Today In Pro Wrestling History: November 6th

An interesting listing of events. A few more recent events and a smattering from the 90s and early 00s. Let’s see what kind of history happened today!

• AAA/WCW When Worlds Collide: Mask vs Hair 2 out of 3 Falls Match: Pareja del Terror (Love Machine & Eddy Guerrero) vs El Hijo del Santo & Octagon (1994)

The event itself was a huge moment in wrestling because it was the first non-American based program to be presented on American PPV. It also became Mike Tenay’s commentary debut. Even though Konnan vs Perro Aguayo main evented, and we saw Pegasus Kid, Psicosis, Heavy Metal, Rey Misterio Jr and Mascarita Sagarda in the undercard, the tag match in the header stole the show. The story of the match was based off of real politics at the time where California was trying to deny public services to undocumented Mexicans. So Art Barr (Love Machine) and Eddy took the gringo angle and would bury Mexicans in promos, perform gorgeous heel tactics and even begrudgingly dazzled with their Dual Frog Splash finish. So the heroes of Mexico stood up for the people, Octagon, a more modern inspired Luchador that was popular with the youth and Hijo del Santo, the son of the most popular wrestler in Mexican history, El Santo. Putting the representative masks on the line against the disrespectful gringo team, showed how devoted to protecting Mexico they were. During the match, Octagon literally got stretchered out after the use of the illegal Spiked Piledriver by Art Barr when the referee’s back was turned. Hijo del Santo fought a handicap match for a good portion of the time, Antonio Pena even came down to help stretcher out Octagon. While one of Santo’s rivals, Blue Panther, who was quashing their differences for Mexican pride, laid out Love Machine with a Spike Piledriver in a turnabout is fair play moment. Cutaways to Octagon laid out helped to sell the desperation, and Santo managing to slip a Suplex and turn it into a Cross Legged Cradle to earn the surprise victory got a massive pop from the fans.  While this match was given 5 stars, it holds greater memory than a star rating, because only 17 days later, Art Barr would pass away. Leaving this tragic masterpiece as the final entry of his all too short legacy.

• TNA iMPACT!: X-Division Championship: AJ Styles (c) vs Chris Sabin vs Christopher Daniels (2006)

While this was not a first time victory or anything like that, this contains three of the stalwarts of the early X-Division. It also was used mostly as a way to keep story brewing with Christian Cage and AJ Styles. With names like Christian, Sting and the newly acquired Kurt Angle, the whole landscape of TNA was turning into a real secondary option. Christopher also managed to get the win by countering Sabin’s Cradle Shock into a Roll-Up. So Daniels got a win, that many believe didn’t happen frequently enough, and the show was growing into something that fans could be excited for.

• WWE Raw: World Tag Team Titles: Dean Ambrose & Seth Rollins (c) vs The Bar (Sheamus & Cesaro) (2017)

Similarly to the last event, this was more known for being a storyline vehicle. While the match got plenty of time and was a very solid match because everyone involved knew how to work with each other. The match does get a little overshadowed by the Uso interference and Survivor Series implications at play. But a good match, especially for television and another title reign for The Bar, is part of why many fans are clamoring for a reunion in AEW at the moment.

• NJPW Power Struggle (2021)

This was one of those shows that was pretty good at the time, but in history will become a bit of a turning point for when New Japan started to really fall off. House of Torture officially rose to prominence after defeating CHAOS during their 454 day stranglehold of the NEVER 6 Man title. El Desperado got his win back over Robbie Eagles, to begin his second reign as IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion. KENTA defeated Hiroshi Tanahashi for the IWGP United States title.  Kazuchika Okada defended his G1 Briefcase against Tama Tonga, but he chose to walk out with the v4 IWGP Heavyweight Championship in lieu of the briefcase to show his rejection of the awful World Heavyweight title concept. Speaking of which, Shingo Takagi defended that little miserable World title against Zack Sabre Jr. It was a 30 minute battle, but Shingo hit a second Last Falconry/Last of the Dragon, to put Zack down. On paper, a very interesting show, but in retrospect, it was truly the beginning of the end of New Japan being top organization in the world.

• Dragon Gate The Gate Of Destiny (2022)

Now this is on here for more normal wrestling reasons. H.Y.O successfully defended his Brave Gate title against Dragon Kid in what is highly regarded as a sleeper hit. Z-Brats (ISHIN, KAI & Shun Skywalker) were the only title change when they dominated M3K for the Triangle Gate title belts. But the main event was a great moment of validation to the current champion and the fans. Yuki Yoshioka defended the Open the Dream Gate title against the perennial Ace of Dragon Gate, YAMATO. Yuki got a definitive victory after a Frog Splash into his High Angled Backdrop Driver he calls Groza Inferno. Defeating the long standing Ace, cemented his position at the top of modern Dragon Gate.

I was unaware of the Art Barr history before I started looking for events, so this is day definitely turned out to be more important than even I thought. I just thought I’d be able to insult New Japan for their decision making the past 5 years. But I’m glad we got an interesting article of moments.