Today In Pro Wrestling History: October 14th

This is like a Dewey Cox moment, look away WWE fans, you don’t want none of this! WWE was mostly gimmicky story beats for today, so WWE took today’s article off. Let’s see what worked!

• TNA Bound For Glory (2007)

There’s two memorable moments here. Historically the biggest moment was the Knockouts Gauntlet for the Inaugural TNA Knockouts Championship. Gail Kim ultimately won, which the moment is memorable but the match is forgettable. It was a catalyst for the peak Knockouts Division that everyone remembers since Velvet Sky, Angelina Love, Awesome Kong, Roxxi Laveaux, Jackie Moore, Shelly Martinez, Christy Hemme, Tracy Brooks and ODB, were in the gauntlet. When it comes to high points though, the main event was Sting vs Kurt Angle. Kurt and Sting had their dysfunctional tag team era, followed up by Kurt thinking Sting attacked Karen, so Kurt stalked Garrett at a baseball game. It got deeply personal and this was probably the closest to Crow Sting that we saw in TNA. Since Kurt was being paranoid, Sting was framed as the obvious babyface, so when Sting won, it was a big pop and feel good moment to end the show. On top of a solid match too.

• NJPW/RevPro Global Wars (2018)

As we know from articles or remember from being there, 2018 was the peak of the independent wrestling boom. RevPro was also at its heights with the NJPW cross over thanks to Zack Sabre Jr being the flagbearer for the interpromotional clashing. Chris Ridgeway had a banger of a semi-main against Will Ospreay, Zack Sabre Jr was rolling after winning the New Japan Cup and had a great technical match with Hirooki Goto, but the main event was why we were all sat. Minoru Suzuki defended the RevPro Undisputed British Heavyweight title against Tomohiro Ishii. Murder Grandpa and Stone Pitbull put on a match everyone had grown to expect, in a good way. It was strong style, no sells, a few funny goading moments, but stiff strikes, heavy bombs and Suzuki hunting for a submission. Lucky for Ishii, he has no neck, so he was able to get away from some moves and eventually put away Suzuki to win the RevPro title!

• IMPACT Bound For Glory: Impact World Championship: Austin Aries (c) vs Johnny Impact (2018)

Even though I could point out that this was one of the more pivotal turning points under the D’Amore and Callis umbrella…we all remember one thing. Aries effectively no selling Starship Pain. While Aries laid down and ate the pinfall for the title change to happen, his immediate rolling out the ring, acting fine and flipping off management was the unprofessional bit. While Aries is working in MLW currently, this led to a long many years of people not wanting to touch association with him because it blew up so hotly in the IWC bubble.

• STARDOM World Champion Wars (2019)

Looking back, this was a huge foundational event for Stardom. The opening match was Tam Nakano vs Saya Kamitani, student vs teacher, style of match since this was Saya’s rookie year and Tam was helping her a lot. This also saw Hana Kimura vs Bea Priestley for the World of Stardom title. Hana was cashing in her title shot after winning the 5 Star Grand Prix earlier in the year. Unsuccessful as it may have been, it was a very good match and showed that Hana was on the rise in the company. The third notable match, Kagetsu vs the Wonder of Stardom Champion, Arisa Hoshiki. This was during Hoshiki’s brief comeback, a fantastic striker, great wrestler, just health issue and injuries caused her to retire again 6 months later. To end things on a…brighter note. This event saw the debut of Giulia in Stardom. While her debut was riddled with drama because of her Ice Ribbon departure, we all have seen how high Giulia rose since making the decision.

• NJPW King Of Pro Wrestling: IWGP World Heavyweight Championship: Tetsuya Naito (c) vs Zack Sabre Jr (2024)

This was the first official King of Pro Wrestling event in 5 years. After covid hit the schedule got messed up, they decided to invent the corny King of Pro Wrestling title, and thus change the autumn event to “Declaration of Power” in 2022. Sometimes name changes work, like Invasion Attack becoming Sakura Genesis. This was not it bro. So NJPW went back to the old branding for Zack Sabre Jr cashing in his G1 victory early. Zack finally won the IWGP Heavyweight title after so many years of being one of the most loyal and beloved gaijins. Amusingly, SANADA came out to challenge, Shingo Takagi also came out, but when Shota Umino came out he was instantly decried as not deserving by Japanese fans.

Now even without the WWE influence, many of the names are fairly well known beyond their specific bubble. Zack Sabre Jr tied a few things together, Giulia shot her first shot on the stage that caught the WWE eye, Sting and Kurt Angle obviously are known names and…love him or hate him, Austin Aries has a presence. So I think this was a solid day.