Today In Pro Wrestling History: May 13th

We have another article where the more recent addition is still nearly 15 years old. So we can definitely say it’s history, but some of these days are really rough when it comes more modern events. If you’re older than 25, these could be fun events to reminisce about.

• Ric Flair NWA Jim Crockett Promotions Debut (1974)

While Flair officially debuted in AWA  a year a half prior, this was his debut in what is his most well known company. He faced ring veteran, New Zealand born, Abe Jacobs. Flair won his debut match and teamed up with Rip Hawk shortly after to start a heel team for his early NWA days.

• AWA St. Paul Show: World Heavyweight Championship: Jumbo Tsuruta (c) vs Rick Martel (1984)

This was an attempt from AWA to focus on younger talent in the wake of WWF expanding not only in territories but also with their televised reach. Rick Martel defeated the AJPW legend for his first and only World title run, which also happens to be the longest individual reign in AWA history at 595 days. Even with Curt Hennig, Verne and Greg Gagne coming out to celebrate Martel’s victory, AWA had some rough years ahead.

• ECW Enter The Sandman (1995)

A show dedicated to the rising popularity of surfer turned beer drinking, kendo stick swinging badass…this had a few memorable moments. Dean Malenko and Eddy Guerrero went to a 30 Minute Time Limit Draw, in a technical masterpiece. This match helped to prove that ECW was more than just barbed wire and “garbage” wrestling. However, the main character of the show, Sandman, was the World Champion at the time and pulled off a double title defense. He had a rough hardcore match with Cactus Jack, which he ended up winning thanks to Shane Douglas interfering. But that was to make sure he got his shot at Sandman right after. Woman turned on Douglas to help Sandman win the title, so this was Shane’s rematch. Trying to pick the bones, he failed at his plan. As he was leaving, he put on a Monday Night Raw shirt and left to become Dean Douglas in WWF.

• Toryumon Mexico Dragonmania (2006)

Since we’ve already had a couple of them, might as well list the inaugural Dragonmania. The event is memorable for quite a few things. Hajime Ohara won the vacant NWA World Welterweight Championship, Kazuchika Okada in his early years won his undercard match against Amigo Suzuki, a Four Way Tag Team Elimination featuring Milano Collection AT and was the debut of the new version of the Young Dragons Cup. Formerly a tournament like the Young Lions Cup (Okada won this in 2005), changed to a multiman elimination match. Kota Ibushi won this year’s Young Dragons Cup match.

• TNA Sacrifice (2007)

This was a huge event for TNA, it was their official departure from NWA. The morning of, the NWA stripped Christian Cage and Team 3D of their respective TNA titles. So their matches turned into an inaugural crowning of the official TNA champions. Kurt Angle and Team 3D won the honors of being the first official TNA champions. Chris Harris and James Storm had a great Texas Deathmatch to help us forget about that botched dumpster fire Blindfold Cage match. Not to be forgotten, Tiger Mask IV also made his TNA debut in the X Division 4-Way with Jerry Lynn, AJ Styles and Low Ki.

• TNA Sacrifice (2012)

While this wasn’t as pivotal as the ’07 Sacrifice, there was a lot of good moments here since we’re still in the peak TNA era. Bad Influence established themselves as the top heel tag team, Frankie Kazarian and Christopher Daniels with his Appletini, Mr Anderson got a well earned win over Jeff Hardy and Bobby Roode had one hell of a title defense against RVD in a ladder match. But the two most lauded matches were AJ Styles vs Kurt Angle, for obvious reasons, I don’t even need to explain this further. The other match being Austin Aries vs Bully Ray, Bully Ray was having a great singles run and being pushed legit. Aries had an uphill battle, but a small assist from Abyss’ brother, Joseph Park, distracted Bully enough for Aries to hit his finish and win from the underdog position. This was the win that Aries needed to vacate his X Division championship (in the midst of his historic longest 298 day reign), and establish Option C. Where the reigning X Division champion can cash in the title for a shot at the world.

Even though there wasn’t any WWE on the list, each event involves people who are very relevant in the current landscape of pro wrestling, or recently enough retired to still be topical. I go where the memorable moments and historic events are, the companies are irrelevant to me. Pro wrestling is nearly a 200 year old entertainment medium, all over the world. Only focusing on the last 50 years of one specific company is narrow minded and merely a drop in the bucket of the overall scope of our fandom.

Did I miss anything? How far did I stretch the events today? Which one is your favorite? Let us know in the comments. And if you don’t do anything else today, remember, Always Use Your Head!