Today In Pro Wrestling History: October 20th

These October days have been oddly sparse. With so many Halloween Havocs and gimmicks available, you’d expect more choices. But there’s a few fun moments here.

• WWF: In Your House: Buried Alive: The Undertaker vs Mankind (1996)

The entire event was hyped up with vignettes of Paul Bearer’s life called The Mortician: The Story of Paul Bearer. Capping off with the first ever Buried Alive match. This is memorable obviously for the gimmick concept of the match, crazy hardcore style spots and oddly enough, the aftermath. Even though Undertaker technically won, he was blindsided by The Executioner. Executioner dug out Mankind, then they proceeded to bury The Undertaker. After a few minutes of piling on the dirt, everyone left, lighting struck the Buried Alive headstone, and Undertaker’s purple gloved had shot up from the grave. One of the most iconic shots in WWF history.

• WWE No Mercy: Intercontinental & World Heavyweight Championship Match: Kane (c) vs Triple H (c) (2002)

Aside from being a title unification match, this was also towards the end of the infamous Katie Vick storyline. Triple H was dragging up memories, stories and bodies from Kane’s past to really get his whole Cerebral Assassin gimmick over. While everyone hates the Katie Vick storyline, there was an added layer of…history. The two titles were Unified and for about 7 months, the Intercontinental Championship was considered deactivated.

• TNA Bound For Glory (2013)

This is a bittersweet show because it really encapsulated the end of the peak era of TNA. Following the catastrophic financial losses during the Bischoff and Hogan era, Sting was gone, Aces and Eights was fizzling out, and AJ Styles was on his way out the door. Bully Ray defended the TNA World Championship against the “Lone Survivor” AJ Styles gimmick. With Styles’ victory over the Aces and Eights leader, that led to him pulling a CM Punk style walk out with the title. In a moment that I personally hold dear, is Ethan Carter III debuted at this event, defeating Norv Fernum (aka Peter Avalon). EC3 proved to be a solid character to try and keep TNA afloat before the dark ages and EC3 himself left.

• Kaiju Big Battel TwitchCon (2017)

This was during the height of Twitch Plays and Wrestling on Twitch. So the main event was “hijacked” by the villanous Dr. Cube, to allow Twitch Plays to control the match, it became a Turn Based Match. Burger Bear faced Hell Monkey for the Twitchcontinental Championship. After numerous meme levels of Arm Bars, Burger Bear won via Burger to Belly. It breaks down from the Twitch Plays aspect when Dr Cube cashes in a Groupon for a Handicap Match that just turns into a donnybrook. Burger Bear still wins the match even after nearly 15 minutes of ridiculousness.

So there was a solid amount of gimmick today. Be it buried alive and then resurrected, necrophilia, AJ Styles saying screw you guys I’m going home, and then Kaiju Big Battel. But…well…that is a surprisingly consistent thread.