[ride the lightning]

Welcome to the WWE Campaign Thread

We deserve to get our board back!

In 1980, the son of Vincent J. McMahon, Vincent Kennedy McMahon, founded Titan Sports, Inc. and in 1982 purchased Capitol Wrestling Corporation from his father. The elder McMahon had long since established the northeastern territory as one of the most vibrant members of the NWA. He had long since recognized that professional wrestling was more about entertainment than actual sport. Against his father's wishes, McMahon began an expansion process that fundamentally changed the sport.

Other promoters were furious when McMahon began syndicating WWF television shows to television stations across the United States, in areas outside of the WWF's traditional northeastern stronghold. McMahon also began selling videotapes of WWF events outside the Northeast through his Coliseum Video distribution company. He effectively broke the unwritten law of regionalism around which the entire industry had been based. To make matters worse, McMahon used the income generated by advertising, television deals, and tape sales to poach talent from rival promoters. Wrestling promoters nationwide were now in direct competition with the WWF.

According to several reports, the elder McMahon warned his son: "Vinny, what are you doing? You'll wind up at the bottom of a river." In spite of such warnings, the younger McMahon had an even bolder ambition: the WWF would tour nationally. Such a venture, however, required huge capital investment; one that placed the WWF on the verge of financial collapse. The future of not just McMahon's experiment, but also the WWF, the NWA, and the whole industry came down to the success or failure of McMahon's groundbreaking concept, WrestleMania.

The original WrestleMania, held in 1985, was a resounding success. This event is sometimes credited as the debut of what McMahon called "sports entertainment", in contrast to his father's preference of pure wrestling. The WWF did incredible business on the shoulders of McMahon and his all-American babyface hero, Hulk Hogan, for the next several years, creating what some observers dubbed a second golden age for professional wrestling.

In 1993, the WWF broke new ground in televised professional wrestling with the debut of its cable program WWF Monday Night Raw. After becoming a runaway success, WCW in 1995 countered with its own Monday night cable program, WCW Monday Nitro, in the same time slot as Raw. The feuds and match types developed by the end of the mid 1990's began a new era in wrestling. The fans of the WWF seemed to favor what was posed to them as the bad guy instead of the good guy. The creative changes made by the WWF creative board saw wrestling take on a "street fighting," "bad attitude" approach, however despite the revolutionary changes in sports-entertainment that the WWF founded, these years remain the lowest of the WWF's financial income and a heavy loss in fandom to rival WCW.

By January 1998, the WWF began broadcasting more violence, swearing, and more edgy angles in its attempt to compete with WCW. After Bret Hart left for WCW following the Montreal Screwjob incident, Vince McMahon used the resulting backlash in the creation of his "Mr. McMahon" character, a dictatorial and fierce ruler who favored heels who were "good for business" over "misfit" faces like Austin. This, in turn, led to the Austin vs. McMahon feud, which, along with D-Generation X, officially began the Attitude Era.

The Attitude Era turned the tide of the Monday Night Wars into WWF's favor for good. After Time Warner merged with AOL, Ted Turner's power over WCW was considerably reduced, and the newly merged company decided to get rid of WCW entirely. In March 2001, WWF Entertainment, Inc. acquired World Championship Wrestling, Inc. from AOL Time Warner for a number reported to be around $7 million. With this purchase, WWF was now the largest wrestling promotion in the world, and the only one in North America with mainstream exposure.

On May 5, 2002, the company quietly changed all references on its website from "WWF" to "WWE", while switching the URL from WWF.com to WWE.com. The next day, a press release announced the official name change from World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. to World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., or WWE, and the change was publicized later that day during a telecast of Monday Night Raw.

In March 2002, roughly two months before the name change, WWE decided to create two separate rosters, Raw and SmackDown! due to the overabundance of talent left over from the Invasion storyline. This is known as the WWE Brand Extension. In addition to the Brand Extension, WWE holds a Draft Lottery every year. On May 26, 2006, WWE revived Extreme Championship Wrestling as its third brand.

Supporters:

::Jen
XXREESE1XX
~+Yamiko
- Nina -
-Bianca-
XChris76X
ღmaybe this time
amble
az2008
B.Clam
BrathanSupporter
britbritfan82
BeautifulN
canflam
CappieTauLove
crazyca
Dean&Jo4ever
gypsie
HaleyJamesFan
IluvChad18
Jemistry
Johnnie
Jordan23
kgp1217
Lennie1984
LittleMonster
Matt Logan
mjgchick
MRLG
MrsCrawford101
Ms Cyatt
oth.fan
Poupa
quin611
r3tr0_gam3r
RainbowChaser
ride the lightning
scott5ivegirlfr
Sarita234
starryxnight
Subject87
The Crazy Chan-Chan Man
tifa_look_alike
Velvetsen
45. wingster

[-Bianca-]

I miss the old board, so definitely add me!

Hopefully we can get it back, at some point.

[storm warning]

definitely add me!

[ride the lightning]

Adding you guys If you want anything else added into the OP let me know

[Johnnie]

You can add me... I've missed visiting that board, especially since I'm able to watch wrestling a bit more regularly now.

[ride the lightning]

Adding you Johnnie I wasn't around when the board was unfortunately

If we get the board back first thing I want to do is post a Bret Hart appreciation

[Wingster]

is this gonna be WWE or wrestling in general?
in either case add me

[ride the lightning]

I guess just WWE .. I don't know if we can talk about TNA etc. as well

Adding you!

I think WCW could be branded into it too seeing as Vince took over.

[-Bianca-]

On the old board, IIRC, it was headed WWE, but it was anything wrestling, really. TNA had its own thread, etc..

[ride the lightning]

Cool I'm sure we can make it overall a "wrestling" board.

[Wingster]

we could

[ride the lightning]

Now we just need to drum up 100 votes at the special requests poll

[tifa_look_alike]

Add me too. Unfortunately I was around when the Wrestling board was too but never really paid attention to it. I will now.

[ride the lightning]

Adding you

[Lain]

I'm in. But if this is going to be on the Special Requests poll, I'll just be here to support it (there's another campaign I'm running for that one).

Yeah, I miss that board too. It was one of the very few boards that I first posted on.