Liz is back with a loaded day in wrestling history: December 6!

Yesterday I said that the days seemed slowed, but my oh my was I wrong! December 6th is chock full of goodies, including the last woman to hold the AWA Women’s Championship, the last women to main event RAW till 2016,  and TNA’s Women’s champ vacating the title!

Born On This Day

• 1934 – Nicholas Warren Francis Bockwinkel
• 1972 – Noe Astro Moreno Leon (El Oriental)
• 1974 – Kentaro Shiga

On This Day In Wrestling History

1960 – Gene Kiniski defeats Wilbur Snyder in Minneapolis, Minnesota to win the AWA United States Heavyweight Title.

1968 – The Professional (Doug Gilbert, not the current wrestler) defeats Johnny Valentine to win the NWA Georgia Heavyweight Title in Atlanta, Georgia. The title had been held up by special referee (and boxing legend) Joe Louis after a match between the two in Atlanta, Georgia.

1985 – Gama Singh defeats Bruce Hart in Calgary, Alberta, Canada for the Stampede British Commonwealth Mid-Heavyweight Title, ending Bruce’s fourth reign as champion.

1980 – The Mongolian Stomper defeats Jack Brisco for the NWA Georgia National Title in Atlanta, Georgia.

1989 – Stan Hansen & Genichiro Tenryu win back the All Japan World Tag Team Title by winning the annual Real World Tag League tournament in Tokyo, Japan. Hansen & Tenryu defeat Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu to win the tournament, 18 points to 16 for Tsuruta & Yatsu. The duo had vacated the belts at the start of the tournament, so they could be awarded to the winning team.

1989 – Candi Devine defeats Judy Martin for the AWA Women’s World Title in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, starting her fifth reign as champion.Wendi Richter, the last champion, vacated the title when she left the company just after celebrating her one-year anniversary with the title. Devine would be the last woman to hold the title; she abandoned it just before the promotion shut down in January 1991.

1993 – Tracy Smothers defeats Chris Candido in Jefferson, North Carolina to win the SMW “Beat The Champ” Television Title for the second time. The belt had been vacated by Tim Horner due to injury.

1998 – Chris Candido and Lance Storm defeat Doug Furnas & Phil Lafon and Axel Rotten & Balls Mahoney in a three-way to win the ECW World Tag Team Championship. The win comes just a day after the Can-Am Express (Furnas & Lafon) win the tag titles.

1998 – WWF holds their UK-only Pay-per-view “Capitol Carnage” at the London Arena, in London, England. The show is noted for Ross suffering a Bell’s palsy attack while commentating the show, coming just hours after his mother died of a heart attack. Ross would not return until just before WrestleMania XV; WWF for some reason tried making Ross a heel announcer, but after the crowd cheered him kicking Michael Cole in the groin, the plan was soon abandoned and Ross restored to his lead play-by-play spot without incident at WrestleMania XV.

1999 – On Nitro from Milwaukee, Wisconsin  Jushin Thunder Liger defeated Psicosis (substituting for the injured Juventud Guerrera) to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship.

2002 – Lex Luger defeats Sting in Glasgow, Scotland to win the World Wrestling All-Stars World Heavyweight Title. The belt had been vacated by Scott Steiner the previous month when he signed with WWE.

2004 – Lita defeated Trish Stratus to win the WWE Women’s Championship. It was the last time a women’s match closed the show until October 4, 2016 when Sasha Banks defeated Charlotte for the new version of the WWE Women’s Championship.

2006 – One day after his loss to Bobby Lashley aired on ECW on SciFi, WWE confirmed that Big Show was leaving the company, quoting Show as saying “I’ve reached a point in my career right now where I am a little run down and hurt pretty bad physically. I’ve been wrestling the past three months pretty much in pain every night. I can’t compete at the level I want to compete at, and that’s the most heartbreaking thing.”  The article portrayed Show’s departure as something of a hiatus, although his contract was set to expire in February 2007. Show noted that beyond the injuries, he wanted “some time to himself.”  Show returned to WWE in early 2008, setting up a heavily hyped “wrestler vs. boxer” match with Floyd Mayweather for Wrestlemania.

2008 – The final episode of Hulk Hogan’s Celebrity Championship Wrestling airs on CMT with Dennis Rodman crowned champion

2009 – Vladimir Kozlov, at the time a WWE star, was among those officially became an American Citizen in Tampa, Florida. Kozlov commented, “Oh to be a U.S. citizen has been like a dream for long time. When I was raised and born in Russia, I had [a] dream to come to United States because U.S. [is a] land of big opportunity. If you work hard, you can reach whatever you want.”

2009 – AAA presented Guerra de Titanes (War of the Titans) from Plaza de toros La Concordia in Orizaba, Mexico. El Mesias defeated El Zorro in a ladder match to win the vacant AAA World Heavyweight Championship.  The title was vacated a little over a month earlier at Heroes Inmortales 2 (Immortal Heroes 2, also known as the 2008 Antonio Pena Memorial Show) when after Konnan won storyline ownership of AAA, its champion at the time Cibernetico legitimately quit the company.

2010 – TNA Knockouts Tag Team champion Ayako Hamada was released by TNA after she chose not to sign a new contract. The promotion immediately began a tournament to fill the championship vacancy.

2014– UFC announced that they have signed Phil Brooks, best known to wrestling fans as CM Punk, to a multi-fight deal. The announcement came just over a week after Punk appeared on the Art of Wrestling podcast detailing his final days in WWE, where he declared his wrestling days were behind him.

Died On This Day

• 2003 – Jerry Tuite
• 2014 – David Ferrier (Jimmy Del Ray)
• 2018 – Larry Hennig