1980-1989
1980
Tatsumi Fujinami, the reigning WWF junior heavyweight champion, beats Steve Keirn in Sapporo, Japan, to win the NWA International junior heavyweight title.
February 8: Stan Hansen beats Antonio Inoki in Tokyo to win the NWF heavyweight title. It’s the first of many major Japanese titles Hansen would win.
April : Ken Patera pulls off a double by beating Pat Patterson on April 21 to win the WWF Intercontinental title, and then beating Kevin Von Erich in St. Louis on April 25 to win the Missouri State title.
August 3: The “Last Tangle In Tampa” main event finds Harley Race retaining his NWA World title in a best-of-three-falls match against Dusty Rhodes; Fritz Von Erich serves as special referee.
August 9: Bruno Sammartino defeats Larry Zbyszko in the main event of a steel cage match at New York’s Shea Stadium. Also on the card: Andre the Giant pins Hulk Hogan, Bob Backlund and Pedro Morales win the WWF World tag team title from The Samoans, and Intercontinental champion Ken Patera is counted out against Tony Atlas.
1981
April 23: The original and revolutionary Tiger Mask (Satoru Sayama) debuts for New Japan by beating Dynamite Kid.
April 30: Dory Funk Jr. beats Bruiser Brody and Terry Funk in Matsudo, Japan, to win the vacant NWA International title.
May 2: Killer Khan leaps off the top rope onto Andre the Giant during a match in Rochester, New York, breaking Andre’s left ankle and igniting the feud of the year.
May 10: AWA World champion Verne Gagne retires after a successful title defense against Nick Bockwinkel.
May 10: Stan Hansen beats Hulk Hogan in Tokyo in New Japan’s annual MSG Tournament.
June 7: Terry Taylor beats Les Thorton in Roanaoke, Virginia, to win the NWA World junior heavyweight title. Thorton would regain the belt two weeks later in the same city.
September 23: In Tokyo, Andre the Giant and Stan Hansen wrestle to a wild, out-of-control no-contest in one of the most anticipated matches of the year.
December 13: In the one of the biggest stories of the year in Japan, Stan Hansen secretly jumps from New Japan to All-Japan. Brody makes a surprise appearance, seconding Bruiser Brody and Jimmy Snuka in their match against Dory Funk Jr. and Terry Funk in the finals of All-Japan’s annual tag tournament. Hansen interferes in the end to help Brody and Snuka win, setting off a melee that sets the tone for the run of violence Brody and Hansen would cause over the next two years as a team.
December 21: Andre the Giant is the subject of a profile in Sports Illustrated; up to that time, it is the longest profile of any individual athlete ever published by SI. The article is later condensed for Reader’s Digest’s June 1982 issue, and reprinted in its entirety in the Summer 1987 edition of Wrestling 87.
1982
Steve Williams, at the time a senior in college, loses in the NCAA finals to Bruce Baumgartner by a score of 4-3; Baumgartner would go on to compete in the 1984 Olympics and capture the gold medal in wrestling.
WTBS’ Georgia Championship Wrestling is renamed World Championship Wrestling.
May : The original Tiger Mask scores an amazing double by winning both the NWA and WWF versions of the junior heavyweight title on consecutive nights. First, on May 25 in Shizuoka, Japan, Tiger beats Les Thorton to win the NWA title. On the following night in Osaka, he beats Black Tiger to win the WWF title.
June: Vince McMahon Jr. and TitanSports purchases Capitol Wrestling Corporation from his father and other shareholders.
June 28: In one of the most memorable and dramatic moments in Madison Square Garden wrestling history, Jimmy Snuka performs his “superfly” flying bodypress from the top of the steel cage in a match against WWF World champion Bob Backlund. He misses, and Backlund escapes from the cage with his title reign intact.
July 4: WWF World champion Bob Backlund battles NWA World champion Ric Flair in Atlanta’s Omni. The bout ends in a double-disqualification after about 20 minutes of furious action.
July 29: Comedian Andy Kaufman and Memphis mainstay Jerry Lawler appear on the Late Night With David Letterman show. Kaufman, wearing a neck brace due to an injury sustained in a match against “The King,” gets into an obscenity-laced shouting match with Lawler, then throws Letterman’s coffee in Lawler’s face. The confrontation makes headlines on the entertainment pages of newspapers nationwide.
