Professional wrestling in the United States

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The history of professional wrestling, now a considerable entertainment form in North America, spans well over 100 years, having experienced many significant eras during that period. Beginning in small, disorganized brands in the 1880s, wrestling's popularity has boomed as these independent promotions unified and their media outlets grew, reaching a peak in the 1980s when the World Wrestling Federation became an international giant. Throughout the 1990s, professional wrestling reached unprecedented highs in both viewership and financial success during a time of fierce competition among wrestling brands (the Monday Night Wars).

In North America, professional wrestling has been disregarded as a showcase for athletic ability or true competition. Rather, its modern theatrics, admitted fakery, and colorful fighting styles have brought it to the status of an illegitimate sport, particularly in comparison to boxing or mixed martial arts. However, until the 1920s, pro-wrestling had been viewed as legitimate and was widely-practiced by amateurs competitively. This respectability may not have endured, but through the advent of cable television in the 1980s, the sport gained an influential role in popular culture; many wrestlers have since reached celebrity status, becoming icons of Americana through the sport.

Origins

Professional wrestling, implicitly defined as wrestling between two professionals for payment, is an ancient form of both entertainment and fighting. There is perhaps no sport more widely dispersed or older than wrestling; it has documented history in ancient Babylonian and Egyptian art from 3,000 BC, literary presence in the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, and has been known and practiced in the ancient Chinese and Japanese civilizations. The Greeks are credited for popularizing it as a competitive, widely-practiced public spectacle of competitive athleticism in the ancient Olympic games. It has therefore been believed that the form of wrestling practiced through the ages, from the ancients onto the nineteenth century, has been what is now called the Greco-Roman style.

The modern style of professional wrestling, popularized by the United States and Great Britain during the late nineteenth century, is called the catch-as-catch can style. Originally thought of as unorthodox and more lax in style, catch wrestling differs from Greco-Roman in its allowed grapples; Greco-Roman strictly prohibits grabbing below the waist, while catch wrestling allows holds above and below the waist, including leg grips. Both catch wrestling and Greco-Roman were popular, legitimate amateur and professional sports until the late 1800s^1,2, when catch wrestling changed slowly into the sport known worldwide as pro-wrestling, now recognized more for its theatrical antics and entertainment than wrestling ability. Greco-Roman did not change in the sense of competitiveness or legitimacy, and remains a practiced sport to this day.

¹According to Lou Thesz, a prominent competitive wrestler of both the Greco-Roman and catch-as-catch can styles, who admitted to wrestling's slowly-fading competitiveness during the 1880s; however, he had not become a fan or practitioner of the sport until the 1930s; all his insight of the time came from older wrestlers.

²According to Matthew Lindaman's article, France popularized the Olympic Greco-Roman style during the late nineteenth century, while catch wrestling grew fans in Great Britain and the United States. Greco-Roman wrestling may be considered a predecessor of catch wrestling, but the exact history and linkages before the late 1800s are rather blurry.

Beginnings (post-Civil War period to 1930s)

Carnival days

Professional wrestling, in the sense of travelling performers paid for mass entertainment in staged matches, began in the post-Civil War period, roughly in the late 1860s and 1870s. During this time, wrestlers were often athletes with amateur wrestling experience who competed at travelling carnivals with carnies working as their promoters and bookers. Grand circuses, such as P.T. Barnum's, included wrestling exhibitions, quickly enhancing them through colorful costumes and fictional biographies for entertainment, disregarding their competitive nature.

Wrestling exhibits during the late 1800s was also shown across the United States in countless "at shows" or "athletic shows", where experienced wrestlers offered open challenges to the audience. It was at these shows, which often were done for high-stakes gambling purposes, that the nature of the sport changed through the competing interests of three groups of people: the impresarios, the carnies, and the barnstormers.

