Today in Wrestling History (July 11th)

Title Changes for July 11

1958 – Angelo Savoldi defeated Dory Funk, Sr. to win the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship

1961 – Gene Kiniski defeated Verne Gagne to win the AWA World Heavyweight Championship

1964 – "Shogun" Hiro Matsuda defeated Danny Hodge to win the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship

1981 – Ed Wiskowski & Mike George defeated Eddie Gilbert & Ricky Morton to win the NWA Tri-State Tag Team Championship

1983 – Gentleman Chris Adams defeated The Mongol to win the NWA WCCW Television Championship

1987 – "The Total Package" Lex Luger defeated Nikita Koloff to win the NWA United States (Mid-Atlantic) Heavyweight Championship

1987 – "Dr. Death" Steve Williams defeated Big Bubba Rogers to win the UWF World Heavyweight Championship. This would be the final reign for the championship before the UWF was absorbed into Jim Crockett Promotions.

1989 – Stan "The Lariat" Hansen & Genichiro Tenryu defeated Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu to win the AJPW Unified World Tag Team Championship

1999 – Momoe Nakanishi defeated Chaparita Asari to win the WWWA (Japan) Super Lightweight Championship

2011 – Sting defeated Mister Anderson...Anderson to win the TNA World Heavyweight Championship; his 15th World Championship reign of his career

Today in Wrestling History - October 22nd

1979 - Tito Santana and Ivan Putski defeat Johnny and Jerry Valiant for the WWF Tag Team Titles in Madison Square Garden, New York City.


1984 - The Fabulous Ones (Steve Keirn & Stan Lane) defeat Rick Rude and King Kong Bundy to win the AWA Southern Tag Team Title in Memphis, Tennessee, beginning Keirn and Lane's eighth of 14 reigns as champions




1994 - Toshiaki Kawada defeats "Dr. Death" Steve Williams for the AJPW Triple Crown Heavyweight in Tokyo, Japan. 





 1995 - WWF held their fourth In Your House Pay-per-view in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada at the Winnipeg Arena. 

Here are the results: -

Hunter Hearst Helmsley defeated Fatu.

WWF World Tag Team Champions The Smoking Gunns defeated The 1-2-3 Kid & Razor Ramon when Billy pinned The Kid. - 

Goldust, in his WWF debut, defeated Marty Janetty.

Yokozuna vs. Mabel ended in a double disqualification. 

Shawn Michaels, who had been beaten up outside of a bar (legitimately) and was unable to wrestle, forfeited the WWF Intercontinental Title to Dean (Shane) Douglas. 
Razor Ramon defeated Dean Douglas to win the WWF Intercontinental Title. 

Davey Boy Smith defeated WWF World Heavyweight Champion Diesel via disqualification.

Tag Team Match of the Night - WCW Tag Titles

WCW World and NWA International Tag Team Titles

September 21st 1992

Atlanta  Georgia

Barry Windham and Dustin Rhodes

vs

"Dr. Death" Steve Williams and Terry "Bam Bam" Gordy

Your Tag Team Match of The Night

From July 14th 1991 

All Japan Wrestling

Rick Rude, Terry Gordy and Steve "Dr. Death" Williams

vs

Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiki Kawada and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi

the commentary is in Japanese but when Rude opens his robe the announcer does something that will crack you up.

Lamest WWE Storyline Payoffs (Grantland)

Thanks to Bill Simmons great blog Grantland, we have this article about the lamest payoffs for WWF/WWE storylines and a couple from NWA/WCW...please read because I remember them all and you will too.

While reading this I found these 2 great videos from the ill fated Brawl For All series of real (unscripted) boxing/wrestling matches....long before UFC and MMA was a household name.    This was a tournament with some of the so called "tough guys" of the WWF in boxing gloves but also trying to wrestle.  In reality it was a Jim Ross idea to help get Steve "Dr. Death" Williams over as a legit tough guy fighter.  Now Dr. Death was a legit tough guy wrestler and football player but he was way out of his league with the gloves on, it took away his strength of grappling holds.  This left him to try and box and his match with, who was thought to be a patsy setup, Bart Gunn took a turn for the worse for Dr. Death and hilarity for all watching at home.   A knockout of Dr Death and a knee injury took him out of action for several months and left him with a battered reputation.   To me the highlight was Good Ol JR trying to spin the whole thing as Dr Death had been knocked down before and would be back but you can hear in his voice he was not pleased to see his friend knocked the F out on national tv and then have Jerry Lawler really rubbing it in while showing the replays.

Well this was not the end of the shame of Brawl For All...Bart Gunn won the tournament and set up a match at Wrestlemania 15 with Butterbean, the professional boxer known more for his girth and look than actual fighting ability.  Well  Butterbean took offense to the way he was portrayed as a big lug who as more a sideshow freak than fighter.   Poor Bart Gunn.   Butterbean with a chip on his shoulder and a brick in his right hand, spun Bart's head around like Linda Blair in "The Excorcist" and once and for all put the Brawl For All to rest in the graveyard of ideas that should have worked but real life got in the way.

R.I.P "Dr. Death" Steve Williams 1960-2009

Today we lost a legend in the sport, Steve Williams aka "Dr. Death".

He had a long and successful career with his greatest success coming Japan in both singles and tag teams. He lost his battle against throat cancer today but left a legacy of toughness from Oklahoma University to the Tokyo Dome.
Here is an interview and story from 1986 and given the events of the day some of his comments are now very ironic.


Here is a clip of the Doc when he was part of the Kevin Sullivan led Varsity Club. He teamed with Mike Rotunda to win the NWA World tag team titles. They are facing the late Eddie Gilbert and Rick Steiner. As Steiner comes into the ring area he is given something by a girl that as we found out later was associated with Kevin Sullivan. Its his then real life wife Nancy (aka Woman) who would later gain notice as the ill fated wife of second husband Chris Benoit. At the end of the match the Road Warriors join the scene to give us at least 6 wrestlers who are Hall of Fame caliber talent.


Here is the team of Williams and Gordy in Japan vs Bam Bam Bigelow and Davey Boy Smith
Sadly all 4 men are now deceased. Such a tragedy, they are all gone too soon.


And one last bit of trivia on Dr. Death. When Stone Cold Steve Austin came on the wrestling scene he wanted to use his real name of Steve Williams but because there was already a well known wrestler of Steve Williams he went with Steve Austin after the "Six Million Dollar Man" fame.