Today In Pro Wrestling History: May 8th

Okay, so I decided to stretch today in case I needed to continue my gymnastics routine. I think the events for today have a little more sticking power. That’s not to say they’re momentous, but they definitely played a part in wrestling history!

• WCWA Von Erich Parade of Champions V (1988)

While the first Parade of Champions gave WCCW (rebranded to WCWA) the confidence to break away from the NWA and WWF’s expanding presence made the acquisition of talent difficult and the multiple tragedies sucked the soul out of the core of the promotion. There were still some notable matches, Terry Gordy vs Michael Hayes in a Triple Dome Terror match and the main event saw Kerry von Erich defeat Iceman King Parsons for the WCWA World title. But a few months later the controlling interest of the territory was sold to Jerry Jarrett and became the USWA in 1989.

• ROH Supercard of Honor V (2010)

This was an interesting event for a few reasons, firstly, TNA allowed talent to be on this show, after having instances of blocking TNA talent in 2004 and 2007. Also, this event was held in the Manhattan Center in New York and not attached to WrestleMania for the first time in the event history. The show had showcase matches of The Kings of Wrestling vs Motor City Machine Guns, Sara Del Ray vs Awesome Kong and Colt Cabana vs Kevin Steen to keep their rivalry brewing. As for the main event Tyler Black defended his title against Roderick Strong, but his jump to NXT was nearing. While God’s Last Gift, was on its last legs in ROH, this is still a pivotal moment to prove that they could draw away from the WWE spectacle.

• Pro Wrestling NOAH Great Voyage in Tokyo Vol. 2 (2011)

While the event had great matches and moments for KENTA, Go Shiozaki, Kotaro Suzuki and Takashi Sugiura, real life disasters leading to good faith and well meaning history, are the easy synopsis for why this is here. Two months prior to this event, Japan was hit with what is known as the Triple Disaster, a 9.0 Earthquake caused 40 meter high tsunami waves which hit a nuclear power plant and caused a core meltdown. So this event showed good faith and also lead to the “All Together” event series, where AJPW, NOAH and NJPW came together, as well as, some members for DDT, and donated all the funds to the Japanese Red Cross for relief efforts.

• NJPW/ROH Global Wars (2016)

In a similar vein to the previous event, this was pivotal for setting the stage for more. This event saw Adam Cole join the Bullet Club, the Young Bucks really stuck the “superkick party” gimmick here, and this event started the wheels moving for the G1 Supercard in 2019 and given the presentation and all the players, it also very much laid the groundwork for what would become AEW. NJPW saw a big boom in 2016, so as they sky rocketed, ROH stuck with them for relevance, but also helped to give a little more visibility in America.

• Dragon Gate The Gate Of Passion ~ Final Burst Out! K-Ness Forever (2022)

The epilogue event on the K-Ness retirement tour. A long standing member of Toryumon and Dragon Gate, he was trained by Animal Hamaguchi and Ultimo Dragon, so he was always held in high regard in the company and Japanese wrestling landscape. But aside from being the final chapter for K-Ness, this event saw shifts in the power dynamics. The Z-Brats controlled the chaos and most of the important belts, including the main belt with their member and freelancer KAI being the Open the Dream Gate Champion. As the Darkness Dragon retired, the Z-Brats made sure a new darkness was rising.

• WWE WrestleMania Backlash (2022)

Well, thankfully WWE never used the WrestleMania prefix for Backlash after this again. The wrestling was actually surprisingly really good, but trying to milk the WrestleMania name for more was dumb. We got a great match between Cody Rhodes and Seth Rollins, which cemented Cody as the babyface people wanted to see win. Roman bucked the trends by not defending his titles and participating in the Trios match instead. Ronda Rousey took Charlotte out of action after a critically acclaimed bout and Rhea Ripley solidified her Judgement Day allegiance by helping Edge defeat AJ Styles. Even if some of the Roman aspects were frustrating to some fans, the way it all built, and shows built around the eventual takedown, really show that the slow burn still works.

An oddly pivotal list of events tied together with tragedies, cross promotional work and just interesting asterisks. While nothing was a world shattering wrestling specific event, it’s always reassuring how people come together for a bigger picture in the face of hardships.

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!