October 8: In a six-man tag bout in Koichi, Japan, Riki Choshu turns on partners Antonio Inoki and Tatsumi Fujinami. The turn marks the birth of the landmark Ishingun vs. Seikigun feud that flames all across Japan for the next two years as Choshu’s Seikigun group rebels against the established New Japan powers, Inoki and Fujinami’s Ishingun group.
December 25: Kerry Von Erich battles NWA World champion Ric Flair in a steel cage in Dallas, with Freebird Michael Hayes serving as special referee. When Von Erich and Flair are both dazed after a mid-ring collision, Hayes places Von Erich on top of the champion. Von Erich won’t accept the title that way, and Hayes becomes outraged, calling Von Erich an “idiot.” As Von Erich leaves the cage, Hayes’ Freebird partner, Terry Gordy, slams the cage door shut on Von Erich’s head. That act ignited the Freebird-Von Erichs war that subsequently embroiled Texas for nearly five years.
1983
March 20: Larry Zbyszko pays Killer Brooks $25,000 for the NWA National title. NWA President Bob Geigel strips Zbyszko of the title.
June 2: Hulk Hogan defeats Antonio Inoki to become the first IWGP heavyweight champion.
July 15: In between runs as NWA World champion, Ric Flair beats David Von Erich in the finals of a 20-man tournament to be crowned the Missouri champion. The title became vacant when Missouri champion Harley Race beat Flair for the NWA World title on June 10.
October 23: The Tommy Rich-Buzz Sawyer feud, which has been raging for more than 18 months, comes to a bloody climax at “The Last Battle Of Atlanta” cage match in The Omni. Rich defeats Sawyer, but hardly looks like a winner.
November 24: The first Starrcade card is held, in Greensboro, North Carolina. A crowd of 15,447 in the Greensboro Coliseum is joined by about 30,000 fans in closed-circuit locations throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. In the main event, Ric Flair captures his second NWA World heavyweight title from Harley Race.
1984
January 22: Two-time NWA World champion and pro football Hall of Famer Bronko Nagurski, 75, is given the honor of tossing the coin at the start of Super Bowl XVIII in Tampa, Florida. The Los Angeles Raiders win the toss—and the game, defeating the Washington Redskins, 38-9.
February 7: Dynamite Kid beats The Cobra in Tokyo Japan to win the vacant WWF junior heavyweight title. Kid beats British Bulldog teammate Davey Boy Smith in the semifinals of what is considered one of the greatest junior heavyweight tournaments in wrestling history.
March: Ric Flair and Harley Race exchange the NWA World titles in a pair of matches never acknowledged at the time by the NWA. Race beats Flair on March 21 in Wellington, New Zealand, while Flair regains the title on March 23 in Kallang, Singapore. The title changes were finally recognized by the NWA in the 1990s as “official.”
April : Japan-based UWF is formed, at the time featuring such stars as Akira Maeda, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Nobuhiko Takada, and Rusher Kimura.
April 6: Ken Patera and Mr. Saito throw a 30-pound boulder through the window of a McDonald’s in Waukesha, Wisconsin, when they are refused service after hours. A brawl with Waukesha police officers takes place shortly thereafter at the Holiday Inn where Patera and Saito are staying.
April 25: Bruiser Brody and Stan Hansen thrash the field to win All-Japan’s tournament to crown the first PWF tag team champions.
May 29: The first card of NWA wrestling in the New York area in 20 years, dubbed “The Night Of Champions,” is held in New Jersey’s Byrne Meadowlands Arena.
June 14: Antonio Inoki beats Hulk Hogan to win the IWGP heavyweight title.
July 14: The WWF takes over the NWA’s airtime on Atlanta SuperStation WTBS’ World Championship Wrestling. Hundreds of calls of complaint are received, to which WWF head Vince McMahon responds in an Atlanta Constitution news article: “We’ll show those complainers the difference between a major league and a minor league production, given time.” NWA wrestling is quickly reinstated on TBS on Saturday mornings, and returns to the Saturday evening time slot about nine months later.
