100 Things WWE Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
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100 Things WWE Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781629376936 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Triumph Books |
| Publication date: | 07/16/2019 |
| Series: | 100 Things...Fans Should Know Series |
| Edition description: | None |
| Pages: | 352 |
| Sales rank: | 650,358 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Vince McMahon
Of course, the very first name that must be mentioned in any book about WWE is that of Vincent Kennedy McMahon. He also happens to be the person most difficult to encapsulate in just a few pages.
Vince McMahon Jr. is the chairman, CEO, and majority shareholder of today's World Wrestling Entertainment. His grandfather, Jess McMahon, promoted boxing and very occasionally pro wrestling at Madison Square Garden in New York City. His father, Vincent James McMahon, was cofounder alongside Toots Mondt of what was then known as the World Wide Wrestling Federation, in 1963.
McMahon Jr. didn't meet his biological father until he was 12 years old. The elder McMahon had left the family and Vince Jr. was raised by his mother and a series of stepfathers. Upon meeting McMahon Sr., Vince began attending events at the Garden and became interested in following his father into the business. He wanted to be a wrestler but the elder McMahon, who was wary of him even being involved in a behind-the-scenes capacity in wrestling, strongly discouraged him from doing so. (Vince Sr. was appalled when his son bleached his hair blond to look like his idol, Dr. Jerry Graham.) It wasn't until long after his father passed away that McMahon Jr., in his early 50s at the time, began to promote himself as a wrestler, ultimately making himself, for a few days, the World Wrestling Federation champion.
As a promoter, McMahon Jr. changed the business forever. Up until the early 1980s, wrestling was largely a territorial business. The United States was divided into a number of different regional territories, including New York, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Memphis, the Carolinas, etc. Many territories had their own local stars and local television contracts, and unless wrestling fans regularly traveled to other parts of the country, studied wrestling magazines, or had friends to correspond with, they generally knew little about what happened outside of their home territory. Wrestlers could work programs and then pack up and move on to a new territory if they began to get stale.
By the mid-1970s the writing was on the wall with the advent of nationwide cable television. There had been nationally broadcast pro wrestling here and there dating back to the late 1940s and early 1950s — for instance, pro wrestling on the DuMont Network, which helped make the original Gorgeous George a star — but with cable beginning to take hold it became increasingly clear that the territorial model would ultimately die, and whoever could go national with strong television first would become the king of pro wrestling.
Many tried, many failed, but Vince McMahon Jr. succeeded. He paid stations around the country to replace their local territorial wrestling shows with tapes of his World Wrestling Federation events. He purchased the Georgia Championship Wrestling time slot on Superstation TBS. He spent big money to raid the best talent from the biggest regional territories, his crown jewel being "The Incredible" Hulk Hogan. He got into bed with MTV to launch the "Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection"; he got into bed with NBC to promote Saturday Night's Main Event in a time slot which pre-empted Saturday Night Live. And he rode that momentum to create WrestleMania, his annual megashow which had its ups and downs over the years but today remains by far the most lucrative annual wrestling event there has ever been.
In the mid-1990s, McMahon faced a number of sex- and drug-related scandals that nearly put him in prison. While he escaped a sentence he did not do so unscathed and had to change the way he promoted his business. He fell behind and for a period of time got his ass kicked by World Championship Wrestling. Run by Eric Bischoff and backed by Ted Turner's pocketbook, WCW Monday Nitro featured all of the stars of the 1980s who McMahon thought were too old to draw ratings. Bischoff reintroduced them to a generation of kids and teenagers looking for childhood nostalgia, whose parents had disposable income to spend on tickets, merchandise, and pay-per-view events. McMahon Jr. struggled until hitting upon a series of extremely lucky scenarios: a real-life pro wrestling screwjob that turned him into the hottest bad guy in pro wrestling; a superstar named Stone Cold Steve Austin catching fire and becoming the hottest babyface in the industry; and a feud between the two of them that turned WWF business around. Riding the wave of success, McMahon Jr. took WWF public and became a multi-millionaire and later a billionaire, and he never looked back.
While WWE has never been able to recapture the magic of the Attitude Era — the late 1990s/early 2000s glory days — it has continued to make money hand over fist, primarily due to changes in the television landscape. Throughout the 20 century, most promotions either had to pay to get their shows on the air or were paid very little money for their tapes. The success of Monday Night RAW and SmackDown ultimately led to a period where television rights fees slowly went from just another number on the balance sheet below pay-per-view revenue and ticket sales to far and away the most important number for business. In late 2018, WWE signed a five-year, $2.3 billion television deal for the rights to RAW and SmackDown. The company's value in 2018 hovered between $5 and $7 billion.
