15 Biggest False Narratives In Wrestling History
10. WWE Did Not Make Wrestling ‘Big’
Wrestling, before Vince McMahon monopolised it, was not - in the infamous words of Paul Levesque - “this tiny little thing happening in bars”.
Levesque, who patterned much of his act around the work of Ric Flair and Harley Race, should know better than anybody that the classic NWA World’s Heavyweight title matches didn’t take place in the Rose & Crown.
Wrestling was huge on a splintered, regional basis before Vince McMahon embarked on his expansion project. In fact, when Vince McMahon was just a tiny child - an actual tiny child, and not just in his personality and demeanour - pro wrestling was a massive early hit on this newfangled thing called “television”.
Vince best capitalised on the game-changer that was cable television in the 1980s, but he didn’t pioneer the medium: Dusty Rhodes, one of the first stars of cable television irrespective of his profession, did. Hell, the (W)WWF itself sold out Madison Square Garden countless times before Junior ever “bought” the promotion.
The WWF made itself bigger at the expense of what it left behind of the industry. If anything, the average attendance of pro wrestling events in the states declined when the WWF went national.
This is a total lie dreamed up to position WWE “above” tawdry wrasslin’, which is anathema to the advertising industry.