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Guest Columns | Andy Moseley |
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THIS WEEK IN WRESTLING HISTORY - 2.16.00 to 2.22.00
Well, I don't have all that much to say up here this time. I didn't have a chance to research previous years' ratings this time... sorry. College does that to you. 2.16: 1998 - Live on Nitro (or maybe Thunder... I don't know), Rick Martel won the WCW TV belt from Booker (who had a T at the time). 1997 - Hey, it's In Your House time! Back in the days of subtitling the IYH events, the WWF named this one "Final Four." Why? Because the main event was a "Final Four" match for the WWF Title, won by Bret Hart and also including Steve Austin, The Undertaker, and the man they call Vader. We didn't have any other title changes, but we DID have... I-C champ Rocky Maivia pinning HHH (geez, they have been feuding for four years now!) ... Phil Lafon & Doug Furnas beating tag champs Owen & Bulldog by DQ when Owen used his prized Slammy on Phil's head ... Marc Mero beating Lief Cassidy ... Crush, Savio Vega, and Faarooq (aka "The Nation") beating... surprise... Flash Funk, Goldust, and Bart Gunn. 1986 - Kensuke Sasaki made his pro debut. 1974 - In a match between NFL stars, Bengals linebacker Ron Pritchard beat Cleveland Browns tackle Walter Johnson by DQ. 2.17: 1998 - Macho Man Randy Savage is awarded Harvard Lampoon's "Real Man of the Year" award, which should have rightfully gone to a man's man... Steven Regal. 1997 - A night after winning the belt, Bret Hart loses the WWF Title to Sycho Sid live on "Raw is War" and then attacks Vince McMahon. Well what do you know... it was FOR REAL about seven months later! Meanwhile on Nitro, Prince Iaukea shocked the world (yeah) by winning the WCW TV belt from Lord Steven Regal. And NOBODY saw "The Artist" coming back then! 1996 - Lex Luger won the WCW TV belt from Johnny B. Badd. 2.18: 1996 - Johnny B. Badd won the WCW TV belt from Lex Luger. Also, the WWF's sixth In Your House was live from Louisville, Kentucky and I actually ordered this one on PPV! Hey, it was ONLY $19.95. Those were the days. The main event was WWF Champ Bret Hart winning a cage match against Diesel when the Undertaker magically cut a hole in the ring (complete with smoke) and pulled Diesel "into the abyss"... and won a Slammy for it. I hated it. Shawn Michaels pinned Owen Hart, and Razor Ra-mon beat 1-2-3 Kid in that "crybaby" match. We also had HHH pinning Duke Droese (what a feud THAT was!) and Yokozuna beating the Bulldog by DQ. And if I remember correctly, the Free For All match was Jake Roberts pinning Tatanka. 1995 - Eddie Gilbert died of a heart attack at the age of 33. 1993 - "Texas Tornado" Kerry Von Erich committed suicide a day after being indicted on a cocaine possession charge at the age of 33. 1985 - Live on MTV (home of the Real World... right), "The War to Settle The Score" is broadcast from MSG, featuring a main event of WWF Champ Hulk Hogan beating Roddy Piper by DQ when Mr. T, [slash] columnist extrodinaire, and Cyndi Lauper interfered. Lelani Kai also won the WWF Women's belt from Wendi Richter. 2.19: 1997 - A few days after announcing a Razor Ramon-Goldust WM XII streetfight, the WWF suspended Ramon for six weeks due to unprofessional conduct. Thanks to that, we ended up with a match with Piper getting hit by a car, followed by a car chase with footage shown throughout WrestleMania that was strangely similar to another reel of footage of a white Bronco, and then Goldust in lingerie. 1995 - SUPERBRAWL! And we are live from Baltimore. The main event was another in a series of Hogan-Vader matches (which would have Ric Flair in drag at the next month's PPV), this one with Hogan beating Vader by DQ thanks to Flair interference. In my all-time favorite feud, Blacktop Bully pinned Dustin Rhodes in an amazing, awesome, great sixteen-minute match. Some other stuff that may or may not suck nowadays... Alex Wright (Das Wunderkind) beat Paul Roma ... Hacksaw Jim Duggan beat Bunkhouse Bunk ... Kevin Sullivan won the battle (but not the war) against brother David Sullivan ... Tag champs Harlem Heat 1995 beat the Nasty Boys by DQ ... Macho Man & Sting beat The Gimmicks of the Month, who at the time were Avalanche and Big Bubba Rogers. 1992 - Tojo Yamamoto commited suicide at the age of 65. 1968 - In the main event of the first card at the "new" Madison Square Garden, Bruno Sammartino beat Bull Ramos. 1943 - Bill Longson won the NWA World title from Bobby Managoff. 1942 - Here's a NWA World title change for ya... Bill Longson won the belt from Sandor Szabo. I have no clue who either guy is. Hey... didn't Bill Longson JUST WIN the belt a year ago? Birthdays - Get extreme or something, 'cause it's Danny Doring's birthday. He's livin' la vida loca! It's also Dory Funk, Jr.'s birthday. 