Today's WWE, under the stewardship of Vincent K. McMahon, is a far cry from the earlier incarnations of the company. If you took into account the fact that WWE, which began as Capitol Sports in 1956, and took the name World Wide Wrestling Federation in 1963, has had programming on television for over 60 years, you'd wonder why McMahon doesn't acknowledge the work of his father & grandfather, without whom, we wouldn't have WWE today.
Heavyweight Wrestling From Washington launched as a regional syndicated series in 1956, and continued until McMahon, often referred to as Vince, Jr., took the mic as announcer in 1970. At that point, the program split into two component parts, which could air any time during the day on Saturday or Sunday.
Following is a compilation of two episodes from 1966. Ray Morgan (ex-Gang Busters) is at the mic, and if you listen close, much of the patter of Morgan's commentary was picked up by the over-the-top Vince McMahon a few years later.
Forgive both the audio and video quality. The audio is a tad off most of the way.
Rating: B-. Points taken off for the audio & video defects.
Capital Wrestling Corp. the company was actually formed in 1953, by JESS McMahon. After Jess died in 1954, Vince Sr took over the territory & company, along with Toots Mondt & a few of Jess McMahon’s old associates. The TV show Capital Wrestling Heavyweight Wrestling From Washington DC is what started in 1956. And Vince & modern day WWE do acknowledge all this stuff. In fact all this information is on WWE.COM, and they’ve even made a DVD about the company’s history starting with Jess & Toots & documenting all this stuff, as well. I do wish they released more of the early footage, since The McMahon family history goes back to the 1920s…A lot of stuff has been released on various Coliseum Video VHS Compilations back in the 80s, as well as on the WWE Network in modern times. I was just watching some last night from 1966, 1965, & 1961.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the clarification.
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