Jack Tunney


John "Jack" Tunney Jr. was a Canadian professional wrestling promoter. He was known worldwide for his appearances on World Wrestling Federation television as the promotion's figurehead president. Tunney's tenure was during the company's initial worldwide popularity boom in the 1980s, the peak days of "Hulkamania".

Queensbury Athletic Club/Maple Leaf Wrestling

Early life

In 1930, Jack Corcoran set up Toronto's Queensbury Athletic Club, along with Jack's father, John Tunney Sr., his uncle, Frank Tunney, and Toots Mondt.

Working for his uncle

In 1952, Jack entered into employment with the promotion, first as a referee and later in the booking office working alongside Frank, Norm Kimber, Frank Ayerst, Ed Noonan, and wrestlers Whipper Billy Watson and Pat Flanagan, as they promoted all over southern Ontario. The offices were in Maple Leaf Gardens for many years. In the mid 1970s the office was moved across the street on Carlton St.
On March 16, 1956, the first title change to take place in Maple Leaf Gardens happened when Whipper Billy Watson defeated Lou Thesz, ending Thesz's near 7-year reign. Thesz again lost the NWA World Heavyweight Championship again at the Maple Leaf Gardens on November 14, 1957 when he lost the title to Dick Hutton.
In 1960, Frank Tunney replaced Sam Muchnick at the NWA's helm, for a year, as president. He also went on to serve as a vice president to Vince McMahon, Sr. in the WWF, as well as having close ties with Japanese promoters. This meant non-stop action in Maple Leaf Gardens approximately every two weeks.
On January 24, 1963, a classic match at Maple Leaf Gardens directly led to the WWWF being formed after Lou Thesz beat World Champion Buddy Rogers and was declared champion. After the event, however, Northeastern promoter Vincent J. McMahon refused to recognize the title change and withdrew his operation from the NWA, becoming the World Wide Wrestling Federation, with Rogers as the star performer. The WWWF recognized Rogers as its first world champion in April 1963.
Through the years, there were never any serious threats to Tunney's position as ruler of pro wrestling in Toronto. Several promoters ran shows at smaller venues in the area, often with Tunney's blessing or indifference. But in the 1970s, there were two notable attempts by other promoters to run big-venue shows in Toronto.
Dave McKigney, a successful promoter outside Toronto and at smaller sites within the city, tried running a show at Varsity Arena in September 1971 with Tony Parisi booked in the main event. Tunney quickly scheduled a Gardens show directly against it. Parisi was a no-show and began working for Tunney the following week. According to the newspapers, the McKigney show drew 700 fans while Tunney got 15,500 at the Gardens.
History repeated itself five years later. George Cannon and Milt Avruskin had built strong awareness of their promotion in Toronto through a TV show broadcast on Global TV and taped at the Global studios in Don Mills. They tried to parlay that visibility into running a big-venue show at the CNE Coliseum, but once again Tunney moved quickly to book a Gardens show on the same day. The Toronto Star reported that only 600 people showed up for Cannon's show.

Shared allegiances

In 1977, the Tunneys began looking for a partnership since their major draw, the Sheik was nearing the end of his popularity as a heel.
In 1978, while still utilising some talent from other promotions, including balanced cards for both the AWA and WWF, Frank entered into a partnership with Charlotte, North Carolina-based promoter Jim Crockett, Jr., who ran NWA-affiliated Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling in the Carolinas. The arrangement was largely facilitated by George Scott, a key executive with Crockett who had been a preliminary wrestler for Tunney from 1950 to 1956, before becoming a partner in the Toronto promotion. Ric Flair and Ricky Steamboat became the dominant local attractions.
Due to their influence at the time, and despite joining forces with Jim Crockett, Maple Leaf Wrestling did not become a one company promotion. Frank continued to pull off his share of promotional coups and, for the first few years, it wasn't unusual to see two world title matches on the same card during this time, as American Wrestling Association and WWWF stars continued to perform in the city. The first Gardens card with Crockett's talent featured a historic match between WWWF champ Bob Backlund against then AWA champ Nick Bockwinkel. This kind of match was fairly rare with only a few cases of two promotions matching their respective world champs against each other. The show also included with a classic Steamboat vs. Flair match, both making their Toronto debuts, for the NWA U.S. Title on the undercard.
In 1978, along with presenting top wrestlers from the U.S., The Tunneys launched the Canadian title and used it to turn Dewey Robertson and Angelo Mosca into local babyface heroes and main event stars.
In 1980, the Tunneys presented shows in Buffalo for the first time, working in alignment with the WWF who had the rights to the arena. The first shows proved somewhat successful drawing over 8,000 fans. The Tunneys would continue with sporadic shows in Buffalo over the next couple of years.
In the early '80s, rivalries between the various promotions made it difficult to bring talent from different factions together.

