Mustang Sally
Sells seashells by the seashore
Lesson-The roots of what we know today as the largest professional wrestling company in existence extend back to 1952, when Roderick Jess McMahon and Toots Mondt formed Capitol Wrestling Corp. Two years later, Jess died and his son Vincent McMahon Sr. took his place.
Mondt and Jess McMahon were longtime boxing and wrestling promoters who created Capitol Wrestling Corporation LTD to form an independent promotion in the Northeast US, an area which was .and is .a hotbed for pro wrestling. A year later, they united with the huge NWA promotion and gained great power within the organization, soon accounting for a majority of NWA bookings .and inevitably, breaking with NWA over a dispute involving whether to install Buddy Rogers as NWA champion. When NWA refused, Capitol Wrestling went their own way in 1963, changing their name to the World Wide Wrestling Federation.
Toots Mondt was the personification of an old-time promoter, with roots going back to the 1920s, when he himself was a pro wrestler. As a promoter, he had ties to legendary wrestlers such as Jim Londos, Strangler Lewis, Antonino Rocca and Bruno Sammartino, all of whom he worked with and helped develop. His influence in the industry was tremendous and his innovations helped bring pro wrestling out of the old style which featured strict mat grappling with little movement and almost no flying tactics and other crowd-pleasing maneuvers. For years, he was the promoter at Madison Square Garden, the linchpin of pro wrestling in the Northeast.
Vince McMahon Sr. was a primarily a businessman. While Mondt handled the wrestling aspects of running the show, McMahon was instrumental in keeping Jim Crockett Productions, an influential promoter in the South, from infringing on his territory ..a technique subsequently mastered by his son, Vince Jr. As well, McMahon Sr. was at the forefront of utilizing television to broadcast his product, making a deal in 1955 with the DuMont network to air his Capitol Wrestling matches from Washington, DC. In those days, TV was used mainly to promote the monthly house shows at Madison Square Garden and other arenas in the Northeast. Today, TV is much more.
But even as the Mondt-McMahon alliance kept the east almost exclusively in their hands, continual disagreements between the two principals widened the growing gap between them, with McMahon shunting Mondt to the side and eventually forcing Toots to sell his share of the business to Vince Sr. But there were years of successful operation before the split.
When Mondt and McMahon united their Capitol promotion with NWA in 1952, it was a mutually satisfactory arrangement. NWA gained a foothold in the Northeast, the one area of the US in that it was weakest, while Capitol took advantage of the industry-wide prestige of NWA. But matters changed over the years and political dealings had taken over machinations in the two companies. Capitol wanted Buddy Rogers to become the world champion, while NWA preferred the old-style wrestling of Lou Thesz. NWAs refusal to yield to this demand led to the split between the two promotions and the formation by McMahon and Mondt of the World Wide Wrestling Federation in 1963. They took Buddy Rogers with them and installed him as the first WWWF world champion by claiming he had won a tournament in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil .a fictional event.
Buddy Rogers was quite a figure in his day. He gained enough power in the industry to operate as a wrestler and booker and also a promoter for himself, it might be said, as he managed to work for three promotions at the same time, even as his allegiance was pledged mainly to NWA. Rogers was one of the first pro wrestlers to bleach his hair and set the standard for the good looking, arrogant playboy who tormented opponents with his personality as well as his ring work. Many of todays villains owe their style to the standard set by Buddy Rogers.
The problem was, although signing Rogers gave instant credibility to the new WWWF promotion, Rogers was age 42 in 1963 and starting to wear down after so many years of competing. Even worse, a slight heart attack limited his endurance and effectiveness in the ring immediately after he won the title, and rather than feature someone whom the fans couldnt fully appreciate, it was decided to have Buddy quickly drop the world title to the up & coming Bruno Sammartino, a dynamic Italian wrestler whom Toots Mondt helped develop and with whom he enjoyed a good relationship. After that, Rogers didnt last long with WWWF, which was ironic given that a disagreement over him was what led to the dissolution of the Capitol-NWA pairing.
Interestingly, Vince McMahon Sr. proved he should stick to the business side of operating a promotion, as he felt that Bruno Sammartino would never make it as a big-time wrestler. Fortunately, Toots Mondt managed to prevail and pushed Bruno, who proved to be the biggest attraction pro wrestling ever knew before the advent of the Internet and international marketing. Had Toots attempted this a few years later, his declining influence might have led McMahon to get rid of Bruno before he could get started .and only heaven knows how WWWF/WWF/WWE .and perhaps pro wrestling itself would have attained the heights it enjoys now.
Toots Mondt died in 1976, having minimal contact with WWWF in his final years. Vince McMahon Sr. sold his stock to his son in 1982, then died in 1984.