Wrestling History

February 9th – On This Day In Wrestling History

Our full On This Day In Wrestling History section can be found here.

1982 – At a live event in Miami, Florida, the masked ‘Midnight Rider’ defeated Ric Flair to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. At the time the NWA didn’t allow masked wrestlers to hold their championship belt so asked him to remove his mask after the match. The Rider refused (as it was actually Dusty Rhodes who was suspended at the time) and so the title was returned to Flair who carried on as champion. Abyss would be the first masked wrestler to officially hold the championship but that wouldn’t be until 2006.

1998 – WCW Nitro was in El Paso, Texas. In the main event Rick and Scott Steiner won the WCW World Tag Team Titles after beating Kevin Nash and Scott Hall. However, the show is mainly remembered for the match between Steven (William) Regal and Goldberg.

Up until this match Goldberg had been beating everyone he faced with ease and within a minute or two. Regal, however, wanted to put on a proper wrestling match and so that’s what he does. Regal, interviewed years later by Steve Austin, said that himself and Goldberg were told to ‘put on a competitive match.’ Goldberg, according to Regal, froze up during the start of the match and had be talked through the moves but everyone was convinced that Regal was trying to show up Goldberg by out-wrestling him. He also mentioned that the rumour was he was sacked immediately after the match but Regal says he wasn’t released until months later.

2007 – In Plainfield, Indiana, the IWA-MS Payback, Pain & Agony show was held. The main event was a ‘Hardcore Rumble’ match in which Drake Younger became the new IWA:MS Deathmatch champion after outlasting DieHard, Ian Rotten, Mad Man Pondo, Mickie Knuckles, and Too Tuff Tony.

2008 – The wonderful wrestling company Kaiju Big Battel held a show called NY Blackout in New York. The wrestlers in the event are all a mixture of monsters, superheroes and… scabs… in fancy dress costumes. On the show:

Steam-Powered Tentacle Boulder and Sun Buster defeated Scab #1 and Scab #2 (literally dressed as scabs.)
American Beetle and Neo Teppen retained the Kaiju Double Danger Tandem Titles against Uchu Chu and Yarsmenko.
Dusto Bunny won the Robox Robolimination Rumble against Pablo The Zombie Plantain, Super Wrong, Tad Bradley Hawaiian Paddler, and Tucor.
The main event was The Grudyin against Call-Me-Kevin for either the Kaiju Grand Championship or $100 million, which were in one of two black boxes. The Grudyin got the upper hand to end the match and was able to choose first. Unfortunately he didn’t get the belt and had to make do with the $100 million dollars instead, meaning that Call-Me-Kevin got the all important championship belt.

2013 – The tribute show ‘PWS Thank You Jerry’ was held in Metuchen, New Jersey to honour Jerry Lynn. On the show Kevin Matthews defeated Matt Hardy to become the new PWS Heavyweight champion, Alex Reynolds took the PWS Tri-State Title from Starman and in the main event Jerry Lynn himself defeated Lance Storm.

2021 – On an episode of IMPACT Wrestling, The Good Brothers defended the Tag Team Championships against James Storm and Chris Sabin, however the match ended in a disqualification when Private Party attacked the challengers. On the same show, ODB returned to the company and Black Taurus made his debut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEYe55n2uOI

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