September: In the top Japanese story of the year, the JWP (Japan Wrestling Promotion) is formed and affiliates itself with All-Japan. The organization features top New Japan stars who walked out in a dispute with the promotion: Riki Choshu, Masa Saito, Kuniaki Kobayashi, and Yoshiaki Yatsu. New Japan is crippled by their departure, while All-Japan enjoys banner years in 1985 and 1986 with Choshu’s Army wrestling at the top of their cards against such All-Japan stars as Jumbo Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu.
September 17: Sports Illustrated checks in with this sartorial criticism of Lord Al Hays, who at the time is serving as co-host of the WWF’s Tuesday Night Titans program: “Lord Alfred Hays is a syrupy British wimp who wears frilly tuxedos of the type fashionable in Las Vegas in the late-’60s.”
September 29: In an attempt to counter the rising power of the WWF, a new wrestling program, Pro Wrestling USA, makes its debut on New York’s WPIX. The program, also aired in Japan, features a combination of NWA and AWA talent, and most notably brings Bob Backlund back into the public eye just months after the birth of Hulkamania in the WWF.
December 28: The Cobra beats Black Tiger in Madison Square Garden to win the vacant WWF junior heavyweight title.
1985
February 18: “The War To Settle The Score” is broadcast live on MTV. The Madison Square Garden bout pits Roddy Piper against WWF World champion Hulk Hogan, who wins by disqualification when Mr. T and Cyndi Lauper interfere.
February 21: ABC airs an installment of 20/20 during which “Dr. D” David Shultz hits reporter John Stossel in the ears; Stossel later sued and received a $280,000 settlement from the WWF.
March 9: The Road Warriors make their Tokyo wrestling debut and are an instant sensation.
March 10: Bill Watts’ Mid-South Wrestling debuts on WTBS, but its run lasts only a few months.
March 28: Richard Belzer is injured when Hulk Hogan drops him on the floor while demonstrating a front facelock during a broadcast of Belzer’s cable-TV show, Hot Properties. He received nine stitches in his head and an undisclosed sum of money following a lawsuit in which he sought $5-million in damages.
March 31: The first WrestleMania card is held, in New York’s Madison Square Garden. The card is made available to 135 closed-circuit locations, drawing an estimated viewership of 400,000. In the main event, Hulk Hogan and Mr. T defeat Paul Orndorff and Roddy Piper when Hogan pins Orndorff.
April : The first-ever wrestling videotape—Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s Lords Of The Ring—is released by Vestron Video.
April : In need of revenue, Vince McMahon sells his TBS time slot to Mid-Atlantic-based promoter Jim Crockett for a reported $1-million.
April 11: Bruiser Brody jumps from All-Japan to New Japan.
April 18: Brody wrestles his first ever singles match against Antonio Inoki at Tokyo’s Sumo Hall before a packed house.
April 29: Hulk Hogan appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated; next to the swimsuit issue, the magazine is the year’s best seller.
May 11: Professional wrestling returns to network television after a 30-year absence as the WWF’s Saturday Night’s Main Event premieres on NBC. In the main event, WWF World champion Hulk Hogan battles Bob Orton, with Roddy Piper, Mr. T, and Paul Orndorff at ringside.
June 5: Steve Williams receives 108 stitches in his right eye following a match against Brad Armstrong in Shreveport, LA. He wrestles again just hours after being stitched up.
June 6: After seven hours of deliberation, a jury finds Ken Patera and Mr. Saito guilty of several assault charges stemming from a fight with police officers in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Patera is convicted of two counts of battery on a peace officer and one count of criminal damage to property; Saito is convicted of three counts of battery on a peace officer and one count of obstructing an officer. Both men are sentenced to two years in prison.
July 2: Pro Wrestling Illustrated reinstates world title recognition for the WWF heavyweight title after more than two years of viewing it as a regional championship.
August 22: Mike Von Erich is operated on at Granville C. Morton Cancer and Research Hospital in Dallas, Texas, for an injured shoulder. He is released four days later with no apparent complications, but readmitted a day after that with a 105-degree fever. His temperature soars to 107 degrees as he begins a month-long battle against toxic shock syndrome.
August 27: ESPN airs wrestling for the first time as it begins broadcasting a weekly AWA program.
September 2: A Florida-based “Battle Of The Belts” card from Tampa is aired on free TV throughout Florida as well as in Boston, Dallas, and Charlotte, North Carolina.
September 20: The St. Louis Wrestling Club holds its final card at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis.
