Today In Pro Wrestling History: November 14th

We’ve got an interesting combination of shows.  Not sure if there will be a connective thread, but the shows have some solid memorability!

• AJW Wrestlemarinepiad: WWWA World Singles Championship Steel Cage Match: Bull Nakano (c) vs Aja Kong (1990)

This was the second ever cage match in Japan, between these same two women. This match was escalated by a new stipulation. This match was conducted under ONLY Escape rules. The rule was included because in their first non-title challenge, the referee (a young Gedo) was beaten and got in the way of Bull Nakano, so Aja was able to escape the cage. In a bloody war, Bull Nakano climbed the mesh cage, glanced at the outside and then down at Aja. This match was the one that gave us the iconic top rope Leg Drop from Bull. After connecting with the Leg Drop, she climbed the cage again, and then successfully escaped the cage to retain her title.

• WWF Saturday Night’s Main Event (1992)

This was the final taping for the end of Saturday Night’s television series original run from 1985-1992. Shawn Michaels defeated British Bulldog for the Intercontinental Championship, which was Shawn’s very first title in WWF/E. Also it should be noted, the final match of the Saturday Night’s run was, Bret Hart successfully defending his WWF Title against Papa Shango.

• WWE Raw: Eddie Guerrero Tribute Show (2005)

I don’t think this needs a lot of explanation. Eddie Guerrero was one of the most beloved wrestlers of the era. He’s still one of the most influential since most of the current main eventers grew up in the Attitude and Ruthless Aggression era. Rey Mysterio and Shawn Michaels had an solid match, where Rey was obviously emotional and even won the match with Eddie’s Frog Splash. Probably the most poignant tribute, was after the John Cena and Randy Orton main event, Cena takes the I’m Your Papi shirt off, places it in the center of the ring, and symbolically allow Eddie to take the full focus of the fade out of the show.

• Impact Wrestling Turning Point (2020)

After losing his X-Division title show against Rohit Raju, Cody Deaner, Eric Young and Joe Doering attacked. Doering returned to TNA for the first time since 2006, but now he was a fully established star in Japan and masculine menace. This was the birth of Violent By Design, and some of the best stuff during the quarantine era. Deonna Purrazzo also defeated Su Yung to kick off her great second reign. And in a moment for The Good Brothers, they won the TNA Tag Titles from The North, which began their first title reign with the TNA Tag belts.

• ROH Honor For All (2021)

ROH’s penultimate event before their initial closure. Most of this show fed towards Final Battle, since ROH made the announcement in October that they were going on “hiatus”. The one title change we got, was an ROH beloved tag team The OGK (Matt Taven & Mike Bennett) defeated La Faccion Ingobernable (Dragon Lee & Kenny King) for the Tag Team titles. Holidead won the #1 contender 4 way for the Women’s Championship. Jonathan Gresham defeated Brody King to become #1 contender for the World title as well.

Iconic moments from Bull Nakano and John Cena for Eddie Guerrero. ROH setting up their final show before the Tony Khan purchase and Joe Doering showing up to make an impact in the West. With Doering’s health going the way it did and him passing away recently, this being the beginning of his first real visibility in the West, it’s an interesting way to frame this.