CHAPTER THREE
THE ARENA OF GIANTS
Professional wrestling today is synonymous with Vince McMahon’s World Wrestling Entertainment that has a global audience paying to attend live shows and watch pay-per-view events. Retail stores feature toy aisles dominated by WWE action figures and merchandise, such as replica belts and costumes. As of 2019 the WWE had a value in excess of $5 billion, with chairman Vince McMahon being individually worth over $1 billion. Vince’s wife Linda served as Trump’s head of Small Business Administration for two years before stepping down to become the head of a pro-Trump super PAC. The McMahons’ wealth and power grew by creating their wrestling dynasty, which during Ramon Barreto’s youth would have appeared to be a pipe dream.
Wrestling is one of, if not the oldest sport in world history, having gained significant notoriety in the ancient Greek Olympics. Professional wrestling, as it is known today, is not a pure sport like its Greco-Roman counterpart, rather it is sports entertainment that began taking shape in the 19th century. Wrestling exhibitions were popular in late 19th century rural America, yet soon grew in popularity to find larger homes in cities. With growing interest in wrestling events came the rise of promoters; businessmen who marketed the events to crowds in order to make money for themselves and the athletes.
The growth of professional wrestling as an entertainment attraction led to a growing philosophy of profit. One of the biggest shifts was transforming the industry from pure athletic competition to matches that had predetermined outcomes. Professional wrestling developed its own language to describe these notions: shoots and works. A shoot refers to a contest in which the outcome is not predetermined, a purely competitive event. A work is a match in which the outcome is predetermined, though the athleticism and skill is very real. Athletes and promoters both realized that moving the matches to works meant reducing injuries and maintaining the schedule. This work style of pro wrestling found a home in the carnival world where matches were commonly presented as shoots, but in fact the “everyday man” in the crowd who volunteered to compete was a plant who was in on the work.[i]
Even in the early 1900s professional wrestling had its all-stars that drew in crowds and capitalized on battles between the US champion and a foreign champion. American Frank Gotch and Russian George Hackenschmidt participated in a genuine wrestling shoot that drew six thousand people to the Dexter Park Pavilion in 1908, with ringside boxes selling for $20, over $500 in today’s currency.[ii] Gotch prevailed after Hackenschmidt conceded the match just past the two-hour mark. They would meet again for the rematch three years later in a “clash of modern giants”, in front of 30,000 people in Comiskey Park. The rematch ended up being a complete fiasco when Hackenschmidt injured his knee in training and openly conceded two falls to Gotch within twenty minutes. The crowd was appalled by what they believed was a thrown match, but promoter Jack Curley still netted $44,000 for this rematch; a million-dollar payday in 2019 terms.[iii]
The rise of professional wrestling as a marketable commodity gave birth to the existence of wrestling territories, specific areas of the country controlled by a promoter. By the 1940s, two promoters had come to dominate the market: Tom Packs of St. Louis and Paul Bowser of Boston. Packs in particular had overwhelming control over the Midwest with the two dominant heavyweights, Bill Longson and Frank Sexton, in his stable of wrestlers. Packs dominance of the Midwestern region made other promoters in the territory make a move to dethrone him from controlling the primary talent and business of the area. Packs and Bowser were the management team of the National Wrestling Association and the American Wrestling Association. Both the NWA and the AWA were organizations in which promoters from various territories would work together to advance wrestling and their territories. Yet both associations were viewed as benefiting Packs too much, which led to a coup that profoundly shaped wrestling for decades.[iv]
In 1941, Billy Sandow and Maxwell Baumann formed their own NWA, the National Wrestling Alliance to break Packs’ center of power. The NWA was formed as a new sanctioning body under the control of a few businessmen that would work as a cooperative among various member promotions. Ideally, the NWA would advance the business of its various member promotions, while also advancing a champion, the best of the NWA, to legitimize the body. It took nearly a decade before the NWA found a champion that would establish it as the premiere sanctioning body in the United States. Lou Thesz was a revelation to the young NWA, a bona fide superstar who held their title from 1949 to 1956 and proved that a national sanctioning body could work.[v]
While professional wrestling would go through the inevitable ups and downs of any entertainment industry, part of the growing success of wrestling, and the NWA, was the advent of televised matches. The first weekly televised wrestling program came in 1945 when KTLA in Los Angeles broadcast a program hosted by Dick Lane.[vi] Television was a revelation for wrestling and the NWA as it opened a new avenue for creating fans of the industry, along with elaborate new characters.