Jack takes over

On May 10, 1983, Frank Tunney died, after which Jack and his cousin Eddie Tunney took control of the promotion. With the years of experience under his belt, Jack moved into the spotlight his uncle loved, as the frontman for the promotion, while Eddie had a low public profile, as his silent partner.
Jack made an immediate impact on his own. The name Maple Leaf Wrestling became the common place name for the Queensbury Athletic Club. He also promoted two large summer outdoor shows at the Exhibition Stadium, dubbed Night Of Champions and Return Of The Champions. The shows would feature 11 title defences and were main evented by NWA Title defenses by Harley Race against Ric Flair.

Aligning with the World Wrestling Federation

When the promotional wars heated up between Crockett and Vince McMahon's World Wrestling Federation, Crockett felt he could no longer spare his top wrestlers for shows in Toronto, sending his B-team as attendance at the Gardens plummeted. Crockett's relationship with the promotion had become strained. He held a distrust of Tunney who persistently utilised talent from other promotions, including the WWF. Furthermore, George Scott, still a partner in the Toronto promotion, had chosen to leave Jim Crockett Promotions due to a pay dispute and was now a booker for the WWF. The Toronto cards got progressively weaker through 1983-84, dwindling down to audiences of 3,000 for some shows. Johnny Weaver was the primary booker for the shows, with Leo Burke and his brothers as the lead heels, along with Don Kernodle, when the top Crockett stars were no longer available.
Jack decided he no longer wanted to promote cards with a mix of WWF, NWA, and other wrestling talent and decided to switch allegiances from the NWA and aligned himself with Vince McMahon's WWF, promoting only WWF cards north of the border. This made Toronto one of the first former NWA strongholds to jump to the WWF, starting a trend that would continue through the 1980s.
After a 34-year run, the NWA title—which had made its Gardens debut in October 1949—made its final appearance in the building in May 1984. Whatever nostalgic feelings long-time fans had for the old days, the McMahon-Tunney alliance and Hulkamania captured a whole new audience, attracting sell-out crowds to the Gardens and drawing over 65,000 people to Exhibition Stadium in 1986 and 68,000 to SkyDome for Wrestlemania VI in 1990 to see Hulk Hogan lose the WWF title to the Ultimate Warrior.
In June 1984, barely a year since they had taken over the Queensbury Athletic Club from his late uncle Frank, Jack, with Frank's son Eddie, transferred controlling interest of the promotion to the WWF in a maneuver which officially made Toronto a WWF city.