September 20: Fred Blassie and Lou Albano “wrestle” each other inside a steel cage at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York.
October 8: New York State Senator Abraham Bernstein opens hearings to ban professional wrestling in New York.
November 19: Lex Luger captures the Southern heavyweight title from Wahoo McDaniel in Tampa, FL—less than three weeks after making his pro debut.
December 12: Tatsumi Fujinami and Kengo Kimura beat Antonio Inoki and Seiji Sakaguchi to win the annual New Japan tag tournament and become the first IWGP tag team champions. The end is a major upset as Fujinami scores his first pin ever over his mentor, Inoki, at 31:53.
1986
February: Dallas-based World Class Championship Wrestling secedes from the NWA.
February 6: Shiro Koshinaka beats The Cobra in Tokyo in the finals of New Japan’s tournament to crown the first IWGP junior heavyweight champion.
February 7: WTBS airs its first prime time wrestling special, Superstars On The SuperStation, more than two years before the first Clash of the Champions.
March 1: MTV airs the WWF’s first-ever “Slammys” awards program.
April 19: The Superdome in New Orleans hosts the first-ever Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup tag team tournament. The Road Warriors emerge from the 24-team field to defeat Magnum T.A. and Ronnie Garvin and claim the $1-million prize.
May : The Four Horsemen are formed, a quartet consisting of Ric Flair, Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson, and Ole Anderson, with management by James J. Dillon.
June 4: Kerry Von Erich, driving his motorcycle south on U.S. 373 in Argyle, Texas, pulls to his left on a two-lane two-way highway to pass a van. Von Erich skids into the rear of the police car that had stopped in front of the van to make a left turn, then flies 50 feet through the air and lands in the road. He suffers a dislocated hip and a severely damaged right knee and ankle.
June 17: Antonio Inoki beats Andre the Giant via submission in 9: 30 in Nagoya, Japan.
September 16: Chris Adams is convicted of misdemeanor assault for headbutting an airline pilot on a June 30 flight from Puerto Rico to Texas. He is sentenced to three months in prison.
October 9: Antonio Inoki pins former boxing world champion Leon Spinks in the eighth round of a wrestler-boxer bout in Tokyo before a sellout crowd of 11,520 fans. On the undercard, rising star Akira Maeda beats Don Neilsen in a thrilling match that steals the show.
October 14: Magnum T.A. crashes his Porsche into a utility pole at 2: 30 a.m. in Charlotte, North Carolina. Magnum’s fifth cervical vertebra from the top explodes, sending bone fragments into his spinal cord and resulting in extensive surgery and physical therapy. Remarkably, he beats the odds to survive and walk again.
December 12: “Dr. Death” Steve Williams defeats UWF champion One Man Gang in 21: 43 in Houston, Texas, to become the winner of the $50,000 Pro Wrestling Illustrated/UWF Challenge Cup Tournament.
December 13: Dynamite Kid collapses due to a severe back injury during a match in Hamilton, Ontario.
1987
February 28: Jim Neidhart is indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of assaulting and interfering with a flight attendant; he is subsequently acquitted.
February: Riki Choshu decides to jump back to New Japan from All-Japan. Masa Saito, Kuniaki Kobayashi, Super Strong Machine, and Hiro Saito follow Choshu back to New Japan. Yoshiaki Yatsu, Choshu’s regular tag team partner, stays with All-Japan.
March 1: Two-time former WWF World champion Bruno Sammartino is inducted into the Italian-American Sports Hall of Fame at a banquet in his hometown of Pittsburgh.
March 12: The Road Warriors beat Jumbo Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu in Tokyo to win the International tag team title, at the time the oldest and most prestigious tag title in Japan.
April : The Global Wrestling Alliance becomes the first publicly traded wrestling organization, with seven million shares of stock hitting the market at an initial offering of 40 cents per share.
April 9: Jim Crockett Promotions purchases the Universal Wrestling Federation, headed by Bill Watts.
April 10-11: The Baltimore Arena hosts the second Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup tag team tournament. Dusty Rhodes and Nikita Koloff down Tully Blanchard and Lex Luger in the final round of the 24-team tournament to capture the $1-million prize.
April 27: Jerry Lawler and Austin Idol wrestle a hair vs. hair cage match for the Southern title in Memphis. Tommy Rich comes out from underneath the ring to aid Idol in winning, causing Lawler to lose not only the match but his hair. The Mid-South Coliseum crowd nearly riots in outrage.
