16 Events That Changed Pro Wrestling History

Pro wrestling has a long and colorful history dating back over 100 years, and there has been a multitude of moments that helped to define the sport.

From the days of Frank Gotch to the current crop of superstars, we have seen just about everything you could possibly imagine happen inside that ring.

No, really.

We have seen touching moments like Randy Savage's proposal and marriage to Miss Elizabeth, and we have seen ridiculous moments like the hatching of the Gobbledy Gooker.

We have seen historic matches like Undertaker vs. Undertaker and embarrassing moments like the finger-poke of doom.

Over the course of the last century, there have been many events which changed the business as a whole, and this slideshow will highlight 16 of the biggest and most important of those events.

Jesse Venture Gets Elected to Office

Have you ever seen one of those bumper stickers that says, "My governor can beat up your governor?"

You have Jesse Ventura winning the 1998 Minnesota Governor's race to thank for that one. Jesse Ventura winning this race was a big win for pro wrestling as well.

Wrestlers and their fans have had to deal with the criticism of being "low-brow" for many years, but this win helped change that.

Ventura winning this election helped prove that wrestlers are not just muscle-heads, but intelligent people with the capacity to do other great things.

Since this happened 14 years ago, we have seen more information about the real lives of wrestlers come out and much of it shows these men and women to be very capable and intelligent people.

Ventura was a pioneer in the wrestling industry, as well as a respected Vietnam veteran, actor and politician.

Can you show me a man with a more diverse resume?

Maybe James Franco, but that is it.

Mick Foley Wins WWE Title and Ratings from WCW

The night Mick Foley won his first WWE title, we heard the news from the WCW announcers first.

This was a common thing WCW used to do in order to make WWE fans tune in to their live show instead of the pre-taped Raw.

This time it backfired, as the thought of someone like Foley beating The Rock for the WWE title was enough to make tons of people switch stations.

Not only was this a big shift in the Monday Night Wars, but it was also a testament to how Foley's hard work had paid off.

He was not someone whose physique and looks took him to the top. He had to scratch and claw his way there through barbed wire and steel chairs.

While one title win might not seem like it would change the history of the entire sport, this is one instance where it certainly did.

Mick Foley is now a beloved veteran who spends his time with his family while also contributing to the sport with sporadic appearances as well as numerous books.

The Montreal Screwjob

Bret Hart leaving for WCW obviously rubbed Vince McMahon the wrong way, because he went so far as to screw Bret Hart out of his chance to leave the company as champion.

Many say Bret was selfish for not being willing to drop the title before heading to their biggest rival, but the fact that McMahon made the call to screw him made him the bad guy in the end.

This decision ultimately led to the creation of the Mr. McMahon persona and one of the greatest heels in the history of wrestling.

Bret has since made peace with everyone and made a number of appearances for WWE, but this night will always stick out to wrestling fans as "the night it got real."

Vince McMahon Says 'Wrestling' Is 'Entertainment'

Before Vince McMahon outright said that wrestling was entertainment, we all knew the men and women in the ring were not really beating each other up, but hearing it from his mouth made it all the more real.

Vince breaking the fourth wall and basically telling everyone to not take wrestling seriously allowed the entire sport to move in a new direction.

They were no longer stuck having to try and make things look real, not that they were doing a great job of convincing everyone anyways.

Once it was out in the open, it allowed wrestlers to start taking on more colorful and outrageous characters, and they were able to experiment with new moves that would never work in a real fight.

Even though it had been common knowledge that wrestling was "fake" for several decades before this happened, it seemed as if Vince was telling many people this news for the first time.

Nowadays, wrestlers can give interviews in or out of character and everyone is in on the joke.

Owen Hart's Death

The saddest day for me as a wrestling fans was the day Owen Hart died.

He did not have to die and we can sit here and point fingers at a million different people for how they could have prevented it, but the fact remains that Owen is gone.

The loss of such a tremendous talent was felt throughout the entire wrestling world, and it is still felt today by many who were there or watched the events unfold on PPV.

WWE and Vince McMahon took a lot of blame from media and certain members of Owen's family, but if his own brother, Bret, can forgive and move on, then so can we as fans.

The decision to continue the show after Hart had been put into an ambulance was a controversial decision, to say the least, and it is one I would envy no man for having to make.

Being in a position of having to decide whether to send tens of thousands of fans home early or continue the show was one that probably weighed heavier on Vince's head than anything else in his career.