Consequences

The deal between the Tunneys and the WWF was a complex one. The WWF effectively owned Maple Leaf Wrestling and absorbed Jack Tunney into its administration as head of Canadian tours. However, the Toronto office remained an independent entity, without which the WWF could not book shows at the Gardens and which received a percentage of every show the company ran in Canada.
For Canadian Wrestling promotions, the effect was lasting. The Canadian wrestling scene was struggling at the time, with attendance low. As critics had feared it would, the union between Tunney and McMahon crushed many other wrestling promotions in Canada. Soon, wrestling promotions across Canada fell on hard times as Tunney helped McMahon take over their territories. All-Star Wrestling in Vancouver closed down. The AWA stopped performing in Manitoba. Stu Hart's Stampede promotion began eroding until he too was forced to sell to McMahon. Grand Prix, out of Montreal, fought Tunney, but also eventually succumbed. Dave McKigney's Big Time Wrestling couldn't make a go of it due to Tunney's pressuring of Ontario's Boxing & Wrestling Commission to make insurance too expensive for the little guys. New territories, such as Newfoundland were opened up by Lyons and Zarlenga, but could not compete with a WWF machine, consistently setting new attendance records.
For the WWF, moving into the struggling Canadian market, by promoting events at the Maple Leaf Gardens every month, was part of an unheard of and risky national business model, which stretched the company. However, the move made enormous business sense and was instrumental in consolidating WWF's power base in Canada, keeping their competitors out of key Canadian markets, well into the 1990s. With the Gardens locked up by the WWF, the AWA held a show at the CNE Coliseum in December 1989 that drew what remains the smallest crowd ever in the city for a show from major promotion, just 200 people. World Championship Wrestling, the successor to Crockett, ran three shows at the Coliseum in 1990 with better results, but not good enough to keep Toronto on their schedule. On April 1, 1990 Jack Tunney and Vince McMahon set the stage for WrestleMania VI the very first wrestling event at the brand new Toronto SkyDome. The event set a one-day attendance record for the SkyDome of 67,982. WCW came back in 1993 and drew about 4,000 to SkyDome, and then made a big return to Toronto with two well-attended shows at the Air Canada Centre in 1999 before the promotion fizzled out.
For Maple Leaf Wrestling, critics feared the new partnership would make Toronto just another stop on the WWF circuit. The highest title in the territory, the Canadian Heavyweight Championship was abandoned. The Maple Leaf Wrestling name continued to be used for the federation's Canadian TV program, of which the WWF took over production after the Tunneys split from the NWA. TV tapings for the show were held in Brantford and other cities in southern Ontario for the next two years, until the WWF ceased the tapings in 1986 and decided to simply use the Maple Leaf Wrestling name for the Canadian airings of WWF Superstars of Wrestling. There were several sellouts of 18,000 at the Gardens with the WWF crew, but the city's attendance record was shattered by the show at CNE Stadium on August 28, 1986 which drew 65,000 people, with a gate of over $1 million. At this time, Maple Leaf Wrestling basically ceased to exist. Gone were the days of homegrown talent supplemented by a steady stream of World Champions and stars from all corners of the globe to be replaced by the oncoming Hulkamania.
For the Tunney Family, the move led to a new level of reverence. In 1987, The WWF held an event called the "Frank Tunney Memorial Tag Team Tournament" in March 1987. They credited Tunney with bringing tag team matches to North America. The tournament was won by the Killer Bees.
For Jack Tunney, this move made him extremely influential and forged his lasting legacy:
Billy Red Lyons, the longtime wrestling star from Dundas, Ont., who worked as a WWF television commentator at the time of the deal said: ″The timing was perfect, Vince had started to make his move all over the United States. He had big ideas and everybody thought he was just crazy, but not Jack. He saw what kind of an opportunity it was. Thank God the WWF did come in here because the business was dead in Toronto. Local wrestling cards had been drawing just 3,000 a night while the WWF was on the cusp of a popularity explosion when Tunney latched on.″

As the figurehead president (September 1984 – July 12, 1995)

In the summer of 1984 the WWF named Tunney its new figurehead "president" on the company's television programs, replacing Hisashi Shinma. Tunney filled this role for over a decade. This made Tunney known to fans not only in North America but also worldwide.
The title was ceremonial only to provide an authority figure to announce major decisions on television, as Tunney held no backstage power beyond that of a regional promoter; as such, his main roles were that of a storyline authority figure, to make matches, arbitrate disputes between wrestlers and announce major decisions or events on television. Still, he was thrown onto TV whenever a major decision had to be announced and his hard nosed way of doing things earned him the nickname "The Hammerhead". His on-air decisions were portrayed as legitimate in storylines.
As the on-screen President, Tunney "oversaw" many key moments and some of his major television appearances included:
Unlike later authority figures in wrestling, Jack Tunney only appeared on screen when a major decision was needed, which made his announcements seem important. Jack Tunney's on screen character was neutral, rather than the later heel authority figures. However, Tunney's decisions often upset the leading face characters, such as Hulk Hogan. Unlike the WWF's later "Attitude Era", which included storylines of Stone Cold Steve Austin, and others, regularly attacking authority figures, even heel wrestlers rarely got physical with Tunney.