"Contest vs. shoot"

Impresarios, among the oldest influences of the industry's history, were the managers who chose how a wrestler could gain fame and interest among the fans, creating personas and improvising matches to make them more interesting. Carnies, who travelled and wrestled at these events were always would use tricks to protect their money and reputations during competitions, devising little-known and often dangerous wrestling moves, called "hooks". Although considered illegal in conventional amateur wrestling, hooks were used for their high rates of success against even the most athletic and experienced of competitors, essentially, removing rules from professional wrestling. In addition, some spectators capable of beating the carnies would roam the country to compete in open challenges, setting side bets to make money. The barnstormers, as they were called, competed as travelling wrestlers did, and often would cooperate with the carnies to stage the matches, providing enormous profits for both sides in betting. Through the interests of money-making among the three groups, wrestling became a business-oriented entertainment venue, distinguishing itself further and further from its amateur wrestling background.

In the book Hooker by Lou Thesz, the career of barnstormer Fred Grubmier provides insight to the influence and deception he and carnies had on the sport:

"...Grubmier earned his living hustling the hustlers, starting with the carnival wrestlers who regularly toured the Midwest during the early years of this century. An excellent wrestler, he'd literally stumbled into the business off his family's farm when a neighbor persuaded him to accept the challenge of a carnival wrestler who was willing to pay $25 to anyone who could stay in the ring with him for 15 minutes. Grubby beat the guy, and his neighbor cleaned up making side bets. They did it again, several times, whenever a carnival came to town, and they eventually decided there was more money in wrestling than there was in farming, so they went on the road, hitting the various carnivals.

The carnies were sharp, shrewd people who lived by their wits, and they had a lot of angles that they'd work when they came up against someone who could hold his own against their wrestlers...Eventually, word got around the carnivals about his unlikely character who was beating their wrestlers and cleaning up side bets, so they started watching for him. It got harder for Grubby to work his con game.

That's when he came up with the idea of hustling the locals. Virtually any farming community of any size in the Midwest that was settled by European immigrants had a local wrestling hero, and a lot of barnstormers earned a living going from town to town challenging them...he'd get around to setting up a wrestling match with the local hero. Sometimes he'd quietly arrange for another wrestler to come to town first and challenge the local, to the delight of the hometown folks, who could smell easy money. Of course, Grubby would winn the big match, usually with some strange or unorthodox hold that would cause locals to think he'd won by accident, and they'd demand a rematch, where he'd clean up again. Sometimes he could milk a town for as much as $10,000 in one season, a lot of money in those days."

Wrestling performers

Wrestling performers were arranged in a pyramid hierarchy of fame and money, based strictly on athletic talent. The lowest were the journeymen; young performers with promise and some skill, but they relied mainly on showmanship to gain fans. The actual wrestlers, called "shooters" because of their ability to "shoot" or fight real matches competitively were more successful and less common. At the top were the elites, or the hookers, named for their ability to use arcane wrestling hooks to inflict damage and serious injury on the competition without much effort.

Wrestlers also considered themselves among a select group, and they often kept the fact that their sport was commonly faked--to an extent--in high secrecy. They used a jargon of their own (often shared with carnies) to communicate so that the audience would not understand them, including the word kayfabe.

Farmer Burns-Frank Gotch era

During the late 1800s and early 1900s, professional wrestling was dominated by the successes of two of the best competitive wrestlers of the time, "Farmer" Burns and his pupil, Frank Gotch. Martin "Farmer" Burns was renowned as a competitive wrestler, who, despite never weighing more than 160 lbs during his wrestling career, fought over 6,000 wrestlers (at a time when most were competitive contests), and lost fewer than 10 of them. He also gained a reputation for training some of the best wrestlers of the era, including Frank Gotch, known as one of America's first sports superstars.

Frank Gotch, regarded as "peerless" at his peak, was the first to actually claim the world's undisputed heavyweight championship, beating all significant other contenders, a feat few accomplished in wrestling's history. He was beloved by the news media and the public alike, allowing him to popularize professional wrestling in the United States in the 1900s-early 1920s by beating European wrestling champion George Hackinshmidt, both in 1908 and 1911, seen by modern wrestling historians as two of the most significant matches in wrestling history.

