Professional Wrestling’s Territory System

Professional Wrestling's Territory System

In 1948, after decades of competing with each other, an agreement was made to bring all the territories into one national alliance, forming the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). This also brought forth the first recognized "World Heavyweight Championship," where Lou Thez became it's first champion. Despite the agreements that Lou would be champion, many promoters wanted to keep their main stars looking strong. They often employed shoot matches (non-fixed matches) for the top talent to beat Lou in championship matches. The matches were able to succeed due to two main factors: the rise of television in the United States, and the implementation of The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. Signed into law by President Dwight Eisenhower, the Highway act created 41,000 miles of new highway in the United States over a 10 year period  Traveling to live shows became more feasible for the public due to the new highway system. This coincided with the boom of the wrestling territories allowing more eyes on the matches.  Also, the rise of television networks caused a need for more content, and wrestling was cheap programming for them to buy. 

During this time the idea of gimmick wrestlers also became more and more popular. Instead of just being strong men who competed for titles, you would see characters who were defined by one major aspect. These could include heels (bad guys) who took on the evil foreigner gimmick, such as the Iron Shiek. However, the most popular character of the early days of the territories was George Wagner, more commonly known by his stage name, Gorgeous George. George was not a physically imposing man at five foot nine. He would come out in an effeminate outfit, mock the crowds, and most importantly followed his motto, "Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat!" George's natural charisma and natural ability to draw massive "heel heat" (audience hatred of the character) made him the ideal villain for the growing television audiences.

Eventually the NWA would begin to show cracks as many of the promotions viewed the entity as a corrupt tyrant holding back innovations in the business. Due to this growing disdain, promotions would leave the NWA. The biggest impact would be from the American Wrestling Association (AWA) and the New York based Capitol Wrestling Corporation (later renamed the World Wide Wrestling Federation <WWWF>) agreement to leave NWA at the same time. The WWWF's exit would be a huge blow to the NWA as the New York promotion not only held one of the biggest venues, Madison Square Garden, but also one of the highest population densities in the nation. This caused NWA's loss of a huge market. The WWWF also had Bruno Sammartino, often regarded as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time. Bruno's popularity would be the beginning of the WWWF becoming the biggest promotion of all time and evolving into the company we know today as the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE).