The Evolution of Pro Wrestling is in itself a very wild ride we are taking in the Time Tunnel. The morphing and changing of a mixture of sport, athleticism, creativity, theater and psychology.
In the middle month of the middle of the decade of the 1950s, the ride was getting wild for the NWA’s Sam Muchnick. He was feeling pressures from all sides, both internally and externally. There was unrest inside the NWA, with members ready for more variety and change with the NWA World Title. Outside, there was mounting pressure from an investigation by the United States Department of Justice over alleged monopolistic business practices with competitors and with talent.
In this flashback, we will look at the overall picture of what it was like to experience life and professional wrestling in 1955 as well as these business pressures faced by Sam Muchnick and the Narional Wrestling Alliance.
July 1955
The Business Environment in 1955
In 1955, the economy in the United States was having robust growth and prosperity as part of the post-World War II economic boom, which was having rapid highs and lows as the US economy was expanding at an amazing rate. The lows were short as evidenced in the short recession that began two years previously in July 1953 and lasted ten months into May of 1954.
In the summer of 1955, the country was booming with high employment, expanding production, minimal inflation and significant policy measures led by then US President Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration. There was increased customer spending, governmental infrastructure investment such as the development of interstate highways that Eisenhower and other generals in the military had seen in Germany.