Popularity

The popularity of wrestling during the early 1900s was highest in the Midwest, where ethnic European communities, many of them German, Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Greek, and Scandinavian in ancestry continued to carry on fighting styles practiced in their home nations.

At this time, however, during the late 1800s, the majority of wrestling was still competitive, and it was immensely popular. In fact, wrestling's popularity was second only to baseball from 1900 to the early 1920s, launching trading cards and competitive wrestling programs in colleges, high schools, and athletic clubs, legacies that have endured to the present day.

Wrestling's popularity experienced a dramatic tailspin in 1915 to 1920, becoming distanced from the American public because of widespread doubt of its legitimacy and status as a competitive sport. (Wrestlers during the time recount it as largely faked by the 1880s). It also waned because after Gotch's retirement in 1913, no new wrestling superstar emerged to captivate the public's eye.

The Expansion (Joe Stecher - Ed "Strangler" Lewis)

Gold-Dust Trio

In 1914, following Frank Gotch's retirement, professional wrestling was reaching a crisis; media and popular attention was focused away from wrestling, and it only remained popular in the Midwest. Media attention remained distant from the sport following public attention to the fakery of the Gotch-Hackenschmidt match. At the time, three professional wrestlers, Ed "Strangler" Lewis, Billy Sandow, and Joe "Toots" Mondt joined to form their own promotion, spicing up their in-ring product with time-limit matches, flashy new holds, and new finishing moves. Tag-team wrestling, which had been around for some time by the '20s, was also popularized by the Trio through new situations unseen before (one man distracting a referee while his partner beats his opponent with illegal moves)

However, of all the Gold-Dust Trio's innovations to professional wrestling, their greatest accomplishment, and undoubtedly their legacy, was the use of wrestlers as a stable for a packaged show. Rather than paying travelling wrestlers to perform on given dates, they would pay contracts to keep wrestlers for months and years at a time, keeping them away from the competition. Their business succeeded quickly, gaining popularity for its freshness and unique approach to wrestling; a travelling stable of wrestlers. The Trio gained great popularity nationwide during their best years, roughly 1920 to 1925, when they performed in the Eastern territory, stealing fans from the highly-exposed big cities.

Growth of Wrestling Promotions

In 1887, the first professional wrestling title, the American Catch-as-Catch Can Championship was created. Soon, every wrestling promotion had created their own championship, which was considered each company's pride and glory. As promotions were attempting to become nationally-renowned, acquiring rival championships marked victory.

In the 1930s and 1940s, small wrestling promotions had fierce competition with each other; they often stole talents and "invaded" enemy companies to win over fans. With interbrand matches occurring nationwide, the pride of each promotion, their World Championships, were vying for dominance. In the late 1940s-50s, the National Wrestling Alliance, a loose confederation of independent wrestling companies, chose Champion Lou Thesz to unify the various World Heavyweight Championships into a single "World Heavyweight" title. Thesz's task was not easy, as promoters reluctant to lose face someteimes went so far as to shoot title matches to keep their own champions popular with the fans.

Professional wrestling, already an established sport in the United States by the early 1900s, became international in the late 1920s, when it was introduced to Australia in 1927 and Great Britain in 1930. It gained some following in South Africa, which later banned professional wrestling in 1934 because it was "brutal and degrading."

First Golden Age (1950s)

Professional wrestling began a "golden age" in the 1950s¹, when television began its spread through the American population from large cities to small towns and villages. Wrestling was a natural fit for network television because it was easy to understand and had drama, comedy, colorful characters, and was inexpensive for production. Lou Thesz recalls how powerful television was at the time, stating:

"All over the country, people literally lined up outside department stores at night and stood there for hours, watching the flickering images on floor models inside the store windows. A lot of people caught George on TV, and he was so outrageous for the time it wasn't long before everybody was talking about him.