May 11: Kevin Von Erich collapses in the middle of the ring during an eight-man bout pitting him, The Fantastics, and Bruiser Brody against Brian Adias, Black Bart, Al Madril, and Al Perez. Fantastic Tommy Rogers, seeing Von Erich turning blue, administers cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
May 26: Hacksaw Duggan and The Iron Sheik are arrested by New Jersey state police. Duggan is charged with possession of marijuana and drinking alcohol while driving; Sheik is charged with possession of cocaine and marijuana. Duggan receives a conditional discharge; Sheik receives one year probation.
November 19: Akira Maeda takes a cheap shot kick at Riki Choshu’s face, breaking Choshu’s orbital bone. Maeda never wrestles again for New Japan, as he and New Japan cannot come to terms on a suitable punishment. The following year, Maeda reopens the Japanese UWF, which becomes a red hot promotion.
December 27: Big Van Vader debuts in Japan, destroying and pinning Antonio Inoki in 2: 27 in the main event of the Sumo Hall card. The match incites a riot, causing New Japan to be banned indefinitely from its home major arena. On the undercard, Hiroshi Hase wrestles his first professional match in Japan and defeats Kuniaki Kobayashi to win the IWGP junior heavyweight title.
1988
February 5: Wrestling returns to prime-time network television after a 33-year absence with the broadcast of WWF’s Main Event program.
March 27: Bruiser Brody pins Jumbo Tsuruta in Tokyo to win the International heavyweight title for the third time. It would be the final major title Brody would ever hold.
March 27: The first-ever Clash of the Champions card is held, in Greensboro, North Carolina. In the main event, Sting and Ric Flair battle to a 45-minute draw.
April 22-23: The third Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup tag team tournament is held in Greenville, South Carolina, and Greensboro, North Carolina. Sting and Lex Luger combine to win the $1-million prize, defeating Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson in the final round.
June: In Japan, Jumbo Tsuruta and Yoshiaki Yatsu pull off a double in a week. On June 6 in Sapporo, they beat top rivals Genichiro Tenryu and Ashura Hara to win the PWF tag team titles. In Tokyo on June 10, they end The Road Warriors’ 15-month International tag title reign by winning a double title match, thus creating All-Japan’s Unified tag team title.
July 16: Bruiser Brody is stabbed to death in the showers of Bayoman Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Jose Gonzales is charged with the murder but later aquitted.
July 27: Riki Choshu scores his first-ever singles pin over Antonio Inoki, in Sapporo, Japan.
October 17: Forbes magazine reports that the estimated worth of the World Wrestling Federation is $100-million.
November: Ted Turner purchases NWA cornerstone Jim Crockett Promotions, renaming the organization World Championship Wrestling.
November 7: TitanSports promotes its first-ever non-wrestling pay-per-view, a boxing match between Sugar Ray Leonard and Donny Lalonde.
December 13: Stan Hansen and Terry Gordy beat Genichiro Tenryu and Toshiaki Kawada in Tokyo to win All-Japan’s annual tag tournament and the vacant Unified tag team title.
1989
April 18: International champion Jumbo Tsuruta beats PWF and United National champion Stan Hansen in Tokyo to become All-Japan’s first Triple Crown champion.
May 25: A month after putting on the costume, Jushin Liger beats Shiro Koshinaka in Osaka to win the IWGP junior heavyweight title for the first time.
May 28: Jake Roberts undergoes surgery to remove a ruptured disk from his neck. He is sidelined for nearly four months.
June 6: After a two-year feud, Genichiro Tenryu finally pins Jumbo Tsuruta in a singles match, winning the Triple Crown in the process. The match, held at Budokan Hall in Tokyo, is the consensus Japanese Match of the Year.
June 25: Boxer Leon Spinks loses to Greg Wojokowski in a boxer-wrestler bout in Toledo, Ohio.
July 4: Davey Boy Smith, Jason the Terrible, and Chris Benoit are injured in a head-on automobile accident in Jasper, Alberta. Smith suffers a cracked vertebra in his back and needs 100 stitches in his head after being thrown through the windshield of the vehicle. Jason suffers two fractures in his left leg, while Benoit suffers an injured right knee. All three eventually return to ring action.
