King and Queen of the Ring, formerly and still commonly known as King of the Ring, is a professional wrestling event produced by WWE, a Connecticut-based professional wrestling promotion. The event was established in 1993 and centers on the men's King of the Ring tournament, which had been established in 1985, and beginning in 2024, the women's Queen of the Ring tournament, which was established in 2021 and originally known as the Queen's Crown tournament.
Ray Washington Traylor Jr. was an American professional wrestler best known for his appearances with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) under the ring name Big Boss Man, as well as for his appearances with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) as the Boss, the Man, the Guardian Angel, and Big Bubba Rogers. During his appearances with the WWF, Big Boss Man held the WWF World Tag Team Championship once and the WWF Hardcore Championship four times.
WWE No Mercy, also known as NXT No Mercy since 2023, is a professional wrestling event produced by WWE, a professional wrestling promotion based in Connecticut. The first No Mercy was held on May 16, 1999, in Manchester, England, and was the only No Mercy event produced in the United Kingdom. A second No Mercy was then held in October that year in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Beginning with this second event, No Mercy became the annual October pay-per-view (PPV) until 2008. The event was then discontinued and replaced by Hell in a Cell in 2009. After eight years, No Mercy was reinstated in October 2016. However, No Mercy was again discontinued after the September 2017 event, as WWE reduced the amount of yearly PPVs held after they had ended the production of brand-exclusive PPVs following WrestleMania 34 in 2018. In 2023, WWE again revived the event, this time for its developmental brand, NXT, in September.
WWE Heat is an American professional wrestling television program that was produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and aired from August 2, 1998 to May 30, 2008. Originally produced under the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) banner, it aired on USA Network (1998–2000), MTV (2000–2003), and TNN/Spike TV (2003–2005) in the United States, CTV Sportsnet in Canada, and Channel 4, Sky1, and Sky Sports in the United Kingdom. From 2002, due to the WWE brand extension, Heat served as a supplementary show to the Raw brand, focusing more exclusively on its mid-card performers and matches, and was recorded before the week's television taping of Raw.
WWE Velocity is an American professional wrestling television program that was produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and ran from May 25, 2002 to June 11, 2006. It replaced two syndicated WWE shows, Jakked and Metal. Once a weekly Saturday night show on Spike TV and on Sky Sports 2 in the United Kingdom on Sunday mornings, Velocity became a webcast from 2005 to 2006. The newest episode would be uploaded to WWE.com on Saturdays and be available for the next week. Older webcast episodes were also archived. It served as a supplementary show to the SmackDown! brand, focusing more exclusively on its mid-card performers and matches, and was recorded before the week's television taping of SmackDown!. 8 episodes of Velocity are now available on Peacock in the United States and the WWE Network in international markets.
Sean Michael Coulthard, better known by his ring name Michael Cole, is an American professional wrestling commentator and journalist. Since 1997, he is signed to WWE, where he serves as the play-by-play commentator for the Raw brand and as the vice president of announcing since 2020.
WWE Afterburn is an American syndicated television program which recaps events taking place on WWE's weekly flagship program, SmackDown. Along with Bottom Line, it replaced WWE's previous syndicated highlight show, Jakked. The show ran from May 2002 until September 2005 domestically, broadcasting 172 episodes domestically before being removed from syndication. The show continues to run in some international markets such as South Africa, Italy, Germany, Spain and South Asia.
WWE Bad Blood is a professional wrestling event produced by WWE, a Connecticut-based professional wrestling promotion. The event was first held in October 1997 when the promotion was still called the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and that first event was held as the 18th In Your House pay-per-view (PPV) event. After six years and after the promotion had been renamed to World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), Bad Blood returned as its own PPV event in June 2003, replacing King of the Ring. In 2005, One Night Stand replaced Bad Blood; Vengeance had also moved to June that year as The Great American Bash moved to July. Bad Blood had been announced to be revived in 2017; however, these plans were scrapped in favor of an event titled Great Balls of Fire. After a 20-year hiatus, Bad Blood was scheduled to return in October 2024, and will be the first Bad Blood to air on WWE's livestreaming platforms.