Owen is missed by his family, friends and fans everyday, and the men and women who go out there and bust their asses every week are honoring his memory by trying to live up to Owen's reputation for never having a bad match.

We miss you, Owen.

WCW Monday Nitro Ignites a War

The night WCW Monday Nitro went head-to-head with WWE Raw for the first time was historic for many reasons.

It was the night WCW decided to start a war on Monday nights and it was also the night that Lex Luger made history by appearing after having wrestled for WWE/F the night before.

Nitro would go on for seven years and provide us with some of the best and worst wrestling and storylines in the history of wrestling.

Eric Bischoff and Ted Turner took a big risk by taking on the top company in wrestling, and it almost ended with WCW being the sole remaining global brand.

Bruno Sammartino Loses His Title After a 7-Year Reign

People can keep counting the days on CM Punk's title reign all they want. He will never reach the record held by Bruno Sammartino.

Sammartino was the WWWF Champion for 11 total years across two reigns, but it was the loss after his longest reign that stung the worst.

Sammartino lost the belt to Ivan Koloff in a technical clinic that, for some reason, was never filmed or televised.

To this day, the reign of over seven years is something looked at as legendary and almost mythical because for something like that to happen in today's wrestling world would be nearly impossible.

Sammartino ended up winning the title back and held it for another astonishing 1,237 days.

The NWA Is Formed

Up until 1948, there were numerous promotions which had their own titles, performers and territories, but it was the formation of the National Wrestling Alliance that changed all that.

The NWA was formed with the intention of having one governing body to watch over the sport of wrestling for the benefit of all.

By doing this, it allowed one World Champion to go from territory to territory and defend the belt against the best in the region.

The NWA has had affiliations with WWE, WCW and TNA in the past, but today the organization is a shell of what it once was.

Some hopeful people have tried to revive the company in recent years but with WWE ruling as king, it seems unlikely that they will ever be the global leader in wrestling ever again.

Some of the more notable names from the NWA were legends like Dusty Rhodes, Ric Flair, The Von Erichs and Lou Thesz.

If it had not been for this group of promoters, we might not have wrestling as we know it today.

Ron Simmons Becomes First African-American World Champion

DAMN!

While today's younger fans might only know Ron Simmons by that one-word catchphrase, the fans who have been around for a while or have done their research know Simmons is so much more than a one-word gimmick.

Simmons defeated Vader for the WCW World Championship in 1992 after Sting was taken out before his scheduled match by Jake Roberts.

Becoming the first recognized African-American World Champion is something that will be remembered throughout wrestling history, and it is certainly a memory Ron Simmons will not soon forget.

Simmons was a great champion during his five-month reign, with him taking on some of the best names in the business from Dr. Death Steve Williams to Mick Foley as Cactus Jack.

The career of Ron Simmons is one that is filled with more memorable moments than most could dream for, but his most notable accomplishment is winning the WCW Championship.

JBL gave Simmons a heartfelt induction into the WWE Hall of Fame and to this day, Simmons is one of the few people who can get a deafening pop from speaking a single word.

Chris Benoit's Double Murder/Suicide

No one event has brought the wrestling industry more bad press than the terrible incident involving Chris Benoit, his wife, Nancy, and their son, Daniel.

The media took to this story like a shark to chum and started calling WWE and wrestling out about steroids and the abuse these performers take, specifically to their head.

This event helped spurn WWE to implement a talent wellness policy that includes testing for drugs and steroids, concussion testing and higher standards for the conditions they perform under.

Chris Benoit was a talented performer who would have one day been a shoo-in for the Hall of Fame, but instead, he is now known as a man who took so much abuse and had so many issues that he took the lives of two innocent people and himself.

After evaluations by doctors, it was determined that Benoit's brain was as damaged as that of an 85-year-old Alzheimers patient.

No one event can be linked to the way wrestlers are physically evaluated and cared for as much as this one, and if anyone can find any good in what came after the horrible events in 2007, it is that someone may not have the same damage happen to them now that proper tests are in place.

As someone who followed the career of Chris Benoit closely as a fan, I can tell you that I had never felt more conflicted about how to remember someone as when this happened.

Vince McMahon Buys the Company from His Father

Vince McMahon Sr. was the man who made WWWF successful during the early years, but it was Vince McMahon who made a billion-dollar company out of it.

Once Vince Jr. bought out his father, he turned what was once a regional promotion into a global phenomenon, reaching countries all over the world.

