You Don’t Know Jack! President Tunney’s WWF Impeachment

Posted on July 22, 2014 by bdamage1

Brian Damage

If you grew up a WWF fan in the 1980’s…you are well aware of the fictitious WWF President named Jack Tunney. Tunney was the ‘Authority’ before the days of Mr. McMahon, Stephanie and Triple H. The only big difference…was he was a figure head….not a real president.

What he really was was a promoter out of the Canadian territories. Vince hired Jack to run the WWF’s expansion office in Toronto. He was in charge of promoting the company up north. While promoting WWF cards at the old Maple Leaf Gardens and ‘The Big Event’ at Exhibition Stadium, Jack was also used as the TV authority figure. Vince McMahon at the time, used himself solely as a TV announcer.

Jack Tunney began his “presidency” in 1984 and remained in that position until 1995. It was then, that Jack Tunney disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again on WWF programming. There was no on air resignation, no big announcements…he just vanished. So What happened?

There were apparently several reasons as the cause for Jack Tunney’s dismissal from the World Wrestling Federation. There were rumors that Jack had a big drinking and gambling problem. As the rumors go, he started skimming money from the Toronto offices to pay off some debts. The more plausible reasoning was by 1995, the WWF had been in some financial straits. With business declining, Vince began consolidating his assets and closed his Toronto office firing everyone including Tunney. Jack Tunney was reportedly making a nice living under the WWF umbrella. His salary was cut amongst others.

There are also the stories that while Jack Tunney was running things in Canada…he was never a big fan of Bret Hart. Tunney felt that Bret was just not a marketable box office draw. Bret who became a big singles star for the company, used his leverage to remove Jack from his position in Canada and be replaced by his longtime friend Carl DeMarco.

Then of course there was the legal issues surrounding Wrestlemania VI at the Skydome in Toronto. Eddie Tunney, who was Jack’s cousin booked the Skydome for the WWF’s marquee event in 1989. Eddie signed the deposit check and went on to trademark the name ‘Wrestlemania’ up in Canada. Jack may have tried to cut Eddie out of the deal with Vince McMahon and in doing so…set off a firestorm of lawsuits from Eddie Tunney. The lawsuit had a lot of merit and could have crippled McMahon so he settled out of court with Eddie and in doing so…slowly left a bad taste for Jack Tunney.

He was eventually used less and less on television…almost as if he was being phased out. Finally, in July of 1995, Jack was officially let go by the WWF and never mentioned on TV again. So what was truth? What was rumor?

What we do know is when Jack died in 2004, no one from the WWE attended his funeral. His death was never mentioned on television and his name is hardly ever uttered to this day. After being fired, Jack himself never spoke publicly about the WWF, Vince McMahon or pro wrestling.