Today In Pro Wrestling History: July 11th

Everyone get your free Slurpee or Big Gulp for 7/11 day! As for the rest of things, I think we’re all aware that I am beholden to what the history books say happen on the day. Time to see how memorable the events are and how much mental gymnastics I had to do!

• WWE Vengeance (2004)

An interesting show where we saw La Resistance retain the titles over Ric Flair and Eugene. Batista and Chris Jericho had a solid match in the undercard where Batista won the match, but not without controversy since Jericho technically got his foot on the ropes. Chris Benoit defeated Triple H after Eugene came down to try and help Triple H, but shenanigans ensued and Eugene ends up hitting Triple H instead.  The highlight of the show however, Edge versus Randy Orton for Randy’s Intercontinental Championship. Orton was still on the come up, but Edge ends up with a win after a really solid match and interesting finish.

• WWE Raw: Matt Hardy Surprise Attack (2005)

This was the on screen kick off the “worked-shoot” angle of Matt, Lita and Edge. Matt attacked Edge after being released for 3 months. Matt broke past security, used Edge and Lita’s real names and went off the handle. Then it birthed the promo line the IWC harks back to quite often, with Matt saying “Coming see me in Ring of Honor”. The first mention of Ring of Honor on WWE television and this is definitely a storyline that most people remember for the realism since well…it was a real moment utilized to make a story around.

• TNA Victory Road: Vacant Tag Team Championships: Motor City Machine Guns vs Beer Money (2010)

This was actually a very clever match with a slightly convoluted but different finish. We saw Bobby Roode and Chris Sabin execute simultaneous pinfalls, so Brian Hebner and Earl Hebner’s counts were in sync and they each called the finish for a different team. So after some arguing, they restarted the match, where Alex Shelley hit the Crossbody to grab the winning fall! With the Guns winning the vacant belts, this then lead to the classic Best of Five series between Beer Money and the Guns during the summer of 2010.

• NJPW Summer Struggle In Sapporo: IWGP Heavyweight Tag Team Championships: Dangerous Tekkers (c) vs LIJ (Tetsuya Naito & SANADA) (2021)

Dangerous Tekkers came into their own as Taichi transition to Heavyweight the previous few years and showed more heart than usual. So the fans were getting behind him, and Sabre with Taichi was such a great team. LIJ was still the most popular faction in Japan, so this was a great rivalry that helped to elevate Dangerous Tekkers to a relevant level. This entire show was hurt by the fact that Kota Ibushi got covid right before the event, so this match was the main event and tasked with making the event worthwhile. LIJ ended up winning the match, to the joy of the crowd, even though LIJ only held the titles for 2 weeks. These two teams had great chemistry plus the title change, helped the show feel important.

• ROH Best in the World (2021)

ROH’s first show with a live audience after the covid hiatus, but also the final PPV before the original shut down. This show had a few titles changes and one very appropriate retention with Jonathan Gresham retaining the Pure Championship over Mike Bennett. Dragon Lee beat Tony Deppen for the Television title. And to cap off the lucha takeover of this late stage Sinclair era ROH, Bandido squared off with Rush for the ROH World Championship. Giving Bandido his first ROH World title run.

Some interesting events I personally think, but again, I can only make due with what history gives me! We don’t always get amazing moments, but there’s a couple things here that most of us remember and I give a lot of credit to the New Japan tag match for saving a lack luster card and possible killing what little momentum NJPW still had at the time.