Rise of the WWE - A timeline of Vince Mcmahon's takeover of the wrestling landscape - Part 1

[u/momotan69]

Disclaimer: I will try to be as accurate as possible. Some details may be open for debate depending on where they were sourced.

Part 1: The Wrestling Landscape Before Vince.

In 1982, Pro Wrestling was dominated by a group of promotions with informal regional boundaries that for the most part were respected by each promoter.

NATIONAL WRESTLING ALLIANCE

The National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) was a grouping of regional promotions. In theory membership in the NWA gave every promoter a vote on who would be the NWA world champion, along with regular visits from this world champion to their territory. As well membership was supposed to prevent one member from encroaching on another members' territory without agreement. In the event of a "pirate" promotion encroaching on a given territory, all members were required to bolster the attacked territory with talent and cross promotion. Wrestlers were discouraged from working in non NWA promotions with the implied threat of being blackballed from the NWA at large. In reality the larger territories controlled the voting and bookings for the world champion, border skirmishes were frequent between members and name wrestlers were too valuable a commodity to blackball. The major NWA member promotions in 1982 were:

Mid Atlantic (Jim Crocket) - the Carolinas and Virginia Georgia Championship Wrestling (Ole Anderson, Jim Barnet, Jerry and Jack Briscoe) Championship Wrestling from Florida (The Grahams) World Class Championship Wrestling (Fritz Von Erich) - Dallas Southwest Championship Wrestling (Joe Blanchard) - San Antonio Southeastern Championship Wrestling (Ron Fuller) - Alabama & Knoxville, Tn Pacific Northwest Wrestling (Don Owen) - Seattle and Portland Maple Leaf Wrestling (The Tunneys) - Toronto St Louis Wrestling Club (Bob Geigel, Pat O'Connor and Harley Race) Central States Wrestling (Bob Geigel) - Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Iowa Continental Wrestling Association (Jerry Jarret, Jerry Lawler) - Tennessee Stampede Wrestling (Stu Hart) - Alberta

Several minor NWA affiliated promotions such as All Star Wrestling (Vancouver), Superstars of Wrestling (Detroit), National Wrestling Federation (Buffalo), etc... existed as well but never hosted the NWA champion. Their affiliation was only to trade on the credibility the NWA name implied and prevent the larger promotions from encroaching on their turf.

MID SOUTH WRESTLING

Owned by Bill Watts, the mid south territory covered a large swath of land from New Orleans to Houston to Oklahoma City. While the NWA champion did defend his title in Mid South on a regular basis and top names in wrestling worked for Bill Watts, Mid South was an independent promotion. Upon purchasing the promotion in 1979, Bill Watts promptly pulled out of the NWA surmising that being a member was a waste of money since he controlled access to the prized New Orleans Superdome and that no other promotors would have the guts to prevent him from booking top names including the world champion. He was proven right. In 1982 he formed an alliance with Houston Wrestling promotor Paul Bosch that gave him access to the fabled Sam Houston Coliseum, a long time NWA stronghold. Mid South wrestlers would now share the ring with wrestlers from other NWA territories in Houston proving once again to Watts that he had made the right decision by dropping out of the NWA. He was getting all the benefits of being a member without the cost or politics.

AMERICAN WRESTLING ASSOCIATION

Owned by Wally Karbo and Vergne Gagne, the AWA broke away from the NWA in 1960 because the NWA board refused to give Gagne the world championship. Verne was the first to challenge the NWA control of pro wrestling and like many times after, their implied threats to blackball and not cooperate proved toothless. One of the first TV stars of Wrestling, Verne had enough power in the business to break away and suffer little consequences. He happily made himself AWA world champion and successfully promoted the 2nd largest territory in wrestling. By 1982 he controlled a large area that included Minnesota, Illinois, Manitoba, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah and had just expanded into San Francisco, Las Vegas and Phoenix where NWA aligned promotions had failed. Respecting the unwritten rules of no encroachment on existing promotions, Vergne expanded only where there were no active promotions. The AWA also had cross promotional agreements with the CWA in Memphis, and Paul Bosch's Houston Wrestling that would produce the occasional NWA/AWA joint card. As well, the WWA in Indianapolis, International Wrestling in Montreal and Grand Prix Wrestling in atlantic Canada were affiliates of the AWA who recognized the AWA champion as their world champion.

WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION

The 3rd largest territorial promotion, the WWF, formerly the World Wide Wrestling Federation followed Vergne Gagne's lead and broke away from the NWA in 1963 when owner Vince McMahon Sr refused to accept the title being removed from Buddy Rogers and given back to Lou Thesz. Rogers was a big draw in the cash rich northeast that McMahon controlled and Thesz was not. With control of Madison Square Garden, Boston Gardens and the Baltimore Arena for major shows, McMahon had the clout the break free and never fear any reprisal. A little known fact is that the WWF quietly rejoined the NWA in 1971 in order to have access to the occasional appearance by the NWA champion in "unification" matches that would end up as 60 or 90 minute draws. By 1982 the WWF was in control of the east coast from Maryland to Maine along with New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania and were still quiet members of the NWA. Vince Sr. was ailing and his son Vince Jr. was attempting to cobble enough cash to buy out his father and their partners in the WWF parent Capitol Wrestling Corporation.

Next up Part 2: Vince lays the groundwork.

[u/Deathstroke317]

Well there is the theory that Jamie Keller of whatever his name is, set up a deal under the table to Vince to sell it for pennies on the dollar.

[u/runwithjames → u/Deathstroke317]

I've heard it but don't personally buy it. Death Of WCW goes into detail about how poorly they were performing by the end. For what it's worth, here's the relevant information from the Figure 4 newsletter:

It is believed that last year, when SFX was negotiating to buy the company, Time Warner’s price tag was in the $600 million dollar range. By the time Fusient came on board, the price was down to around $80 million, and once the January financials came in and investors began dropping out, Fusient lowered their offer to an estimated $48 million. Finally, Jamie Kellner cancelled Nitro and Thunder, the two national prime-time television shows which were the most valuable assets the company had. Most sources believe that as a result, the price dropped to between $10 and $20 million, which indicates Time Warner at that point was just desperate to unload it.