 | |
| Capitol Wrestling Corporation | |
| Company type | Private |
| Industry | Professional wrestling Professional boxing |
| Founded | January 7, 1953; 72 years ago (1953-01-07)[1] |
| Founders | Jess McMahon orVincent J. McMahon |
| Defunct | 1982; 43 years ago (1982) |
| Fate | Acquired |
| Successor | Titan Sports, Inc. |
| Headquarters | , United States |
Area served | Northeastern United States |
| Owner | Vincent J. McMahon |
Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC) was an American sports promotion company. Run byVincent J. McMahon from the 1950s until the 1980s, the company was originally aprofessional wrestling andboxing promotion and later became the holding company for theWorld Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), later theWorld Wrestling Federation (WWF). In 1982, the CWC was acquired by Titan Sports, Inc., owned by Vincent J.'s sonVincent K. McMahon. The CWC was the precursor to today'sWWE, currently run byNick Khan aspresident and owned byTKO Group Holdings.
 | This sectionneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Capitol Wrestling Corporation" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(December 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
Jess McMahon was a successfulprofessional boxingpromoter who began working withTex Rickard in 1926. With the help of Rickard, he began promoting boxing atthe third Madison Square Garden. McMahon would later take over the wrestling side of Rickard's promotional business; Rickard was noted for disliking wrestling and prevented wrestling events from being held at Madison Square Garden. A few years prior to 1926, professional wrestlerToots Mondt had created a new style ofprofessional wrestling that he called "Slam Bang Western Style Wrestling". The advent of Slam Bang Western Style Wrestling ultimately transformed professional wrestling from alegitimatecombat sport into a series of predetermined pseudo-competitive exhibitions. Mondt convinced wrestlerEd Lewis, who then held theWorld Heavyweight Wrestling Championship, and his managerBilly Sandow to embrace this new predetermined style of wrestling, with the three men forming a business partnership dubbed the "Gold Dust Trio". The Gold Dust Trio formed what is considered the first modernpromotion in professional wrestling history and were successful in getting many wrestlers of the time to sign contracts with their promotion. After much success, a power struggle amongst its members caused the trio to dissolve and, with it, their promotion. Mondt later formed partnerships with several other promoters, includingJack Curley inNew York City. Curley's ill health led to Mondt, aided by Jess McMahon and others, taking over the New York City wrestling scene. Mondt's control over wrestling in New York City ended after promoterJack Pfeferrevealed the predetermined nature of wrestling to the area's sports writers, harming wrestling's popularity in the city. Mondt additionally had major disagreements with his top starAntonino Rocca, which led to Mondt's partner Ray Fabiani aligning with other promoters to appease Rocca.
On January 7, 1953, the first show under the Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC) banner was produced.[2] It is not certain who the founder of the CWC was. Some sources state that it was Jess' sonVincent J. McMahon[1][3] while other sources (including the website of the CWC's successor,WWE) credit Jess himself as the founder of the CWC.[4][5][6] Shortly after its founding, the CWC joined theNational Wrestling Alliance (NWA) and Mondt soon after joined the CWC. Together, Vincent J. McMahon and Toots Mondt were very successful and controlled approximately 70% of the NWA board's booking decisions, largely due to their dominance in the heavily populatednortheastern United States.
In early 1963, the CWC pulled out of the NWA and transformed into the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), the precursor to current-dayWWE, following a dispute over CWC wrestlerBuddy Rogers beingbooked to lose theNWA World Heavyweight Championship toLou Thesz.[7] McMahon and Mondt continued to promote Rogers as the NWA World Heavyweight Champion, despite his loss to Thesz, until April 11 when they awarded him the inauguralWWWF World Heavyweight Championship. Rogers lost the WWWF title toBruno Sammartino on May 17. Despite the change in the promotion'strade name, the company was still known legally as Capitol Wrestling Corporation Ltd., which served as the holding company for the WWWF and later the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) until 1982.
The WWWF operated in a conservative manner compared to other wrestling promotions of its time;[8] it ran its major arenas monthly rather than weekly or bi-weekly, usually featuring ababyface champion wrestling variousheels in programs that consisted of one to three matches.[9] After gaining a television deal and turning the well-knowntag team wrestlerLou Albano into amanager for Sammartino's heel opponents, the WWWF began doing sell out business and, by 1970, became one of the largest promotions of wrestling'sterritorial era.
After disagreements over television deals which were compounded by issues caused by hisgambling addiction, Mondt was "muscled out" of the leadership of the WWWF and ultimately sold off his shares to McMahon in the mid-1960s. McMahon later made Mondt a salaried employee of the WWWF, an arrangement that continued until Mondt's death on June 11, 1976. The WWWF rejoined the NWA in 1971.
By March 1979, for marketing purposes, the World Wide Wrestling Federation was renamed the World Wrestling Federation (WWF).[10] The following year, Vincent J. McMahon's son,Vincent K. McMahon, founded Titan Sports, Inc., which incorporated on February 21, 1980, originally inMassachusetts.[11][12] Vincent K. McMahon had served as aring announcer andcommentator for WWWF television programs since 1969. Beginning in 1971, he began promoting events for his father in isolated regions of the WWWF territory, primarily inMaine.
In 1982, Titan Sports, Inc. acquired Capitol Wrestling Corporation Ltd., effectively relocating its headquarters from New York City toGreenwich, Connecticut. At the annual meeting of the NWA in 1983, the McMahons and WWF employeeJim Barnett all withdrew from the organization.[7] In 1984, in an attempt to make the WWF the premier wrestling promotion in the world, McMahon began a national (and later international) expansion that fundamentally changed the wrestling industry and brought an end to its territorial era.[13] By 1985, Titan Sports moved its headquarters toTitan Towers inStamford, Connecticut and, in 1987, reincorporated itself underDelaware General Corporation Law. Titan Sports later changed its name to World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. in 1999, and World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE) in 2002.[14] Vincent J. McMahon would not live to see his company transform from a territorial Northeast-based wrestling promotion into a worldwide entertainment organization. He died frompancreatic cancer at 69 years old on May 24, 1984.[15]
In October 2020, WWE'sNXTbrand introduced the "Capitol Wrestling Center", a new home studio inOrlando, Florida within theWWE Performance Center training facility, which was named as a tribute to the CWC.[16]
He inaugurated his promotion on January 7, 1952, [...].
On January 7, 1953, he put on the first-ever Capitol Wrestling Corporation event
McMahon formed a company he called the Capitol Wrestling Corporation, and presented his first regular wrestling show under the Capitol banner on January 7, 1953
From the time Vince, Sr. took over Capitol Wrestling Corporation from his father, the company continued to flourish in the northeastern United States.
