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World Wrestling Entertainment
TypeIndustryFounded
Founder(s)HeadquartersKey people
RevenueOperating incomeNet incomeTotal assetsTotal equityEmployeesWebsiteWorld Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (
WWE) (
NYSE:
WWE) is a publicly-traded, privately-controlled
integrated media (focusing in
television,
Internet,
and live events) and
sports entertainment company dealing primarily in
professional wrestling, with major
revenue
sources also coming from
film,
music, product licensing, and direct product sales.
Vince
McMahon is the
majority owner,
chairman and
chief executive officer (CEO) of the
company. Together with his wife
Linda
McMahon, and their children,
Shane
McMahon and Executive Vice President of Talent and Creative
Writing,
Stephanie McMahon-Levesque, the McMahons
hold approximately 70% of WWE's
economic interest and 96% of the
voting power in the company.
The company's global
headquarters are located in
Stamford, Connecticut with offices in
Los
Angeles,
New York City,
London,
Toronto,
and
Sydney[3].
The company was previously known as Titan Sports before changing to
World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc., and then becoming World
Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.
WWE's business focus is on professional wrestling, a
simulated sport that consists of
wrestling combined with
acting and
theatre.
It is currently the largest
professional wrestling
promotion in the world and holds an
extensive library of videos representing a significant
portion of the visual history of professional wrestling. The promotion
previously existed as the Capitol Wrestling Corporation, which promoted
under the banner of the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), and
later the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). WWE promotes under two
brands known as
Raw and
SmackDown.
//
Company historyMain article:
History of World
Wrestling EntertainmentCapitol
Wrestling CorporationRoderick James "Jess" McMahon was a boxing
promoter whose achievements included co-promoting a bout in 1915 between
Jess Willard and
Jack Johnson. In 1926, while working with
Tex
Rickard (who actually despised wrestling to such a degree he
prevented wrestling events from being held at
Madison Square Garden between 1939 and 1948), he
started promoting boxing in Madison Square Garden in
New York.
The first match during their partnership was a light-heavyweight
championship match between
Jack
Delaney and
Paul Berlenbach.
Around the same time, professional wrestler
Joseph
Raymond "Toots" Mondt created a new style of professional wrestling
that he called Slam Bang Western Style Wrestling to make the sport more
appealing to spectators. He then formed a promotion with wrestling
champion
Ed Lewis and his manager
Billy
Sandow. They persuaded many wrestlers to sign contracts with their
Gold Dust Trio. After much success, a disagreement over power
caused the trio to dissolve and, with it, their promotion. Mondt formed
partnerships with several other promoters, including
Jack
Curley in New York City. When Curley was dying, Mondt moved to take
over New York wrestling with the aid of several bookers, one of whom
was Jess McMahon.
Together, Roderick McMahon and Raymond Mondt created the Capitol
Wrestling Corporation (CWC). The CWC joined the
National Wrestling Alliance in
1953. Also in that year, Ray Fabiani, one of Mondt's associates, brought
in
Vincent J. McMahon to replace his father
Jess in the promotion. McMahon and Mondt were a successful combination,
and within a short time, they controlled approximately 70% of the NWA's
booking, largely due to their dominance in the heavily populated
Northeast region. Mondt taught McMahon about booking and how to work in
the wrestling business. Due to the dominance in the northeast, the CWC
was referred to by
AWA legend
Nick Bockwinkel as the "Northeast Triangle", with its
territory being defined by
Pittsburgh,
Washington, D.C., and
Maine as
points of the triangle.
[4]World
Wide Wrestling FederationThe NWA recognized an undisputed
NWA World Heavyweight
Champion that went to several different wrestling companies in the
alliance and defended the belt around the world. In 1963, the champion
was
"Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers. The rest
of the NWA was unhappy with Mondt because he rarely allowed Rogers to
wrestle outside of the Northeast. Mondt and McMahon wanted 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). 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, Rogers was awarded the new WWWF World Championship
following an
apocryphal tournament in
Rio de Janeiro. He 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.