It would take a book to tell the story of Vince McMahon Jr. Through the ups and downs, successes and failures, philanthropy and scandals, good decisions and bad, he remains, without question, the greatest pro wrestling promoter of all time.
Less than 1,000 words on the life of Vince McMahon. But fear not. His story weaves itself through every other story in this book.
CHAPTER 2Hulk Hogan
Hulk Hogan is arguably the most famous American pro wrestler of all time. Worldwide, he would most certainly rank below El Santo in Mexico and Rikidozan in Japan, two men who transcended pro wrestling and became cultural icons; both have regularly made lists of the 10 most famous people in their respective countries, and we're not talking most famous wrestlers or sports stars, we're talking most famous human beings. But in America, for decades, if you asked someone on the street to name a pro wrestler, the first name many would say would be Hulk Hogan.
Entire books will be written about Hogan in the future, which won't be easy since so much of his life is wrapped in myth, tales he created partly because he's been a worker since the late 1970s, and partly because he's told so many ridiculous, larger-than-life stories during his lifetime that there's a very good chance even he has forgotten the truth.
Hogan's wrestling career itself is fairly well documented. He grew up a huge fan of both Dusty Rhodes (a massive babyface and incredible talker) and Superstar Billy Graham (an incredible personality with a larger-than-life physique) before breaking into wrestling in 1977 under Japanese American wrestler and trainer Hiro Matsuda. He had a rough go early, quit for a while, and then returned a few years later and rocketed to superstardom. For the first few years of his career he worked in Memphis, the World Wide Wrestling Federation for Vince McMahon Sr., and New Japan Pro Wrestling. But it was the AWA where he totally blew up, becoming the biggest star and draw the territory had ever seen.
In 1983, Vince McMahon began his national expansion and needed a superstar to build around. He didn't create Hogan — or Hulkamania; he raided them from the AWA, along with most of Verne Gagne's other top stars. Hogan beat the Iron Sheik, won the WWF title, and a year later, following the success of WrestleMania I, he was the biggest pro wrestling star in all of America.
Hogan dominated the WWF throughout the rest of the 1980s and into the early 1990s. Vince McMahon Jr.'s original plan was for him to pass the torch to the Ultimate Warrior in 1990 at WrestleMania VI, but Hogan stole the spotlight in the match, the Ultimate Warrior floundered, and a year later they put the title back on Hogan. But he was on his way out for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the steroid scandal that rocked the company in the early 1990s. Hogan went on The Arsenio Hall Show and outright lied about his steroid use, which was a huge scandal given Hogan had been pushed as a children's role model for a decade, preaching his mantra of training, saying your prayers, and eating your vitamins. Because of the heat, he took an almost year-long hiatus before returning and then winning the WWF championship at WrestleMania IX in 1993. But the writing was on the wall, and after dropping the title to Yokozuna at that year's King of the Ring, he left the company again.
Contrary to WWF's version of history for years, WCW did not use Ted Turner's bottomless pocketbook to lure Hogan from the WWF in an attempt to drive it out of business. Hogan actually left WWF and worked in Japan for nearly a year before finally coming to terms with WCW. He was an immediate draw for the company right out of the gate and helped boost pay-per-view and arena business. But he was pushed as a superhero, and it was inevitable that fans would tire of his act.
In 1996, against his initial wishes, Hogan was convinced to turn heel and join Scott Hall and Kevin Nash as the New World Order. He hadn't been a heel in North America in more than 15 years. The angle hit the jackpot and WCW's business grew to the point that it surpassed WWF for the first time ever and became, for a short time, the most financially successful wrestling promotion in the history of the planet. But WCW ran with a pat hand for too long, plus Hogan had serious issues with writer Vince Russo, who came aboard in 1999, which ultimately led to a defamation of character lawsuit and the end of his WCW career.
After WCW went out of business, Hogan returned to WWF for another two-year run which saw him work as both the NWO heel version of Hollywood Hogan and later the babyface red-and-yellow Hulkster. Coming off a legendary match with the Rock at WrestleMania X8, where Hogan once again stole the spotlight, he won the undisputed WWF championship from Triple H for a one-month final run. (Here's a piece of trivia: WWF then changed its name to WWE, so Hogan was, officially, the final WWF champion.) But as his run wore on, Hogan became disgruntled with being asked to do jobs and his payouts, and he left the company in 2003.
He bounced around for several years afterward, including another run in WWE, before finally heading to TNA in 2009, where he reunited with Eric Bischoff. The idea was that they were going to put all of their manpower behind making TNA competitive with WWE, including attempting to recreate the Monday Night Wars between WWE and WCW, an idea that was an epic failure since there was nothing in common between the wrestling landscapes of 1995 and 2010.
