Maple Leaf Wrestling

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.

In 1978, 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, along with George Scott, a key executive with Crockett who had been a preliminary wrestler for Tunney from 1950 to 1956.

The Tunneys hosted National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) and Mid-Atlantic Wrestling matches until 1984, when Jack Tunney abandoned Crockett and signed with Vince McMahon's expanding World Wrestling Federation, with Jack serving as a figurehead on-air president of the WWF from 1984 to 1995, while also serving as the (legitimate) president of Titan Sports Canada, the local arm of the WWF's parent company.

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.

Cover of the program for the first game of the Toronto Maple Leafs at Maple Leaf Gardens (MLG) in 1931. Boxing and wrestling matches, also staple events at MLG for most of its history, are depicted on the cover along with ice hockey imagery.
Ring introductions at MLG of the NWA World Heavyweight Championship match between champion Dory Funk, Jr. and challenger Johnny Valentine on February 11, 1973. Note the entrance ramp at left, which was used at MLG decades before it became commonplace in other promotions.