Mondt left the company in the late sixties. Although the WWWF had
withdrawn from the NWA, Vince McMahon Sr. still sat on the NWA Board of
Directors, no other territory was recognized in the Northeast, and
several "champion vs. champion" matches occurred (usually ending in a
double disqualification or some other non-decisive ending).
In March 1979, the WWWF became the World Wrestling Federation (WWF).
The change was purely cosmetic, and the ownership and front office
personnel remained unchanged during this period.
World
Wrestling Federation
Vince McMahon, founder of Titan Sports, Inc. and current
majority
owner of World Wrestling Entertainment.
In 1980, the son of Vincent J. McMahon,
Vincent
Kennedy McMahon, founded Titan Sports, Inc. and in 1982 purchased
Capitol Wrestling Corporation from his father. The elder McMahon had
long since established the northeastern territory as one of the most
vibrant members of the NWA. He had long since recognized that
professional wrestling was more about
entertainment than actual sport. Against his father's
wishes, McMahon began an expansion process that fundamentally changed
the sport.
The original logo of the World Wrestling Federation; still occasionally
used by WWE in reference to their history.
The WWF was not the only promotion to have broken ranks with the NWA;
the
American Wrestling Association (AWA) had long ago ceased being an official NWA member (although like
the WWF, they seldom left their own territory). However, neither of the
defecting members attempted to undermine the
territory system that had been
the foundation of the industry for more than half a century.
Other promoters were furious when McMahon began syndicating WWF
television shows to
television stations across the United States, in areas
outside of the WWF's traditional northeastern stronghold. McMahon also
began selling
videotapes of WWF events outside the Northeast
through his
Coliseum Video distribution company. He
effectively broke the unwritten law of regionalism around which the
entire industry had been based. To make matters worse, McMahon used the
income generated by advertising, television deals, and tape sales to
poach talent from rival promoters. Wrestling promoters nationwide were
now in direct competition with the WWF.
Hulk
Hogan, due to his appearance in
Rocky
III, had a national recognition that few other wrestlers could
offer, which is what led McMahon to sign him.
Roddy
Piper was brought in, as well as
Jesse
Ventura (although Ventura rarely wrestled in the WWF at that point
due to the lung disorder that caused his retirement, moving to the
commentator booth alongside
Gorilla Monsoon).
André the Giant,
Jimmy
Snuka,
Don Muraco,
Paul
Orndorff,
Greg Valentine,
Ricky Steamboat, and the
Iron
Sheik (Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri) rounded out the roster. Hogan was
clearly McMahon's biggest star, but there was debate as to whether the
WWF could have achieved national success without him.
According to several reports, the elder McMahon warned his son:
"Vinny, what are you doing? You'll wind up at the bottom of a river." In
spite of such warnings, the younger McMahon had an even bolder
ambition: the WWF would tour nationally. Such a venture, however,
required huge capital investment; one that placed the WWF on the verge
of financial collapse. The future of not just McMahon's experiment, but
also the WWF, the NWA, and the whole industry came down to the success
or failure of McMahon's groundbreaking concept,
WrestleMania.
WrestleMania was a
pay-per-view extravaganza (in some areas; most
areas of the country saw WrestleMania available on
closed-circuit television) that
McMahon marketed as being the
Super
Bowl of professional wrestling. The concept of a wrestling
supercard was nothing new in North America; the NWA had
been running
Starrcade a few years prior to WrestleMania, and
even the elder McMahon had marketed large
Shea
Stadium cards viewable in closed-circuit locations.
However, McMahon wanted to take the WWF to the mainstream, targeting
the public who were not regular wrestling fans. He drew the interest of
the mainstream media by inviting celebrities such as
Mr. T and
Cyndi
Lauper to participate in the event.
MTV, in
particular, featured a great deal of WWF coverage and programming at
this time, in what was termed the
Rock 'n' Wrestling
Connection.