A wrestler’s character, his gimmick, is the persona he adopts in the ring to entertain audiences. Before Ramon Barreto was born, forces were at work that would inevitably draw him into the wrestling industry, and television was one of those main forces. Compelling television needs intriguing characters to capture audiences. Nebraska native George Wagner was one of the visionaries that recast his own image to become a wrestling icon that maximized television exposure. His Gorgeous George gimmick sported sequined robes, bleach blond hair, and flamboyant colors. Wagner remained in character when talking to the press like a method actor filming a movie, and it was a sensation. George was a game-changer who was setting a new paradigm for elaborate gimmicks.[vii]
Despite doubts the NWA would be a success, it was indeed successful. Television had grown the industry and created new avenues for performers like Gorgeous George, who were less Greco-Roman wrestlers and more entertainer, to find success in pro wrestling. George would hold various championships for wrestling promotions but would never be chosen to carry the NWA title. Both television and elaborate gimmicks would help grow wrestling and the NWA. When Ramon Barreto was growing up in 1970’s San Francisco, he was treated to a variety of televised wrestling shows from various promotions that peaked his youthful interests. In the fifth grade Barreto wrote an essay on what he wanted to be when he grew up: he wanted to be a wrestler.
Wrestling promotions across the nation and beyond operated as territories, a geographical region of the United States, Japan, Mexico, and Canada, where the promoter over that area controlled the wrestling activity. The NWA could not demand that promotions join them, but they could make life difficult on promotions that refused to do so. Further, promotions that did not respect the territorial rules of promotions, especially NWA promotions, could be faced with reprisals. To avoid undue hardship in an already difficult industry, it was best to abide by the territorial rules. If a promoter wanted to run a show in another territory, he needed to clear terms with the promoter of that territory.
Being a member of the NWA did not guarantee territorial success. Each promoter needed to have their own champion, the face of their company, who possessed the charisma to appear as both a viable shooter and a stellar entertainer. Families like the Barretos all across the nation could find broadcasts of their regional territories, or at times distant territories they would never get to see in person, through television broadcasts. The era in which Ramon was developing his passion for professional wrestling was one that was filled with promotional champions who would become legends in the industry.
Most of the prominent territories in the United States were concentrated in the Midwestern and Southern states, though not exclusively. Among the formidable names in the various regions: “Cowboy” Bill Watts oversaw Tri-State Wrestling in Tulsa, before leaving to form Mid-South wrestling in New Orleans in the late 70s. The Briscos were the face of Championship Wrestling in Atlanta, while “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes was the charismatic personality leading Champion Wrestling from Florida in Tampa. To the North of them, Jim Crockett Promotions had Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling in Charlotte and Ric Flair, one of the biggest names in wrestling of all time. To the West of Charlotte, Jerry Lawler was the main event for Mid-America Wrestling in Memphis, while over in Kansas City another legend, Harley Race, was the driving force of Heart of America Sports Attractions.
The biggest name in Texas wrestling was Von Erich as World Class Championship Wrestling in Dallas was a family affair with patriarch Fritz Von Eric, a former wrestler himself, and a trio of sons who created one of the most memorable and tragic dynasties in wrestling history. In Minneapolis, Verne Gagne controlled the American Wrestling Association as both promoter and wrestler. Then there was Stu Hart in Calgary, who created Stampede Wrestling and would establish the Hart family as another dynasty that would also experience their share of tragedies.[viii]
This list is not comprehensive, rather it is intended to show what wrestling looked like when Ramon Barreto was a youth developing his passion for this complex world. During the 1970’s Jack Brisco, Harley Race, Dusty Rhodes, and Ric Flair had championship runs with the NWA, along with other territorial stars like Terry Funk from Western States Sports in Amarillo. Skeptics in the 1940’s had doubted the NWA would work, but in fact the NWA became a powerhouse that had national and international influence. Coming back to the beginning of the chapter: How did the WWE become a multi-billion-dollar industry with the NWA as a footnote to its existence? The answer is multi-faceted, but it began with the vision of the McMahon family and their desire to overthrow the NWA.
The success of the NWA did not mean that the internal workings had been harmonious. A comprehensive study of professional wrestling reveals that the internal politics of this industry are ever present and often cutthroat. These politics were inherent to the individual NWA promotions, which were only magnified when it came to making decisions regarding the direction of the alliance. Promoters had egos just as the in-ring talent did, which led to battles over who would represent the NWA as their champion. A territorial promotion who boasted the NWA champion on their roster theoretically meant bigger dollars.