Hogan's 2014 return to WWE in a non-wrestling capacity ended abruptly a year later. I remember this evening vividly — WWE suddenly scrubbed all references to Hogan from the WWE website. It was clear something serious had happened. Sure enough, shortly thereafter the National Enquirer and Radar Online published stories on a Hulk Hogan tape from eight years earlier that included Hogan not only using appalling racial slurs but flat-out admitting that he was "racist to a point, y'know."
The tape in question was the famous Hulk Hogan sex tape, which had come to light years earlier. Hogan had slept with Heather Clem, the wife of radio shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge, in Bubba's bedroom with permission from Bubba, his best friend at the time. Unbeknownst to Hogan, Bubba filmed the entire thing and later told his wife that it was their ticket to retirement. The tape leaked and the website Gawker put up a series of clips. Hogan filed suit to have the tape taken down, but Gawker refused. This led to a famous and far-reaching legal battle that ended with Hogan being awarded $115 million (keep in mind, he only asked for $100 million, so you can imagine what the jury thought about Gawker). Gawker and Hogan settled for $31 million, and Gawker went out of business.
Hogan was seen as a victim in the sex tape scandal, even though technically he was still married to his wife, Linda, at the time of the recording (they later divorced). But the racial slurs were different. He was scrubbed from WWE history for years. In 2018, the company brought him back to give a speech to the locker room, but it was met poorly, particularly by the black wrestlers, who saw the speech as more a cautionary tale about how you could be filmed without your knowledge as opposed to a sincere expression of regret for what he had said. The speech was envisioned as the beginning of his return to the company, but it came off so badly that he vanished again. Finally, in November, he was brought back as the host of the Crown Jewel extravaganza in Saudi Arabia. The show was already the most controversial in WWE history, so it was somewhat fitting that the company chose that day to bring him back.
The story of Hulk Hogan and his legacy is yet to be written. He's been among the most beloved people in the business and the most reviled, and there have been ups and downs throughout his entire career. But whether remembered in a positive or negative light, what cannot be argued is he is the most famous wrestler America has ever known.
CHAPTER 3The First WrestleMania
Had the first WrestleMania flopped, who knows if you'd be reading this book today. The show, on March 31, 1985, was a huge gamble for the company, a potential make-it-or-break-it event.
The story of WrestleMania begins long before the first show, when Vince McMahon kicked off his national expansion. A key part of his strategy was to approach television stations around the country and offer tapes of his slickly produced WWF events. Prior to this, territorial promotions usually worked on a barter deal with the local television station (usually, but not always; some promotions paid for their television time, and some which were very successful in a market, such as Memphis wrestling, were paid for their shows by the station, although that was extremely rare). Often, the promotion would provide stations with tapes of their shows with no money changing hands. The station got free programming, and the shows would be advertisements for upcoming live events, where the promotion would make money largely off ticket sales. The bad promoters would lose money and be weeded out. The strong would survive.
In order to get his tapes played, McMahon not only offered a better-produced product; he also offered to pay big money to get his tapes on the air. If a station was doing a barter deal with a promotion and McMahon showed up willing to pay to get his show on the air, it wasn't a difficult decision to start airing WWF tapes.
The issue, of course, is that this cost a lot of money. WWF attempted to make up the cost in ticket sales for live events that would be pushed on those TV broadcasts, but by 1985 it was way behind on payments. Compounding the issue was all of the money it was paying to lure the top stars from various territories, including Verne Gagne's AWA, where McMahon raided half the roster.
In this environment, WrestleMania was conceived. The key to the success of that first WrestleMania was how big it hit with the casual audience. There were two shows on the burgeoning MTV network with angles building up the event: the July 23, 1984, "Brawl to Settle It All," where Wendi Richter beat Fabulous Moolah with Cyndi Lauper and Lou Albano in their respective corners; and the "War to Settle the Score" on February 18, 1985. The former didn't do great live business in Madison Square Garden, since it wasn't exactly the kind of feud that was going to light the hardcore wrestling fans' interest on fire, but it did a gigantic rating on MTV, a 9.0, and ended with Hulk Hogan celebrating with Richter, further establishing him as a mainstream name. The February 18 show, headlined by Hogan facing Roddy Piper, did great arena business and a 9.1 rating, the highest ever for pro wrestling on cable television, a record that will likely never be broken. Hogan beat Piper via DQ when Paul Orndorff interfered, and Mr. T, one of the hottest TV stars in the country based on his portrayal of B.A. Baracus on The A-Team and Clubber Lang in Rocky III, made the save. This set up the WrestleMania main event: Hogan and Mr. T vs. Piper and Orndorff.