2.20: 1994 - SuperBrawl IV was live from Albany, Georgia. Hey... where's the pay-per-views from Albany now? We had a double main event, both in the confines of "Thundercage." In the first of the two, Sting, the late Brian Pillman, and Dustin Rhodes beat Steve Austin, the late Rick Rude, and Paul Orndorff. In the other, with guest referee The Boss (another of his many identies... Mick Foley doesn't have split personalities... Boss Man, Avalanche, and Brutus Beefcake do), World champ Ric Flair beat Vader. Nothing else of note, but I'll note it anyway... Harlem Heat beat Thunder & Lightning (by the way, doesn't Vince McMahon crap Thunder? Or was it Lightning?) when Kane pinned Thunder. Harlem Heat were Kane and Keith (I think), and not THAT Kane ... "Jungle" Jim Steele beat The Equalizer (Dave! Evad!) ... Terry Taylor beat DDP (OK, that's pretty funny) ... Johnny B. Badd (he's a baaaaad man) beat Jim Garvin, and probably put one of those little glittery kisses on someone's face ... TV champ Lord Steven Regal beat Arn Anderson ... Cactus Jack & Maxx Payne beat World tag champs The Nasty Boys by DQ. 1989 - Because they had nothing better to do, the NWA had this one-time-only PPV from... guess where. The main event was probably good, as it was Ric Flair losing the World title to Ricky Steamboat. Two other title changes too, with Lex Luger winning the U.S. belt from Barry Windham and Mike Rotundo winning the TV belt from Rick Steiner (hey... aren't they in the Varsity Club together? And just where is Leia Meow?). Also on the card... Michael Hayes beat Russian Assassin I (were they like the Villanos?) ... Sting pinned Butch Reed ... Midnight Express defeated the New Original Midnight Express (the new original... what happened to the old original? And wouldn't the old original be THE original... I'm so confused) ... World tag champs The Road Warriors beat Steve Williams & Kevin Sullivan. 1988 - The guy we now know and love as Raven made his pro debut! 1978 - Bob Backlund won the WWF World title from Superstar Graham in New York City. This would start that nice, long five or so year long streak as champ... unless you count Backlund losing, then winning back the title against Antonio Inoki in Japan in the course of seven days in November-December 1979. 1933 - That's a LONG time ago. Jim Browning won the NWA World belt from Ed Lewis. 1928 - The fun just never ends on the 20th with the NWA World belt, does it?. Ed "Strangler" Lewis won the NWA World title from Joe Stecher in St. Louis. Birthdays - It's Gedo's birthday! It's also Antonio Inoki's birthday. 2.21: 1999 - It's WCW/nWo SuperBrawl! We had ourselves another Hogan vs Flair main event, this one ending when David Flair used the deadly taser on his dad and joined the nWo. The tag team title tournament ended as well, with Barry Windham & Curt Hennig defeating Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko in the finals. Ron Misterio, Jr. had to unmask after he and El Stupido Konnan lost to The Outsiders in a mask vs hair match. Also on the card... Booker T pinned Disco Inferno ... Chris Jericho beat Perry Saturn by countout ... Cruiserweight champ Billy Kidman beat Chavo Guerrero, Jr. ... TV Champ Scott Steiner beat DDP when DDP passed out in the Steiner Recliner ... Scott Hall won the U.S. belt from Roddy Piper ... Goldberg pinned Bam Bam Bigelow. Hey, is it SuperBrawl time again ALREADY? 1993 - This time, SuperBrawl III was l-i-v-e Asheville, NC and the big thing was the return of Ric Flair after his successful WWF stint. The main event was the great "White Castle of Fear" strap match with World champ Vader beating Sting. We also had Barry Windham winning the NWA title from Great Muta, Cactus Jack winning a falls-count-anywhere match against Paul Orndorff, The Hollywood Blonds beating Erik Watts (Tekno Team 2000... who aren't around in 2000) and Marcus Alexander Bagwell, and 2 Cold Scorpio beating Chris Benoit in 19:59 in what was probably a great match with a 20:00 time limit. You might have also missed... Davey Boy Smith pinning "Wild" Bill Irwin ... The Rock 'n Roll Express beating the Heavenly Bodies ... U.S. champ Dustin Rhodes beating Maxx Payne by DQ. 1985 - On ABC's 20/20, "Dr. D" David Shultz hits reporter John Stossel in the ears. Stossel sued and ended up getting a $280,000 settlement from the WWF. 1966 - In a title change that means so much to each and every one of us, Johnny Valentine and Antonio Pugliese won the WWF World Tag Team titles from Dan & Dr. Bill Miller. 1947 - Another NWA World title change from the old days... Whipper Bill Watson won the belt from Bill Longson. Hey, I've actually heard of Whipper Bill Watson! 2.22: 1998 - Another SuperBrawl, this time from San Fran, California. We had a rematch for the WCW World belt, with 'Wood Hogan losing it to Sting. The Outsiders and Steiners continued their streak of title switches, this time with the Outsiders winning the tag belts from the Steiners thanks to Scott turning on Rick. How about this one... Greenberg, on his INCREDIBLE winning streak, pinned... BRAD ARMSTRONG. Booker (before he lost his T) wrestled twice, winning the TV belt from Rick Martel and then successfully defending it against Perry Saturn. Other stuff... Disco Inferno beat La Parka ... Cruiserweight champ Chris Jericho beat Air Quasi thanks to the Liontamer, which gave us the cruel result of Quasi having to unmask forever (it did bring some great comedy on Jericho's part, though) ... Davey Boy Smith beat Steve McMichael by submission (THAT must've been a great match) ... U.S. Champ DDP pinned Chris Benoit (OK, those two had some cool bouts) ... Lex Luger beat Randy Savage. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THAT GUY? 1981 - Ray Stevens (they called him "The Streak") and Ivan Koloff won the NWA World tag belts from Paul Jones & Masked Superstar. Next week (2.23 to Leap Day)... one Super Ladies Showdown, two SuperBrawls, two Wrestle Wars, and more! See you then!
Andy |
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