The first ever episode of Friday Night Smackdown was taped 12 years ago today. But real life would prevent many people from seeing the show three days later.
1996: Jim Ross announces on a special edition of Friday Night RAW that Razor Ramon and Diesel were in talks to return to the WWF.
This confused a lot of people as Razor Ramon (real name Scott Hall) and Diesel (real name Kevin Nash) left just three and a half months prior for WCW and were part of the hottest thing going in the New World Order. Why would they come back? Even Gorilla Monsoon said on WWF programming that Hall and Nash weren’t coming back to the WWF, but Ross kept the lie going. This despite the fact that at June’s Great American Bash, both Hall and Nash said on the record that they were not working for the WWF.
At the end of the month, Ross turned heel, explaining that he was still angry about his firing from the WWF in 1994 when he became afflicted with Bell’s Palsy. And he made good on his promise to bring back Razor Ramon and Diesel. Surely enough, they were Razor and Diesel… in name only.
Playing the role of Razor Ramon was Rick Bognar, who most notably wrestled as Big Titan on the independent circuit and in Japan. He even had a brief run in ECW as another Razor knockoff in Slice ‘n Dice Ramirez. Your new Diesel is the repackaged Glen Jacobs, formerly Isaac Yankem, DDS.
To say this angle was an unmitigated disaster would be an understatement. Fans quickly picked up on Razor and Diesel not being the real McCoys; in addition, they didn’t warm up to heel Jim Ross (a lesson WWF failed to learn a second time about 18 months later). While the original Razor and Diesel main-event performers (Razor occasionally, Diesel regularly—he was WWF champion for a year at one point), the newer versions never left the undercard.
Following the 1997 Royal Rumble, the fake Razor and Diesel experiment ended. Razor was the first man eliminated from the show’s titular match and left the company when his one-year deal ran out. Diesel was the second-to-last man eliminated; Jacobs would be off WWF programming until early October when he was repackaged under his most successful persona, Kane, the younger brother of the Undertaker.
1997: In Memphis, Tennessee, Steven Dunn defeated Doomsday for the USWA Southern Heavyweight Championship.
Dunn would be the last man to hold the title born as the NWA Southern Junior Heavyweight Championship in May 1939. In July 1974, the name was changed to the NWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (there were several versions of these; this one is the Memphis version).
In 1978, when the Continental Wrestling Association partnered with the American Wrestling Association, the title became the AWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (also referred to as the Mid-Southern Heavyweight Championship by Pro Wrestling Illustrated to avoid confusion with a title of the same name from Championship Wrestling from Florida).
Following a falling out with the AWA and subsequent merger with World Class Championship Wrestling, the title was renamed the USWA Southern Heavyweight Championship (the Southern part of the name was eventually dropped). The changing landscape of the wrestling business ultimately led the United States Wrestling Association to shut down in November 1997.
2002: At a WWE live event in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Brock Lesnar defeated World Heavyweight Champion Triple H to retain the WWE Championship. Triple H’s World Heavyweight Championship was not at stake.
The event was not televised, and it wouldn't be until a decade later that Brock and Triple H met in a televised match, the main event of Summerslam 2012.
2004: In Tokyo, Japan, Toshiaki Kawada defeated Shinjiro Ohtani to win the All Japan Triple Crown Championship for the fifth time, tying him for the most Triple Crown championships all time with Mitsuharu Misawa.
In January 2016, Suwama joined Kawada and Misawa as five-time All Japan Triple Crown champions. Suwama vacated the title just ten days later when he ruptured his Achillies tendon.
2005: TNA announces that they have signed Gail Kim.
Initially brought on as a manager for Jeff Jarrett and America’s Most Wanted, Kim wrestled occasionally until TNA’s Knockouts division was born in 2007. At Bound for Glory that October, Kim would win a ten-woman gauntlet battle royal to become the first ever TNA Knockouts Champion.
Kim is the promotion’s most prolific Knockouts champion, holding the title six times (tying her with Angelina Love) and has the most combined days as champion with 710. In October 2016, Kim joined the TNA Hall of Fame. In July 2017, Kim announced that she plans to retire at the end of the year.
2005: WWE tapes the first Friday Night Smackdown from the Gwinnett Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
The show had a blockbuster lineup: three title matches and the final match in the Eddie Guerrero-Rey Mysterio feud that began earlier in the year. Unfortunately, not a lot of people saw it. In most major markets, a benefit concert for victims of the devastating Hurricane Katrina aired in its place.
Consequently, the show did a 1.9 rating, the lowest in the show's history at the time (for the record, the record low for any show was a 0.46 on New Year’s Eve 2015, and 0.55 for non-holiday shows on December 10, 2015).
The show would spend nearly a decade on Friday across four different networks (UPN until September 2006, then the CW following UPN’s merge with the WB, then MyNetworkTV in 2008, then SyFy in October 2010) before moving back to Thursday in January 2016 on the USA Network. The show moved to a live Tuesday airing that July.
The Legion of Doom (Heidenreich & Road Warrior Animal) defeated MNM (Mercury & Nitro) to retain the WWE Tag Team Championship.
Ken Kennedy defeated Paul London.
Paul Burchill defeated Scotty 2 Hotty.
Eddie Guerrero defeated Rey Mysterio in a steel cage match.
Chris Benoit defeated Orlando Jordan in just 22 seconds to retain the WWE United States Championship.
Batista defeated John “Bradshaw” Layfield in a bullrope match to retain the World Heavyweight Championship.
2010: At an Impact taping at Universal Orlando, Jay Lethal defeated Doug Williams to win the TNA X Division Championship for the fourth time.