WrestleMania was almost a disaster in many ways. Mr. T, whose role in the rise of WWF is historically understated, got cold feet the day of the show, concerned that one of the wrestlers would shoot on him and expose him. Everyone believed that based on his look, persona, and reputation as a bad-ass bouncer that he was the toughest man in the country. But he was an actor who portrayed a tough guy, and he knew there was resentment among the wrestlers that he walked in off a TV set and was headlining such a massive show. Worse, neither Piper nor Orndorff would agree to lose to him, and the agreement he'd made was that he'd beat one of the heels to win the match. Finally, almost at the last moment, he was talked into working and Orndorff agreed to do the job, but only to Hogan after he was accidentally hit by Cowboy Bob Orton's loaded cast.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "100 Things We Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Bryan Alvarez.
Excerpted by permission of Triumph Books LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword Lance Storm xi
Introduction xiii
1 Vince McMahon 1
2 Hulk Hogan 4
3 The First WrestleMania 8
4 Steve Austin vs. Vince McMahon 12
5 The Rock 15
6 Attend a WrestleMania 20
7 Bruno, Sammartino 22
8 Vince McMahon St 28
9 Nitro Debuts Against RAW 32
10 Stone Cold Steve Austin 34
11 John Cena 40
12 Macho Man Randy Savage 44
13 Subscribe to the WWE Network 50
14 Andre the Giant 53
15 The Undertaker 55
16 Triple H 60
17 Bret "The Hitman" Hart 64
18 Shawn Michaels 71
19 The Montreal Screwjob 75
20 The Birth of Hulkamania 80
21 The Monday Night Wars 83
22 The Death of Owen Hart 87
23 Chris Benoit 90
24 WrestleMania III 94
25 The Birth of Monday Night RAW 96
26 Superstar Billy Graham 98
27 Brock Lesnar 101
28 Attend a RAW or SmackDown Taping 106
29 Attend a Local House Show 108
30 WWE Signs a $2.3 Billion Television Deal 110
31 WWF Becomes WWE 112
32 WWF Goes Public 114
33 The Steroid Trial 116
34 The Creation of the WWWF Title 119
35 Bob Backlund 122
36 Bobby "The Brain" Heenan 125
37 Eric Bischoff 128
38 Captain Lou Albano 131
39 Watch the First and Last Nitro 134
40 Chris Jericho 136
41 Daniel Bryan 141
42 Eddie Guerrero 148
43 Roman Reigns 153
44 The WCW invasion 159
45 The WWE Wellness Policy 162
46 CM Punk 164
47 Batista 172
48 Degeneration X 176
49 Brian Pillman 180
50 Watch Every WrestleMania 185
51 Jim Ross 187
52 Jerry "The King" Lawler 191
53 Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka 194
54 Shane and Stephanie McMahon 197
55 Watch Hitman Hart: Wrestling with Shadows 200
56 Kurt Angle 202
57 Mean Gene Okerlund 206
58 Mick Foley 208
59 NXT 211
60 Paul Heyman 214
61 Read Hitman 217
62 Attend an NXT TakeOver Event 218
63 Rey Mysterio Jr 221
64 Ric Flair 224
65 Ronda Rousey 228
66 Rowdy Roddy Piper 232
67 Watch Beyond the Mat 235
68 Edge and Christian 237
69 Goldberg 241
70 AJ Styles 245
71 Sit in the Front Row 247
72 Chyna 248
73 Gorilla Monsoon 251
74 Watch Every Royal Rumble 254
75 Sometimes Matches Are Scripted, Sometimes They're Not 256
76 Randy Orton 258
77 Subscribe to the Wrestling Observer Website 261
78 Mike Tyson 267
79 Sunny and Sable 270
80 The Hardy Boyz 275
81 Play WWE Video Games 278
82 Attend a WWE Hall of Fame Ceremony 281
83 Attend a Cauliflower Alley Club Banquet 283
84 Donald Trump 285
85 Vince Russo 288
86 Follow WWE Around the Loop 292
87 Watch Every Five-Star WWE Match 293
88 WrestleMania VI 295
89 Read The Death of WCW 298
90 Read Have a Nice Day 300
91 Attend WWE Axxess 302
92 Wrestling Is Dangerous 304
93 WWE Action Figures 306
94 WWE Crown Jewel 308
95 WWE Stars Are Independent Contractors 312
96 Women Headline WrestleMania 35 314
97 The Gimmicks Vince McMahon Would Like You to Forget 319
98 Mired in the Mid-card 321
99 The Intercontinental Title 323
100 There Is Wrestling Outside of WWE 327
Wrestling Terms You Should Know 331
Acknowledgments 335
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