Today In Pro Wrestling History: November 11th

Well, we’ve got another weird day. I would say its an interesting day, but let’s see how memorable everything is!

• TNA Genesis (2007)

Kaz made his official rise up the card when he won the Number One Contender Ladder match for the World Heavyweight title. Black Reign (Dustin Rhodes) fought Abyss in a “Shop of Horrors” match. Noted for the fact that it was one of the few moments for this version of Dustin Rhodes. The main history though is Sting had a Mystery partner for the main event, since it was a unique tag match for the World Heavyweight title. Bookert T made his unpromoted debut for TNA, which at the time was a huge moment, and put the pieces in place for the eventual Main Event Mafia.

• NJPW Power Struggle (2012)

This event saw Karl Anderson challenge Shinsuke Nakamura for the Intercontinental Championship. This was during the breakout year for Karl, which proved that he could be an effective singles wrestler aside from just a tag team specialist. Shinsuke won, but Karl impressed basically all year between New Japan Cup and G1 performances. Prince Devitt defeated Low Ki for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title. Devitt’s victory was one of the dominos that lead to Low Ki pulling his “suit protest” stunt at Wrestle Kingdom 7 two months later. But most notably was, the IWGP Heavyweight Championship match between Hiroshi Tanahashi and Yujiro Takahashi. Yujiro was an unexpected challenger, but after repeatedly attacking Tanahashi during multi-man matches and earning the pinfalls during those, Tanahashi had his pride to defend. The match was pretty good and went over 26 minutes, but Tanahashi retained, which set up his confrontation with Okada after the match. Okada won the G1 and was looking to win the title back. Tanahashi was the Ace who wasn’t ready to relinquish the distinction, and the “Rainmaker Shock” happened earlier in 2012, so Tanahashi was still fighting to keep his place.

• NXT: North American Title: Johnny Gargano (c) vs Leon Ruff (2020)

This was an amusing moment of irony since Gargano always had that Johnny Wrestling, underdog, indie darling aura. But as he was an elder statesmen of NXT at this time, he started to become the Veteran Gatekeeper. So when he was challenged by Leon, who was often used as a jobber, Gargano thought it would an easy way to shake off the “Gargano Curse” that established. The curse being he’d have great matches, great championship wins, but zero defenses. Much to Gargano’s chagrin, Leon pulled off one of the biggest upsets in NXT up to that point. This lead to the creation of “The Way”.

• NOAH/Dragon Gate Global Dream (2022)

This was a historic show because it rebuilt a bridge that was burned 15 years prior. In 2006, Mitsuharu Misawa founded the Global Professional Wrestling Alliance, and the concept was to help interpromotional relations between companies to combat New Japan’s recovery and growing dominance in the puroresu scene. They tried to implement an anti-poaching agreement and work together to secure larger venues in a concept of “rising tide raises all ships”. But due to politics and different policies, the alliance dissolved in 2007, and Dragon Gate was also seen as more a “gimmicky and independent” style, which clashed with Misawa and Kobashi’s King’s Road traditional concepts. For the next 15 years most of the Big Four Japanese companies were pretty insular unless NJPW was invading or trying to do something with the promotion. This event buried the hatchet and is part of the reason why NOAH has become a fairly safe bridge for many former Dragon Gate wrestlers like Eita, Masaaki Mochizuki and part of why Kenoh and Shuji Kondo held the Twin Gate titles in early 2023.

• Impact Wrestling IPWF Digital Exclusive (2023)

The Impact Provincial Wrestling Federation digital matches delivered pure, low-budget nostalgia that perfectly tapped into the modern love for kayfabe retro parodies. Hardcore fans of the product loved watching modern stars completely strip away their serious television personas to play absurd 1980s territory caricatures. Before the main television card kicked off, the digital exclusives kept the crowd roaring with matches like Brian “Bone” Crunchin defeating Dick Waters and Red Letter taking down Ladybird Johnston. This entire style of presentation owes a massive creative inspiration to WWE’s viral Southpaw Regional Wrestling web series. Years prior, Southpaw proved to the entire industry that wrestling fans would absolutely lose their minds for low-fidelity graphics, bad wigs and current top tier athletes doing unscripted, comedic impressions of old school studio wrestling. A personal favorite of mine was Rich Swann’s “Rapid Delivery Pete”.

So this is a weird day, a comedy retro show, a rebuild the bridges show, a legend debuts during peak TNA, Gargano can’t escape his curse and Power Struggle really lived up to its name. Fun nuggets for fans of the companies, and interesting moments for those who may not cover some of these companies.