Today In Pro Wrestling History: June 15th

This is a pretty solid combination of major American shows, mid tier and some Japanese fun moments. Time to see what went down today!

WCW Great American Bash: WCW Women’s Championship Title vs Career Match: Akira Hokuto (c) vs Madusa (1997)

While in hindsight we know Madusa came back to WCW a few years later, this match signified the story end to Madusa’s career but the actual end to the WCW Women’s Division. Akira Hokuto defended her title in a fairly good Japanese Joshi style match, but the next day she vacated the title because she went back to Japan. The Japanese talent was too expensive to continually fly in. While Madusa did wrestle the Germany tour right after this event, her emotional exit was seen more as the death of the Women’s division than her career.

• MLW Genesis: MLW World Heavyweight Championship: Taiyo Kea vs Shane Douglas vs Vampiro (2002)

The very first MLW event, and crowning the very first MLW World Champion! While I mentioned that Satoshi Kojima was the first wrestler to have a real reign, this event is the why of that statement. After an eight man tournament, things came down to these three competitors. A little bit of worldly flair on all competitors with Taiyo being a rising star in Japan, Vampiro being a highly regarded luchador and Shane being the embodiment of American wrestling. Douglas won the match an decided to crown MLW the same way he did ECW. He spat on the title and threw it into the crowd. MLW decided to strip Douglas of the belt and even refused to recognize him as the inaugural champion.

• WWE Bad Blood (2003)

This one is on here because it was the first every Brand Exclusive PPV and the first Bad Blood since 1997. Most notable for it’s grudge match style layout. Ric Flair defeated Shawn Michaels with the help of Randy Orton and typical “dirtiest player in the game” tactics. Goldberg and Chris Jericho got to air their grievances in a match that saw Goldberg win, in one of his longer matches, just over 10 minutes. The main event was Triple H retaining over Kevin Nash in Hell in a Cell for the World Championship. Most significant moment was La Resistance defeating RVD & Kane for the Tag Team Titles. This marked the first time La Resistance won tag titles in WWE, but also the only time Renee Dupree would hold the title as a member of La Resistance, because he was later drafted to SmackDown, with his only other tag team title win paired with Kenzo Suzuki.

• TNA Slammiversary XII (2014)

This was one of the few bright points during a turbulent and declining TNA era. The main event, much like the promotion, got derailed when MVP got injured shortly before the PPV, so they had to insert Austin Aries and Bobby Lashley. The match was good and a solid pivot, but oddly encapsulated the general vibes of TNA for the next few years. Seiya Sanada was the X Division champion, and he successfully defended his title in a 6-man Ladder Match. The biggest historical note here was the Texas Deathmatch between Bully Ray and EC3. While assisted by Aunt Dixie and Rockstar Spud, Ethan Carter made his mark as a real main event player. His ability to adapt to hardcore style and still execute a quality match, established EC3 as a major player for this dark period.

• AJPW Dynamite Series: AJPW World Tag Team Championship: Bodyguard & Zeus (c) vs Daisuke Sekimoto & Yuji Okabayashi (2016)

We’ve seen the big boys of BJW mentioned a few times before during these articles and others on the Chairshot, Sekimoto and Okabayashi, known collectively as Strong BJ. Bodyguard and Zeus were also a very popular team from Osaka Pro. All four men are the prototypical Hoss. So this was meaty men slapping meat the musical. In a nearly 22 minute affair, clobbering strikes, physical exchanges and tandem power moves, Strong BJ ended up securing the victory, ending the Big Guns 6 month title reign. This was a nice jumping off point for the back half of the 10s in AJPW to involve a lot of big hoss tag teams.

• NJPW Dominion (2025)

There was a few wrinkles in this show that could be seen as memorable to many. Oleg Boltin had an upset victory over Konosuke Takeshita for the NEVER Openweight Championship. Chase Owens betrayed the War Dogs and joined the House of Torture in tandem with Bad Luck Fale revealing himself as the House of Torture enforcer. Arguably the biggest match was what would turn out to be Hirooki Goto’s final successful defense of the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship, against Shingo Takagi. In a 28 minute match, that combined the stiff strikes of Strong Style, as well as, the brutal in-ring psychology of King’s Road, this was Goto’s crown jewel match. Unguarded strikes, unrelenting Fighting Spirit, and countering significant Avalanche variations of some of their signature moves. Goto hitting the Shouten Kai followed by the GTR allowed him to survive before his grudge match with Zack Sabre Jr.

A little bit of the mental gymnastics today, I’m fully aware. But I’d like to think the events were interesting and count as memorable. While maybe not all time historical, interesting nuggets like these tend to live for difficult trivia games.

How tight were the nostalgia goggles? Am I ignoring companies that you’re passionate about? Make your thoughts known and Always Use Your Head!