Today In Pro Wrestling History: July 31st

You know I was really close to just making up something like Cellar Door Wrestle House: Five Hot Dogs With Front Row Tickets, but I think I actually scoured far enough for things that qualify. Some of these days are insanely painful when it comes to wrestling history and trying to steer away from layups like birthdays or days of death.

• JWP Thunder Queen Battle in Yokohama 60 Min Iron Woman Match: Team JWP (Dynamite Kansai, Mayumi Ozaki, Cuty Suzuki, & Hikari Fukuoka) vs Team AJW (Aja Kong, Kyoko Inoue, Takako Inoue, and Sakie Hasegawa) (1993)

Now most fans know a couple of these names. But this match, is the greatest Ironman match in wrestling history. JWP was a splinter promotion from AJW because they didn’t like the AJW rules, so this was a glorious blend of concepts, styles, established stars and rising stars, all vying for supremacy. Even though the AJW team had the star advantage with Aja Kong and Double Inoue, the psychology was more personal. There were multiple pair offs, that helped to illustrate the rivalries between Aja and Dynamite or Kyoko and Mayumi, to name a couple. However, the advantage that the AJW team had was slightly hampered when Kyoko and Aja collided heads during the chaotic match. During a flurry in the last 20 seconds, Takako tried to get the win with a Bridging German Suplex, so team AJW focused on blockading the JWP wrestlers. But Ozaki kicked out of the pinfall and instead fell victim to Ozaki snapping off her Tequila Sunrise for the winning fall, with only 5 seconds left. Nearly every woman in this match had a lasting impression on Joshi and even western wrestling with Dynamite Kansai and Mayumi Ozaki helping out in early days of SHIMMER as well as Ozaki’s own promotion, Oz Academy.

• WCW Nitro (2000)

Now there’s infamous history here, because this was the show with the infamous Viagra on a Pole match between Shane Douglas and Billy Kidman. But for a…I don’t know, at least not overtly negative history take, we did get one more thing. Lance Storm defeated Lt. Loco (Chavo Guerrero) to win the Cruiserweight Championship. Which made Lance a triple champion, and this was also during his time of making all the titles more Canadian. So Lance held these concurrently:

• United States Championship = Canadian Heavyweight Championship
• Hardcore Title = Saskatchewan Hardcore International Title (S.H.I.T.)
• Cruiserweight Championship = 100 kg & Under Championship

• CMLL Infierno en el Ring (2009)

Now this is on here for the 15 man Lucha de Apuestas Steel Cage match. There’s also a few names that many people will know, two of which were still fairly young in their career and traveling to allied promotions for experience. Mictlan, Heavy Metal, Blue Panther, Okumura, Terrible, Maximo, Shocker, Texano Jr., Ray Mendoza Jr., Negro Casas, Hector Garza, Black Warrior and Yujiro escaped the cage, in that order. Which left Naito (yes, Tetsuya Naito), in the ring against Toscano (aka Tarzan Boy). As you probably figured, Yujiro, is Yujiro Takahashi, so this was during the No Limit era. The tag team treated the final escape more as a handicap match, but as they both scaled the cage, Toscano grabbed Naito, forcing him back down as Yujiro escaped. When down to the last two wrestlers, it becomes a normal match, no longer an escape match. After nearly 20 combined minutes between the escape portion and the singles match, Naito manages to hook Toscano in a Dragon Suplex Hold for the pinfall. No Limit was a fun, babyface, Junior Heavyweight tag team and CMLL has a good relationship with NJPW, so this was a nice crowd pop moment which resulted in Toscano getting his head shaved.

• Dragon Gate Kobe Pro-Wrestling Festival (2021)

There were two notable title changes on the show. Genki Horiguchi defeated Keisuke Okuda to win the Open the Brave Gate title. Which was a little surprising since while the Brave Gate is essentially just their Cruiserweight title, it also usually goes to younger wrestlers. So Genki being one of the original Toryumon class veterans, was unexpected. We also saw King Shimizu & Susumu Yokosuka defeat Kaito Ishida and Kazma Sakamoto for the Twin Gate belts. The title changes are overshadowed by the main event though. Kzy has been a big underdog favorite in Dragon Gate during his career and this build up was very different but also added to his underdog aura. Kzy won the King of Gate tournament in a different fashion. Out of a possible 10 points, he only scored 4 since they returned to block format. But, they kept the second chance Battle Royal for the fourth semi-final position from the previous year (the whole format was different because of covid). Kzy won the second chance qualifier, and then went on a run beating SB Kento and then facing Kota Minorua in the finals, who hasn’t dropped a match all tournament. Kzy submitted the tournament favorite and had all the momentum in the world. The match was quick, hard strikes but Kzy’s luck ran out when they were trading blows on the apron, and Shun countered a Brainbuster attempt and Monkey Flipped Kzy to the concrete. From that point forward, Shun focused on the back and Kzy fought from underneath, but didn’t have enough to overcome yet another chance. This match is often considered a snub from most 2021 Match of the Year lists.

• Jim Crockett Promotions Ric Flair’s Last Match (2022)

Now, IF this ends up being his last match, that’s why it’s on the list. Yes…even though this was awful, we all know Ric is crazy. The show itself had some solid action and was basically an indy super show with some nice nostalgic moments. Ric tagging with Andrade against Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal. There was a solid list of legendary names at the event to support one last Ric Flair moment, like Mick Foley and Bret Hart. Ric even made his entrance with Big Gold just for the nostalgia and the JCP/WCW memories. But we all know this was a farce. For Ric’s safety and sanity, let’s hope this truly was the last match. I’m not gonna say it ruined his legacy, because he’s Ric Flair, it would take something egregious to ruin his legacy aside from just being old and thinking he can go one more time.  In a way, it’s nice he could go out the way he wanted.

There was some digging, but I don’t really think there was a ton of stretching. Sure. some people may not care about classic Joshi or Dragon Gate (because honestly, a lot of Japan doesn’t care about Dragon Gate), but again, historic and memorable extend beyond just what is “most popular”.