view was regarded as one of the worst in WCW's history.
On April 28, 2002, one of the greatest professional wrestlers and only undisputed World Heavyweight Champion, Lou Thesz, passes away at the age of 86 of natural causes. On May 5, after 23 years of calling themselves the "World Wrestling Federation", the promotion renamed themselves "World Wrestling Entertainment" following a lawsuit with the World Wildlife Fund.
[edit] TNA, ROH and the independent circuit
After the closure of World Championship Wrestling and Extreme Championship Wrestling in March and April 2001 respectively, there was still a demand for Southern-style and cruiserweight wrestling that Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation was not fulfilling.
Newly founded promotions Total Nonstop Action (TNA) (started by Jerry and Jeff Jarrett) and Ring of Honor (ROH) (created by former ECW promoters) attempted to cater to this niche market by offering an alternative to the (then) WWF and by recruiting many former WCW and ECW performers who had not signed with WWE, while also attempting to create new stars of the future. ROH held their first show on February 23, 2002 while TNA held their first show, a pay-per-view, on June 19. Other promotions such as World Wrestling All-Stars had attempted to fill this void but TNA and ROH have been by far the most successful and longest running. Combat Zone Wrestling tapped into the hardcore niche, left by ECW, even using the infamous New Alhambra Arena.
While ROH created their own titles, TNA was a member of the National Wrestling Alliance, giving them access to the titles owned by the NWA. TNA signed a deal to exclusively defend the World Heavyweight and Tag Team Championships, bringing the NWA back into mainstream wrestling after a decade of absence. The NWA stripped Dan Severn of the heavyweight championship in order for it to be defended on TNA's first show, which was won by Ken Shamrock in a battle royal.
TNA ran weekly pay-per-views at a cheaper price to WWE. ROH on the other hand ran non-televised shows monthly. TNA moved away from the weekly pay-per-views in October 2004, presenting their first ever monthly pay-per-view, Victory Road, while ROH began to run more shows per month, establishing themselves in northeastern USA and became the most popular independent promotion in North America.
This also caused more independent promotions to gain more exposure such as Heartland Wrestling Association, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, Border City Wrestling and Jersey All Pro Wrestling. Some believe that the independent circuit has replaced the old NWA territory system where more established names travel between different promotions while the smaller names establish themselves in one territory at a time.
[edit] A decline in success (2002-present)
On June 10, 2002, Stone Cold Steve Austin left RAW early in the afternoon after learning that he would have to job to star rookie Brock Lesnar in a King of the Ring Qualifying match. This was the second time this year Austin no-showed a WWE event due to his dissatisfaction with the creative writing team. A couple of days later, Austin was released by the WWE. Following this, WWE and professional wrestling in general took a massive popularity slump. Some critics blame the amount of backstage politics that was exposed by this incident while others blame the lack of creativity in WWE's storylines and characters.
On July 15, Eric Bischoff returns to wrestling after a two year absence to become General Manager of the RAW brand. Six days later, The Rock defeated Kurt Angle and The Undertaker at Vengeance in Detroit to win a record seventh WWE Championship.
On August 7, Ron Killings became the first black wrestler to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. On August 25, Brock Lesnar became the youngest WWE Champion in history at SummerSlam. On the same card Shawn Michaels wrestled his first match since 1998 by defeating Triple H in an unsanctioned match. However, the night after on RAW, SmackDown! General Manager Stephanie McMahon signed Brock Lesnar to a SmackDown! exclusive contract, taking the WWE Championship with him and leaving the RAW brand without a world champion. Bischoff responded quickly and announced Triple H as the World Heavyweight Champion and was exclusive to RAW the next week.
Meanwhile in TNA, former WWE names started popping up everywhere. Already with Jeff Jarrett, Brian Lawler and Ron Killings on the roster, BG James (better known as The Road Dogg), Curt Hennig (better known as Mr. Perfect) and Sean Waltman (better known as X-Pac) debuted in the promotion within three weeks of each other in September.
In 2003, The Original Sheik, Mr. Perfect, Miss Elizabeth, "Classy" Freddie Blassie, Stu Hart, Crash Holly, Moondog Spot and Road Warrior Hawk all died during the year.
Meanwhile, former WCW star Bill Goldberg signed a contract with WWE and was expected to debut the night after WrestleMania XIX. He did so with a bang, spearing The Rock and setting up a clash between the two stars at Backlash, a match that Goldberg won.
On June 11, a new star in professional wrestling known as "The Phenomenal" A.J. Styles achieved his dream by winning the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. He was quickly labeled as one of the best professional wrestlers in the world. Four days later history was made when the first ever WWE brand-only pay-per-view took place when RAW hosted Bad Blood.
