Today In Pro Wrestling History: August 13th

Well the G1 Climax remains a nice option for when SummerSlam takes the day off. But there are legitimate iconic moments and…I’ll be nice and call them infamous moments, for others. Let’s find out!

• ECW Hardcore Heaven: The Night It Rained Chairs (1994)

During the main event match of Terry Funk versus Cactus Jack, Public Enemy decided to interfere and cause an abrupt end between legends. Terry Funk asked the crowd for a steel chair to fight Rocco Rock and Johnny Grunge, and the crowd responded by making the venue rain chairs and bury Public Enemy in a mountain of steel. The iconic moment was used in the Hardcore TV sizzle reel opening along with fan ring stampede. ECW fully embraced their Wild West chaos incarnate show.

• WCW New Blood Rising (2000)

This was a trainwreck, and becomes memorable thanks to the fact that it was pure garbage. From Vince Russo’s attempted “worked shoot” style promo to expose the business, the chaotic booking of the Dark Carnival attacked Kronik during their earlier WCW Tag title defense, so Kronik attacked them later in the night and then issued an Open Challenge. Dark Carnival (Vampiro & Great Muta) defeated Kronik for the tag titles, Jeff Jarrett attacked Booker T before their main event Heavyweight title match, but Booker T overcame the shenanigans. And saving the best of last, yes, this was the Judy Bagwell on a Forklift show.

• ROH Punk: The Final Chapter (2005)

The culmination of the original “Summer of Punk”. This was the ROH in-ring farewell for CM Punk. The rumors of him heading to WWE were correct, and things culminated with a 2 out of 3 Falls Match between CM Punk and Colt Cabana. It went nearly 28 minutes, but Colt Cabana ended up reversing an O’Connor Roll to pin Punk and put an end to his ROH career. The crowd gave him a standing ovation since it was in Chicago, so it was an emotional and beautiful moment filled with chants and streamers. The locker room even emptied to thank Punk on his way out of the indies.

• NJPW G1 Climax: Finals: Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs Satoshi Kojima (2006)

Tenzan was on a run, he won 2003 & 2004, only for Masahiro Chono to win in 2005, which was Chono’s 5th and Final G1 victory. So Tenzan was on a path to start rivaling “Mr. August”, when it came to dominance in the G1 Climax. Standing in Tenzan’s way was Satoshi Kojima, his former TenCozy tag partner, since they split up after Kojima went to All Japan and was actually representing All Japan during this tournament. Kojima was just a month removed from his 500+ day reign as Triple Crown champion, so the challenge was real. Kojima proved more difficult than the previous two wins, since he refused to tap out to the Anaconda Vice. Tenzan instead had to pull out two variations of his Tenzan Tombstone Driver, just to put Kojima away. This marks the final time someone was Undefeated in the Block Phase/Round Robin Stage and successfully won the tournament. It also put Tenzan in second place, regarding overall G1 tournament wins, at the time. Since then, only Kazuchika Okada has surpassed Tenzan with 4 G1 victories. But Tenzan, Hiroshi Tanahashi and Tetsuya Naito are tied in third place with 3 wins a piece.

• WWE SmackDown: WWE Intercontinental Championship: Apollo Crews (c) vs King Nakamura (2021)

This was during Nakamura’s short lived “King” gimmick. He was the first wrestler since Randy Savage to win the King moniker outside of the King of the Ring tournament. Irony was real with the fallout of this match, since after Rick Boogs and Commander Azeez were ejected from ringside, Nakamura countered Crews’ Splash and hit a Kinsasha to win the Intercontinental Championship. The irony comes from the fact that Nakamura’s King gimmick effectively ended Crews’ Nigerian royalty gimmick and send him sliding down the card. Nakamura began his second WWE Intercontinental Championship reign.

One of ECW’s early iconic moments…just imagine if those chairs weren’t set up before hand. So glad the dues were all paid “correctly” to allow for the moment (this is sarcasm, IYKYK). But still, with Hiroyoshi Tenzan’s retirement set for August 15, 2026, it felt correct to highlight one of his biggest accomplishments. Not the most over the top day, but at least I didn’t have to find an Indi SuperShow!