22 years ago today, WCW changed the landscape of professional wrestling forever with the debut of Monday Nitro.
1901: In Chicago, Illinois, Frank Gotch defeated George Hackenschmidt 2-0 in a best of three falls match to retain the world heavyweight wrestling championship.
1981: In Saga, Japan, Giant Baba defeated Harley Race to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship for the third time.
Like his first two reigns, Baba didn’t last long as NWA world champion; Race would regain the title less than a week later.
1987: WWF presented its annual King of the Ring tournament from the Civic Center in Providence, Rhode Island.
First Round
Haku defeated Brutus Beefcake.
Rick Martel defeated Dan Spivey.
King Kong Bundy defeated The One Man Gang via countout.
SD Jones defeated Sika.
Danny Davis defeated Tito Santana.
The Junkyard Dog defeated Tama.
Jim Brunzell defeated Ron Bass.
Randy Savage defeated Nikolai Volkoff.
Quarterfinals
Haku and Rick Martel fought to a 15-minute time limit draw, eliminating both men from the tournament.
King Kong Bundy defeated SD Jones. As the prior match went to a draw, Bundy earned a bye into the finals.
Danny Davis defeated The Junkyard Dog via countout.
Randy Savage defeated Jim Brunzell.
Semifinals
Randy Savage defeated Danny Davis.
Final
Randy Savage defeated King Kong Bundy
Also, in a non-tournament match, Jake “The Snake” Roberts defeated The Honky Tonk Man via disqualification in a WWF Intercontinental Championship match.
1995: WCW presented the first episode of Monday Nitro from the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.
Quite the story on how Nitro came to be: earlier that summer, Eric Bischoff, then WCW President, was set to pitch a licensing deal to Ted Turner. Before he got around to pitching that business deal, Ted wanted to know that despite bringing in Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage and many other big names from the heyday of 1980s WWF, why wasn’t WCW more competitive with the WWF. Bischoff had to come up with an excuse, an idea, anything, and quick. His thought: WWF had primetime and WCW didn’t. Bischoff left that meeting with two hours of programming on Monday night on TNT.
Over the next few months, Bischoff gathered some intel as to what people liked about wrestling. One of the top responses was unpredictability. WCW delivered on that unpredictability on night one… with the return of Lex Luger.
It was shocking considering literally no one outside of WCW president Eric Bischoff and Luger knew about it--including Vince McMahon. Luger, who had been at a house show in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada the night before, had been working without a written contract for a few weeks (he was basically on a handshake deal), making him a free agent. In a 2009 interview, Luger expressed regret in how it all went down:
"I will always have regret over that. I would have liked to have done things the right way and given Vince my notice. I do have regret for that. But, at the time, I had to do what was right for my family.
...
"I was brought into wrestling by Hiro Matsuda about proper protocol and respect for the business. Even if things didn't work out with Vince McMahon, I wanted to give two weeks’ notice."
Perhaps just as amazing, legend has it that Luger returned for only 1/5 of what he had made when he was last with WCW (he was making $500,000/year in his last stint with the company; he was offered just $1,000 a match with no guarantee on how many matches he would have). Eric Bischoff, who didn’t have any fondness for Luger, made a token offer to Luger (as a favor to Luger’s BFF Steve “Sting” Borden) hoping that he would turn it down. Oops. Luger would remain with WCW until its sale in March 2001.
Also returning to WCW after a two-year absence was former IWGP Tag Team Champion and national arm wrestling champion Scott Norton.
But the Nitro at the Mall of America was pretty much used to promote Hulk Hogan’s new restaurant, Pastamania. The restaurant closed just a year later, but made a bit of news back in 2009 when its marquee was found near an abandoned building in Minneapolis. The building was demolished just two months after the photo was taken.
As for Nitro, its debut show ran unopposed, as USA was doing their annual coverage of major tennis event the US Open.
In a preshow dark match, The American Males (Marcus Alexander Bagwell & Scotty Riggs) defeated Bunkhouse Buck & Dick Slater.
Flyin' Brian defeated Jushin Thunder Liger.
Sting defeated Ric Flair by disqualification to retain the WCW United States Championship.
Hulk Hogan defeated Big Bubba Rogers to retain the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.
2000: WCW presented Monday Nitro from Dallas, Texas.
In the show’s main event, Kevin Nash won WarGames 2000 to retain the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. Other participants included Sting, Booker T, Goldberg, Kronik, Jeff Jarrett, Scott Steiner, and the Harris Brothers.
The match took elements of the classic WarGames match and the Ready to Rumble triple cage contested in the movie of the same name and at Slamboree earlier in the year: one person had to climb the three-story cage, possess the world title belt above the third cage, then escape back down through the door of the bottom cage to win. This was the last War Games match contested in WCW before the company was bought out six months later.
2000: WWF presented RAW is WAR from Lexington, Kentucky.
In a featured bout, Eddie Guerrero defeated Chyna and Kurt Angle in a triple threat match to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship.
2001: WWF presented a live episode of Smackdown from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
In one of the evening’s bouts, The Undertaker and Steven Richards fought to a no contest.
During the post-match brawl, former WCW tag team champions Kronik (Brian Adams and Bryan Clark) made their return to the WWF (Adams had two previous stints as Crush in the early and late 1990s, while Clark had a mid-90s run as Adam Bomb) and attacked Undertaker.
The two would both be gone from the main roster less than a month later following their awful performance at Unforgiven versus the Brothers of Destruction.
The next episode of Smackdown would also be live, but under very different circumstances. More details on that on September 13.
2010: TNA releases Angelina Love due to visa issues.
Angelina Love, real name Lauren Williams, wrestled briefly for Women Superstars Unleashed before returning to TNA in January with her visa issues all worked out. She left the company in July 2012, but would return a third time in March 2014. Her third stint in TNA officially ended in March 2016, about six months after she was written off due to her pregnancy.
Lauren had a brief fifth run in the company, known now as Global Force Wrestling, aligning with her husband Davey Richards. Williams, a six-time TNA Knockouts Champion, was granted her release from the company last month.
2010: Ring of Honor announces via press release that both Nigel McGuinness and Bryan Danielson would join World Wrestling Entertainment after agreeing in principle to contracts.
However, it would be only Danielson that wound up in WWE. McGuinness, real name Steven Haworth, failed a pre-screen physical with WWE and would sign with TNA the following month and debut as Desmond Wolfe.
Haworth was released in June 2011 and would return to Ring of Honor that August as its official on-screen matchmaker and occasional commentator. He retired from in-ring competition in December. Haworth left Ring of Honor in December 2016 and signed with WWE soon after as a commentator for NXT.
Danielson would become one of WWE’s most popular and successful performers, winning the World Heavyweight Championship in late 2011 and the WWE Championship three times, most notably at Wrestlemania XXX. He would also win the Intercontinental, Tag Team, and United States Championships once each. After failing to receive medical clearance from doctors following concussion-related injuries, Bryan retired from in-ring competition in February 2016. He now serves as the on-screen general manager of Smackdown Live and is a WWE ambassador along with his wife Brie Bella.