So, I just saw that WWE is doing another King Of The Ring tournament soon, you guys interested in a bit of a deep dive trivia story?
Okie dokie, here we go!
Does anyone know which non-WWF affiliated rasslin territory is partially responsible for the creation of the King Of The Ring tournament?
Hint : One of the major stars of that territory got his leg chopped off the very same night he won the NWA Title
Thats right, you guessed it, it was Portland!
I kid, I kid, of course it was Dallas and the Von Erichs World Class Championship Wrestling territory
When WCCW started syndicating their weekly tv show all over the country in 1985, they started getting really good ratings in Boston so they decided to run a stadium show there
They wanted to run the New England Patriots home building of Sullivan Stadium in Foxborough but Vince blocked that by promising to do a huge show there instead which forced the Von Erichs to run the Manning Bowl which was a high school stadium an hour away in Lynn, Massachusetts, they drew around 8,000 fans on Saturday June 1, 1985
The WWF then created this fancy pants new King Of The Ring tournament and drew 23,000 to the NFL stadium on July 8, 1985, which was a Monday night
Heres another question, who won the first King Of The Ring tournament?
Nope, it wasnt Harley Race!
It was actually The Magnificent Muraco, who beat Iron Sheik in a heel vs heel final
The first couple King Of The Ring shows were just local house shows that werent publicized on television so if you didnt live in the Boston area, you didnt know about them at all
Harley Race won in '86, another local house show in the same stadium, which was then used to make him the King Of Wrestling in the WWF even though the tournament itself was never actually shown on television
I hope you all enjoyed this fun little walk down memory lane