Wrestling talent could of course move from their home promotion to another, provided the promoter approved of it. The NWA champion would also be expected to wrestle for several NWA promotions to advance the cause of the alliance. Live entertainment like wrestling is driven by attendance at shows; more tickets sold means more money is made. Promoters have to pay for rent on their venue, they have to pay the performers their agreed-upon performance rate, cover any additional overhead, and have enough left over to hopefully make a good profit. Good wrestling and big names, like Ric Flair and Harley Race, drew audiences. On the one hand the alliance promotions had a vested interest in putting the title belt around the best they had at their disposal. This person would presumably boost attendance at all alliance promotions as they traveled with the title. Pride, however, was an important factor, and promoters pushing their guy led to heated disputes about direction.
Capitol Wrestling Corporation was founded in August of 1957 in Washington D.C., then in New York in March of 1961. Toots Mondt and Vincent J. McMahon, Vince Sr., founded the promotion, which was admitted into the NWA in 1959. CWC had a genuine superstar in “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers, a charismatic and flamboyant in-ring figure who sported a variety of dazzling outfits. Rogers was a success for McMahon live and on television. In 1959 a trio of matches featuring Rogers drew crowds of 18,000 in New York, 16,500 in Washington D.C., and 30,000 in Chicago. Prior to Rogers, the best attendance CWC had ever drawn at Madison Square Garden was 6,400.[ix]
CWC was rebranded as the World Wide Wrestling Federation in 1963. McMahon Sr. was making the move to establish WWWF as a promotion and sanctioning body independent of the NWA. In January of that year, the NWA decided to pull the title belt from Buddy Rogers and give it back to an aging Lou Thesz. McMahon did not accept this decision lightly and established the WWWF as a sanctioning body of its own with its own “World Champion”. Rogers was given the initial world title, but due to an injury, McMahon needed to place the strap on someone else who could strongly carry his new world title forward. He found his answer in Bruno Sammartino, an immensely muscular Italian wrestler who would hold the title for nearly eight years, marching WWWF toward a future in which it would dismantle both the territorial system and the NWA.
Vince McMahon Sr. was in the process of revolutionizing wresting when Ramon was born in 1968, and in the early 1980s, when Ramon was beginning to form his identity and deepen his passion for wrestling, Vince Jr. would utterly redefine the wrestling world. The changes Vince Jr. made had a psychological impact on Ramon in his teenage years, almost convincing him to never pursue his youthful dream of the squared circle.
In 1982, when Ramon was fourteen years old, Vince McMahon Jr. bought his father’s promotion, which had been shortened to World Wrestling Federation in 1979. By 1982, the WWF and Verne Gagne’s American Wrestling Association were the two biggest threats to the NWA. Gagne’s main attraction was a Floridian guitar player named Terry Bollea, who had been discovered in a nightclub in 1975. Bollea was 6’5”, tanned, had huge arms, and blond hair. Gagne’s friend Eddie Graham gave Bollea his first wrestling exposure, and reportedly when he saw Bollea for the first time took two steps back and muttered, “Jesus Christ, he’s huge”.[x]
Bollea got some training in Florida, and though he was no ring technician, his size and charisma helped him develop his persona. In the late 70’s Vince Sr. brought Bollea to the WWWF, bought him a thousand-dollar cape, and made him a heel called The Incredible Hulk. In 1981, Bollea landed a cameo role opposite Sylvester Stallone as the character “Thunder Lips” in Rocky III. McMahon Sr. was reportedly not happy with Bollea for drawing too much attention to the entertainment side of wrestling. At this point in wrestling history the open secret was that wrestling matches were not predetermined; they were legitimate sporting contests. Vince Sr. cut ties with Bollea, which led him to Verne Gagne’s AWA.[xi]
Bollea started going by “Hulk Hogan” during his run with AWA and was a success for Gagne’s promotion. Bollea’s profile as Hulk Hogan hit a new high in May of 1982 when Rocky III premiered, bringing significant attention to Gagne’s star attraction. How did Hogan end up being the face of WWF? Gagne was a wrestling traditionalist, like most promoters of the time, including Vince Sr. Gagne wanted his champion to be a wrestling technician, a master of the craft and not predominately an entertainer. Hogan’s frustration grew over two years as Gagne refused to build around him and make him the champion of the AWA because he was not “technically proficient enough”. When Vince Jr. took control of the WWF in 1983, he had no trepidation about building around Hogan and poached him from Gagne.