Golden AgeThe original
WrestleMania, held in 1985, was a
resounding success. This event is sometimes credited as the debut of
what McMahon called "sports entertainment", in contrast to his father's
preference of pure wrestling. The WWF did incredible business on the
shoulders of McMahon and his all-American
babyface hero,
Hulk
Hogan, for the next several years, creating what some observers
dubbed a second golden age for professional wrestling. The introduction
of
Saturday Night's Main Event on
NBC in
mid-1985 marked the first time that professional wrestling had been
broadcast on network television since the 1950s. In 1987, the WWF
produced what was considered to be the pinnacle of the 1980s wrestling
boom altogether,
WrestleMania III.
[5]New Generation
The updated World Wrestling Federation logo used to represent their "New
Generation" promotion.
The WWF hit a low point in the wake of allegations of
steroid abuse and distribution made against it in 1994;
there were also allegations of
sexual harassment made by WWF employees. McMahon was
eventually exonerated, but it was a
public relations nightmare for the WWF. The steroid trial
cost the WWF an estimated $5 million at a time when revenues were at an
all-time low. To compensate, McMahon cut the pay of both wrestlers and
front office personnel – close to 40% in the latter case (and about 50%
for top level managers such as
Bobby
Heenan and
Jimmy Hart, who both left). This helped drive
many WWF wrestlers to its only major competition,
World Championship Wrestling (WCW), between 1993 and 1996. During this period, the WWF promoted
itself under the banner of "The New WWF Generation," featuring
Shawn Michaels,
Diesel,
Razor
Ramon,
Bret Hart, and
The Undertaker. In an effort to promote them and other
young talent as the new superstars of the ring, the WWF began to play on
the age restrictions which former WWF wrestlers such as
Hulk
Hogan and
Randy Savage (who by now were working for WCW)
now faced. This is best seen in the "Billionaire Ted" parodies of early
1996 (a reference to WCW's owner and patron, media mogul
Ted
Turner) which culminated in a "
rasslin'" match during
the warm-up to
WrestleMania XII.
Monday Night WarsMain article:
Monday Night WarsIn 1993, the WWF broke new ground in televised professional wrestling
with the debut of its cable program
WWF Monday
Night Raw. After becoming a runaway success, WCW in 1995
countered with its own Monday night cable program,
WCW Monday Nitro, in the same time slot as Raw.
[6] The two programs would trade wins in the ensuing
ratings competition until mid-1996, when WCW began a nearly
2-year domination that was largely fueled by the introduction of the
New World Order, a
stable led by former WWF superstars Hulk Hogan, Scott Hall, and Kevin
Nash.
1996–1997Main article:
Montreal ScrewjobThe feuds and match types developed by the end of the mid 1990's
began a new era in wrestling. The fans of the WWF seemed to favor what
was posed to them as the
bad guy instead of the
good guy. The creative changes
made by the WWF creative board saw wrestling take on a "street
fighting," "bad attitude" approach, however despite the revolutionary
changes in sports-entertainment that the WWF founded, these years remain
the lowest of the WWF's financial income and a heavy loss in fandom to
rival WCW. Throughout 1996 and 1997, the WWF lost much of its leading
talent to WCW, including Razor Ramon (
Scott
Hall), Diesel (
Kevin Nash), Psycho Sid (
Sid Eudy),
Alundra Blayze (
Debra Miceli), and the late
Rick
Rude. The WWF replaced them with former WCW talent such as Vader (
Leon
White),
Stone Cold Steve Austin,
Brian
Pillman, Mankind (
Mick Foley), and Farooq (
Ron
Simmons). Eric Bischoff's public humiliation of the WWF, criticising
them for signing WCW's sacked wrestlers and bragging that WWF wrestlers
were signing for WCW due to higher pay, intensified the
Monday Night Wars only for
Nitro as the WWF
struggled to regain its popularity.
