Another day, another article! While I’m positive one moment will trump everything else the day has to offer, given it’s significance in so many different ways – what’s the fun in only having one event? So yes, we only care about the one thing that happened in 1996…but let’s elucidate on a few gems.

• NWA Great American Bash: NWA World Heavyweight Championship: Ric Flair (c) vs Sting (1990)

The show goes down with a first and last! It was the last Bash under the NWA banner before the WCW change, and the first came from the World title match. Sting shocked Ric Flair with a small package to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship for the first time. A reign that lasted for 188 days and saw the Black Scorpion angle play out.

• WCW Bash at the Beach: The New World Order of wrestling brother! (1996)

We could be silly and mention the match or the card itself, but no one cares about that, that’s not the memory that people remember. Hulk Hogan appeared towards the end, Bobby Heenan being the only one to think Hogan could turn, since he’s hated Hogan for years. But to everyone else’s surprise…Hogan really did turn and become the “third man”. The moment shattered the hearts of children, shocked the wrestling world and will always go down as the true start of the Monday Night Wars/Attitude Era. The ultimate Babyface becomes the perfect villain.

• NOAH Great Voyage: GHC Heavyweight Tag Titles: Takashi Iizuka & Toru Yano (c) vs TMDK (Mikey Nichols & Shane Haste) (2013)

This was the rubber match between the two teams. TMDK defeated Iizuka & Yano in the Tag League, but lost the following match in May. So this was to decide who was the greater of the two teams. With The Mighty Don’t Kneels victory, they started their first GHC Tag reign that lasted 202 days as well as being named the first fully gaijin tag team to win the Tokyo Sports “Tag Team of the Year” award, in 15 years since Stan Hansen & Vader in 1998, and also the last as of this article in 2026.

• NJPW G1 Special Cow Palace: IWGP United States Championship: Jay White (c) vs Juice Robinson (2018)

This was a solidifying Babyface underdog moment for Juice. He broke his hand about a month before this match, so it added weight to his story. Jay White was king of the chicken shit heel tactics, powdering, antagonizing and backing off. Many remember this as the match that almost turned into a shoot when Jay suplexed Juice into the guardrail right in front of the AXS TV commentators of Jim Ross and Josh Barnett. The force and proximity of things knocked Ross out of the chair and Barnett nearly beat the piss out of Jay White. The match ended with Juice going over, becoming the first American champion of the United States Championship and the first singles championship of his career.

• NXT Heatwave (2024)

This entire show is heralded as one of the best booked shows of the new Black & Gold brand era. Being the first international event since 2019, and the first event of it’s name to stream on Peacock, WWE was making good on rebranding old show names from WCW and ECW. This event had Oba Femi break Wes Lee’s heart by defeating him in a Last Chance match for the North American title, which ultimately lead to Wes’ downward spiral and exit from WWE all together. FrAxiom continued to impress people as tag team champions, and the main event was clever. Ethan Page literally fell into the victory after Trick Williams laid out Je’von Evans and Shawn Spears grabbed Trick. Page’s wheeling and dealing, lead to one of the quickest title ascents in NXT history after only 40 days on the roster.

As I said in the intro, the nWo formation is the headline and that won’t be overshadowed by nearly anything else for the near future. Were the other events cool and memorable to those who experienced them? Of course…but still…not as cool as the nWo.

So there’s a decent mixture of companies today. Some big moments for the company, some fun memories for fans of the promotion, let’s see what we have to work with today!

• NJPW Summer Struggle: J-Crown: Jushin Thunder Liger (c) vs El Samurai (1997)

The J-Crown changed, but most internet age wrestling fans remember the iconic Ultimo Dragon with the 9 titles, that many people have tried to replicate, but their attempts have been pathetic utilizing titles with no prestige just looking for belt count. The J-Crown was the top 8 Light Heavy/Junior belts at the time. Granted a month before this match, Liger lost the WAR International Junior title to Yuji Yasuraoka, so that made the J-Crown reduce to 7 titles. Still prestigious, just one less. El Samurai was pushed over the course of his career by Liger, so with Samurai defeating Liger, while the J-Crown had one less title, it didn’t diminish the accomplishment much. Samurai also broke Liger’s reign, which was the longest reign in the history of the J-Crown at 183 days.

• WCW Nitro: WCW World Heavyweight Championship: Hulk Hogan (c) vs Goldberg (1998)

In a similar vein to the previous entry, most internet age fans know this one. United States Champion Goldberg, got a shot at Hulk Hogan after dispatching Scott Hall earlier in the night. This was at the height of Goldberg’s undefeated streak, the run of 83 weeks where WCW was smoking WWF, and nWo was still not quite a diluted shell of ridiculous garbage. When Goldberg defeated Hulk Hogan, it was huge. The crowd came unglued, it was heralded as being a PPV quality match on free television, and the right guy went over. It was an epic moment to experience as a WCW fan.

• IWA-MS Summertime Black & Blues (2008)

While this could easily be on here as a showcase of names that have been huge in the current generation of wrestling like; Sami Callihan, Ricochet, Drake Younger, Mustafa Ali, Michael Elgin, Sara Del Rey and Chuckie T. But part of the history here is this was the first event after the “Mike Levy” incident, and the dominos started to really fall on IWA-MS here. Completely justified as well, look up the Mike Levy incident and watch how stupid decisions from people in charge ruined the reputation of the brand and ultimately killed the company even before the next like 3 hiatuses before the promotion closed in 2022.

• MLW Kings of the Colosseum (2019)

The height of MLW’s power, with Fusion going strong, a great reputation for action, lesser known great wrestlers and a dope option to WWE. Jacob Fatu ending up winning the MLW Heavyweight Championship from Tom Lawlor in relatively quick fashion. This was huge since Jacob and Josef Samael debuted CONTRA a few months prior, but this was the foundation point for the dominant heel faction, that is still relevant in MLW today. Jacob went on to carry this title for 819 days, a record that still stands as the longest singular reign and also, the most combined days as MLW Heavyweight Champion.

• WWE Money In The Bank (2024)

This is an oddly memorable show, but not exactly for the matches and more for the moments. This was the event where John Cena made a surprise appearance to announce his Retirement Tour. That had the internet buzzing, the clip alone garnered more than 60 million views in 24 hours. But another moment that makes the show memorable, is the very first failed same night cash in. Drew McIntyre won the Men’s MITB match, and ran in mid match between Damian Priest and Seth Rollins, declaring his intent and making it a Triple Threat. But, CM Punk jumped the barricade to cost Drew McIntyre allowing Priest to get the pin and retain, making an ass out of Drew McIntyre.

Some odd events that still qualify as memorable, even if the memories are negative or confusing. But just wait til we get to the day that WWF forgot about their Light Heavyweight title and forced the J-Crown to stop being a thing. Anyway, enjoy your sweltering heat…Autumn can’t come fast enough. I hate summer…