WWE Unforgiven was an annual professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), a Connecticut-based professional wrestling promotion. It was first held as the 21st In Your House PPV in April 1998. Unforgiven returned as its own PPV in September 1999 and continued as the annual September PPV until the final event in 2008. From its first event up through the 2001 event, the PPV was held when the promotion was still called the World Wrestling Federation (WWF).
Bruce Prichard is an American professional wrestling executive, booker, and producer and a former manager, commentator, and occasional professional wrestler who works for WWE as Executive Director - CWT. In addition to his corporate roles with WWE, Prichard has also appeared as an on-screen character under the ring name Brother Love. As Brother Love, Prichard was the original manager of The Undertaker, and hosted a talk show segment, The Brother Love Show.
WWF Shotgun Saturday Night is a professional wrestling television program that was produced by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). It aired from January 4, 1997, through August 21, 1999, as a syndicated broadcast. Shotgun Saturday Night was replaced by WWF Jakked in 1999.
WWF Superstars of Wrestling, also referred to as Maple Leaf Wrestling in Canada, was an American professional wrestling television program that was produced by the World Wrestling Federation. It debuted on September 6, 1986, as the flagship program of the WWF's syndicated programming.
The brand extension, also referred to as the brand split, is the separation of the American professional wrestling promotion WWE's roster of wrestlers into distinct divisions, or "brands". The promotion's wrestlers are assigned to a brand via the annual WWE Draft and exclusively perform on that brand's weekly television show, with some exceptions. Throughout its history, WWE has utilized the brand extension twice. The first brand split occurred from 2002 to 2011, while the ongoing second began in 2016.
Professional wrestling in Australia makes up a small part of Australian culture. Unlike the North American or Japanese products which have large, globally renowned organisations such as WWE, AEW, New Japan Pro-Wrestling or Impact Wrestling with several hundred smaller promotions, Australia only has approximately 30 smaller independent circuit promotions which exist in all Australian states and territories. Tours from the North American product are regularly sold out in capital cities such as Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney.
The history of WWE Raw began as WWF's Monday Night Raw on January 11, 1993. Over the next two decades, Raw would become the promotion's flagship show, achieving numerous milestones along the way.
The history of WWF/E SmackDown!, began with the show's debut on August 26, 1999, in Kansas City, Missouri. The show was originally broadcast on Thursday nights but moved to Friday on September 9, 2005, before returning to Thursdays on January 15, 2015. On July 19, 2016, it was moved to Tuesday Nights. SmackDown! debuted in the United States on the UPN television network on April 29, 1999, but after the merger of UPN and the WB, SmackDown! began airing on The CW in September 2006. The show was moved to MyNetworkTV in October 2008, to Syfy on October 1, 2010 and to USA Network on January 7, 2016.
SmackDown is a brand of the American professional wrestling promotion WWE that was established on March 25, 2002. Brands are divisions of WWE's roster where wrestlers are assigned to perform on a weekly basis when a brand extension is in effect. Wrestlers assigned to SmackDown primarily appear on the brand's weekly television program, Friday Night SmackDown, also referred to simply as SmackDown. It is one of WWE's two main brands, along with Raw, collectively referred to as WWE's main roster. The brand extension was discontinued between August 2011 and July 2016.
ECW was a brand of the American professional wrestling promotion World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) that was established in May 2006 and discontinued in February 2010. Brands are divisions of WWE's roster where wrestlers are assigned to perform on a weekly basis when a brand extension is in effect. Wrestlers that were assigned to ECW primarily appeared on the brand's weekly television program, ECW. The brand was established as a relaunch of the former Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) promotion, the assets of which WWE acquired in 2003.
The American professional wrestling promotion WWE has maintained several men's world championships since Capitol Wrestling Corporation seceded from the National Wrestling Alliance in 1963 to become the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), which was later subjected to various name changes, including World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)—in April 2011, the company ceased using its full name and has since just been referred to as WWE. The company's first world championship was the WWE Championship, which was established along with the promotion's creation in 1963 as the WWWF World Heavyweight Championship; it is still active today and is WWE's oldest active title. Whenever the WWE brand extension has been implemented, separate world championships have been created or allocated for each brand.