McMahon managed to keep Bret Hart from reverting to WCW, and began a
feud with Hart and Steve Austin. In Hart's absence after
WrestleMania XII, Steve Austin became the new face of the
company, starting with his
Austin 3:16 speech, shortly after
defeating
Jake Roberts in the tournament finals at the
1996
King of the Ring pay-per-view.
[7] WrestleMania 13 saw Hart beat Austin in a
critically acclaimed submission match, and shortly after saw Hart form
The Hart Foundation. Austin and
Shawn Michaels feuded with them for the majority of the
year. This proved to be a major turning point in the company's marketing
approach. Despite his strong long running image as a face, the
Canadian Hart was
turned heel in an
anti-USA gimmick, whilst Steve Austin became cheered by fans despite
efforts to design him as the ultimate heel (see
tweener).
Rocky Maivia joined the
Nation of Domination stable after fans
rejected his good guy image, and Shawn Michaels formed the street gang
faction
D-Generation X with
Triple H and
Chyna;
similar to the Stone Cold Steve Austin character, DX was designed not
to care for what the fans or other wrestlers thought of them. The
Hell in a Cell match between Shawn Michaels and
The Undertaker produced a fresh strong foundation for
the WWF's creative board. 1997 ended with McMahon becoming widely
despised by fans following Bret Hart's controversial departure from the
WWF, proving to be a founding factor in what was to kick start
The Attitude Era.
Attitude Era
The updated World Wrestling Federation logo used to represent their
"Attitude" promotion. In May 2002, the use of this trademark became
prohibited.
Main article:
The Attitude EraBy January 1998, the WWF began broadcasting more violence, swearing,
and more edgy angles in its attempt to compete with WCW. After Bret Hart
left for WCW following the Montreal Screwjob incident,
[8] Vince McMahon used the resulting backlash in the creation of his "
Mr.
McMahon" character, a
dictatorial and fierce ruler who favored heels who were "good for business" over
"misfit" faces like Austin. This, in turn, led to the Austin vs. McMahon
feud, which, along with D-Generation X, officially began the Attitude
Era. It also featured the established Monday Night Wars, where both WCW
and the WWF had Monday night shows that competed against each other in
the ratings. Many new wrestlers came into the WWF such as
Chris
Jericho,
The Radicalz (
Chris
Benoit,
Eddie Guerrero,
Perry
Saturn,
Dean Malenko) and the
1996 Olympic gold medalist,
Kurt
Angle, whilst the characters of The Rock (renamed from Rocky
Maivia), and Mick Foley (as Mankind, Cactus Jack and Dude Love) were
successfully re-invented to compete at the main event level. This era
also saw the evolution of more brutal matches with different
stipulations to increase viewership, mainly the furthering of Hell in a
Cell (notably its second appearance featuring The Undertaker vs.
Mankind) and the Inferno match (introduced by
Kane against The Undertaker).
[9]Business advancesOn April 29, 1999, the WWF made its return to
terrestrial television by launching a
special program known as
SmackDown! on the fledgling
UPN network. The Thursday-night show became a weekly series on August 26,
1999.
On the back of the success of the Attitude Era, on October 19, 1999
the WWF's parent company, Titan Sports (by this time renamed World
Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc.) became a publicly traded
company, offering 10 million shares priced at $17 each.
[10] WWF announced its desire to diversify, including creating
a nightclub in Times Square,
producing
feature films, and book publishing. In 2000 the WWF, in
collaboration with television network
NBC, announced
the creation of the
XFL, a new professional
football league that debuted in 2001.
[11] The league had surprisingly high ratings for the first few weeks, but
initial interest waned and its ratings plunged to dismally low levels
(one of its games was the lowest-rated primetime show in the history of
American television). NBC walked out on the venture after only one
season, but McMahon intended to continue alone. However, after being
unable to reach a deal with UPN, McMahon shut down the XFL.
