World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is an American professional wrestling promotion. It is the largest and most valuable wrestling promotion in the world and has expanded beyond professional wrestling into film, football, and other business ventures, including the licensing of its intellectual property to other companies to produce video games and action figures. WWE is owned and operated by TKO Group Holdings, a majority-owned subsidiary of the WME Group.
As in other professional wrestling promotions, WWE does not promote a legitimate sporting contest but rather entertainment-based, athletic mock combat performance theater, featuring storyline-driven, scripted, and partially choreographed matches. However, matches often include moves that put performers at risk of serious injury or death if not performed correctly. The predetermined nature of professional wrestling was publicly acknowledged by WWE in 1989 to avoid regulation by athletic commissions. WWE markets its product as "sports entertainment", acknowledging professional wrestling's roots in competitive sport and dramatic theater.
The promotion traces its origins to the formation of the Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC), founded in 1953 by Jess McMahon or Vincent J. McMahon as a Northeastern territory of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). Following a booking dispute, CWC left the NWA and rebranded to the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) in April 1963. The promotion shortened its name to the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1979. In 1982, Titan Sports, founded by Vincent K. McMahon (commonly known as Vince McMahon) and Linda McMahon, acquired the company from Vincent J. McMahon. Under Vince's leadership, the WWF expanded from a regional promotion into the dominant force in professional wrestling and a global entertainment company. The company played a major role in bringing professional wrestling into mainstream popular culture through periods such as the Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection, the Attitude Era, and the development of WrestleMania into the world's largest annual professional wrestling event. Following a trademark dispute with the World Wildlife Fund, the WWF was renamed World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in 2002, and adopted the initials WWE as its primary branding in 2011.
WWE's main roster is divided into two touring brands, Raw and SmackDown. Its developmental brands, NXT and Evolve, are based at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. The promotion's programming is available in more than one billion homes worldwide in 30 languages and its global headquarters is located in Stamford, Connecticut, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Mumbai, Shanghai, Singapore, Dubai, and Munich.
In January 2023, WWE began to explore a sale of the company, amid allegations of misconduct involving Vince McMahon, which had previously led to his resignation as chairman and CEO. In September 2023, WWE merged with Zuffa, the parent company of mixed martial arts promotion Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), to form TKO Group Holdings, publicly traded company majority-owned by Endeavor Group Holdings. McMahon initially served as executive chairman of TKO, and WWE's legal name was changed to World Wrestling Entertainment, LLC. In 2024, McMahon resigned from TKO amid a sex trafficking scandal and was replaced as executive chairman by Ari Emanuel.
Company history
Capitol Wrestling Corporation (1953–1963)
WWE's origins can be traced back as far as the 1950s when on January 7, 1953, the first show under the Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC) was produced. There is uncertainty as to who the founder of the CWC was. Some sources state that it was Vincent J. McMahon, while other sources cite McMahon's father Jess McMahon as founder of CWC. The CWC later joined the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) and famous New York promoter Toots Mondt soon joined the promotion.
Vincent J. McMahon and Toots Mondt acquired control of approximately 70% of the NWA's booking power, largely due to their dominance in the heavily populated Northeastern United States. In 1963, McMahon and Mondt had a dispute with the NWA over "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers being booked to hold the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Mondt and McMahon were not only promoters but also acted as his manager and were accused by other NWA promoters of withholding Rogers making defenses in their cities versus only defending in Mondt and McMahon's own cities, thus maintaining a monopoly on the world title. In a now-infamous situation, the NWA sent former five-time world champion and legitimate wrestler Lou Thesz to Toronto to face Rogers on January 24, 1963. Thesz recalls this was not planned and prior to the match remembered telling Buddy "We can do this the easy way or the hard way." Rogers agreed to lose the fall and title in a one fall match versus the traditional two out of three fall matchup that most world title matches were defended. Once word reached back to Mondt and McMahon, at first they simply ignored the title change. From January until April 1963, Rogers was promoted as the NWA World Champion, or simply the World Heavyweight Champion, in their area.
World Wide Wrestling Federation (1963–1979)
Led by Mondt and McMahon, the CWC withdrew from the NWA in protest. Following this departure, the promotion rebranded as the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF). They were accompanied by Willie Gilzenberg, a longtime boxing and wrestling promoter based in New Jersey. In April 1963, the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship was created, with the promotion claiming that inaugural champion Rogers had won a tournament in Rio de Janeiro on April 25, 1963, defeating long time Capitol favorite Antonino Rocca in the finals. In reality, Rocca was no longer in the area, as he was working for Jim Crockett Sr. in the Carolinas. Rogers also had already suffered what would later be a career ending heart attack on April 18 in Akron, Ohio, and was in an Ohio hospital during the time the alleged tournament took place. Rogers lost the championship to Bruno Sammartino a month later on May 17, with the promotion beginning to be built around Sammartino shortly after.
