Now to give fair warning, I don’t really think there’s too much stretching in this article. A bit of a mixture of continents, decades and relevance…but the mental gymnastics aren’t really present. The oldest event was also only in the early 90s, so it’s nothing super crazy. Time to see what was found!

• AAA Sin Limite: WWA World Welterweight Championship: El Hijo del Santo (c) vs Heavy Metal (1993)

This was a good establishing point for the younger generation of AAA’s roster. Heavy Metal, Rey Misterio Jr and Psicosis were the stars of tomorrow and the way for AAA to distinguish themselves from CMLL who focused more on tradition and older wrestlers. Heavy Metal won the title, and began the shift in AAA that would also lead to the shift in the general North American wrestling perception.

• WWF In Your House 1 (1995)

There’s actually a bit packed into the first ever monthly concept for WWF pay-per-views. The concept was created to stifle WCW’s growing footprint, and also promoted at a cheaper price point than the “Big 5” events (the fifth being King of the Ring). As for the show, it was the typical mixed bag of early to mid 90s WWF. Bret Hart pulls double duty having a tremendous match defeating Hakushi, but then losing to shenanigans against Jerry Lawler. Savio Vega unofficially debuted to save Razor Ramon after his match, and the bad being the main event. Which not only was flat, it ended in a legit elbow injury to Diesel.

• ECW It Ain’t Seinfeld (1998)

A tongue in cheek show title, tied together with Joey Styles making fantastic jokes, Jerry Lynn showing off why he’s such a generally underrated wrestler and a brutal 6 Man Tag Street Fight. One of those classic ECW car crash matches that was the main draw of their “counter culture” approach. But the real history, is this was the event where Taz introduced the FTW (Fuck the World) Title. With Shane Douglas injured, Taz couldn’t challenge for the title, so took it upon himself to declare himself the uncrowned king as an act of defiance. It was an unsanctioned title, as it should’ve stayed (looking at you AEW). It was a symbol of Taz’s rebellion against the red tape that was keeping the actual world title from him, so the name of the title was supposed to evoke the feeling of not needing that belt, because he was more important than the strap. Perfect gimmick for the man who used to say, “Beat me if you can, Survive if I let you”.

• TNA Sacrifice (2006)

Another show with Double Duty. Petey Williams lost a match to Jushin Thunder Liger before winning the 15 Man X-Cup Gauntlet after hitting the now overused Canadian Destroyer on Puma. Following that match, Nash showed up to Jacknife Puma and cut his promo about a “mediocre big man can still beat the best little guy”. An extension of Nash’s Vanilla Midget label against Cruiserweights and the X Division, that lead to a solid long running storyline in the early Spike era TNA shows. The rest of the shows had great matches like America’s Most Wanted versus AJ Styles & Christopher Daniels, as well as, the main event Full Metal Mayhem match between NWA World Champion Christian Cage and Abyss. But as far as memorable, the lead up to this event was highlighted with Sting screwing with Scott and Jarrett. He brought back Buff Bagwell, Rick Steiner and Lex Luger, all as potential mystery partners for a few weeks of TV just to leave the Planet Jarrett duo guessing. The best part to the twist, was that Sting chose Samoa Joe, the Samoan Submission Machine who was been terrorizing TNA for quite some time, setting up a dream team of the Icon Sting, and a rising younger talent in Joe.

• WWE SmackDown: Women’s Tag Team Championship: Nia Jax & Shayna Baszler (c) vs Natalya & Tamina (2021)

This may seem event more left field than what I usually grab, but there’s good reason here. The entire point I listed this, was to highlight Tamina’s only “real” championship win. The 24/7 title was a comedy title held by actors, pregnant women, commentators, and anything effectively to pop Vince. So while many look back at the title more fondly than when it was revealed, it is somehow less prestigious than the Hardcore title, which was literal trash duct taped together. At this point, Tamina was with WWE for about 12 years, and with no real accolades. This moment was nice for Nattie, since we all acknowledge she’s often overlooked in the grand scheme of things, but this was Tamina’s first and only true title reign.

• NJPW Capital Collision: IWGP US Championship: Hiroshi Tanahashi (c) vs Jon Moxley vs Will Ospreay vs Juice Robinson (2022)

While there were a few smaller things here, Okada’s involvement in the angle with Jay White as he was on his way out of New Japan, Brody King picking up a win over Minoru Suzuki and Tomohiro Ishii slugging it out with Eddie Kingston, the main event is the real moment. Juice turned heel for the first time two weeks prior to join Bullet Club. His new “Rock Hard” heel persona was immediately rewarded with a major upset if you zoom out and look at who was involved in the match. This was his first singles reign in over 3 years, granted he only held the title for 4 weeks because appendicitis forced him to vacate the title because he couldn’t make it to a scheduled defense at Dominion, this event still justified the heel turn.

Threads of double duty and Kevin Nash, but not double duty from Kevin Nash, we all know better than that. Jokes aside, we had a little bit of individual history, things that have changed wrestling permanently from the PPV/PLE frequency and some more fun moments that appeal to nostalgia. All in all, a solid day if I do say so myself.

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!

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!