Gorgeous George became one of the biggest stars during the '50s because of it helped spread media attention to his outrageous character. Already popular among wrestling fans, he became renowned after comedian Bob Hope noticed him perform in the Hollywood Legion Stadium in 1945 and 1946, and began to use him for jokes on his radio station. The publicity brought people curious of Gorgeous George as well as regular fans into wrestling events, bringing his stardom to a high point during the '50s, when promoters and television stations alike were paying generously for his performances. However, many new wrestlers began fresh without notions of athletic sportsmanship that was popular in competitive arenas; they began with dreams of becoming televised superstars. This proved especially true as the product began to lose talent, relying on blood and acrobatic performance.

"What was different about the 1950s was the number of boys who relied on blood to get a reaction and how they caused the bleeding. Prior to that, inept wrestlers would pull themselves up the ladder in a variety of ways--flashy gear, color-coordinated costumes, an aggressive personality, whatever attracted attention--but blood wasn't one of them. The competitive wrestlers especially didn't force bleeding, because they didn't need to; they achieved their success with wrestling. In the late 1940s, however, we began to see a handful of boys who regularly used blood in their matches, and they used it for one simple reason: They couldn't do anything else. It was the cheapest way of attracting attention, but it worked, and it was a way for them to stay employed."

Wrestling's competitiveness had been degraded forever by television, a fact regarded by many in the business as a natural effect of television over competition. A prime example, and perhaps the first of the more ridiculous, comic-book characters known to professional wrestling today, was Antonino Rocca. Thesz, who pitied Rocca, realized that his stardom during the 1950s was all a sham and a disappoinment for the future of professional wrestling:

"Rocca became one of the two or three biggest names in professional wrestling during the 1950s, and he did it without a lick of wrestling ability but an aptitute as a performer. He decided he didn't need to learn any wrestling, because he attracted large crowds with his personality and his barefoot acrobatics--cartwheels, headstands, slapping guys with his feet. It was some incredibly flimsy stuff, but it sold because it was something fresh. He was actually a pretty sad character who enjoyed almost zero respect among the boys. It's a side of him the public was never allowed to see.

Although Antonino Rocca could not compete competitively, he achieved great success because he had strong backing in the form of the New York City wrestling office, which saw his potential as a performer for the dying Northeast wrestling territory:

"The New York wrestling office--owned and run by Toots Mondt, Vince McMahon, Sr., and a former Russian wrestler named Kola Kwariani--was struggling at the time, and the partners drooled at the prospect of having Rocca. The city had large constituencies of both Italians and Latin Americans, and they figured Rocca would draw extremely well from both. So they quietly contacted him and offered him a deal; if he'd sign with them, they said, they'd make him a partner in the New York booking office as well as making him a star on their Madison Square Garden cards and on their television show. Rocca was a poor, simple-minded guy who had never seen much money², and what they dangled in front of him must have seemed like a fortune, so he signed."

The New York wrestling office soon became dominant, as it refused to use true, competitive wrestlers, and instead focused on attracting televised entertainment. The Northeast wrestling territory revived through the use of similar performers:

Promoters used to keep at least one or two [competitive] wrestlers around, if for no other reason than to protect their business from outside challengers and to keep the in-the-ring product credible. But the fact is, they never really liked them, because they couldn't control them. Once they saw they could make money with guys like Rocca, a performer with only a gimmick to try and protect him, they decided they didn't have to hire wrestlers any more, and that is the direction they took.

By the end of the 1950s, professional wrestling had lost its high ratings, and producers, realizing that they had overexposed it, soon dropped most wrestling from their lineups. The remaining televised wrestling promoters had small, local syndicated shows, and used them to their advantage. The wrestling product became more attractive as promoters decided to promote large events rather than air them free on television, and they used television as a weapon for eliminating the competition, buying air-time from rival territories, effectively putting them out of business. This created a different relationship between fan and product, as wrestlings fans found themselves watching, rather than attending, wrestling matches. In fact, as promotions grew in popular television nationally, local shows became less important, and regular wrestling cards (hometown arenas with shows weekly, biweekly, or monthly) became more rare.

