Today In Pro Wrestling History: June 20th

I got far too comfortable with the last few days having tons of events to pick from. While this wasn’t a full on floor routine of mental gymnastics, it got closer than I’m willing to admit. Let’s see what events our sometimes first day of summer gives us!

• WCW Beach Blast (1992)

The beginnings of WCW trying to cut out a space for themselves. We got a great Iron Man Match between Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat and Rick Rude, which ended up in a 4-3 score in favor of Steamboat. We also saw a little bit of the fallout from the previously highlighted Clash of Champions tournament match where the Miracle Violence Connection (Steve Williams & Terry Gordy) got a shot at the WCW Tag Team Champion Steiner Brother because they eliminated them from the tournament. In a match where the finish didn’t ruin the brutality of the match, they wrestled to a 30 minute draw. Hard hitting and realistic southern wrestling style that Bill Watts was trying to bring back to wrestling.

• MLW Hybrid Hell (2003)

The undercard saw an early matchup between CM Punk and Raven as well as Steve Williams teaming with D’Lo Brown against the Extreme Horsemen (Simon Diamond & CW Anderson), which would eventually lead to their WarGames match. Speaking of the Extreme Horsemen, they dominated this card. Mike Awesome defeated Satoshi Kojima for the MLW Heavyweight Championship, but Steve Corino, member of the Horsemen, walked out to remind Awesome that he was #1 Contender and told he could call his shot anywhere and everywhere. Given that, he wanted his shot right then and there…which prompted the Extreme Horsemen to come out and beatdown Mike Awesome. Corino won his challenge and left Awesome with one of those hilarious 5 minute or less title reigns. But that wasn’t the end of the night for Corino. He had the main event, No Ropes Barbed Wire Match against Terry Funk. Corino was calling himself “King of the Old School” and Terry was of course still crazy but beyond middle aged was his prime target to insult. Funk and the Extreme Horsemen feud lasted the better portion of the year, culminating at WarGames. But this match, was won by Terry Funk, also, for as much of a bloody spectacle, it’s a fairly well received match. Early days of MLW had some gems.

• NJPW Dominion (2009)

The inaugural Dominion event, with a little negative history before we get to the fun bits. The first Dominion poster (above) was heavily criticized for Nazi Iconography. So sufficed to say, they changed the poster after the backlash.

The event itself did see the launch of Apollo 55 (Prince Devitt & Ryusuke Taguchi) when they defeated Milano Collection AT and Taichi for the Junior Heavyweight Tag titles. We also saw Tanahashi correct his previous oversight by taking the IWGP Heavyweight title back from Manabu Nakanishi. This mostly solidified NJPW being on its way out of the darkness now that they had an Ace pilot.

• WWE Fatal 4-Way (2010)

Another gimmick PPV, but this one had a solid amount of firsts. Alicia Fox ended up winning her first and only Divas Championship in the four way against Eve Torres, Gail Kim and Maryse. The main event saw interference from the recently debuted Nexus. While Sheamus hid away from the attack, Orton, Cena and Edge tried to fight off the Nexus. Cena was the biggest victim of the attack, left laying after the carnage. So Sheamus, in opportunistic heel fashion, crawled over the prone body and picked up the win. Sheamus’ first World title reign was controversial, but hey, a win is a win.

• WWE Hell In a Cell (2021)

Where the last event was a few firsts, this is a few lasts. This was the last PLE in the Thunderdome as they were going back to a live touring schedule with the severity of the pandemic lessening. There was a notable first amongst the lasts. This was the first WWE event to have more women’s matches than men (four to three). Bianca Belair became the second ever woman to retain her title in the Hell in a Cell when she defeated Bayley. As for the continued lasts, the Last Chance for Drew McIntyre against Bobby Lashley. As McIntyre was setting up for the Claymore, MVP grabs his leg allowing Lashley a flash Cradle pinfall and successfully keeping McIntyre away from the title.

A few interesting nuggets, Steve Williams on two of the events and the whole first and last thing of the last two events I thought was a cute thread. But hopefully today wasn’t a harbinger for a slow finish, or we’re gonna go digging into some random indie stiff this last week and a half!