August 12th – On This Day In Wrestling History
We take a look back at wrestling history on this day in years gone by, which seemed to be a popular one in the annuals of grappling sports entertainment.
1988 – Curt Hennig and Owen Hart both make their WWF television debuts. Hennig wrestles under his real name and Hart competes as The Blue Blazer.
1992 – In Tokyo, Masahiro Chono defeated ‘Ravishing’ Rick Rude in the final of the G1 Climax tournament. As a result, Chono also became the new NWA Heavyweight Champion. The title had been vacant since Ric Flair was stripped of the title when signing for the WWF almost one year earlier. This had been the first time the title had been vacant in its then 43 year history.
1996 – The Outsiders Scott Hall and Kevin Nash took on Lex Luger in the main event of WCW Monday Nitro. Randy Savage faced on Ric Flair, Rey Mysterio battled the Ultimate (Ultimate) Dragon, and The Steiner Brothers faced Harlem Heat.
1996 – On the go-home edition of Raw for Summerslam, WWE Champion Shawn Michaels had a warm-up match for his pay-per-view title defence against Vader by taking on Owen Hart. Ahmed Johnson gave an update on his injury, and Bret Hart speaks out about his return to WWE.
2002 – On Raw The Rock teamed up with The Undertaker, Goldust and Booker T to take on Triple H and The Un-Americans team of Christian, Lance Storm and Test.
2005 – ROH Redemption took place at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds in Ohio where James Gibson defeated CM Punk, Christopher Daniels, and Samoa Joe in a four way elimination match to win the ROH World Championship. Also competing on the undercard were Matt Stryker, Colt Cabana, Austin Aries, Roderick Strong, Jay Lethal and Matt Hardy.
2006 – ROH Unified took place in Liverpool and featured a title unification match in the main event between ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson, and ROH Pure Champion Nigel McGuinness. Austin Aries and Roderick Strong defeated the Briscoe Brothers to retain the ROH World Tag Team Championship.
2007 – Kurt Angle defeated Samoa Joe to retain the TNA World & IWGP Heavyweight Championships at TNA Hard Justice ’07. On the undercard The Steiner Brothers defeated Team 3D, James Storm defeated Rhino in a Bar Room Brawl, Robert Roode defeated Eric Young, and an excellent triple-threat tag match.
https://youtu.be/6p81xJ_TxK8
2012 – Kazuchika Okada defeated Karl Anderson in the final of the G1 Climax tournament. At 24 years of age, Okada was the youngest G1 winner in history.
2014 – Independent wrestling standout Kevin Steen is announced as the latest WWE signing to be part of the NXT brand. The Canadian star would be renamed Kevin Owens before his official debut.
2016 – Vader competed in his final wrestling match against Will Osprey at Rev Pro’s Summer Sizzler at York Hall in London.
2019 – Kota Ibushi defeated Jay White to win the G1 Climax tournament for the first time.
2020 – A shocking moment on NXT during the contract signing for Keith Lee vs. Karrion Kross, as Lee opened the folder with the contract in to be hit in the face by a fireball. In competition, AEW presented Tag Team Appreciation Night with a show headlined by Orange Cassidy defeating Chris Jericho.
Notable Wrestling Birthdays:
- Terry Taylor (1952)
- Dr. Wagner Jr (1965)
- Jonathan Coachman (1972)
- Fallah Bahh (1982)