¹The so-called "Golden Age of Wrestling" during the '50s has remained a notion spread by the media and academics because it was a time of great expansion and soaring audience demand. However, this term is also criticized because it was not a time of wrestling's peak in performance or skill. Rather, it was a time when it was becoming over-exposed by the TV and news media and was expanding nationally for the first time.

²Antonino Rocca, as Lou Thesz revealed, was not a good businessman, as he was getting only 25 percent interest at the office; 75% of his income had been snatched by his bookers.

Second Golden Age (1980s)

Main article: 1980s wrestling boom

After dwindling popularity during the 1960s and 1970s, wrestling began its greatest reign of popularity in the 1980s, dubbed the Second Golden Age, and the birth of Hulkamania. At this time, the World Wrestling Federation (abridged from WWWF in 1979) was a wrestling giant, having swallowed up small wrestling promotions whole, taking in talent and running independent promotions into bankruptcy. It became a mainstay in wrestling, and was advancing in popularity through cable television. In June 1982, Vince McMahon, Jr. and Titan Sports purchased Capitol Wrestling Corporation (WWF) from his father and its shareholders.

The World Wrestling Federation became the most colorful and well-known wrestling brand to children because of its child-oriented characters. The Federations's wrestling product was unreal and noticeably fake, characterized by soap-opera dramaticism and cartoon-like personas. The muscular Hulk Hogan characterized this era, and marked the '80s with his "all-American" persona of "eating your vitamins and saying your prayers". The sheer size, colorful character, and extravagance of Hulk Hogan made his main events into excellent ratings draws for the Federation. He gained great popularity in 1983 when he defeated Antonio Inoki of Japan's IWGP League, renowned for its stiffness.

By January 1984, Hulk Hogan's legions of fans and his dominant role in the industry was termed Hulkamania. Hogan had a successful run as WWF Champion for four years, selling out arenas all across the United States whenever he competed. This earned the WWF millions of dollars, making it the number one entity in all of professional wrestling.

It was around this time that Vince McMahon, Jr. 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.

Black Saturday

Main article: Black Saturday (1984)

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.

The road to WrestleMania

Hulk Hogan and Mr. T at the first WrestleMania.

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. Hulk Hogan went onto appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated. After the swimsuit issue, it was the magazine's best seller. Professional wrestling began to become mainstream thanks in large part to the appeal of Hulkamania among children. Large television networks took wrestling into their weekly programs, including Saturday Night's Main Event premiering on NBC in 1985. ESPN also began airing professional wrestling for the first time, airing AWA shows.

WrestleMania's popularity and ratings appeal made wrestling a television mainstay. Professional wrestling, now synonymous with the World Wrestling Federation, began to throw more grandiose matches. In 1985, the first-ever pay-per-view wrestling event, "The Wrestling Classic" took place. The concept, a one-night tournament was a huge success and would become a regular event starting in 1987's "King of the Ring". Later, Pat Patterson would invent the Royal Rumble match, another grand invention showcasing the most talent in a typically-WWF unpredictable exchange of wrestlers.

The competitors emerge

File:AndréTheGiant2.jpg

André the Giant after winning the WWF World Championship.

Wrestling promotions across the United States feared being forced into bankruptcy by the World Wrestling Federation. They began to unify and conglomerate under more centralized leadership rather than continue as small independent brands. Competing promotions aired better talent and attempted to regain their audiences. The Universal Wrestling Federation was on the verge of becoming a threat to the WWF but financial difficulties led to its demise and soon was bought out by Jim Crockett Promotions. JCP began to become a forerunner in fighting the WWF's control of the industry, taking the NWA's pay-per-view names and using its best talent, including Ric Flair, Barry Windham, and Ricky Steamboat to draw ratings.

