National Wrestling Alliance

Tim Hornbaker

Description

In the 1950s in Las Vegas, a businessman's conglomerate dominating a 25 million a year sports industry hid their practices from the US Dept of Justice. The sport that placed cold hard cash over honest competition? Pro wrestling. The conspirators? The National Wrestling Alliance. Hornbaker examines the NWA's huge success - and their relationships to influential politicians and writers, who protected their financial interests for over 50 years. Breaking the facade of sports production, he also shows how promoters actually resorted to violence to edge out competition.

Sujets

• Lucha libre profesional
• Wrestling

Informations

• Publié par: Ecw Press
• Date de parution: 16 novembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781554902743
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

NATIONAL WRESTLING ALLIANCE
NATIONAL WRESTLING ALLIANCE
The Untold Story of the Monopoly That Strangled Pro Wrestling
TIM HORNBAKER
Copyright Tim Hornbaker, 2007
Published by ECW Press 2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200 Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E 1E2 416.694.3348 / [e-mail]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise - without the prior written permission of the copyright owners and ECW Press.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Hornbaker, Tim National Wrestling Alliance: the untold story of the monopoly that strangled pro wrestling / Tim Hornbaker
ISBN -13: 978-1-55022-741-3 ISBN -10: 1-55022-741-6
1. National Wrestling Alliance - History. 2. National Wrestling Alliance - Corrupt practices. 3. Wrestling promoters - United States. 4. Wrestling - United States - History - 20th century. 5. Wrestling - Corrupt practices - United States. I. Title.
GV1195.H67 2006 796.8120973 C2006-904102-4
Editor: Michael Holmes Production: Mary Bowness Second Printing: Thomson-Shore
This book is set in Adobe Garamond and Trajan
PRINTED AND BOUND IN THE UNITED STATES
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
1. THE ORIGINS OF A WRESTLING MONOPOLY
2. INTERNATIONAL EXPANSION
3. THE UNDISPUTED CHAMP: Lou Thesz
4. THE BACKBONE OF THE ALLIANCE: Sam Muchnick
5. THE NEKOOSA STRANGLER: Ed Strangler Lewis
6. CHICAGO S CONSUMMATE ENTREPRENEUR: Fred Kohler
7. THE RED-HAIRED SHOOTER: Joe Toots Mondt
8. WRESTLING S FIRST $100,000 GATE: Thesz vs. Leone
9. UNITED STATES V. THE NATIONAL WRESTLING ALLIANCE
10. SONNY MYERS V. THE NWA
11. THE FOUNDING FATHER RESIGNS
12. THE EXPANSION OF CAPITOL WRESTLING
13. NWA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONS (1948-1975)
14. DISTINGUISHED WRESTLING CHAMPIONS
15. PROMOTIONAL WARS
16. BOOKING WRESTLING S FUTURE: The Members of the NWA
17. NWA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONS (1975-Present)
18. NWA HISTORY (1975-Present)
Acknowledgments
About the photos
Photo credits
Introduction
Crystallized in the annals of professional wrestling are the glory days of the National Wrestling Alliance, once standing as the most powerful organization in the sport s history. Formed several years after the end of World War II, the NWA bloomed from a modest Midwestern trade agreement into an exclusive syndicate, and its members demonstrated a newfangled methodology and foresight in the hopes of enhancing the industry. Cooperating to define a layered doctrine, regional circuits or territories, and the streamlining of titleholders, NWA members improved all aspects of grappling. The group appeared to be an honest collection of people serving wrestling s best interests, which, in turn, left the NWA with few detractors.
Over the course of several years, the NWA morphed from a well-intentioned, localized union of promoters into an international conglomerate with an estimated 500 affiliates. Effectively pulling the strings of wrestling s biggest superstars, while providing exceptional entertainment for legions of fans worldwide, the Alliance soon controlled wrestling and its $25 million-a-year revenue. On the surface, there didn t appear to be anything wrong with the NWA s practices.
But by allowing their imaginations to spiral recklessly out of control, NWA members created complex fortresses that steadily punctured holes in the law. Persistent complaints about an illegal monopoly eventually attracted the attention of the Department of Justice, and set the table for a Federal Court case that was supposed to have ended the NWA s exclusive reign. The coalition was shaken to its very foundations, but found a way to survive. Through the hard work of the organization s major supporters, and the dedication of the thousands of wrestlers who traveled the world to meet the astronomical demand for pro wrestling, the Alliance endured.
Loyal fans today acknowledge the NWA s vast tradition, and respect the men and women who were committed to the institution and the sport as a whole. Wrestlers like Lou Thesz, Buddy Rogers, Whipper Billy Watson, Danny Hodge, Pat O Connor, Gene Kiniski, Jack Brisco, the Funk Brothers, Harley Race, and Ric Flair were the heroes who built the National Wrestling Alliance, and for more than four decades, symbolized professional wrestling excellence.
CHAPTER ONE THE ORIGINS OF A WRESTLING MONOPOLY

