Jack Tunney (b. John Tunney II, 1935 – January 24, 2004) was a Canadian wrestling promoter. Tunney was known worldwide for his appearances on World Wrestling Federation television as the promotion's figurehead president, suspending wrestlers, stripping them of titles, and ordering matches. Tunney's tenure was during the company's initial worldwide popularity boom in the 1980s, the peaking days of "Hulkamania".
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The Tunney family had a long history of running wrestling in Toronto and the southern Ontario area, going back to 1939. The Tunneys controlled wrestling in southern Ontario for over sixty years, This dominance was centred on their control of the Maple leaf Gardens and the Maple leaf Wrestling promotion, initially known as the Queensbury Athletic Club.
Queensbury Athletic Club—the proper name for the Toronto Wrestling promotion for many years, before it became known as Maple Leaf Wrestling -- was launched in 1930 by Jack Corcoran, who had previously promoted boxing in Toronto under the Queensbury name.
Francis Martin “Frank” Tunney (Jack's Uncle) answered a classified ad for the Queensbury Athletic Club. The club required a secretary and Tunney was hired by Jack Corcoran to fill that position. At Tunney’s request, Corcoran hired his older brother, John Tunney (Jack's Father), to be matchmaker. John managed the wrestling promotion through most of the Great Depression, while younger brother Frank was the bookkeeper.
Initially, Corcoran was involved in a promotional war with rival promoter Ivan Mickailoff, but after Corcoran allied himself with the new Maple Leaf Gardens in 1931, he took control of professional wrestling in Toronto. The first MLG shows was promoted Nov. 19, 1931. At that show, Jimmy Londos wrestled Gino Garibaldi. The Gardens would remain the main venue for the promotion for more than 60 years.
In 1939, Corcoran was forced to step down and sell his promotion due to illness and handed wrestling operations over to his assistants, John Tunney and Frank Tunney. John continued to handle matchmaking duties as the head promoter, with notable assists from Paul Bowser, Jack Ganson, and Jerry Monahan. Unexpectedly, John died from influenza just a few months later, on January 19, 1940, and the promotion was then run by Frank.
Frank was now left in charge and had many struggles in the early weeks. The contributions of wrestler Bill Longson helped to sell tickets while the promotion stayed afloat. Frank Tunney was an incredibly well-known and liked promoter, both in the city and around the NWA, in which he had great sway. Through most of the 1940s and 1950s, Frank Tunney's biggest star was local hero Whipper Billy Watson, who became a two-time world champion. Starting in 1969, the shows were headlined by The Sheik for more than eight years. What they didn't promote in Toronto and all over southern Ontario, they still had control over, allowing small promoters to run small towns where it suited them.
Jack Tunney had entered into employment in the Queensbury Athletic Club as a young man and worked alongside his uncle, Frank, announcer Norm Kimber, Frank Ayerst, Ed Noonan, and wrestlers Whipper Watson and Pat Flanagan. The offices were across the street from the famed Maple Leaf Gardens. Later, Tunney ran his operation out of the Gardens itself.
In 1978, Frank Tunney began working with promoter Jim Crockett, Jr., who ran Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling in the Carolinas. The two would become partners in the Toronto promotion, a deal brokered by George Scott, a key executive with Crockett who had been a preliminary wrestler for Tunney from 1950–1956, who bought a third of the Toronto promotion for $100,000.
Besides countless wrestling shows, Frank Tunney also promoted the George Chuvalo - Muhammad Ali bout
Jack worked for years under his uncle Frank Tunney until May 10, 1983, when, during a trip to Hong Kong, the elder Tunney died in his sleep on at the age of 70 years. With Frank's death, Jack and his cousin Eddie Tunney (Frank's son) took control of the Queensbury Athletic Club. With the years of experience under his belt, Jack moved into the spotlight his uncle loved, and Eddie was a silent partner.
At the time, the Toronto office was still in partnership with Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling promoter (in the Carolinas) Jim Crockett, but when the promotional wars heated up,
Tunney's Toronto promotion was a hotbed for all pro wrestling. It wasn't unusual to have the NWA and AWA World titles defended on the same show. Or the WWF and NWA titles. Besides Toronto, the circuit included Kitchener, London, Buffalo, Hamilton and environs. Maple Leaf Gardens itself hosted up to 20 shows a year.
Crockett felt he could no longer spare the top name wrestlers because he had a distrust of Tunney, who had begun working with Crockett's main rival, Vince McMahon, and George Scott, who had been working with Vince Mcmahon as a booker since 1983 and was actually a minority partner in the Toronto promotion. The Toronto cards got progressively weaker through 1983-84, dwindling down to audiences of 3,000 for some shows. Leo Burke and his brothers became the lead heels, along with Don Kernodle when the top Crockett stars were no longer available.
