Today In Pro Wrestling History: August 8th

I may have to look into what days the historical SummerSlams are, because I’ve had teeth pulled less painful then trying to cobble together things that weren’t nonsense today. Only one event is after the years 2000, so if you’re a child, you may be confused about some of these.

• MACW Greensboro Show: NWA United States Championship: Roddy Piper (c) vs Wahoo McDaniel (1981)

Piper was heeling it up in Greensboro after taking the title from Ric Flair in January of 1981. He’d parade around spouting “King Richard is Dead”, playing up the English history jab and of course, Ric’s name. Wahoo McDaniel returned to Mid Atlantic in the Summer, which was a big deal since Wahoo was a beloved wrestler in the 70s and 80s. Piper tried to use a weapon, akin to how he defeated Flair earlier in the year, Wahoo anticipated it and rocked Piper sending him to the canvas and Wahoo picked up the win, prying the title from the heel tactics of Piper.

• SMW Fire on the Mountain (1992)

We got two title changes on this show. Dirty White Boy defeated Brian Lee for the Smokey Mountain Wrestling Heavyweight Championship. The biggest title change was the Tag Team Championships, which amusing is consistent with the last time they made history, SMW was one of the few companies who really pushed tag team wrestling. In the main event, The Heavenly Bodies (Stan Lane & Tom Prichard) were the champions and The Fantastics (Bobby & Jackie Fulton) were the challengers, in a Barbed Wire Cage Match.  The match was set up so that The Heavenly Bodies manager, Jim Cornette, couldn’t interfere. As we all know, cages don’t usually stop persistence, and Cornette found a way to throw in his loaded tennis racket, but it backfired. So between that and the brutal cage aspect, The Fantastics managed to defeat The Heavenly Bodies for the tag team titles.

• WCW Road Wild: Hulk Hogan & Eric Bischoff vs Diamond Dallas Page & Jay Leno (1998)

As we are all aware with WWE’s blatant love for celebrities, this isn’t a surprising concept for any of the bigger companies to look for pop culture crossover appeal. We’re also recently coming off the Dennis Rodman and Karl Malone match…so WCW made it very obvious they were just pushing for relevancy. The match was a nothing burger, Bischoff and Leno were the last two in during the finish, and Leno’s bandleader Kevin Eubanks slides in to hit a Diamond Cutter and drape Jay Leno over Bischoff to win the spectacle of a match.

• NJPW Rising The Next Generation (1998)

This show was one of the last shows before “Inoki-ism” began. But there was one historical event, and one cool memory. The cool memory is Masahiro Chono defeating Tatsumi Fujinami for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship, this was Chono’s first and only IWGP Heavyweight Championship run. We also had the finals to crown the inaugural IWGP Junior Tag Team champions. Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa vs Dr Wagner Jr & Koji Kanemoto fought it out in the finals of the tournament. Otani & Takaiwa won the inaugural championship, which has become a very important title not only in New Japan but for the general landscape of Junior Heavyweight wrestling.

• NJPW G1 Climax: Shingo Takagi vs Tomohiro Ishii (2019)

This was Shingo Takagi’s proving grounds match during the G1. Shingo was dominating the Junior division after joining New Japan from Dragon Gate, and he was becoming a fan favorite since he was part of LIJ. This entire tournament was him proving he could hang with the heavyweights. Even though I don’t care about Meltzer ratings or Cagematch ratings, the match was given a 5.5 and 9.5 respectively. This was a classic Strong Style match, where it was 22 minutes of brutal, meaty men slapping meat, style of wrestling. At this point we all recognized Ishii as the gatekeeper, and Shingo proved he was there to Open the Gate (see what I did? It’s a Dragon Gate joke). If you like stiff strikes and classic hoss fights, this match was fantastic to watch. It’s not often that I’ll put in a random tournament match, but this helped to solidify Shingo’s bid to become a legit Heavyweight contender in the eyes of New Japan and their fans.

Definitely a thin day when it comes to overall historical signficance, but there were a few things on there to create memories at the very least. Shingo needed the Ishii match for New Japan fans to take him seriously. For those unaware, Dragon Gate operates outside of Kobe, which doesn’t have the same kind of reach or accessibility as companies that promote from Tokyo. So there is a legitimate disconnect between the circles of Japanese fans. Also, the inaugural IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Champions is a huge moment for the history of pro wrestling, especially if you’re fans of the Young Bucks. So we managed a couple of fun things and at least got through the day.