In June 1963, Gilzenberg was named the first president of the WWWF. Mondt left the promotion in the late 1960s and although the WWWF had previously withdrawn from the NWA, McMahon quietly re-joined in 1971.
World Wrestling Federation and Titan Sports (1979–2002) Purchase of WWF by Titan Sports (1979–1984) The WWWF was renamed the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1979. In 1980, Vincent J. McMahon's son, Vincent K. McMahon, and his wife Linda established Titan Sports, Inc. in South Yarmouth, Massachusetts, and applied trademarks for the initials "WWF". The company was incorporated on February 21, 1980, in the Cape Cod Coliseum offices, then moved to the building on Holly Hill Lane in Greenwich, Connecticut.
The younger McMahon bought CWC from his father in 1982, effectively seizing control of the company. The actual date of sale is still unknown but the generally accepted date is June 6, 1982; however, this was likely only the date the deal was struck but not finalized. On WWF television, CWC maintained copyrights and ownership past the June 1982 date. The World Wrestling Federation was not solely owned by Vincent J. McMahon but also by Gorilla Monsoon, Arnold Skaaland and Phil Zacko. The deal between the two McMahons was a monthly payment basis, in which if a single payment was missed, ownership would revert to the elder McMahon and his business partners. Looking to seal the deal quickly, McMahon took several loans and deals with other promoters and the business partners (including the promise of a job for life) in order to take full ownership by May or June 1983 for an estimated total of roughly $1 million with the three business partners receiving roughly $815,000 among them and Vincent J. McMahon receiving roughly $185,000.Death of the Territories: Expansion, Betrayal and the War that Changed Pro Wrestling Forever by Tim Hornbaker. September 2018. Seeking to make the WWF the premier wrestling promotion in the country, and eventually, the world, he began an expansion process that fundamentally changed the wrestling business.
At the annual meeting of the NWA in 1983, the McMahons and former Capitol employee Jim Barnett all withdrew from the organization. McMahon also worked to get WWF programming on syndicated television all across the United States. This angered other promoters and disrupted the well-established boundaries of the different wrestling promotions, eventually ending the territory system, which was in use since the founding of the NWA in the 1940s. In addition, the company used income generated by advertising, television deals, and tape sales to secure talent from rival promoters. In an interview with Sports Illustrated, McMahon was quoted as saying: "In the old days, there were wrestling fiefdoms all over the country, each with its own little lord in charge. Each little lord respected the rights of his neighboring little lord. No takeovers or raids were allowed. There were maybe 30 of these tiny kingdoms in the U.S. and if I hadn't bought out my dad, there would still be 30 of them, fragmented and struggling. I, of course, had no allegiance to those little lords."
Golden Era (1984–1993)
McMahon gained significant traction when he hired American Wrestling Association (AWA) talent Hulk Hogan, who had achieved popularity outside of wrestling, notably for his appearance in the film Rocky III (1982). McMahon signed Roddy Piper as Hogan's rival, and then shortly afterward Jesse Ventura as an announcer. Other wrestlers joined the roster, such as The Iron Sheik, Nikolai Volkoff, Junkyard Dog, Paul Orndorff, Greg Valentine, and Ricky Steamboat, joining existing stars such as Jimmy Snuka, Don Muraco, Sgt. Slaughter and André the Giant. Many of the wrestlers who would later join the WWF were former AWA or NWA talent.
The WWF initiated a national tour, a venture requiring massive capital investment that ultimately pushed the promotion to the brink of bankruptcy. The future of McMahon's experiment came down to the success or failure of McMahon's groundbreaking concept, WrestleMania. WrestleMania was a major success and was (and still is) marketed as the Super Bowl of professional wrestling. The concept of a wrestling supercard was nothing new in North America; the NWA had begun running Starrcade a few years prior. In McMahon's eyes, however, what separated WrestleMania from other supercards was that it was intended to be accessible to those who did not watch wrestling. He invited celebrities such as Mr. T, Muhammad Ali, and Cyndi Lauper to participate in the event, as well as securing a deal with MTV to provide coverage. The event and hype surrounding it led to the term Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection, due to the cross-promotion of popular culture and professional wrestling. It has been acknowledged that Lauper and her then boyfriend and manager Dave Wolff, himself a wrestling fan, were among the most instrumental in helping the WWF connect with the MTV audience, with Wolff being considered as the person who engineered the rock 'n' wrestling connection.