Controversies

In late 1989, Vince McMahon and Titan Sports dropped their partnership with the Tunney family, but hired Jack as the head of Titan Sports Canada. This cut Eddie Tunney, who had been Jack's partner, out of the partnership with the WWF. Eddie Tunney sued Titan and Jack Tunney. Titan had made the security deposit that reserved the Skydome for WrestleMania VI, and Eddie Tunney had signed the check. Eddie Tunney had also trademarked the "WrestleMania" name in Canada. Titan Sports had to settle the lawsuit with Eddie Tunney in order to run WrestleMania VI.
Tunney supposedly witnessed Terry Garvin sexually harass former WWF referee Mike Clark in the Toronto office and was prepared to back Clark in court. Allegedly, the WWF believed that both Tunney and Clark should toe the company line and let the incident pass for the greater good of the company.
According to the Pro Wrestling Observer, towards the end, Tunney believed it was Bret Hart who got him fired. Tunney didn't think Bret would ever draw money, didn't approve of his main event push and complained publicly about various Hart-related issues. By the time Bret became the top guy, Tunney was unpopular with the faction in the office who got along with Bret.
There have long been rumors that Jack Tunney had used company money to pay off gambling debts. This has been rejected by those close to Tunney as an excuse made by the WWF for turning their backs on Jack.

Departure from the WWF

In the 1990s, Tunney's appearances on television and live events grew less frequent.
On July 12, 1995, due to financial struggles, McMahon chose to close its Toronto office and run the shows in Toronto without any involvement from Tunney's Toronto office. Tunney was forced out of the WWF, retired and disappeared from the wrestling scene. Following Tunney's departure, Gorilla Monsoon was given the role of on-screen WWF President. Tunney never returned to pro wrestling and this was the end of the Tunney line of Toronto wrestling promoters.
On September 17, 1995, the final WWF show was held at the Gardens and the 64-year affiliation of pro wrestling and Maple Leaf Gardens ended, since Tunney took with him the exclusive rights to wrestling at the Maple Leaf Gardens.
Wrestling would return to Toronto on August 24, 1996, with a WWF show held outdoors at Exhibition Stadium drawing 21,211 fans.
In 1997 the WWF, still unable to run shows at Maple Leaf Gardens, held a Monday Night Raw taping on January 31, 1997 at the SkyDome.
Maple Leaf Gardens closed entirely in 1999, and the WWF returned to regular arena shows at the Air Canada Centre, which opened that fall.

Death

On January 24, 2004, at the age of 69, Tunney died of a heart attack in his sleep at his home in Waterdown, Ontario, after a sudden illness.
Frank Zicarelli wrote in the Toronto Sun "He was a very kind and gracious man who did a lot for charities, too".
Tunney's firing from the WWF was never resolved, and upon his death not a single representative from the WWF was present at his funeral, nor was his death announced on WWE.com. However, he is still fondly remembered by WWF fans for his numerous appearances with the company and the memorable, iconic moments he was involved in during his spell as WWF President.

Posthumous legal battle

After Jack Tunney's death in 2004, there was some discussion of whether North Carolina-based promoter Jim Crockett was ever a partner in the Toronto office.
In Canada, during most of the 1970s and the early 1980s, there was a law called the Foreign Investment Review Act which regulated the foreign ownership of Canadian companies. In November 1980, the Canadian Press reported that the government had approved the creation of a new business called Frank Tunney Sports Promotion, which was co-owned by Frank Tunney Sports Ltd., Jim Crockett Promotions Inc., and 410430 Ontario Ltd., said to be based in Hamilton.
The owner of the numbered corporation wasn't identified, but Hamilton native George Scott is thought to have been the third partner. He continued to own a part of the office after the affiliation with McMahon and is said to have received a large settlement after he was pushed out of that partnership.