Today In Pro Wrestling History: July 23rd

July is starting to wind down, and at least we finally have a day with a few things that feel better than the last few days. We’ve got a little more ROH representation than the last few articles. Let’s see what happened!

• WCW Great American Bash (1989)

The very first Great American Bash, and one of the most decorated super card in wrestling history. Jim Cornette defeated Paul E Dangerously in a Tuxedo Street Fight. Sting retained the World Television title against Great Muta, Lex Luger retained the United States title against Ricky Steamboat via DQ. The WarGames match saw The Midnight Express, The Road Warriors and Steve Williams defeat the Fabulous Freebirds and Samoan SWAT Team. As for the main event it was Ric Flair versus Terry Funk. The match was a bloody brawl that finished with Ric reversing Funk’s Cradle reversal of the Figure Four, shifting the momentum and barely holding on for the three count. Post match, it turned into a locker room emptying brawl and became a great memorable closing moment in WCW history.

• ROH Homecoming (2005)

The show was named Homecoming since it was AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels’ first appearances since 2003 due to the TNA blockade drama. Both men had the standout matches of the show, with Christopher Daniels getting a shot at the ROH World Champion CM Punk, but since this was during the original Summer of Punk, Punk managed to retain his title in a great a match that ended in a 60 minute Broadway. AJ Styles however, faced off against the Crown Jewel of the Embassy, who had Prince Nana & Jade Chung accompanying…Jimmy Rave. In an act of betrayal, Alex Shelley came down and hit AJ with Shellshock, allowing Jimmy to hit the Rave Clash to rub in the victory, as he won the match off the stolen finisher. There was a title change though, BJ Whitmer & Jimmy Jacobs defeated the Carnage Crew for the tag team titles. But AJ, Daniels and the betrayal definitely were the memorable draws of this show.

• WWE Raw 1000: WWE Championship: CM Punk (c) vs John Cena (2012)

This was big for a number of reasons. Firstly, being Raw’s 1000th episode is historic in it’s own right, but this was Cena’s Money in the Bank Cash In. Cena goes down in history as the first person to ever fail a Cash In. While Cena won the match, it was via disqualification since Big Show interfered on Punk’s behalf. When The Rock came out to make the save for Cena, Punk attacked Rock which solidified his…anti-part timer stance. WWE intended for him to be a heel, but as you’ve seen over the past 15 years of crowd sensibilities…we tend to hate part-timers (except Undertaker because he was always more of an attraction match and never really took away from people).

• ROH Death Before Dishonor (2022)

This was the first Tony Khan produced ROH PPV. It was a solid combination of classic ROH names, with some of the AEW overlap. We saw Jonathan Gresham defending his ROH World Championship against Claudio Castagnoli, with Claudio winning and elating the IWC since many were hoping for greener pastures with how mishandled Cesaro was in WWE. The ROH Six Man titles changed hands when The Righteous lost to Dalton Castle & The Boys. But the main event was the show stealer. A two out of three falls match for the tag titles between FTR and The Briscoes. In a modern classic, these two teams slugged it out for over 43 minutes. Ref bumps, weapons, high risk, everything except an actual kitchen sink. FTR managed to hold on to the titles when Dax hit an Avalanche Piledriver on Jay for the decisive fall.

• STARDOM Nighter In Korakuen (2024)

Stardom was in a bit of flux at this time. With Rossy being removed in February and creating Marigold, some of the major players jumped with him. Plus, along with new names, factions that were once cemented as foundational in Stardom, like Queen’s Quest, were officially disbanded. Oedo Tai was even on the verge of changing their name to HATE once Saya Kamitani joined. Starlight Kid and AZM were on the same page for a change, and after this event creating a new faction called Neo Genesis. A few titles even changed hands, Azusa Inada & Rina won the New Blood Tag Titles from Hanan & Saya Iida. For a note, Hanan is Rina & Hina’s older sister, so they always have an interesting dynamic. Konami and Syuri also put their Goddess of Stardom belts up against Odeo Tai/HATE’s own Momo Watanabe and Thekla. The heels won, which really set gears in motion for HATE’s dark cloud to be a physical manifestation of the drama and change going on with the corporate changes.

Look! Stuff happened and I didn’t have to stretch relevancy! Nice to see we got at least one day towards the end of the end of July that wasn’t a stretch. Now does it continue, or was this a fluke? Find out next time on History Ball Z…