Jim Crockett Productions worked hard, creating the first-ever Clash of the Champions on TBS featuring Ric Flair and Sting battling to a 45-minute draw for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. His inability to beat McMahon left Jim Crockett, Jr. with no viable option other than selling out to media mogul Ted Turner who renamed it World Championship Wrestling and continued to thwart McMahon's monopoly of the wrestling industry. Turner promised a more athletic approach to the product and made Ric Flair the promotion's marquee wrestler. 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.

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.

WWF held its most successful event, WrestleMania III in 1987. Its main event, where Hulk Hogan scoop-slammed and defeated André the Giant in front of 93,173 fans at the Pontiac Silverdome, helped the show go down in wrestling history as one of the greatest ever produced and made the WWF's popularity soar.

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 as Flair put a huge cash deposit on the belt. 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.

File:Mondayraw.jpg

The original WWF Monday Night RAW logo.

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.

Monday Night Wars and ECW

Main articles: Monday Night Wars and Extreme Championship Wrestling

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.

File:Nitrologo95.jpg

The original WCW Monday Nitro logo.

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.

New World Order

Main article: New World Order (professional wrestling)

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. "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.

ECW becomes renowned

On February 24 1997, ECW "invaded" Monday Night RAW from the Manhattan Center, where the brand advanced a storyline, promoted its first-ever pay-per-view and worked three matches in front of a WWF audience. The "invasion" was a cross-company collaboration between ECW President Paul Heyman and Vince McMahon. The Manhattan Center 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 introduced the WWF Monday night audience to some trademark ECW group chants. The crowd's interaction and hardcore style of wrestling displayed mark this episode as the beginning of what would eventually be called "The Attitude Era" of the WWF.

An ever-struggling promotion, ECW broadcast its first pay-per-view wrestling card, "Barely Legal" on April 13, 1997, exposing the cable audience to levels of violence rarely seen in wrestling. The unorthodox style of moves, controversial storylines, and intense bloodthirst of ECW made it intensely popular among many wrestling fans in the 18 to 25-yr-old demographic. Its intense fanbase, albeit a small constituency, reached near-cultism in the late 1990s and inspired the "hardcore style" in other wrestling promotions, namely WWF and WCW.

The cross-promotion "feud" continued at 1997's Wrestlepalooza event when Jerry Lawler, a noted critic of ECW made a surprise appearance at the ECW Arena. Tommy Dreamer finally had beat his long-time nemesis, Raven and began celebrating until Jerry Lawler with Sabu and Rob Van Dam began to attack him. The two later had a match in the 1997 "Hardcore Heaven" PPV on August 17, which was won by Dreamer.

Montreal Screwjob

Main article: Montreal Screwjob

File:Hebnerscrewjob.jpg

Perhaps the most well known image of the Montreal Screwjob. Earl Hebner calls for the bell (on orders from Vince McMahon).

WCW had been gaining plentiful power over the WWF thanks to its highly-successful New World Order storyline in 1997, and was stealing over fans and acquiring talent from other promotions. After being offered a convincing multi-million dollar contract to WCW, Bret Hart decided to leave the World Wrestling Federation. Hart, along with Shawn Michaels and The Undertaker were the greatest draws the company had for a solid period of time, and his loss represented a large threat to the WWF's stability.

Bret Hart was the reigning Champion, and would have to lose the title before leaving The Federation. McMahon requested that Hart drop the title at Survivor Series against Shawn Michaels. Hart, who had a long-time grudge against Michaels, refused, and was soon assured by McMahon that he would not lose in his homeland of Canada.

The match went as planned and was a display of technical brilliance from both competitors. The original finish called for Michaels to put Bret in his own submission move, the Sharpshooter, at which point Bret would reverse the move into his own Sharpshooter and win the match. However, as Michaels locked-in the Sharpshooter to finish the match, McMahon told referee Earl Hebner 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 title.

Astounded by the unexpected turn of events, Hart was immediately outraged. Triple H and Gerald Brisco came to escort Michaels backstage as the fans threw garbage at him and rained boos. 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.

