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The History of Professional Wrestling

Posted: Jan 27th 2008 By: CMBurnham

When 30 wrestlers get in a ring and scratch, claw, pull hair and throw chairs all in the hopes of being the last one standing, you know one thing: the road to WrestleMania has finally arrived.

Tonight, the Royal Rumble on pay-per-view will set the stage for the biggest wrestling event in the world. Why even care? Because for the first time, Orlando will host WrestleMania and all its glitzy and pyrotechnic glory at the Citrus Bowl on March 30.

The Royal Rumble match has been a stepping stone to WrestleMania for years. The battle royal features 30 wrestlers from all three World Wrestling Entertainment television shows, slamming it out for the chance to face a world champion at WrestleMania. Will the Undertaker come out on top? Or Batista? Or Hornswoggle?

You will have to pay for the answers.

The Royal Rumble is not so different from the beginning of professional wrestling, when carnies and barnstormers at traveling circuses conspired to make the most outlandish act the most profitable.

Since that era, which took place after the Civil War, wrestling has transformed from a literal circus act to an international phenomenon, thanks in part to television and charismatic characters whose personalities captivated the masses.

The advent of television meant wrestling had to entertain first and worry about the wrestling second -- which was fine, really, since the wrestling part was fake. Entertaining meant looking for wrestlers with star appeal, where the interview was more important than the wrestling.

Influence through the decades

At the three highest points of wrestling, ratings and interest skyrocketed because of three men with the power to draw fans to their TVs and keep them there: Gorgeous George in the 1950s; Hulk Hogan in the 1980s; and The Rock in the 1990s.

"If you've got really charismatic stars, they're going to show up and do well in any environment," said Dave Meltzer, who has published the Wrestling Observer Newsletter since 1982.

Gorgeous George set the course of wrestling as we know it today, single-handedly transforming wrestling into televised entertainment.

He introduced the idea of wrestlers as showmen. Gorgeous George was the first to enter the ring with music, the first to have a gimmick. He curled his bleached blond locks and held the curls back with pins, and his two male valets would spray his opponents with perfume.

His look and act were perfect for television, and wrestling was one of the first programs to become a hit. From the late 1940s through the early 1960s, Gorgeous George roused crowds with his bad-guy shtick.

In fact, current WWE chairman Vince McMahon was not the first to have his head shaved after losing a bet connected to a match, as he did last year with Donald Trump at WrestleMania 23. In 1959, Gorgeous George had his curly hair shaved after losing a match in Toronto to Whipper Billy Watson.

After Gorgeous George retired, there was no one with enough charisma or showmanship to replace him. Television producers began dropping wrestling from their local lineups. By the 1960s and 1970s, the only way to find wrestling on television was on local access channels.

But just because wrestling was less popular on a national stage doesn't mean the entertainment aspects suffered. Wrestling became more regionalized, with local territories featuring local talent. Championship Wrestling from Florida emerged in cities all across the state, from Tampa to Orlando, Miami, West Palm Beach, Tallahassee and Jacksonville. It fell under a bigger group, the National Wrestling Alliance.

The same happened all over the country, with groups like the American Wrestling Association in the Midwest, and the World Wide Wrestling Federation in the northeast (which later became the WWF and then the WWE). In these territories, wrestlers performed every day year-round, driving from one city to the next.

The pay was lousy, around $75 a night. But you had to wrestle in order to get a paycheck. Many wrestlers would get in the ring with serious injuries simply because they needed to get paid.

Keeping up appearances

As for the action in the ring, wrestlers kept up the appearance that what they were doing was real. Matches could sometimes take an hour and end in a draw. That idea is as appealing today as sticking a fork in your eye (though that move might work in a ring).

But back then, fans enjoyed it -- because it was the only time they got to see live wrestling. Many times, wrestlers would be in leglocks, headlocks or arm bars for 10 or 20 minutes at a time. Other times, matches got extremely "violent." So violent, that blood spilled. The blood was real, not fake, as wrestlers would cut themselves near their hairline with small blades taped to their fingers.

