Today In Pro Wrestling History: August 20th

Unfortunately for more casual fans, the SummerSlams of today were kind of forgettable. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t WWE content! We get a mix of deathmatch, WWE, puro and independent wrestling!

• IWA Japan Kawasaki Dream: King of the Deathmatch Tournament: Barbed Wire Rope, Exploding Barbed Wire Boards and Exploding Ring Time Bomb Deathmatch : Terry Funk vs Cactus Jack (1995)

Yup, this is THAT match. The Gold Standard of Deathmatch wrestling. The event drew record attendance for IWA Japan at just under 29,000 fans in Kawasaki Stadium. Aside from both men being veterans of violence, they were also well known to draw out emotion during matches. Cactus set a barbed wire board on fire, attempted to slam Funk, but they both caught on fire. The real life panic added another layer to an already insane match. Cactus got thrown into the rigged ropes and the first explosion went off. At the 10 minute mark the ring blew up, but that wasn’t the finish. Both men were visibly stunned and engulfed in smoke. Cactus set up a ladder, Funk climbed up to fight him, Cactus won the exchange and knocked Funk into the wire. Cactus jumped from the ladder, hit the Diving Elbow into the entanglement, and Cactus Jack was crowned King of the Deathmatch.

• WWF Monday Night Raw: Milk-O-Mania (2001)

This was during Steve Austin appreciation night. The WCW/ECW Alliance were celebrating Austin retaining his title over Kurt Angle the night previously due to desperate referee attacks to get disqualified. In a parody of Austin’s Beer Bath moment in 1999, Kurt Angle drove a Milk Truck into down the ramp, hopped up, grabbed a hose and doused the celebration in milk. My personal favorite line during the chaos from commentary is: “The Million Dollar Princess has become a Dairy Queen!”

• NXT TakeOver Brooklyn II: NXT Championship: Samoa Joe (c) vs Shinsuke Nakamura (2016)

This was massive for the landscape of NXT and general perception. Samoa Joe was well known from ROH and TNA, while Shinsuke Nakamura was coming over from New Japan with a lot of hype since the New Japan public awareness boom started over the previous two years. The match itself was a stiff striking affair which was something both men were well known for.  In fact, the striking was so stiff that Joe suffered a dislocated jaw during the match. Shinsuke’s victory was a big moment, marking his first title under the WWE umbrella and established the era of Black and Gold as more of WWE’s version of a Super Indy.

• DDT Ryogoku Peter Pan (2017)

Effectively this was DDT’s 20th Anniversary show and also the last show before the CyberAgent sale was official, even though the paperwork was nearly finalized anyway. The show was exactly what DDT is, some comedy, some Hardcore and some decent real wrestling. On the undercard there was a surprising combination of names like, Jiro Kurashiro, Ladybeard, Danshoko Dino, Kotaro Suzuki, Mike Bailey, Kaz Hayashi, Marika Kobashi, Yuka Sakazaki, Shoko Nakajima, LiliCo and Naomichi Marufuji. The main event was Konosuke Takehita defending his Ko-D Openweight Championship against Tetsuya Endo. This is an easy story, they debuted together in 2012 as the team called Happy Motel, but Takeshita eventually rocketed beyond Endo and left Endo in his shadow. So in 2016, Endo joined the heel stable DAMNATION and looked to claw his own path. So this was early on in their rivalry, Endo won the King of DDT tournament and wanted to get out of Takeshita’s shadow. In a nearly 30 minute affair, Takeshita managed to survive the challenge and defeat Endo with a Cross Armed German Suplex. This did prove that Endo was a real threat though.

• JCW Bloodymania 14 (2021)

Coming out of the Pandemic, this had more of a legends and celebration vibe to the card. Kongo Kong defeated The Barbarian, Officer Colt Cabana lost to The Weedman, Mad Man Pondo and Shane Douglas were both in action during the show. The main event itself had a legendary feel with JCW original 2 Tuff Tony, the most decorated JCW Heavyweight Champion and reigning champion, faced off with Vampiro. Vamp was an also an icon thanks to his Dark Carnival connection and technically being the second JCW Heavyweight Champion, he even brought the title on WCW television at times. The match itself had chemistry, but wouldn’t be considered a technical masterpiece. It was an old fashioned high energy brawl where the crowd was very into it and popped hard for Vampiro’s victory.

A tape trading classic Deathmatch, WWF Invasion era good memories, NXT Black and Gold supremacy and some fun events to round things out with relevance to fans of the company. If you’re not happy with the events chosen, blame SummerSlams today for kind of sucking. I don’t make the rules here.