Today In Pro Wrestling History: July 19th

July is really starting to…dwindle down and make you wonder why the early month was so solid. Bookers must think of months like cards where they want to be early or late, but the middle portion is the time when you can get up and use the bathroom. There’s still a few fun moments, so let’s get to it!

• AJPW Summer Action Series: AJPW World Tag Team Titles: Miracle Violence Connection (c) vs Jumbo Tsuruta & Great Kabuki (1990)

There’s a lot of Miracle Violence Connection in the last few weeks, between All Japan and WCW, Terry Gordy and Steve Williams have been recurring characters in these articles. The MVC defeated a few Stan Hansen teams during their 135 day reign, and were always portrayed as one of the more impressive AJPW gaijin teams. In a nearly 32 minute brawl, the home country heroes upset the gaijin monsters. The reign was short lived since Great Kabuki jumped to SWS and they were stripped only 8 days after the victory.

• ECW Heatwave: Rick Rude Final Match (1997)

While there were a couple things, the aspect that supersedes everything is the fact that this show had Rick Rude’s final match. About 3 years removed from the match against Sting which gave him a severe spinal injury that was nearly career ending. Rude was working towards trying to come back, but due to the nature of his Loyd’s of London insurance policy payoff, he couldn’t participate fully as a contracted wrestler. But this cross-brand WWF/ECW invasion angle was a way to see what he could still do physically and within the limitation of the insurance policy. During the match, Jerry Lawler, Rob Van Dam and Sabu faced Tommy Dreamer, Sandman and Rick Rude. Rude however, received a payoff from Lawler, so he turned on the ECW squad. And if you’re wondering how it got around the policy, the heel turn happened before the bell officially rang. So the match was logged from a posterity perspective as a No Contest, but it was just a complete 4 on 2 beat down angle. So it’s officially unofficial, Rick Rude’s final match.

• TNA Victory Road (2009)

In typical TNA fashion this has a bit of interesting history and one of the worst matches in wrestling history. Let’s start with the bad, Jenna Morasca versus Sharmell. While Jenna’s character was entertaining out of the ring, capitalizing on her Survivor fame, this was akin to really bad 90s cat fights. Two generally untrained imbeciles wasting time in the ring, and it devolved into Jenna’s enforcer Awesome Kong knocking out Sharmell and Jenna doing her infamous straddle over Sharmell’s chest and grinded during the 3 count for a wholly unnecessary lewd pinfall finish to a travesty of a match. At least we did have some bit of interesting history, with Scott Steiner and Booker T putting their arguments of which tag team was better (Steiners or Harlem Heat), and teaming up to defeat Beer Money, capturing the Tag Titles. Also as a surprising nugget, this was both Booker’s only tag title reign in TNA and Scott’s only one until his short lived team with Eli Drake in 2018. So two of the most decorated tag team wrestlers in history, barely ever sniffed the TNA tag titles.

• MLW Battle Riot (2018)

The very first Battle Riot, which established the Royal Rumble-esque event to be one of MLW’s marquee events. Aside from being the inaugural event, where Filthy Tom Lawlor won the first ever Battle Riot…we also had the crowning of the first ever MLW Middleweight champion. In lieu of a long tournament, the match was made between two men with a lot of momentum in MLW. MJF faced Joey Ryan for the Middleweight Championship. Remember, in 2018, it was kind of the height of Joey Ryan’s shtick, so this was a well received match that excited most of the fans. MJF winning the title helped to establish him as an up and coming contender, and began the momentum that eventually lead to his current AEW legacy.

• WWE Monday Night Raw (2021)

To take advantage of the fact it was the first Raw with a full paying live audience in about a year and half, they pulled out some stops. John Cena showed up to challenge Roman Reigns for the Universal title at SummerSlam, Goldberg appeared to challenge Bobby Lashley for his WWE Championship at SummerSlam. But it wasn’t just old guys wanting SummerSlam moments, Nikki A.S.H. gave us all a feel good surprise when she ran down after the Charlotte versus Rhea match, to Cash In on Charlotte. Nikki always had a special place in the hearts of fans, but was rarely given much to work with, so having her Cash In, and be successful, snatching the title from Charlotte, was a big crowd pop moment. This marked her first and currently only WWE Women’s singles title.

Some bittersweet, some really embarrassing, but at least there was one or two with some historical staying power. As I say many times, I can only write about what shows happened, and if they suck or if they’re just a mess of second, third and fourth hand embarrassment, that’s on the show, not me. Let’s hope there aren’t too many more completely awful memories between now and the inevitable Grado versus Abyss horror show that is my personal worst match I’ve ever seen in the history of wrestling.