Matches would be held in small auditoriums or high school gyms, where fans got close to the action. Sometimes that meant an angry fan confronted a wrestler in the ring, since there was no security to hold anyone back.

"If you were a bad guy and couldn't get the crowd riled up or angered to the point where the fans wanted to get in the ring to challenge you, you felt like you didn't do a good job that night," said Jerry "The King" Lawler, who started wrestling in the 1970s in the Memphis area.

Fans took what happened so seriously, there could be consequences outside the ring.

"I'm sure every manager went through this where they lived, but every week, my mailbox was ripped out, my house was toilet papered," said longtime manager "The Mouth of the South" Jimmy Hart. "My son lost two front teeth when he was pushed off a slide because some kid hated Jimmy Hart but loved Lawler."

Though each match featured angles, things were not as scripted as they are today. In fact, wrestlers came up with their own gimmicks, their own monologues and their own "signature" moves.

About the only thing predetermined was who was going to win the match, and bookers arranged all that. So wrestlers showed more of their personalities and had more of an opportunity to engage the audience.

A new era on cable TV

Soon, television would re-emerge to change wrestling forever. Only this time, it was cable television.

McMahon bought the WWF from his father in 1982 and soon began signing every major star from competing territories, including Hulk Hogan from the AWA and Rowdy Roddy Piper from the Mid-Atlantic territory. He had a vision to take wrestling to a national level once again.

To that end, he started buying air time in competing territories, too, taking away the local wrestling. The biggest invasion happened in Georgia, where Georgia Championship Wrestling had been seen on Superstation TBS and its predecessor every Saturday since 1972. But in 1984, fans tuning in expecting to see Georgia Championship Wrestling instead got the WWF in what is known as "Black Saturday."

Fans were outraged. WWF lasted there for less than a year, but clearly the time had run out for regional territories. In 1985, McMahon put on the first WrestleMania at Madison Square Garden, taking out loans just to get the show on. It was also the first pay-per-view wrestling event, though it was only available in select areas.

The women's championship also showed how WWF liked getting outside celebrities involved. Wendi Richter had help from rock star Cyndi Lauper to beat Leilani Kai with The Fabulous Moolah in her corner.

Wrestling changed forever, for good and bad. Hulk Hogan helped WWF emerge because of his personality. NBC began showing Saturday Night's Main Event. A 1987 show with a battle royal between Hogan and Andre the Giant drew an 11.6 rating. That same year, WrestleMania 3 in Pontiac, Mich., drew 93,173 people to see Hogan battle Andre in the main event.

Hogan ended up bodyslamming the Giant to win, in what many consider the most significant wrestling match of all time. Their battles continued. A rematch between the two took place in 1988 on a Friday night prime-time special of The Main Event.

Nearly 33 million viewers tuned in, and it remains the highest-rated TV show in pro wrestling history.

Though most everyone knew what they were watching was fake, nobody associated with wrestling would admit it. But in1989, all pretenses were finally dropped when McMahon told the New Jersey State Senate that wrestling matches were staged. He made the admission so he could get around taxing on his shows and pay-per-view events.

The news was met with a shrug. But soon, there would be more the WWF would be forced to admit.

Big, bad and buff

Steroids became popular among professional wrestlers in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Meltzer says they became almost a necessity from 1984 on, not coincidentally, around the time television took off. The wrestlers had to look big, bad and buff for the cameras, and steroids helped them do that.

In 1991, Dr. George Zahorian was convicted of illegally selling steroids, mostly to professional wrestlers. At his trial, Piper, Rick Martel and "Superstar" Billy Graham all admitted they purchased steroids and controlled drugs from him.

Two years later, McMahon went on trial, accused of distributing steroids and telling his wrestlers they needed to use them. Though he admitted to using steroids himself, McMahon was acquitted. During the trial, Hogan also admitted to using steroids, though he said he never got them from McMahon.

Popularity waned, though it was more because the WWF had no superstar who could come close to Hogan. That all changed in the late 1990s. The organization saw its largest era of profitability at that time, when Dwayne Johnson starred as The Rock and "Stone Cold" Steve Austin drew fans with beer cans and charisma. Everyone can close their eyes and see The Rock raise one eyebrow and scream, "If you smelllllllllll what The Rock is cookin'!" Or see Austin pop a beer can open while standing on a turnbuckle.

