This month in (recent) pro-wrestling history - October 2014

[tiger_rick]

Every month I'll go back 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 years into the archives.

Add your memories from these months in these years in history.

 

October 2009

• Longtime wrestling manager and abuser of safety pins Captain Lou Albano died aged 76.
• WWE presented two PPV’s – Hell in a Cell and Bragging Rights.
• At Hell in a Cell, The Undertaker beat CM Punk for the World Heavyweight Title and Randy Orton took the WWE Title off John Cena in cell matches.
• Three weeks later, Cena beat Orton for the WWE Title in a 60 minute Ironman match. This was stipulated as their last ever title match. Stop laughing.
• Smackdown (Jericho, Kane, Matt Hardy, R-Truth, Finlay, Smith, & Kidd) beat Raw (Triple H, HBK, Kingston, Rhodes, Big Show, Henry & Swagger) for the Bragging Rights trophy due to the dastardly Big Show. This was in the middle of JeriShow’s tag title run.
• The Mix beat Kofi Kingston for the US Title on October 5^th Raw to set up a match with his former partner and US champ John Morrison at Bragging Rights. Did The Miz start doing his “Awesome” stuff around this time?
• Raw guest hosts included Snoop Dogg  and Ben Roethlisberger.
• Shane McMahon resigned from his role as Executive Vice President, Global Media with WWE.
• Vickie Guerrero’s new lover Eric Esobar made his debut on Smackdown beating Matt Hardy in a Bragging Rights qualifier. He wasn’t around long.
• TNA held their biggest show of the year Bound for Glory. Nothing happened unless you include Team 3D winning the IWGP Tag Titles from Magnus & Doug Williams who in turn won the TNA Tag Titles.

 

October 2004

• The October 11^th Raw was the first ever to be taped in the UK (Manchester). Benoit, Edge & HBK beat Triple H, Flair & Batista in the main event while Willie Regal jobbed in the tag title match after a dusty finish. Standard “home town” stuff.
• WWE also presented two PPV’s in October. No Mercy was a Smackdown brand show, Tabooo Tuesday a Raw brand.
• JBL retained the WWE title by beating The Undertaker in a “Last ride match” (an ambulance match with a hearse instead) after Heidenrich interfered. Post match, Undertaker was killed for the millionth time on WWE TV when Heidenrich rammed the hearse.
• Rey Mysterio was pinned by Kenzo Suzuki in the tag title match. Kenzo fucking Suzuki.
• At the Taboo Tuesday PPV, Shelton Benjamin took the IC title off Chris Jericho and Edge & Benoit won the tag titles from Sylvain Grenier and Rob Conway. Randy Orton beat Ric Flair in a good cage main event and Eric Bischoff had his head shaved.
• Carlito Caribbean Cool debuted on Smackdown beating John Cena for the US Title.
• CM Punk went to a 60 minute time limit draw with ROH champion Samoa Joe and beat AJ Styles for the IWA Mid South title.
• Kensuke Sasaki won his 5^th IWGP Heavyweight title.

 

October 1999

• The greatest wrestling commentator of all-time, Gorilla Monsoon, died at 62.
• WCW pulled off wrestling’s greatest ever coup when they signed the WWF’s writing dream team of Vince Russo and Ed Ferrera.
• Due to the change at the top of WCW, nothing happened on their TV for a month and they pissed off fans by letting them believe Goldberg had won the World Title at Halloween Havoc.
• WWF came over and presented Rebellion from the NIA in Birmingham. It was a solid show with a very decent main event between The Rock and Trips in a cage.
• The US PPV was No Mercy. Triple H beat Steve Austin in an unmemorable main event. The show was stolen by Edge, Christian and the Hardys who fought an incredible ladder match.
• Jeff Jarrett dropped the IC title to Chyna on the PPV. His WWF contract had expired the day before and he held up Vince McMahon for £100,000 to appear on the PPV before leaving for WCW.
• WWF TV was typically chaotic. The Rock and Mankind won the tag titles off the Outlaws but dropped them to Hardcore and Crash Holly a fortnight later. Test fought the Bulldog in a cage match that ended with Shane McMahon diving onto the MSP. X-Pac turned on Kane and DX kicked the shit out of him.
• Jushin Liger won the IWGP Junior-heavyweight title for the 10^th time.
• Apparently, Daniel Bryan and Brian Kendrick both made their pro debuts in October 1999.
• Vader won AJPW’s Triple Crown for the second time in the year. Bit of a surprise after he appeared so washed up in the WWF. The title tended to change hands in October.

 

October 1994

• Bob Backlund turned heel on WWF Raw putting Arnold Skaaland in the chicken wing (taped in September).
• On WWF Action Zone, Bret Hart and Owen Hart had a decent match and HBL & Diesel faced 123 Kid and Razor Ramon in a bonafide belter (taped in Spetember).
• Ric Flair was forced to retire from wrestling forever when he lost the steel cage main event of Halloween Havoc to Hulk Hogan.
• John “Earthquake” Tenta made his WCW debut on the show and became “Avalanche” at the next TV taping.
• Paul Orndorff and Paul Roma became WCW tag champs on the PPV beating Marcus Bagwell and The Patriot.
• Kawada beat Steve Williams to win AJPW’s Triple Crown.

