Billion-dollar bundles: how wrestling got into the ring with networks and streamers

WWE and its martial arts stablemate UFC may have delivered a knockout blow to pay-per-view in the US

- Rory Smith

Unlikely as it might sound, it wasn't boxing, Hollywood or even softcore pornography that brought pay-per-view television into the mainstream.

It has its roots in what might unkindly be regarded as a combination of the three: professional wrestling.

The idea of pay-per-view first took root in the United States in the 1960s; by 1975, it was a sufficiently viable technology that 500,000 people paid HBO to watch the Thrilla in Manila, the heavyweight title bout between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in the Philippines, from the comfort of their own homes.

But it was when the wrestling promotion now known as World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) adopted it in the late 1980s, that pay-per-view became an industry. In 1987, WrestleMania III - the third instalment of the company's annual extravaganza of Spandex and open-fist punching - brought in an estimated $10.3m on pay-per-view. By the 1990s, some remote controls in the US came with a specific pay-per-view button.