Hogan returned to WWF in 1983, and by January of 1984 was the new world champion of WWF when he defeated the Iron Sheik. Rumor has it that Gagne was so enraged by Hogan’s defection that he offered the Iron Sheik, whose real name is Hossein Khosrow and who was a legitimate Greco-Roman wrestler, $100,000 to break Hogan’s leg in the ring. Khosrow refused and the legend of Hulk Hogan began, as did Vince McMahon’s new WWF, a roster full of massive, hyper-muscular wrestling giants.
Even when Ramon was in his twenties and was considering whether to pursue professionally wrestling, he was held back by the notion that he was not big enough. This is not surprising when considering that the golden age of WWF, the standard in the wrestling world, was fueled by a roster of gigantic men. Hulk Hogan was far from the only monster in the WWF stable. Vince Jr. brought in talent from all over the country and world, featuring oversized wrestlers who were sometimes clearly abusing steroids. The WWF of the 1980’s featured a variety of body builders like Paul Orndorff, Hercules Hernandez, Rick Rude, Davey Boy Smith, and the Ultimate Warrior. McMahon also recruited a major stable of big men like Andre the Giant, Big John Studd, King Kong Bundy, Bam Bam Bigelow, and One Man Gang to add a menacing presence the promotion. Even talent like Bret Hart, Macho Man Randy Savage, Rowdy Roddy Piper, and Ted DiBiase, who were technicians, high-flyers, etc., were mostly muscular or very large men compared to the average person. Whereas one might have been accustomed to seeing territorial wrestlers, who often had bellies and were average height, McMahon created an arena of giants, which was a huge success.
Barreto watched the rise of McMahon’s new wrestling paradigm, and it led him to believe his dream of becoming a professional wrestler was exactly that: a dream. All of the men just listed, with a couple of possible exceptions like Smith or Hart, were at least six feet tall, and many of them well over six feet. Those who came short of six feet, like Davey Boy Smith, were unnaturally muscular for their height. McMahon has long been a fan of bodybuilding and liked to put body builders in his stable of rosters. Wrestling writer Dave Meltzer took to calling Jim Hellwig, who portrayed the Ultimate Warrior, the “Anabolic Warrior” because the abuse of performance enhancing drugs was so apparent.
Watching these developments forced Barreto to take an inventory of himself and realize he did not exactly fit the prototype of McMahon’s wrestling world. When Barreto graduated from John O’Connell High School in 1986 he was 5’7” and weighed less than 180 pounds, falling well-short of the Vince McMahon mold. Had this been the classic era of wrestling Barreto may have tried to take inspiration in looking at the standards of a competing territory, except territorial wrestling was dying. Vince McMahon turned the WWF into a national powerhouse, freely scheduling shows in rival territories, and using the power of television and pay-per-view to put a stranglehold on wrestling in the United States. Territories systematically died through the eighties, and many of the former territorial faces, like Harley Race, Kerry Von Erich, and Dusty Rhodes, defected to the WWF.
Professional wrestling had become an arena of giants and Ramon Barreto was no giant. For some people this reality may have been the death knell of their hope, but there were additional factors at play in Ramon’s world. Cultural heritage plays a significant role in identity and Ramon Barreto is both American and Mexican. Though he may not fit the bill of a wrestler in the United States as redefined by Vince McMahon, wrestling in his native Mexico is a different experience. It so happened that Barreto found his inspiration in the country of his birth and in a wrestling legend that transcended size to become a global sensation.
[i] S. Beekman, Ringside: A History of Professional Wrestling in America (Westport: Praeger, 2006), 39. Beekman’s book is an excellent summation of wrestling history.
[ii] Ibid, 47.
[iii] Ibid, 49-50.
[iv] T. Hornbaker, National Wrestling Alliance: The Untold Story of the Monopoly that Strangled Pro Wrestling (ECW Press, 2007), 1-2.
[v] Ibid, 30-40.
[vi] S. Beekman, Ringside, 82.
[vii] Ibid, 86-90.
[viii] Various lists of the territories are readily accessible. A pictorial version can be found here at the “Bleeding Cool” site. https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/04/12/exclusive-pages-comic-book-story-of-pro-wrestling/.
[ix] T. Hornbaker, National Wrestling Alliance,182. Hornbaker also gives an excellent account of the rise of WWE.
[x] S. Assael, Sex, Lies, and Headlocks (Three Rivers Press, New York: 2004), 16-17.
[xi]A. Constable, https://bleacherreport.com/articles/571589-squared-circle-it-could-have-been-so-different-hulk-hogan-wwe-wcw-and-awa.
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