 

October 1989

• The WWF put on their first show in the UK at Wembley Arena on October 10^th with a Hogan vs. Savage main event. It was shown live on Sky One.
• Demolition beat the Brain Busters for the WWF tag titles at a TV taping (shown in November).
• Tito Santana won the WWF’s (non-televised) King Of The Ring tournament in Providence, Rhode Island. Tito beat Bad News Brown, Warlord, Akeem and Rick Martel to win it.
• WCW presented Halloween Havoc in Philadelphia. Flair and Sting beat Terry Funk and Muta in a Thunderdome main event. Doom (Ron Simmons and Butch Reed) debuted on the show and beat the Steiners.
• The AWA held a tag team tournament for the vacant tag titles. The Destruction Crew (and future Beverley Brothers) Mike Enos and Wayne Bloom won the titles.
• The first AJPW Triple Crown holder Jumbo Tsuruta regained the title from Tenryu.

[air_raid]

October 2004

• WWE also presented two PPV’s in October. No Mercy was a Smackdown brand show, Tabooo Tuesday a Raw brand.

 

 

I feel compelled to point out that Taboo Tuesday featured an utterly compelling match (to me, anyway) between Triple H and Shawn Michaels. HBK was in urgent need of surgery but having won the viewers vote for challenger in the title match. The story of the match was Hunter working the (legitimately) injured knee, as you can expect, but it was simultaneously hard to watch and impossible to turn away knowing that the pained expression of Shawn's face was real. This was better than some of the matches they had were both were 100%. Much better.

[Linus]

 

October 1999

• WWF came over and presented Rebellion from the NIA in Birmingham. It was a solid show with a very decent main event between The Rock and Trips in a cage.

 

Me and a few friends dressed up as the Mean Street Posse and went to this. We even got on WWE TV. I was 27 yrs old. The main thing I remember about the show is the way the Rock held everyone in his hand when he climbed to the corner of the cage. Charisma never equalled.

[tiger_rick]

 

October 2004

• WWE also presented two PPV’s in October. No Mercy was a Smackdown brand show, Tabooo Tuesday a Raw brand.

 

 

I feel compelled to point out that Taboo Tuesday featured an utterly compelling match (to me, anyway) between Triple H and Shawn Michaels. HBK was in urgent need of surgery but having won the viewers vote for challenger in the title match. The story of the match was Hunter working the (legitimately) injured knee, as you can expect, but it was simultaneously hard to watch and impossible to turn away knowing that the pained expression of Shawn's face was real. This was better than some of the matches they had were both were 100%. Much better.

 

Yeah, that was far better than it had any right to be. It was inconsequential in the grand scheme of things but pretty compelling. Am I right in thinking they'd tried to make one of the others an obvious choice in the fans vote but they picked HBK?

[Fanny Pack]

Cant believe its been 5 years since we have seen Shane O'Mac (April at Backlash would have been his last TV app I think, in that 6 match tag WWE title match when HHH got punted and returned a week later when everyone else who had been punted had been gone for months, Batista, HBK, RVD)

 

That first Bragging Rights PPV always reminds me of how they promoted the Smackdown team for weeks only to change half the team a week before the PPV. Never was a fan of Bragging Rights.

 

Im pretty sure im not alone in thinking during that Miz/Morrison fued that is was Morrison who was going to progress further. He had just come of a belting summer on Smackdown were it seem to feature a belter match each week containing Morrison/Mysterio/Punk/Jeff/Jericho. Im pretty sure Morrison beat Punk (when Punk was champ) clean on SD. I enjoyed the Miz/Morrison "Im going to be the HBK, you're going to be the Jannetty" fued.

 

I wasnt watching WWE in 2004 but I have watched Taboo Tuesday and the HBK injury angle was pretty intriguing, mainly because it was a legit injury and also because it started the Edge heel turn.

 

Once again Rick, well played with the thread. They are becoming a monthly highlight for myself.

[WyattSheepMask]

At least HHH was gone for a little bit after the punt. Remember Cena getting up straight after the match when Orton did it at HIAC? He must have some Samoan in him

[Fanny Pack]

At least HHH was gone for a little bit after the punt. Remember Cena getting up straight after the match when Orton did it at HIAC? He must have some Samoan in him

I had forgot about that! Great call, classic John.

[Bosco Blick]

Any reason as to why that Taboo Tuesday was so poor attended? Only 3.5k according to Wikipedia.

 

Also, what's the story with Sgt. Slaughter wrestling in a dark match?

[air_raid]

That first Bragging Rights PPV always reminds me of how they promoted the Smackdown team for weeks only to change half the team a week before the PPV. Never was a fan of Bragging Rights.