At this time, the WWF was locked in a huge battle with a second group that emerged to challenge it -- World Championship Wrestling. The WCW had signed many former WWF stars (including Hogan) and launched Nitro on Monday nights, competing directly against the WWF's Raw.

From 1995-2001 the "Monday Night Wars" drew millions of fans to cable television. But it was WCW that won the ratings battle from 1996-98, going 84 straight weeks with its New World Order story line, which featured Hogan as a bad guy. By 1997, WCW had a roster that included Hogan, Ric Flair, Sting, Randy Savage and Lex Luger.

As 1999 began, each show got 10 million viewers and a 5.0 rating. But the WWF would soon win the larger battle after launching its "Attitude Era" with guys like Austin and The Rock. They also changed their format, showing shorter matches, more backstage vignettes and more outrageous television.

Downfall of WCW

By 2001, WCW was doomed because of the Time Warner-AOL merger. WCW shows were canceled because they did not represent the programming the new organization wanted. The last Nitro drew a 3.0 rating, nearly half of what it got in its heyday.

"It was an interesting time in the business," said Jim Morrison, a longtime wrestler and manager who performed as J.J. Dillon and became a writer for WCW. "Both groups were doing fabulous business, but the downside of it is wrestling can be cyclical. It is a talent-driven business. With the territories going by the wayside and no fresh talent, to have a head-to-head confrontation you can't go at that kind of a pace indefinitely.

"What you had from WCW was a broadcast company trying to do wrestling. While business was good, things fell apart because non-wrestling people were trying to run a wrestling company and it became a runaway train before they realized the problems."

WWF eventually took over WCW, and the organization changed its name to WWE in 2002 after losing a long battle with the World Wildlife Fund over the WWF initials. Now, WWE has three programs -- Raw on Monday nights, SmackDown! on Friday nights and ECW on Tuesdays.

Ratings for Raw for the week of Jan. 7-13 put it at No. 3 among cable shows, with about 4.6 million viewers. There is no question the numbers have declined. When SmackDown! debuted in 1999-2000, it averaged 7.2 million viewers. Last season, it averaged 4.5 million.

"In the United States, a lot of the fans compare today's product to that 1998-2001 period, the glory days, and see it as not being able to live up to that. So, it's less popular now than it was then," Meltzer said. "Right now, wrestling is not the hot thing, but it's doing fine, it's a profitable business."

The new look of WWE

The WWE is expanding internationally to get more business. It does more tours overseas, and its shows can be seen in countries from Argentina to Japan. There are those who believe wrestling has been hurt without the regional territories because there is no place for up-and-comers to learn.

There are others who believe the product has become homogenized, with the same-looking wrestlers giving the same types of speeches.

"I'm very partial to my era," says Jack Brisco, a former NWA champion who worked in Florida. "The sport itself has changed a lot. There's a lot of showmanship today, a lot of muscle-bound gym guys. In our day it was a lot more rasslin', a lot more athletes, a lot more competitive."

Wrestling has not been able to shake the taint of steroids, either. Last year, WWE wrestler Chris Benoit killed his wife and child before he killed himself. A toxicology report revealed steroids and other drugs in his system. He was just the latest in a string of wrestlers to die through unusual circumstances.

But wrestling still has its place among the fans, no matter the scandals, even if it is vastly different today than it was 50 years ago.

"I like to say wrestling really mirrors society and wrestling has evolved the way society has," Lawler said. "Now in 2008, everyone would agree life is a little more fast-paced than it was back in the '70s, and people's attention spans are shorter. They want a bigger bang for the buck."

Lots of bucks. Today, WWE offers 14 pay-per-views, raking in tens of millions of dollars a year. When March 30 rolls around, there may be 60,000 people at the Citrus Bowl, but millions more will be watching from home expecting the biggest, most outlandish WrestleMania yet.

Tags: Andre the Giant, Sting, Jack Brisco, Jerry Lawler, WWE, WCW