Date: January 24th, 1963 Event: NWA House Show Age Of Champion: 46 years, 275 days What, at first, seems like a normal title change in the 1960's is actually the setup for something very historic. If you weren't aware, the National Wrestling Alliance featured a governing body that would decide who their champion would be. It wasn't always who everyone wanted, but the changes happened nonetheless. In 1963, Buddy Rogers was the NWA World Champion, but Lou Thesz was chosen to be the man who would dethrone him. Thesz was coming out of retirement for this title change. Rogers began to have doubts about whether or not he should lose to Thesz, and the story goes that Thesz basically used his legendary skills as a legitimate in-ring shooter to threaten Rogers into "doing the right thing". Thesz would win the title, but the promoters of Rogers' territory didn't like the move, and would withdraw from the NWA to start their own promotion as a result. Those promoters? Vince McMahon Sr. and Toots Mondt. That new promotion? The World Wide Wrestling Federation. Rogers would be named the very first WWWF Champion, and the rest, as they say, is history. Had Thesz not been pegged as the new champion, who knows what the future would have been for the company that we all know as WWE today?
Columnist/Podcaster/Director at LordsOfPain.net for nearly seven years, with nearly 2000 total columns written. Interviewed and/or involved in interviewing the likes of Tyler Black/Seth Rollins (twice), Diamond Dallas Page, Jimmy Jacobs, Christopher Daniels, Uhaa Nation and more.