He would have add a fifth and record sixth title reign before the end of the year. The record for most X Division Championships is now held by Chris Sabin, who held the title eight times from 2003 to 2014. In 2015, Austin Aries joined Jay Lethal with six X Division championships, the second most in company history.
2012: Shigeri Akabnane, best known to wrestling fans as Little Tokyo, died of a heart attack in St. Joseph, Missouri. He was 70.
Born July 5, 1941 in Tokyo, Japan, he began wrestling under his real name in the early 1970s. During his rookie year, he met fellow midget wrestler Eric Tovey, aka Lord Littlebrook. The chance meeting led to Akabane coming to the United States, where he became Little Tokyo, playing off his Japanese heritage and martial arts background.
Little Tokyo would win the NWA World Midgets Championship three times from 1974 to 1983. He appeared on a number of supercards, including Big Time Wrestling's Christmas Star Wars in 1981, WCCW's Christmas Star Wars in 1982, and AWA Superclash '85. Most famously, he appeared at Wrestlemania III in a mixed tag team match where he and his mentor Lord Littlebrook teamed with King Kong Bundy against Hillbilly Jim, the Haiti Kid, and Little Beaver. Bundy's team was disqualified when dropped an elbow on Little Beaver, leading the midget wrestlers to go after Bundy.
His last major bout came at Universal Wrestling Federation's final show in 1994 when he defeated Karate Kid to become the first—and only—UWF Midget World Champion. Akabane continued to wrestle until his retirement in 1997.
Akabane, a fan of the Kansas City Royals and Chiefs, died of complications from a heart attack at a hospital in St. Joseph, Missouri. Shigeri, who was battling cancer at the time, was scheduled to be released from the hospital that day. At the time of his death, he was survived by a daughter and son.
2014: AAA taped the first episode of Lucha Underground from Los Angeles, California.
The show, not airing until two months later, would be the debut episode of the wrestling telenovela produced by longtime reality show frontman Mark Burnett.
In a preshow dark match, Famous B defeated Bael.
In a preshow dark match, Mil Muertes defeated Magnificent Martin.
Blue Demon Jr. defeated Chavo Guerrero Jr.
Son Of Havoc defeated Sexy Star.
Johnny Mundo defeated Prince Puma.
2015: Ring of Honor presented All-Star Extravaganza VI from the Mattamy Athletic Center in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
In a preshow dark match, Cheeseburger defeated The Romantic Touch.
Mark Briscoe defeated Hanson.
Moose & RD Evans defeated The Decade (Adam Page & BJ Whitmer), Caprice Coleman & Takaaki Watanabe, and The Monster Mafia (Ethan Gabriel Owens & Josh Alexander) in a Four Corner Survival tag team match.
The Addiction (Christopher Daniels & Frankie Kazarian) defeated The Decade (Jimmy Jacobs & Roderick Strong).
AJ Styles defeated Adam Cole.
Jay Lethal defeated Cedric Alexander to retain the ROH World Television Championship.
Jay Briscoe defeated Michael Elgin to win the ROH World Championship. Of note, the win made Briscoe just the second man in the company history to hold the ROH world title more than once.
reDRagon (Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly) defeated The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson & Nick Jackson) 2-1 in a best of three falls match to retain the ROH World Tag Team Championship.
It’s a happy 56th birthday today to Wendi Richter.
Born in Dallas, Texas, she was trained by Lelani Kai, Judy Martin, and future tag team partner Joyce Grable (they would form the Texas Cowgirls) at the Lilian Ellison School of Professional Wrestling, the school run by The Fabulous Moolah. Richter and Moolah actually teamed in early 1982 for a few matches in the WWWF. Richter feuded with Velvet McIntyre in Stampede Wrestling, Mid-South Wrestling, and the AWA over the next two years, and the Cowgirls would win the NWA Womens World Tag Team Championship twice.
Richter joined the WWF in late 1983, and after feuding with old rivals Velvet McIntyre and Princess Victoria, would play an integral part in the Rock 'n Wrestling Connection. Managed by Cyndi Lauper against Captain Lou Albano-managed The Fabulous Moolah, Richter ended what would be recognized as the longest championship reign in pro wrestling history on July 23, 1984 on MTV's The Brawl to End it All. The match was the most watched show in the history of MTV at the time. She would lose the title to Moolah protege Lelani Kai at another MTV special, The War to Settle the Score the following February, but would win it back at the first Wrestlemania.
Calling herself "150 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal", Richter was arguably the most popular superstar in the WWF not named Hulk Hogan. The popularity did not translate behind the scenes, as she refused to sign a new deal with the WWF due to a pay dispute.
In November 1985, Richter defended the title against The Spider Lady, but it turned out to be an elaborate ruse to get the title off Richter. The Spider Lady broke kayfabe and pinned Richter down for a quick three count. Richter unmasked The Spider Lady to reveal it was The Fabulous Moolah, who inexplicably appeared backstage that day, as it was against her custom to show up on days she wasn't scheduled to wrestle. Richter left Madison Square Garden still in her ring gear, booked herself a flight out, and left the WWF, never to return. Moolah and Richter never spoke to one another again.
She was quite successful on the independent circuit, winning the World Wrestling Council Women’s Championship twice in 1987 and winning the AWA Women’s Championship in December 1988. After retirement, Richter worked as a real estate agent and earned degrees in physical therapy and occupational therapy. Richter still expressed hurt over her WWF exit in a 2005 shoot interview and refused an invitation to be a part of the Wrestlemania 25 Miss Wrestlemania battle royal.
She spoke fondly of her career during her induction into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2010 and made a cameo appearance on RAW in June 2012 in the leadup to RAW 1000. Richter is also a member of the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame as a 2012 inductee.