On January 25, 2004, Chris Benoit won the Royal Rumble after years of being held back by management. The next night on RAW, Benoit used a "loophole" in the Royal Rumble winner contract by challenging Triple H to a World Heavyweight Championship match, despite being on SmackDown!
On March 14, WrestleMania celebrated its 20th anniversary at WrestleMania XX. Chris Benoit won the World Heavyweight Championship in the main event by defeating Triple H and Shawn Michaels in a triple threat match. At the end of the show, Benoit and WWE Champion and good friend Eddie Guerrero celebrated with their championships as confetti fell form the roof of Madison Square Garden. Also on the card, Goldberg left the WWE after being unhappy with how he was used one year after being signed. Brock Lesnar left as well after two years to try out for the NFL which was considered a massive failure and a poor decision with the money he was earning with the WWE. Both wrestlers (who were facing each other) were booed heavily by fans, who were aware of their impending departures, throughout their lackluster match and were given Stunners by guest referee Stone Cold Steve Austin on their way out.
Two weeks later Bob Sapp became the first black wrestler to win the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship, New Japan's highest championship. On June 2, TNA struck a television deal with Fox Sports Net to air a new show, TNA iMPACT! Shows were taped Thursday, a day after their Wednesday pay-per-views at Universal Studios in Orlando. On October 1, WWE launched WWE 24/7, a pay channel devoted to WWE programming of old footage from the AWA, WCW, ECW and WWE.
On October 19, WWE aired their first ever fan interactive pay-per-view, Taboo Tuesday in Milwaukee. This idea had been tried before by WCW; however, they had had trouble with voting lines, and it had been a major failure. WWE had no problems with voting but received mixed reactions. On the same day, WWE filed a federal lawsuit against Jakks Pacific and THQ, the maker of their wrestling action figures and video games, under the RICO Act.
On November 3 and 4, WWE released a total of 10 wrestlers from their contracts. Three days later, TNA held their first ever monthly pay-per-view, Victory Road. This was widely regarded as a huge step in the right direction for the future of the promotion who had been suffering from financial difficulties from their inception.
On March 10, 2005 Spike TV sent out a press release announcing they had closed negotiations with WWE regarding renewing their five-year contract. The WWE moved RAW over to their former home, the USA Network, in September 2005. On April 28, Chris Candido died in Matawan, New Jersey from a staph infection after surgery to repair his severely broken leg, which he injured during a tag team match at the TNA pay-per-view Lockdown on April 24 in Orlando. Two days later NWA Wildside closed its doors after their show. The promoter Bill Behrens, signed a WWE contract earlier in the year, will head up the new WWE development territory based in Atlanta, "Deep South Wrestling."
On May 19, UPN announced that it was moving SmackDown! to Friday nights from 8-10pm in order to go with a comedy block on Thursday nights. On May 25, PWInsider.com reported that Fox Sports had removed TNA iMPACT! from their television line-up. Their last airing was on May 27 at their 4pm timeslot.
For the first time since the beginning of the brand extension, the WWE Championship was exclusive to RAW and one brand had both world championships. WWE Champion John Cena was drafted by RAW in a month-long draft. Cena was the first pick and left SmackDown! without a heavyweight champion. SmackDown! prepared to crown a new champion on the final night of the draft. However, World Heavyweight Champion Batista was drafted to SmackDown! John Bradshaw Layfield, who had won the match to crown the new champion, was given the #1 contender's spot against Batista at The Great American Bash.
Following the success of The Rise and Fall of ECW DVD, WWE organized an ECW reunion show called ECW One Night Stand, held at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York. The show was critically regarded as a success. Two days earlier, former ECW World Heavyweight Champion Shane Douglas organized a reunion show of his own, Hardcore Homecoming at the old ECW Arena in Philadelphia.
On July 5, a total of 8 WWE wrestlers were released from their contracts. The following day, another 8 wrestlers were released and The Dudley Boyz were shockingly told they would not have their contracts renewed. On July 11, Shinya Hashimoto, a legend in Japan died at the age of 40 from a brain anreusm. On July 21, Spike TV and TNA reached a television deal. The rumored slot was Saturday at 11pm on October 1 or October 8, whenever WWE left Spike for the USA Network. On the same day, UPN has asked the WWE to remove the Muhammed Hassan character off SmackDown! due to a terrorist storyline Muhammad Hassan did with The Undertaker.
On August 3, seven years after the Montreal Screwjob story that shook the wrestling world, Bret Hart met with Vince McMahon at WWE Headquarters to negotiate his return to WWE. Two days later, Bret Hart shook hands and agreed to work with the WWE on a DVD chronicling his career.