 

It was ridiculous. They also killed the intrigue of the big multi-man by having at least two other big multi-mans on free TV in the preceding weeks, including the one where 5/7 of the team got dropped. Of course the whole concept diluted the novelty of the multi-man which formed a big part of Survivor Series a mere month later.

 

In fairness, the idea of creating any intrigue in Raw vs SmackDown as a pay per view was a dumb one by 2009 anyway, by which time anyone of consequence had already wrestled each other anyway.

[The Dart]

Any reason as to why that Taboo Tuesday was so poor attended? Only 3.5k according to Wikipedia.

 

Also, what's the story with Sgt. Slaughter wrestling in a dark match?

 

The only reason anyone online seems to think is that it was a Tuesday.  Must be more than that.  Poorly promoted too maybe?  Who knows, but I am surprised a PPV drawing that amount in an 18,000 seater wasn't a bigger news story back then.  Maybe it was.

[King Pitcos]

Im pretty sure im not alone in thinking during that Miz/Morrison fued that is was Morrison who was going to progress further. He had just come of a belting summer on Smackdown were it seem to feature a belter match each week containing Morrison/Mysterio/Punk/Jeff/Jericho. Im pretty sure Morrison beat Punk (when Punk was champ) clean on SD. I enjoyed the Miz/Morrison "Im going to be the HBK, you're going to be the Jannetty" fued.

Morrison was useless. That summer of 2009 on Smackdown didn't help him though. Instead of building him to matches with Punk, Jericho etc, they did their stupid "let's just do the match on tv for nothing lol workrate tho" philosophy and Morrison became nothing more than a guy who the stars had decent telly matches with. In the same timeframe, Miz was absolutely killing it on Raw.

 

At the time they split earlier in the year, it was kind of obvious that Miz was the better of the two and likely to get further. He'd been carrying the team. I think some people still clung to the idea of it being Morrison because of lookznflipz but by about SummerSlam that year, Miz was already way in front of Morrison, progression-wise.

[Shane O' Mac Version 2]

 

Any reason as to why that Taboo Tuesday was so poor attended? Only 3.5k according to Wikipedia.

 

Also, what's the story with Sgt. Slaughter wrestling in a dark match?

 

The only reason anyone online seems to think is that it was a Tuesday.  Must be more than that.  Poorly promoted too maybe?  Who knows, but I am surprised a PPV drawing that amount in an 18,000 seater wasn't a bigger news story back then.  Maybe it was.

 

 

Yeah, it's easy to point to a day change, but episodes of Raw on Mondays and SD tapings on Tuesdays draw far more than that, even when business is down. That kind of attendance is at the level of a house show in Mobile, Alabama.

 

I enjoyed the concept of Taboo Tuesday/Cyber Sunday, it's a shame it never really caught on as I really enjoyed the interactive element. And while WWE probably played around a bit with the results, there was the occasional win in the votes that seemed to go against the grain. For example, I'm fairly sure WWE were expecting Coach to face Chris Jericho for the IC title just to get a beating, but Shelton got it instead. Jericho talks about it in his book, and it sure seems like it was legitimate. Or maybe I'm just a mark.

 

Actually, I might go and watch Taboo Tuesday 04. It's one of those events I don't think I've watched since it first aired. God bless the WWE Network.

[John Stephens]

The first thing that comes to my mind when thinking of October is no mercy 2000 when Kurt angle won the title. I can remember jumping up and Down celebrating. I was 9 at the time and a huge Kurt angle fan.

[herbie747]

1967 - Brute Bernard & Mike Paidousis beat Fritz & Waldo Von Erich to win the American tag titles in Dallas

1970 - Mark Lewin & Spyros Arion beat Kurt & Karl Von Steiger in Melbourne to win the IWA tag titles

1975 - Mr. Wrestling II beat Nikolai Volkoff to win the Georgia title in Atlanta

1979 - Mal Sanders beat Ken Joyce to win the Southern Area U.K. middleweight title

1981 - Blackjack Mulligan beat Jan Wilkens in Capetown to win the EWU super heavyweight title

1982 - Paul Orndorff beat Super Destroyer to win the National title in Atlanta

1983 - Austin Idol beat Stan Hansen to win the International title in Memphis

2004 - John Cena beat Booker T in the final match of a best-of-five series to win the U.S. title

2004 - Masato Tanaka & Wataru Sakata beat Shinjiro Otani & Takao Omori in Morioka to win the Zero-One IC tag title

[LEGIT]

Some thoughts:

 

I remember being excited for Carlito's debut. I thought he was going to be much bigger than he was. Looked to have bags of charisma at one point, but he never really did IMO.

 

As for '94, did Backlund not turn heel after his match with Bret? And brilliantly sold may I add. I've re-watched Raw from '94 recently and his heel run had some brilliant moments. Favourite being him slapping the Chickenwing on the magazine editor. He put everything into his crazy gimmick.