5 People who should be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame this year, but probably won't

#2 Toots Mondt

Mondt (centre), was one of the co-founders of Capitol Wrestling Corporation which would later become the WWWF

As part of the Gold Dust Trio with legend Ed “The Strangler” Lewis and Billy Sandow, the baby-faced Mondt was partially responsible for the quickening pace of American catch-as-catch-can wrestling in the 1920s, eventually leading to the three becoming the preeminent promoters in North America for a short time.

Eventually this would lead to a relationship with the patriarch of the McMahon sports entertainment dynasty, boxing and wrestling promoter Jess McMahon. In 1948, they would begin to promote wrestling shows at the third iteration of Madison Square Garden, which previously hadn’t hosted a wrestling card due to owner Tex Rickard’s dislike of the sport.

From this, McMahon and Mondt founded the Capitol Wrestling Corporation. When the elder McMahon died in 1954, his son Vincent J. McMahon came aboard and along with Mondt soon controlled 70% of the National Wrestling Alliance due to their strong foothold in the Northeastern US.

In 1963, after growing tensions with the rest of the NWA board, Capitol broke away from the governing body and formed the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF).

The advent of television in the professional wrestling industry slowly started spelling the downfall of Mondt as he was never able to translate his work as an arena promoter to that of a television one and Mondt’s influence slowly waned from professional wrestling.

Along with demons in the form of a gambling addiction, he could never overcome, Mondt was eventually forced out of the company in the mid-‘60s by Vincent J. McMahon. His contributions to wrestling still live on every day that the largest sports entertainment company in the world keeps operating.