During the 1940s, professional wrestling was predominantly controlled by two shrewd promoters: Tom Packs of St. Louis and Paul Bowser of Boston. Driven by the prospects of making money and increasing their share of the market in the United States and Canada, they presided over a jagged period in the sport s history. Their influence was amplified due to their personal management of the National Wrestling Association ( NWA ) and American Wrestling Association ( AWA ) champions, and it was widely accepted that Packs s Bill Longson and Bowser s Frank Sexton were the top two heavyweights in the business.
In many regards, Bowser s status was secondary to Packs s because of the latter s connections to the leaders of the NWA , an impressive gallery of state athletic commission members. The NWA authorized Packs to supervise the direction of their prized championship, which dated back to 1930, and the St. Louis promoter happily seized all of the power that came with such an endorsement. Having officially booked the champion since 1939, he was the catalyst behind the title reigns of acclaimed wrestlers Lou Thesz, Bronko Nagurski, Ray Steele, and Sandor Szabo.
Known as an assertive capitalist, Packs was respected for turning St. Louis into one of the finest wrestling cities in the world. His amazing success, coupled with a czar-like attitude, infuriated many of his fellow Midwestern promoters, and by the early 1940s, a rival movement began to take hold in the region. The outsiders each may have been slow in devising an effective cohesion, but their passion to sustain their operations without having to rely on Packs to send talent or his champion Longson was truly a motivating factor.
Orville Brown was the first major player to declare his independence. A hardworking family man and up-and-coming wrestler, he took a job in Kansas City as a booking agent for promoter George Simpson in 1940. Although he had a farm in the Columbus, Ohio, area and worked regularly for Al Haft, Brown was eager to return to his home state. He wanted in on the business end of wrestling in addition to holding a claim to the heavyweight championship, and on June 13, 1940, he beat Bobby Bruns at the Memorial Hall to capture the Midwest Wrestling Association world title. As the territory s principal fan-favorite for the decade to follow, Brown drew great crowds for his matches against dynamic opponents.
Soon thereafter, Brown s booking enterprises expanded to St. Joseph, Topeka, and Wichita. Wichita, incidentally, was the headquarters of Billy Sandow and Maxwell Baumann, a brother tandem who fronted the second group to stray from Packs s syndicate. While Sandow and Baumann had ill feelings toward Brown for running opposition in their town, it was their dislike of Packs s tyranny that spurred their actions in January 1941. Using a colorless derivative of the National Wrestling Association name, the siblings started the National Wrestling Alliance, a sanctioning body under the control of a handful of businessmen.
To give their immature promotion footing, they gave Packs s champion Ray Steele until February 9 to consent to a match with Roy Dunn, the superstar of their faction, or be stripped of his title. The threat, limited to clubs in Kansas, wasn t overwhelming. Dunn s credentials were respectable, but he had had a tough time making his mark in professional wrestling, and lacked the flamboyance and connections to rise to the top. An AAU heavyweight champion out of Oklahoma A M, and member of the 1936 U.S. Olympic team, he was impressed by the will of Sandow and Baumann to determine their own course, away from the glitz and glamour of the big shots of grappling.
Possessing an exceptional reputation as a shooter, Steele s nerve and skill could not be questioned. His time was constrained by the National Wrestling Association circuit, and he couldn t afford to squeeze in a ridiculous legitimate match with a former Olympian, especially when it wouldn t have benefited him in the slightest. When Steele failed to sign, the National Wrestling Alliance gave Dunn the title, and Roy was furnished a yellow-and-white-gold championship belt with 200 small diamonds encased in platinum.
It was true that the substantial figures being put up by Bill Longson were enough to create some level of harmony among promoters once separated by their champions. Primarily a heel, Longson drew better than 570,000 fans over his first 58 appearances in St. Louis between 1941 and 1944, was traveling at least 80,000 miles a year, and reportedly earning $50,000 annually. He matched up perfectly with any of the sport s leading grapplers, and shined in bouts against Bobby Managoff, Yvon Robert, Lou Thesz, and Whipper Billy Watson.
Despite the achievements of Longson, Sandow and Baumann were still reluctant to kowtow to Packs, even with their audience down because of the war. On April 28, 1942, they had Dunn lose the Alliance title to Ede Virag (Ede Ebner), who, in turn, traded the belt with John Grandovich on August 12 in Topeka, and on October 26 in Wichita. In June 1943, Virag took a booking into virgin territory, Des Moines, for wise entrepreneur Paul Pinkie George.
For several years, George had sought a stable moneymaker. He d enticed AWA champion Maurice The Angel Tillet and NWA champion Sandor Szabo to do a handful of sporadic appearances. He imported Brown from Kansas City and Orville exceeded all expectations. Nevertheless, Brown s title claim in Des Moines was ultima