[12]Acquisition
of WCW and ECWThe Attitude Era turned the tide of the Monday Night Wars into WWF's
favor for good. After Time Warner merged with
AOL,
Ted
Turner's power over WCW was considerably reduced, and the newly
merged company decided to get rid of WCW entirely. In March 2001, WWF
Entertainment, Inc. acquired World Championship Wrestling, Inc. from AOL
Time Warner for a number reported to be around $7 million.
[13] With this purchase, WWF was now the largest wrestling promotion in the
world, and the only one in North America with mainstream exposure. It
remained so until the launch of
Total Nonstop Action Wrestling in 2002.
The assets of
Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), which had folded after filing for
bankruptcy protection in April 2001, were purchased by WWE in mid-2003..
[14]Name disputeIn 2000, the
World Wide Fund for Nature (also
WWF), an environmental organization, sued the World Wrestling
Federation. The
Law Lords agreed that Titan Sports had violated a 1994 agreement which had limited
the permissible use of the WWF initials overseas, particularly in
merchandising. Both companies used the initials since March 1979.
[15] On May 5, 2002, the company changed all references on its website from
"WWF" to "WWE", while switching the
URL from
WWF.com to
WWE.com.
The next day, a press release announced the official name change from
World
Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. to
World Wrestling
Entertainment, Inc., or WWE, and the change was publicized later
that day during a telecast of
Monday Night Raw, which emanated
from the
Hartford Civic Center in
Hartford, Connecticut. For a short
time, WWE used the slogan "Get The 'F' Out."
[16] The company had also been ordered by the Lords to stop using the old
WWF Attitude logo on any of its properties and to censor all past
references to
WWF, as they no longer owned the trademark to the
initials
WWF in 'specified circumstances'.
[17] Despite litigation, WWE is still permitted use of the original WWF
logo, which was used from 1984 through 1997, as well as the "New WWF
Generation" logo, which was used from 1994 through 1998. Furthermore,
the company may still make use of the full "World Wrestling Federation"
and "World Wrestling Federation Entertainment" names without
consequence.
Brand extensionIn March 2002, roughly two months before the name change, WWE decided
to create two separate rosters,
Raw and
SmackDown! due to the overabundance of talent left over from the
Invasion storyline.
This is known as the
WWE Brand Extension. In addition to the Brand Extension,
WWE holds a
Draft Lottery every year. On May 26, 2006, WWE announced the
relaunch of
Extreme Championship Wrestling as a
WWE brand. The
new
ECW program aired internationally and on Tuesday nights on
Syfy in the
United
States until February 16, 2010.
[18]Network
changes and high-definitionIn late 2005,
WWE Raw returned after a five-year stint on TNN (now
Spike TV) to its original home
USA
Network. In 2006, due to contracts with NBC Universal, parent
company of USA Network, WWE had the chance to revive its classic
Saturday night show
Saturday Night's Main Event (SNME) on
NBC after a thirteen-year hiatus. WWE had the chance to promote the company
on a major national network rather than the lower profile
CW or cable channels like USA Network. SNME
airs occasionally on NBC as a WWE special series. On September 26, 2007,
it was announced that WWE would be expanding its international
operations. Alongside the current international offices in London and
Toronto, a new international office would be established in
Sydney.
[3]On January 21, 2008, WWE made the transition to
high-definition (HD). All TV
shows and pay-per-views after this were broadcast in HD. In addition,
WWE also introduced a new set that is used for all three brands.
[19]WWE
Universe and new programsOn November 19, 2008, WWE launched their online social network, WWE
Universe. It initially appeared in April as
WWE Fan Nation.
Similar to
MySpace, it offers blogs, forums, and other features
for WWE fans.
[20]It was announced on December 19, 2008 that WWE and
WGN
America had come to an agreement to create a new weekly, one-hour
prime time series entitled
WWE Superstars. On April 16, 2009 the
show made its debut airing. The show features talent from all WWE
brands. On February 2, 2010, it was announced that a new program called
WWE NXT would premiere on
Syfy on February 23, 2010, over the
ECW timeslot.
