Today In Pro Wrestling History: August 5th

Okay, so today’s article is a fun time. There’s a little bit of a lot of different shows, but they’re all pretty great. Be it Japan, Mexico or North America, we’ve got a nice spread to keep most fans invested!

• NJPW G1 Climax Finals Show: J-Crown: Great Sasuke vs Ultimo Dragon (1996)

So most people remember Ultimo Dragon holding the 9 titles in WCW, and I know people do because you’ve had multiple people trying to duplicate the look with less prestigious useless independent titles. But the J-Crown itself was Jushin Thunder Liger’s idea to combine the active Junior Heavyweight titles floating around Japan and making some bigger prize. The J-Crown was initially made up with: IWGP Junior Heavyweight, MPW British Commonwealth Junior Heavyweight, NWA World Junior Heavyweight, NWA World Welterweight, UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight, WAR International Junior Heavyweight, WWA World Junior Light Heavyweight and WWF Light Heavyweight Championships. The match itself was great, while it wasn’t a blow away classic, it was a very good match and the historical weight of the J-Crown helps to prop up the memorability. Great Sasuke managed to barely kick out of a La Magistral and execute a correct Hurricanrana to secure the flash pinfall. It was a great story of Sasuke having to survive Dragon and surprise everyone with the flash pin.

• NOAH Departure (2000)

This was the birth of Pro Wrestling NOAH, their very first show. A few names on the undercard that still wrestling are Naomichi Marufuji, Yoshinobu Kanemaru and Takao Omori. The main event however, is a beautiful usage of the drawing power of the 3 Pillars/Heavenly Kings that left together, this also really showcases the initial idea that NOAH was supposed to be a company to showcase Jun Akiyama. So Jun Akiyama & Kenta Kobashi faced Akira Taue & Mitsuharu Misawa. It was a two out of three falls match, where Akiyama and Kobashi won 2-0. For a first ever event, it showcased what they wanted and sold out Differ Ariake.

• ROH Fight of the Century: ROH Championship: Bryan Danielson (c) vs Samoa Joe (2006)

While the card itself had a lot of names that would impact ROH and other companies in the future, this whole event is remembered because of the main event. The main event is still considered one of the best matches in ROH history. Bryan Danielson was in his strategic heel era, and Samoa Joe was the brutal babyface that the crowd loved watching him beat people into a concussion. As a match, it built beautifully with Danielson going after limbs and trying to weaken Joe’s power base, where Joe was trying to find angle to influence his brutality. In the closing moments the match looked to be going Samoa Joe’s way. He hit the Muscle Buster, but due to exhaustion and damage, he was slow to make the cover, so Danielson kicked out. With less than a minute left in the 60 minute time limit, Samoa Joe snatched Danielson into the Coquina Clutch, and while it looked like Danielson was dead in the water, the time limit buzzer sounded and the bell rang. So a 60 minute Broadway.

• AAA Triplemania XX (2012)

While there was no crazy title change, Kurt Angle & Jeff Jarrett tagged together with Karen Jarrett against LA Park (original La Parka) & Electroshock. There was a fun Escape the Cage match with veterans and independent talent involving; Juventud Guerrera, Halloween, Jack Evans, Teddy Hart, Chessman, Joe Lider, Extreme Tiger & Psicosis. The final two got relegated to a Hair vs Hair match, and the two left in the cage were Psicosis and Joe Lider. To the delight of longer term fans, Psicosis ended up defeating Joe, so he saved his iconic hair. The main event was Mask vs Mask between Dr Wagner Jr & Mascara Ano 2000. This had a classic set up where it was two historical dynastic families that have bad blood and it was cranked up when Mascara returned to AAA under the guise of “El Hombre de Negro” to attack Wagner and be seen as an invader. The match had the heel referee, so everything was against Wagner. The crowd was rallying around the home company hero, and it was a brutal and chaotic match. But amongst all the insanity and cheating, Wagner managed to get his hands on a weapon that was introduced, Wagner cracks a glass bottle over Mascara’s head and incapacitated him. So Tirantes (the heel referee) reluctantly counted the pinfall because he was distracted expecting the cheating to work in the heel favor.

• WWE SummerSlam (2023)

At the time, this was a record breaking event, being the highest grossing non-WrestleMania event in WWE. It also marked the end of WWE’s physical media in Europe, since this was the final event distributed on Blue-ray. We got some huge matches that built stories well, like Cody Rhodes defeating Brock Lesnar, Seth Rollins defending the World Heavyweight Title against Finn Balor and Roman Reigns using Tribal Combat to keep Jey Uso in check. A fun moment that helped to solidify two of the most over women in the current landscape, was Bianca Belair defeating Asuka and Charlotte Flair. A 20 minute match against two of the most decorated women in the WWE, and then the Damage CTRL music hit. Bayley and Iyo Sky came out, Bayley made sure Asuka and Charlotte couldn’t interfere and even attacked Bianca. Iyo cashed in, hit the Over the Moonsault and won the WWE Women’s Championship. Bianca’s 1 minute and 35 second reign is still currently the shortest reign in the title’s history.

The first official J-Crown, the first official NOAH event and Iyo Sky’s first singles championship on the WWE main roster. I’d like to think that makes for a solid bit of memorable moments and/or wrestling history. Now time to start working on some voodoo or something in preparation for the rest of the month being more like today and less like yesterday.