In 1984, Jack and Eddie decided they 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 expanding World Wrestling Federation.
They began promoting only WWF cards north of the border, becoming just another stop on the WWF circuit. But it certainly was a successful stop. This maneuver made Toronto a WWF city and was instrumental in consolidating the company's power base in Canada.
Jack Tunney and his cousin Eddie Tunney transferred controlling interest of the promotion to the WWF, but retained a one-third stake in the Maple Leaf Wrestling promotion, with George Scott holding one-sixth (until 1987). Tunney still controlled the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto to a large extent, and also covered southern Ontario and Buffalo, NY. It was also a brilliant business move, signing up just as the WWF was about to hit it big and Jim Crockett ended up suing Tunney for money owed.
Following the WWF takeover, the name Maple Leaf Wrestling continued to be used for the federation's Canadian TV program (a staple of Hamilton station CHCH-TV for many years), which the WWF took over production of 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 (with some Canadian footage, such as updates by on-air announcer and former wrestler Billy Red Lyons, and special matches taped at Maple Leaf Gardens, added in). There were several sellouts of 18,000 at the Gardens with the WWF crew, but the city's (and, at the time, world's) attendance record was shattered by a stunning 74,000 (or 65,000, depending on who you want to believe) people who turned up for a WWF show at CNE Stadium in 1986, with a gate of over $1 million. Initial projections were for a crowd of 25,000-30,000.
Tunney would usually promote 40 or more WWF shows per year, making him a very important man in the expansion of the WWF, and keeping WCW out of key Canadian markets well into the 1990s. He had positioned himself as Canada's WWF promoter, leading McMahon's army as they destroyed promotion after promotion. Soon, wrestling promotions across Canada fell on hard times as Tunney helped McMahon take over their territories. All-Star Wrestling in Vancouver expired. The AWA stopped coming into Manitoba. Stu Hart's Stampede promotion began eroding until he too was forced to sell to McMahon (and later starting up again for a few years). 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. To reward Tunney for his work he was made the chief WWF Promoter for Canadian tours (This is the position that is currently taken by Carl Demarco) and was legitimately the president of Titan Sports Canada, the WWF's Canadian corporate presence, after McMahon began operating under that entity in late 1989.
To present Canadian fans with a familiar face as the WWF tried to expand northward, Tunney was named the WWF's figurehead president on the company's television programs in the mid-1980s. This role was strictly ceremonial, to provide an authority figure to announce major decisions on television, and Tunney held no backstage real power behind the position, beyond what a standard regional promoter would. Still, he was used on TV whenever a major decision was to be announced and this made him a known entity to wrestling fans everywhere.
His hard nosed way of doing things earned him the nickname "The Hammerhead".
Jack Tunney stripped Ted DiBiase of the world title he acquired through deceptive means and an implied financial payoff. He only allowed Demolition to be comprised of 2 members after Survivor Series 1990. Tunney also famously video distorted the "Real World" Title Belt of Ric Flair in 1991. For Wrestlemania VIII, Tunney prohibited Jake Roberts from bringing his snake to the ring during a match with The Undertaker.
The peak of Tunney's WWF reign was WrestleMania VI at Toronto's SkyDome on April 1, 1990. The first WrestleMania held outside of the U.S., the show drew over 67,000. In the main event The Ultimate Warrior cleanly pinned Hulk Hogan to win the WWF World Title. Tunney disallowed a rematch. Hulk Hogan's (kayfabe) dislike of Tunney as president is seen by many as a precursor to Stone Cold Steve Austin's feud with WWF president Vince McMahon.[citation needed]
Tunney's position grew smaller over time, and by the early 1990s he was only seen sporadically on TV. In 1995, McMahon chose to run the shows in Toronto without any involvement from the Tunneys. The final show at the Gardens was held on September 17, 1995. That year, Tunney was forced out of the WWF, retired and disappeared from the wrestling scene.[citation needed] Gorilla Monsoon was given the role of on-screen WWF President. But his power is still felt—his family owns the rights to promoting wrestling in Maple Leaf Gardens—one of the true 'meccas of professional wrestling'.
Tunney met his wife Ann in the fourth grade, and they had two daughters. Ann died in 1991, and Jack died Saturday, January 24, 2004 in Lindsay, Ontario. Mr. Tunney was the grandson of former world heavyweight champion Gene Tunney, and is the uncle of Juno-nominated band The Inbreds' Mike O'Neill.
   | Jack Tunney - PAGE OF FAME: Jack Tunney |
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