The popular opinion of many wrestling fans, especially Canadians, was that this was an insult to the sport, and many developed real-life hatred of McMahon. Backstage, many wrestlers were upset, including Hart's closest partners, The British Bulldog and Jim Neidhart, who left as a result of the screwjob. However, McMahon consistently claimed that the incident was beneficial and even necessary for the company, as it kept the WWF Championship from crossing over to WCW. It also allowed him to expand his "Mr. McMahon" character from the hatred of the fans, a mainstay persona of the WWF from 1997 onwards.

"Mr. McMahon" strikes back

After 1997's Survivor Series, WCW appeared to have the clear advantage over WWF programming. It had the biggest names in the industry, including Hogan, Nash, Hall, Hart, Ric Flair, Sting, Randy Savage, Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Lex Luger, Diamond Dallas Page, and Syxx to name a few. But in 1998, the war turned in McMahon's favor. After the Montreal incident, McMahon was recast as an evil boss, "Mr. McMahon", who feuded with Stone Cold Steve Austin. Meanwhile, Mick Foley, was gaining popularity for enduring extreme pain as Mankind, and The Rock was making a name for himself as the catchphrase-spewing member of the Nation of Domination. These edgy characters produced adult-oriented programming that represented the growing "Attitude Era" of the WWF. RAW's ratings began to rise, and finally beat Nitro's for the first time in 84 weeks on April 13 1998, thanks to a teased Austin/McMahon match with Mike Tyson.

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. It did not turn the tide of viewers, however, as RAW took back the lead soon afterwards.

The demolition begins

Main article: Monday Night Wars

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 Guerrero, 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.

End of an era

By the final months of the Monday Night Wars, 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 was in dire financial straits 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 2001, Chris Jericho became the first WWF Undisputed Champion.

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 Unites States simply because the product became boring to casual fans and they lost interest, leaving only the passionate fans to support it.

WWF brand extension

Main article: WWE 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, the only undisputed World Heavyweight Champion, Lou Thesz, passed away at the age of 86 due to 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.

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 Entertainment 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.

A decline in success

2002-2003

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 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 returned 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 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, B.G. 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 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 by spearing The Rock and setting up a clash between the two stars at Backlash, a match that Goldberg won. History was made when the first ever WWE brand-only pay-per-view took place when RAW hosted Bad Blood.

2004-2005

On January 25, 2004, Chris Benoit won the Royal Rumble. 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 in the ring together at 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 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 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. 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. 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. Two days later NWA Wildside closed its doors after their show. The promoter, Bill Behrens, signed a WWE contract earlier in the year to 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, including The Dudley Boyz. 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 had 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 Bret "Hit Man" Hart: The Best There Is, The Best There Was, The Best There Ever Will Be, a DVD chronicling his career.

Throughout October 2005, WWE ran a storyline that resulted in Jim Ross being fired. Jerry Lawler and Jonathan Coachman replaced 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 by 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.

File:Chavo EddieTribute.jpg

Chavo Guerrero performs at the SmackDown! tribute show to his late uncle.

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 WWE to go to TNA. He debuted at Genesis 2005. On November 13, former WWE Champion and SmackDown! star, Eddie Guerrero died in his hotel bedroom at the age of 38. 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.

2006-2007

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 an appearance in the battle royal to determine the #1 contender later that night to win the title.

After announcing a new drug policy during the 2005 European tour, WWE announced on January 19 that they had identified a third-party that would implement the program that would be done independently of WWE. 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 was secured in the United States, it 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 debuted 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 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 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.

On June 25, 2007, WWE ECW Superstar Chris Benoit was found dead in his Atlanta, Georgia home along with his wife Nancy and his 7 year old son Daniel.

See also

• 1980s wrestling boom
• Independent circuit
• Monday Night Wars
• History of World Championship Wrestling
• History of World Wrestling Entertainment
• History of Extreme Championship Wrestling

References

• House of Deception Golden Age 1911-1979: bibliography, photos, etc.
• Wrestling Information Archive - Timeline
• Online Wrestling History Museum