Today In Pro Wrestling History: September 14th

Well look at that, we have the best mix of companies in a quite a few articles today! It’s not dominated by any one in particular, and something should appeal to most people. Let’s get to it!

• WCW Fall Brawl: WarGames Match: The Four Horsemen vs nWo (1997)

This was the match where Kevin Nash declared the “Death of the Horsemen” after smashing Ric Flair’s head in the cage door. As the match played out, it turned out to all be a clever set up by the New World Order. Curt Hennig said he was attacked prior to the match, so he was the last Four Horsemen member out. When Henning came out, the jig was up. Hennig turned on the Horsemen, Benoit and Mongo were handcuffed to the cage as the nWo just picked apart Flair for sport. They were fairly defiant but Mongo couldn’t stand seeing Flair battered so severely. Mongo surrendered, but that’s when the cage door head smash happened. The Horsemen were considered dead and buried at this time.

• TNA No Surrender (2008)

This was TNA’s first international PPV, taking place in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. Sheik Abdul Bashir won the X-Division Championship against Petey Williams and Consequences Creed for his first and only X-Division reign. AJ Styles and Frank Trigg had that miserable Worked MMA style imbecile fight that no one liked. It was bad and the crowd died because of it.  While the main event was pitched as a “Four Ways to Glory” match, but due to Hurricane Ike, Booker T was unable to make the trip. So it was changed to a triple threat between Samoa Joe, Christian Cage and Kurt Angle. The match was well received and also remembered after a referee bump. Angle was in control of the match, but Jeff Jarrett returned to TNA after being gone for a while, cracked the guitar over Angle’s head. Angle, dazed and stumbling, landed into Samoa Joe’s clutches and one Muscle Buster later, Samoa Joe retained his title.

• WWE Raw: Sting’s Only Raw Matches (2015)

So we have a moment of first and lasts for Sting. His first match was against Big Show, which ended in a disqualification victory after Seth Rollins attacked. John Cena came out to make the save, and the four were slated for a main event tag match. In a solid television match, we saw the finish culminate with Sting slapping on the Scorpion Deathlock, forcing Seth Rollins to tap out. This would lead to Sting’s championship match against Seth at Night of Champions.

• CMLL 85th Anniversary Show (2018)

CMLL had yet another main event situation where the fans were disappointed. CMLL was teasing an Ultimate Apuestas match between Rush and L.A.Park, but when the negotiations and the politics fell apart, what they ended up with made the crowd feel robbed. Matt Taven and Volador Jr challenged Rush and Barbaro Cavernario, which is a very big drop off from the legendary clash. To rub it in further, LA Park was in a trios match with the debuting Lucha Bros (debuting in CMLL), but it was far too little. While Taven made history being the first American/foreign ROH wrestler to main event a CMLL show, as is much of Taven’s career reaction, most people were disappointed.

• GCW Josh Barnett’s Bloodsport 2 (2019)

This was the first event promoted without the WrestleMania weekend influx of wrestlers, so it proved the shoot-style showcase could draw without assistance. Killer Kross faced off with Nick Gage, showing the clash of styles between Kross’ MMA hybrid style and Gage’s street fight style. Kross made quick work of the deathmatch icon by Choking him out in about four minutes. One of the premier moments was Davey Boy Smith Jr versus “Filthy” Tom Lawlor. Lawlor would connect on quite a few MMA attacks, trying to chop down the larger and stronger wrestler. A nearly 12 minute match that was on the same quality level as the main event, as Davey Boy landed a Liger Bomb, that jarred Lawlor and knocked him out. The main event was forced to change a few weeks before the show. John Moxley had a staff infection, so he had to be pulled from the show. Chris Dickinson however, was more than happy to step up to the plate. Dickinson is a indie legend in the Northeast. Dickinson was known for being a jacked powerhouse, so this shoot-style match went back and forth for about 17 minutes. Even though Barnett ended up winning after a flush Head Kick knocked out Dickinson, it still made Dickinson look great in the loss.

The New World Order establishing their dominance, TNA failing at worked-shoot wrestling while GCW turned it into a very successful series for years and Sting’s brief WWE run. CMLL also has yet another day proving how they screw up their booking, just felt like a nice reassurance that international companies suck too.