Throughout October 2005, WWE ran a storyline that resulted in Jim Ross being fired. Jerry Lawler and Jonathan Coachman ended up replacing him to plenty of criticism. At the Taboo Tuesday event former ECW lead commentator Joey Styles joined the team and made it a three-man team. Though Styles' style of commentating is held in high regard against smarks, Vince McMahon was unhappy about his style and asked him to develop a style similar to Jim Ross. Despite Styles' best efforts he was still taken off the RAW announce team and was replaced later by the returning Jim Ross.
In Japan former WWE Champion Brock Lesnar debuted in New Japan by winning the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship in a triple threat match on October 8. On October 31, Christian became the first wrestler to voluntarily leave the WWE to go to TNA. He debuted at the Genesis pay-per-view. On November 13, former WWE Champion and SmackDown! star, Eddie Guerrero died in his hotel bedroom at the age of 38 in Minneapolis. The RAW and SmackDown! tapings dropped their storylines and taped a tribute show for Guerrero.
The next day, Simon Inoki announced today that New Japan Pro Wrestling had been sold to YUKE's Future Media Creators, an Osaka-based company that markets home videos and video games and had produced video games including for WWE.
On January 10, 2006, reigning World Heavyweight Champion of 10 months, Batista was forced to surrender the title after suffering a serious injury suffered at a house show in Philadelphia. Kurt Angle made a shock appearance in the battle royal to determine the #1 contender later that night to win the title.
After announcing a new drug policy last year during the European tour, WWE made their first announcement on January 19 saying that they have identified a third-party which will be able to implement the program and will be done independently of WWE. The company is in the final phases and the program is expected to start before the first quarter of this year. The program was announced just days after Eddie Guerrero died 3 months earlier.
On February 27, World Wrestling Entertainment started their wellness program, a program that will have an aggressive substance abuse and drug testing policy and a cardiovascular testing and monitoring program. The program prohibits the non-medical use and associate abuse of prescription medications and performance-enhancing drugs, as well as the use, possession and/or distribution of illegal drugs by WWE talent. Earlier in the day in Washington, DC, all WWE wrestlers were in a meeting with WWE officials to discuss the new drug testing program. Everyone in the company was brought over to Washington — the site of the RAW and SmackDown! tapings for that night for this important meeting.
On April 23, it was reported that WWE were searching for former ECW wrestlers to sign to contracts. It was announced that ECW would be revived beyond the annual reunion shows and into a third brand. Five days later, Vince McMahon decided that ECW would take the place of Velocity. In other words, the show would be taped prior to SmackDown! every Tuesday and until a new time slot is secured in the United States, would remain an internet property show on WWE.com. Velocity, at least for the present, would cease to exist. On May 18, Dave Meltzer reported that McMahon was in negotiations with the Sci Fi Channel to present a weekly television show featuring the ECW brand.
On May 23 a deal was reached and ECW on Sci Fi would debut on June 13 at 10pm. On June 11, WWE held their second annual ECW One Night Stand in which Rob Van Dam defeated John Cena for the WWE Championship in front of a hostile ECW audience. One of the banners in the crowd even went as far as stating "If John Cena wins we riot." Two days later Van Dam was crowned the revived ECW Champion.
On the June 12 edition of RAW, D-Generation X reunited after Shawn Michaels came in to help Triple H during a gauntlet match. They subsequently engaged in a lengthy feud with Mr. McMahon.
On July 2, while speeding along a highway Rob Van Dam and Sabu were both busted by the Ohio State Police for possession of marijuana, vicodin and other prescription drugs. Both were posted bond and were released. As a result of it Van Dam was suspended without pay for 30 days while Sabu was fined $1,000 in line with the wellness program.
Following Van Dam's suspension, he lost his WWE and ECW championships to Edge and Big Show respectively. Kurt Angle, who was moved to the ECW brand, was released from his contract to give him an extended break to heal his many lingering injuries. However, it was announced at TNA's No Surrender 2006 pay-per-view that he had signed with that company. On the same night, it was announced that their weekly Spike TV program, TNA iMPACT!, would be moved from its 11PM Thursday timeslot to 9PM on the same night, making it the first non-WWE wrestling program on primetime television since the end of Nitro in 2001.
[edit] See also
- 1980s wrestling boom
- 1990s wrestling boom
- Independent circuit
- Internet Wrestling Community
- Monday Night Wars
[edit] References
- House of Deception Golden Age 1911-1979: bibliography, photos, etc.
- Wrestling Information Archive - Timeline
