World Wide Wrestling Federation
In the early 1960s, the CWC still was with the NWA, but a controversy emerged when Vincent J. McMahon and Toots Mondt gave the NWA World Heavyweight Championship to Buddy Rogers, who was considered a showman rather than a pure wrestler. After Buddy Rogers lost the title to Lou Thesz, McMahon and Mondt left the NWA in protest and created the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), awarding Rogers the new WWWF World Championship.
A month after, Rogers lost the title to Bruno Sammartino. Sammartino would retain the title for seven years, eight months, and one day, making his the longest continuous world title reign in men's wrestling history. At this time, and for most of this era, Bruno Sammartino was the face of the company, but some of fellow wrestlers such as Billy Graham and Bob Backlund were also popular. The WWWF gained notoriety in the 1970s by holding their biggest shows at Shea Stadium or Madison Square Garden and selling out almost every night. They leveraged former, but still popular, wrestlers such as Lou Albano, Ernie Roth and Fred Blassie to act as managers for Sammartino's heel opponents. At this time, only babyface wrestlers were allowed to have long title reigns, such as Bruno Sammartino, Pedro Morales and Bob Backlund, who all retained for more than one year each. The heel champions, such as Ivan Koloff and Stan Stasiak were used to transition the title from one wrestler to another, and they generally kept the title for no more than a few months before dropping it to the next babyface. Superstar Billy Graham was the only heel character to keep his title for more than nine months.
Toots Mondt left the WWWF in the late sixties, and Vince McMahon, Sr rejoined the organization in 1971. Later that year, The Mongols created controversy after they left the WWWF with the WWWF International Tag Team Championship. The titles would be considered inactive as a result until Luke Graham and Tarzan Tyler won a tournament to claim the titles. They then defeated the Mongols in November 1971, voiding any claim the Mongols had to the titles. In March 1979, for marketing purposes, the World Wide Wrestling Federation was renamed the World Wrestling Federation (WWF).
Read more about this topic: History Of WWE
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