WWE - CWC to WWWF (World Wide Wrestling Federation)

The NWA popular as undisputed NWA World Heavyweight Champion that went to several different wrestling companies in collaboration and defended the belt around the world. The NWA generally promoted strong shooters as champions, to give their worked sport credibility and guard against double-crosses. While doing strong business in the Midwest, these wrestlers attracted little interest in the Capitol territory. In 1961, the NWA board decided instead to put the belt on bleach blonde showman "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers, a much more effective drawing card in the region. The rest of the NWA was unhappy with Joseph Raymond "Toots" Mondt because he rarely allowed Rogers to wrestle outside of the Northeast.

James Mondt and Roderick James McMahon wanted Buddy Rogers to keep the NWA World Championship, but Rogers was unwilling to sacrifice his $25,000 deposit on the belt (title holders at the time had to pay a deposit to insure they honored their commitments as champion). Buddy Rogers lost the NWA World Championship to Lou Thesz in a one-fall match in Toronto, Ontario on January 24, 1963, which led to Mondt, McMahon, and the CWC leaving the NWA in protest, creating the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) in the process.



In April 1963, Buddy Rogers was awarded the new WWWF World Championship following an apocryphal tournament in Rio de Janeiro. Buddy Rogers lost the title to Bruno Sammartino a month later on May 17, 1963, after suffering a heart attack shortly before the match. To accommodate Rogers condition, the match was booked to last under a minute. Two years later, NWA president Sam Muchnick and McMahon discussed a unification match between Lou Thesz and Bruno Sammartino, with both parties agreeing to Sammartino winning the unified title. The match plans fell apart when Sammartino refused to take on the enlarged schedule and Thesz demanded a high guarantee for doing the job.



The WWWF operated in a conservative matter compared to other pro wrestling territories; it ran its major arenas monthly rather than weekly or bi-weekly, usually featuring a babyface champion wrestling various heels in programs consisting of one to three matches, with the initial meeting often featuring a heel win in a non-decisive manner. Although business was initially rather strong, crowds in Madison Square Garden fell off due to a lack of television exposure. After gaining a television program on a Spanish language station, and turning preliminary wrestler Lou Albano as a manager for Sammartino's heel opponents, the WWWF was doing sellout business by 1970.



Mondt left the company in the late sixties. Although the WWWF had withdrawn from the NWA, Vince McMahon, Sr. quietly rejoined the organization in 1971, although he did not book an NWA world champion in his territory until Harley Race in the late 1970s. In March 1979, for marketing purposes, the World Wide Wrestling Federation was renamed the "World Wrestling Federation" (WWF). At the annual meeting of the NWA in 1983, the McMahons and WWF employee Jim Barnett withdrew from the organization.

WWE - Introduction

WWE is an American publicly traded, privately controlled Entertainment Company dealing mainly in professional wrestling. WWE major revenue sources coming from film, music, product licensing, and direct product sales. WWE is currently the largest professional wrestling company in the world, reaching 13 million viewers in the U.S and broadcasting its shows in 30 languages to more than 145 countries. WWE promotes under two brands, known as Raw and SmackDown.



Vince McMahon is the majority owner, chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of the WWE Company. Together with his wife Linda McMahon and their children Shane McMahon and Stephanie McMahon (WWE Executive Vice President of Talent and Creative Writing) the McMahons hold approximately 70% of WWE's economic interest and 96% of the voting power in the WWE. WWE headquarters are located in Stamford, Connecticut with offices in New York City, Los Angeles, London, Shanghai, Tokyo, Singapore, and Mumbai.



WWE holds a huge library of videos, representing a significant portion of the visual history of professional wrestling. WWE began as the Capitol Wrestling Corporation in 1952, which promoted under the banner of the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) and later the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). In 1982, it was sold to the same family's Titan Sports company, which later changed its name to World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, before finally becoming World Wrestling Entertainment in 2002, and simplified to WWE in 2011.

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