Today In Pro Wrestling History: July 18th

This is one of those days that were a little light for the more recent years, but I think there’s a solid spread of dates and shows. Nothing too overly obscure. Let’s get to the history!

• ECW Heatwave (1999)

While the event isn’t in the Pantheon of great ECW events, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t offer it’s own memories. As for match quality, Super Crazy vs Little Guido was highly praised at the time, and the main event seeing Rob Van Dam and Jerry Lynn put their differences aside to take out Lance Storm & Justin Credible, was fun for fans of ECW. The largest moment however, was the Dudley Boyz came out and cut an explosive rage inducing promo. They cursed out the crowd, got spat on, got trash thrown at them and nearly incited a riot. Spike Dudley & Balls Mahoney faced the Dudleyz for the tag titles after the promo. The crowd was hot for Spike and Balls to win, after the Dudleyz promo that pissed them off. Spike and Balls reversed the Dudley Death Drop to pick up simultaneous pinfalls and win the titles!

• JCW Gathering of the Juggalos (2004)

To remind people who may have forgotten, at this point, JCW was full hardcore parody crude carnival. The JCW stood for Juggalo Championshit Wrestling, and that’s not a typo. The opening match to this show was the Dirty Grandmas vs The Fat Boys. Now that was just a reminder in case people still don’t understand the current Lunacy product. JCW has been counter culture and crude backyard wrestling…even before it was really seen as something super different. This show is on here for a few reasons. There was a 3 Way Dance with Lenny Lane, Sumie Sakai and Trinity (the original Trinity from TNA). We also got Zach Gowen vs Jerry Lawler, as well as, Rude Boy vs Dusty Rhodes vs Terry Funk. So there were plenty of surprisingly big names strewn across the gathering. The World title match even had surprisingly big names, NOSAWA was the defending champion at the 490 day mark in his reign, and he faced Kid Kash. Kid Kash won the match to become their new champion!

• WWE Money in the Bank (2010)

This was the very first standalone PPV event instead of just being a gimmick attraction match for WrestleMania. It was also the first show with brand exclusive ladder matches. While all of the champions won their respective matches, Kane won the first MITB ladder match of the night and cashed in on Rey Mysterio after Rey defeated Jack Swagger, but Swagger relentlessly went after Rey’s legs leading up to the match and during. So Rey was already dinged up, so Kane decided to pick the bones being the first person ever to do the same night cash-in.

• TNA Destination X: TNA World Championship: Bully Ray (c) vs Chris Sabin (2013)

Unlike most previous Destination X shows, this was shown free on Spike TV. Probably more of a cost cutting measure with the benefit of hindsight, but at the time, it was cool to have a premiere show as a television special. Plus we knew about a week prior that Chris Sabin was cashing in Option C. Aces & Eights was the prevailing storyline and Bully Ray being the leader, Aces & Eights had to be taken down a peg. The newly reformed Main Event Mafia backed up Chris Sabin to act as insurance that Aces & Eights couldn’t interfere. After a ref bump, the attempts at interference happened, and while the Main Event Mafia mostly neutralized the Aces & Eights, Mr. Anderson still threw in a hammer. There was a struggle, Sabin grabbed the hammer so Ray just tried to Powerbomb Sabin, but in mid move, Sabin cracked Ray with the hammer. A second referee slid in after the weapon usage, Sabin hit the Cradle as Ray crumbled and Chris Sabin won the match! Even if Sabin only held the title for 28 days, it was still a big moment in the TNA vs Aces & Eights storyline.

• Impact Wrestling Slammiversary (2020)

This event was a lot of fun, and served as a major catalyst during the Callis/D’Amore era. We saw the Motor City Machine Guns answer The Rascalz open challenge, EC3 popped back up, Heath Slater reunited with Uncle Rhino, and it was just a lot of great vibes. The Good Brothers officially debuted as well, which was a huge get for Impact at the time. Deonna Purrazzo won the Knockouts Title via Rings of Saturn over Jordynne Grace and the vacant world title 5 way Elimination was great. If we remember, the title was vacated at this time because of Covid travel restrictions, Tessa living in Mexico and general bad blood between the company and Tessa (not to mention dirty laundry that got aired). So we needed a new champion! Ace Austin, Trey Miguel, Eddie Edwards, Rich Swann and a returning Eric Young took part in the match. Eddie Edwards won the match, which served as a great bridge of Impact history since we had an original, a lot of newer names and Eddie has been a consistent force in Impact/TNA even during the dark period. Eddie winning with his Diehard Flowsion was a nice way to mix in his NOAH history and TNA flagbearer persona.

While definitely a weak day on the weekend…see what I…nevermind, it was bad, I know. But there’s still a few things that tug at nostalgia and were memorable to the fan demographic they were aimed for. Again, if you’re ever mad at sparse days, blame wrestling from the Clinton administration further, because I don’t like having to frontload thing with stuff that only our grandfathers remember.