August 11: Art Barr, also known as Beetlejuice, is arrested in Eugene, Oregon, and is charged with raping of a 19-year-old fan on July 16.
August 28: The first issue of Pro Wrestling Illustrated Weekly, cover-dated September 11, is published.
September 16: Terry Allen—Magnum T.A.—marries Tracey Cedarburg in Chesapeake, VA.
November 22: Big Van Vader beats El Canek in Mexico City to win the UWA heavyweight title. With the win, Vader simultaneously holds major heavyweight titles in Asia (New Japan’s IWGP title), Europe (CWA title), and North America (UWA title).
November 28: Veteran NWA referee Tommy Young suffers career-ending neck and back injuries while officiating a match between Mike Rotundo and Tommy Rich at Center Stage Theater in Atlanta.
November 29: The Japanese wrestling world is shocked as Akira Maeda’s UWF promotion draws 60,000 fans to sell out the Tokyo Dome. Maeda beats Willie Wilhelm in the main event.
1990
February 6: Sting suffers a ruptured left patella tendon at Clash of the Champions X. He’s forced to bow out of an upcoming title match against Ric Flair, and Lex Lugar takes his place.
February 10: Rival promotions New Japan and All-Japan work together for only the second time. The result is a sold-out Tokyo Dome crowd of 63,900 fans, paying $3.2-million. Among the 11 matches, Genichiro Tenryu and Tiger Mask II beat Riki Choshu and George Takano, and Big Van Vader retains the IWGP title by going to a double-countout against Stan Hansen.
February 23: Twelve days after kayoing Mike Tyson in Tokyo for the undisputed heavyweight boxing championship, special referee Buster Douglas kayos Randy Savage during an argument following a Savage-Hulk Hogan bout (part of an NBC prime time special). Tyson had originally been scheduled to serve as special referee in the bout, but that changed with Douglas’ Tokyo win.
April 13: All-Japan, New Japan, and the WWF put on a combined show at the Tokyo Dome. The top matches see Hulk Hogan pin Stan Hansen and Genichiro Tenryu pin Randy Savage.
May 14: After nearly six years as the second Tiger Mask, Mitsuharu Misawa takes off the mask in the middle of a tag match in Tokyo to reveal his identity.
June 8: A new superstar is born at Tokyo’s Budokan Hall as Mitsuharu Misawa upsets long-time top All-Japan star Jumbo Tsuruta. In the semifinal, Stan Hansen pins Terry Gordy to win the Triple Crown for the first of a record four times.
July 4: Brutus Beefcake suffers massive facial injuries in a parasailing accident in Lutz, Florida, as the knees of a parasailer crash into his head. He undergoes 8 1/2 hours of surgery during which eight steel plates, 40 screws, and more than 100 staples are inserted into his head.
September: Tully Blanchard announces his retirement from wrestling to devote his life to the ministry.
September 1: Eddie Gilbert, driving his brother Doug’s car, attempts to run down Jerry Lawler during a broadcast of USWA Championship Wrestling. Lawler was trying to save USWA matchmaker Eddie Marlin, who had just fired Eddie and Doug Gilbert from the USWA and was escorting them from the building. Remarkably, Lawler escapes the incident with just a bruised hip.
November 6: Jesse Ventura is elected May or of Brooklyn Park, MN, defeating 18-year incumbent Jim Krautkremer.
December 26: Lou Thesz, 74, wrestles impressively, but is defeated by his former student, Masa Chono, 27, on a New Japan card in Hamamatsu, Japan. In the main event, Tatsumi Fujinami beats old Ishingun rival Riki Choshu to regain the IWGP heavyweight title.
1991
March 21: New Japan and WCW hold a joint show that draws 64,500 fans to the Tokyo Dome. The main event sees IWGP heavyweight champion Tatsumi Fujinami pin NWA World champion Ric Flair in a double title match to “win” the NWA title. In Japan, Fujinami is recognized as the NWA champion, while in the U.S., WCW disputes the finish. In the summer of 1991, the NWA Board “officially” recognizes the match as a title change, and that Flair had regained the title by pinning Fujinami on May 19 in St. Petersburg, Florida.
