WWE
American professional wrestling and entertainment company
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) is an American professional wrestling promotion. It is the largest and most valuable wrestling promotion in the world and has expanded beyond professional wrestling into film, football, and other business ventures, including the licensing of its intellectual property to other companies to produce video games and action figures. WWE is owned and operated by TKO Group Holdings, a majority-owned subsidiary of The WME Group.
As in other professional wrestling promotions, WWE does not promote a legitimate sporting contest but rather entertainment-based, athletic mock combat performance theater, featuring storyline-driven, scripted, and partially choreographed matches. However, matches often include moves that put performers at risk of serious injury or death if not performed correctly. The predetermined nature of professional wrestling was publicly acknowledged by WWE in 1989 to avoid regulation by athletic commissions. WWE markets its product as "sports entertainment", acknowledging professional wrestling's roots in competitive sport and dramatic theater.
The promotion traces its origins to the formation of the Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC), founded in 1953 by Jess McMahon or Vincent J. McMahon as a Northeastern territory of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA). Following a booking dispute, CWC left the NWA and rebranded to the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) in April 1963. The promotion shortened its name to the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in 1979.
The public source identifies “WWE” as american professional wrestling and entertainment company. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around American, professional and wrestling.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q35339. VIAF identifies the subject as 139512709. The Library of Congress control number is n2003031218. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1989, 1953, 1963 and 1979.
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This entry incorporates text from “WWE” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.