May 7th – On This Day In Wrestling History
1917 – Stanislaus Zbyszko defeated Americus to win the World Heavyweight Championship in Kansas City, Missouri.
1989 – The National Wrestling Alliance presented ‘WrestleWar ’89: Music City Showdown’ from the Nashville Municipal Auditorium in Nashville, Tennessee. The highest profile match on the card saw Ric Flair win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship from Ricky Steamboat in the third and finale match in their legendary 1989 trilogy. Famously, the three matches took the top three spots in that year’s Wrestling Observer ‘Match Of The Year’ award. This particular bout finished second. After the match, Terry Funk attacked Flair and shockingly drove him through a table with a piledriver. Funk, along with Lou Thesz and Pat O’Connor had been seated at ringside as judges to determine a winner in the event the match went to a one hour time limit draw. This attack kayfabe sidelined Flair for two months and set up the historic Flair/Funk series. Also on the show, Michael Hayes defeated Lex Luger to win the NWA United States Championship.
2000 – WCW Slamboree took place from the Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Missouri. The main event saw WCW Champion David Arquette defend his title in a triple threat, triple cage match against Diamond Dallas Page and Jeff Jarrett. Double J won the match and the title when Arquette unexpectedly turned on his ally Page and let Jarrett defeat him. After the match, Mike Awesome threw Chris Kanyon from the triple height cage and through the stage. This stunt was considered to be in hugely bad taste, taking place in the same arena in which Owen Hart fell from the ceiling to his death, almost a year to the day from the incident.
2002 – Scott Hall was released from WWE after a pattern of unprofessional behaviour culminating on an incident on a flight back from the UK that was dubbed ‘The Plane Ride From Hell’ due to the misbehaviour of various members of the roster.
2005 – Ring Of Honor held its first event in New York City with ‘Manhattan Mayhem’ taking place at the New Yorker hotel. In the main event, The Rottweilers (Homicide and Low Ki) defeated Samoa Joe and Jay Lethal. Earlier on the show, Joe had defeated Lethal to win the ROH Pure Championship. Austin Aries also defeated Alex Shelley to retain the ROH World Championship.
2007 – On an episode of Raw from State College, Pennsylvania, Edge defeated Mr. Kennedy in just 10 seconds to win Kennedy’s Money In The Bank briefcase. This was done because both Kennedy and World Heavyweight Champion The Undertaker suffered muscle tears in the same week that were predicted to result in long layoffs. The decision was made to therefore have Edge take the MITB case so he could take the title from ‘Taker which he did the following night at the SmackDown tapings. As it transpired, Kennedy’s injury was much less serious than first diagnosed and he returned to action less than a month later.
2018 – On night 3 of PROGRESS Chapter 68, Zack Sabre Jr. defeated Kassius Ohno in the final of the 2018 Super Strong 16 Tournament at Alexandra Palace in London, England.
Notable Wrestling Birthdays:
- Will Ospreay (1993)
- L.A Smooth (1970)
- Owen Hart (1965)
- Ray Fernandez (1957)