June 8: AWA and PWA wrestler Derrick Dukes squares off against former New York Jets defensive end Mark Gastineau in Salem, Virginia, in Gastineau’s pro boxing debut. Dukes, 2-1 as a boxer coming into the bout, is kayoed by Gastineau in the first round. He later admits to having taken a dive.
June 12: Scott Steiner’s left biceps tendon is torn from the bone when he is attacked by Dick Slater and Dick Murdoch following a successful defense of the Steiners’ WCW World tag team title against Hiroshi Hase and Masa Chono at Clash of the Champions XV.
June 27: Dr. George T. Zahorian, a physician who formerly served as a ringside physician at WWF events in Pennsylvania, is convicted on 12 of 14 counts of selling anabolic steroids to four pro wrestlers and a weightlifter in a trial held in Harrisburg, PA. He is subsequently sentenced to three years in prison.
July 2: In one of the decade’s most shocking events, NWA/WCW World champion Ric Flair quits/is fired by WCW.
July 16: At a press conference in New York, WWF head Vince McMahon announces that WWF stars will now undergo mandatory testing for anabolic steroids as part of its anti-drug policy. The policy is called into question when testing does not begin until November, and the second round of tests are not taken until early-1992.
July 16: Appearing on The Arsenio Hall Show, WWF World champion Hulk Hogan sternly declares, “I’ve trained 20 years, two hours a day, to look like I do. But the thing I am not, is I’m not a steroid abuser, and I do not use steroids.” Hogan would contradict those statements at Vince McMahon’s 1994 trial.
August 3: Cactus Jack and Eddie Gilbert wrestle a best-of-three series in Philadelphia. The first match is a fall-counts-anywhere bout, the second is a stretcher match, and the third is a cage match.
August 11: Masahiro Chono wins New Japan’s first Grade One (G1) tournament by beating The Great Muta (Keiji Muto) in the finals in Tokyo. Chono beats Riki Choshu, Bam Bam Bigelow, and Shinya Hashimoto on the way to the finals.
August 26: After the SummerSlam PPV ends, Jake Roberts, and The Undertaker crash the reception of Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth. The incident launches a heated and twisted feud between Roberts and Savage, that includes at one point Savage being bit by one of Roberts’ snakes. The feud climaxes with a Savage win at the Tuesday in Texas PPV on December 3.
September 8: The NWA Board strips Ric Flair of recognition as NWA champion.
September 10: Ric Flair wrestles his first WWF bout, forcing Jim Powers to submit to the figure-four leglock in Cornwall, Ontario.
October: Ralston Purina Co. launches WWF Superstars cereal in television commercials broadcast on the West Coast.
October 23: The first-ever match between WWF World champion Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair takes place in Dayton, Ohio; Flair wins the bout by countout.
December 6: Dynamite Kid, long a legend in Japan and best known in the U.S. as part of The British Bulldogs tag team with Davey Boy Smith, announces his retirement from the ring during a ceremony in Budokan, Japan. Also on the card, Terry Gordy and Steve Williams become the first team to win All-Japan’s annual tag team tournament in consecutive years.
1980
Tatsumi Fujinami, the reigning WWF junior heavyweight champion, beats Steve Keirn in Sapporo, Japan, to win the NWA International junior heavyweight title.
February 8: Stan Hansen beats Antonio Inoki in Tokyo to win the NWF heavyweight title. It’s the first of many major Japanese titles Hansen would win.
April : Ken Patera pulls off a double by beating Pat Patterson on April 21 to win the WWF Intercontinental title, and then beating Kevin Von Erich in St. Louis on April 25 to win the Missouri State title.
August 3: The “Last Tangle In Tampa” main event finds Harley Race retaining his NWA World title in a best-of-three-falls match against Dusty Rhodes; Fritz Von Erich serves as special referee.
August 9: Bruno Sammartino defeats Larry Zbyszko in the main event of a steel cage match at New York’s Shea Stadium. Also on the card: Andre the Giant pins Hulk Hogan, Bob Backlund and Pedro Morales win the WWF World tag team title from The Samoans, and Intercontinental champion Ken Patera is counted out against Tony Atlas.
1981
April 23: The original and revolutionary Tiger Mask (Satoru Sayama) debuts for New Japan by beating Dynamite Kid.
April 30: Dory Funk Jr. beats Bruiser Brody and Terry Funk in Matsudo, Japan, to win the vacant NWA International title.