Those in power in the NWA probably had no idea what to think when Vince decided to go national and be his own promotion, but they clearly should have been nervous at the very least.

Had Vince Jr. decided not to purchase the company his father built, then there is no way of knowing how the world of wrestling would be today.

Hulk Hogan Slams Andre the Giant

The most replayed moment in all of wrestling has got to be the night where Hulk Hogan slammed Andre The Giant and won the WWF championship.

WrestleMania has always produced "Wow" moments, and this was one of the very first.

Hogan was the guy who took wrestling and made it cool in the '80s, and he might not have been able to do that had he not gone over Andre on this night.

This moment is on every list of Hulk's greatest moments because it pushed his career to a new level.

The NWO Makes Hogan Turn Heel for the First Time Ever

Hulk Hogan was the ultimate good guy for a very long time. He was the hero every kid wanted to be when they grew up.

Imagine the surprise on all those kid's faces when Hogan revealed himself the be the third member of the NWO.

By turning heel, Hogan took a risk that he would become the most hated man in the industry, but it ended up being the smartest thing he could have done.

Times were changing and we had many superstars who were more physically talented than Hogan ever was. By turning heel, Hogan increased his shelf life as the top guy for many years.

The NWO is one of the most successful and controversial angles in wrestling history, and it helped make legends out of some of its members.

Had Hogan not turned heel and joined Kevin Nash and Scott Hall, then WCW may have gone out of business a lot sooner than they did.

Rick Rude Appears on Nitro and Raw in the Same Night

When one show is pre-taped and one is live, you still never expect to see someone pop up on both shows.

That is what Rick Rude did when he was part of a DX segment on a pre-taped Raw and then went to WCW and appeared on Nitro.

Rude was not under a contract with WWE, which is why he was able to do this, but the shock Vince McMahon must have had when he found out was probably still huge.

When WCW and WWE were at war, they were doing whatever they could to one-up each other, and early on, it looked like WCW had the edge over WWE.

Between Lex Luger's shocking appearance, Medusa throwing the WWE Women's title in the trash and Rick Rude jumping ship, it seemed like there was a new leader in the business.

Eventually, the tide turned and WWE would take over control, but WCW sure did have some great moments in the beginning of Nitro to bring over fans.

WrestleMania Starts the Age of the Pay-Per-View

WrestleMania was a gamble that easily could have spelled the end for WWE and Vince McMahon had it not been a commercial success.

Luckily for WWE, they found out that pageantry and big spectacles attracted big audiences.

By using celebrities to draw mainstream attention as well as close-circuit TV services, they were able to garner enough buzz to make the event the cornerstone in the history of WWE.

Looking back on WrestleMania, it is hard to believe that it was almost 30 years ago. Some of these guys on the card even still wrestle from time to time.

Over the last three decades, WWE has made WrestleMania into an event that cities have bidding wars over due to how much revenue it can bring in.

If it was not for WrestleMania, we might not have any PPV events, or even a WWE for that matter.

If you are a wrestling fan and have never seen WrestleMania, you should check it out, because it really is amazing to watch a legacy like that be born right in front of you.

Vince Buys WCW from Ted Turner

What if Microsoft had purchased Apple?

What if Pepsi bought out Coca Cola?

In the case of WCW and WWE, we do not have to ponder what would happen if one bought out the other because it actually happened.

One of the biggest rivalries in all of the business world came to a close when Vince McMahon signed on the dotted (it probably wasn't dotted) line to buy WCW from Ted Turner.

The battle had raged on for seven years between WWE Raw and WCW Nitro before Turner had to accept that his company was hurting and there was no other choice than to sell the brand to his nemesis.

The joining of WCW and WWE marked one of the biggest corporate mergers in sports history, and it allowed WWE to be the uncontested winner in their long battle.

No single event in the history of the sport has had more far-reaching consequences than this one.

Many wrestlers found themselves out of work following the purchase, and the rest were heading into a locker room where they did not know how they would be treated.

A lot of the superstars under WCW's banner had been employed by WWE at one time, which created a tense situation when deciding which talents to keep under contract and which to let go.

The one guy who they could not lock down was also one of the most important in the history of WCW—Sting.

To this day, we have yet to see Sting enter a WWE ring, and every fan who is familiar with his career would probably salivate if he were to ever agree to a match against The Undertaker.

Without a doubt, the biggest event to change the landscape of wrestling was when Vince McMahon appeared with that Cheshire cat grin, telling everyone that he had put his competition out to pasture.