Today In Pro Wrestling History: September 28th

So we’ve got a bit of a jump in the timeline between events, but everything is definitely memorable. One event I was even personally at, so I can attest for the good and bad reasons why it won’t be forgotten!

• WWF Wrestling Challenge: Ludvig Borga vs Tatanka (1993)

Now this turned out to be a huge misstep, but made some sense at the time. Tatanka was a beloved and proud Native American who was riding a nearly 2 year undefeated streak. The introduction of Borga as another foreign heel was used to help bolster Lex Luger’s push at the time. Mr Fuji and Yokozuna helped Borga break Tatanka’s undefeated streak, thus adding to the wrestling cliche of foreign heels. This earns its spot on the list because its often still used a trivia question on who broke Tatanka’s streak and given how Lex and Ludvig flopped in WWF, while Tatanka was never the same…also showcases a fairly major hiccup for pre-War WWF.

• FMW Kawasaki Legend (1997)

This was a fantastic event for FMW that still drew over 50,000 people, even after Kawasaki Stadium was renovated. We got a big Double Title women’s match where Shark Tsuchiya defeated Aja Kong for the FMW Independent Women’s and WWWA Women’s Titles. Terry Funk defended the NWA Texas Heavyweight title against Hiromichi Fuyuki, Vader beat Ken Shamrock via TKO, Kenta Kobashi & Maunakea Mossman (aka Taiyo Kea) defeated Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki. The two most notable matches were distinctly different. The Gladiator (Mike Awesome) lost his FMW Brass Knuckle and Independent Heavyweight titles to Masato Tanaka in the best match of the night as per ring work. The main event was the expected crazy stipulation match associated with Atsushi Onita and FMW. No Ropes Exploding Barbed Wire Steel Cage Time Bomb Deathmatch, between Onita and WING Kanemura. While Onita won, this event marked an end to the golden era of spectacle deathmatches because even though it drew very well, the star studded card and cost of explosives resulted in a net loss for FMW.

• WWF Raw is War: Stone Cold Zamboni (1998)

When Steve Austin crashed a live championship ceremony by driving a massive ice resurfacer straight into the arena, it shattered the traditional boundaries of what fans expected from a wrestling show. This segment proved to the world that WWE was moving away from simple matches in a ring and shifting toward high-stakes, episodic television where absolutely anything could happen next. The insanity and literal crashing into the ring before launching himself into the ring, gave WWE the definitive edge in its ratings war against rival WCW. We saw the segment go from trying to unravel the double pin between Kane and Undertaker the previous PPV day, to enjoying the chaos.

• NJPW Fighting Spirit Unleashed: New York (2019)

The negative part of the memory here was, this was the event where the show started 90 minutes late. Someone apparently called to tell the Ambulance company the event was canceled, and they couldn’t start the show without emergency support available in the worst case scenario. Rocky Romero and Vice President Kaname Tezuka came out to apologize, throw out some free t-shirts and try to stop any more general unrest. When we got going, it was a solid show with Hiroshi Tanahashi teaming with the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express vs Shingo, BUSHI and Naito; should also be noted that this was Tiger Hattori’s last match he’d referee in the United States since it was also Tiger’s retirement tour. KENTA defended the NEVER Openweight Title from YOSHI-HASHI and the main event saw Kazuchika Okada & Kota Ibushi take on EVIL & SANADA. EVIL’s ending victory speech was funny since it was simple, “Even though we were very very late, don’t worry, we’re done”. Then he proceeds to say that New York City is evil, everything is evil, so that makes tardiness evil! Welcome to the Darkness World!

• WrestlePro All Hail the Maharaja (2024)

Aside from being on here because of Chairshot Owner Greg DeMarco’s love for Jinder…this was actually a big deal. WrestlePro rebranded their entire event of SeptemBRAWL just for the Maharaja. The Outrunners won tag team gold on the undercard, Jay Lethal, Elijah, Fuego del Sol and Fallah Bahh were also prominent on the undercard. Lady Frost managed to defeat Lena Kross and Serena Deeb for the WrestlePro Women’s title. But the main draw was of course Raj Dhesi (aka Jinder Mahal) taking on CPA for the WrestlePro Gold title. Dhesi was dominant throughout but CPA played the hometown underdog well. In a surprising turn of events, CPA retained the title with a flash Cradle. This event did help to spark a lot of buzz for where Dhesi might end up in the landscape of wrestling at the time.

Okay so this article had a little inside baseball with a Jinder drop and a live bias event…but that doesn’t mean they didn’t carry memorable moments. Plus let’s not act like everyone, especially with AEW referencing different FMW aspects, isn’t aware of exploding ring matches. While the ring work wasn’t really a highlight in any event, the events still carried weight.