May 2: Killer Khan leaps off the top rope onto Andre the Giant during a match in Rochester, New York, breaking Andre’s left ankle and igniting the feud of the year.
May 10: AWA World champion Verne Gagne retires after a successful title defense against Nick Bockwinkel.
May 10: Stan Hansen beats Hulk Hogan in Tokyo in New Japan’s annual MSG Tournament.
June 7: Terry Taylor beats Les Thorton in Roanaoke, Virginia, to win the NWA World junior heavyweight title. Thorton would regain the belt two weeks later in the same city.
September 23: In Tokyo, Andre the Giant and Stan Hansen wrestle to a wild, out-of-control no-contest in one of the most anticipated matches of the year.
December 13: In the one of the biggest stories of the year in Japan, Stan Hansen secretly jumps from New Japan to All-Japan. Brody makes a surprise appearance, seconding Bruiser Brody and Jimmy Snuka in their match against Dory Funk Jr. and Terry Funk in the finals of All-Japan’s annual tag tournament. Hansen interferes in the end to help Brody and Snuka win, setting off a melee that sets the tone for the run of violence Brody and Hansen would cause over the next two years as a team.
December 21: Andre the Giant is the subject of a profile in Sports Illustrated; up to that time, it is the longest profile of any individual athlete ever published by SI. The article is later condensed for Reader’s Digest’s June 1982 issue, and reprinted in its entirety in the Summer 1987 edition of Wrestling 87.
1982
Steve Williams, at the time a senior in college, loses in the NCAA finals to Bruce Baumgartner by a score of 4-3; Baumgartner would go on to compete in the 1984 Olympics and capture the gold medal in wrestling.
WTBS’ Georgia Championship Wrestling is renamed World Championship Wrestling.
May : The original Tiger Mask scores an amazing double by winning both the NWA and WWF versions of the junior heavyweight title on consecutive nights. First, on May 25 in Shizuoka, Japan, Tiger beats Les Thorton to win the NWA title. On the following night in Osaka, he beats Black Tiger to win the WWF title.
June: Vince McMahon Jr. and TitanSports purchases Capitol Wrestling Corporation from his father and other shareholders.
June 28: In one of the most memorable and dramatic moments in Madison Square Garden wrestling history, Jimmy Snuka performs his “superfly” flying bodypress from the top of the steel cage in a match against WWF World champion Bob Backlund. He misses, and Backlund escapes from the cage with his title reign intact.
July 4: WWF World champion Bob Backlund battles NWA World champion Ric Flair in Atlanta’s Omni. The bout ends in a double-disqualification after about 20 minutes of furious action.
July 29: Comedian Andy Kaufman and Memphis mainstay Jerry Lawler appear on the Late Night With David Letterman show. Kaufman, wearing a neck brace due to an injury sustained in a match against “The King,” gets into an obscenity-laced shouting match with Lawler, then throws Letterman’s coffee in Lawler’s face. The confrontation makes headlines on the entertainment pages of newspapers nationwide.
October 8: In a six-man tag bout in Koichi, Japan, Riki Choshu turns on partners Antonio Inoki and Tatsumi Fujinami. The turn marks the birth of the landmark Ishingun vs. Seikigun feud that flames all across Japan for the next two years as Choshu’s Seikigun group rebels against the established New Japan powers, Inoki and Fujinami’s Ishingun group.
December 25: Kerry Von Erich battles NWA World champion Ric Flair in a steel cage in Dallas, with Freebird Michael Hayes serving as special referee. When Von Erich and Flair are both dazed after a mid-ring collision, Hayes places Von Erich on top of the champion. Von Erich won’t accept the title that way, and Hayes becomes outraged, calling Von Erich an “idiot.” As Von Erich leaves the cage, Hayes’ Freebird partner, Terry Gordy, slams the cage door shut on Von Erich’s head. That act ignited the Freebird-Von Erichs war that subsequently embroiled Texas for nearly five years.
1983
March 20: Larry Zbyszko pays Killer Brooks $25,000 for the NWA National title. NWA President Bob Geigel strips Zbyszko of the title.
June 2: Hulk Hogan defeats Antonio Inoki to become the first IWGP heavyweight champion.
July 15: In between runs as NWA World champion, Ric Flair beats David Von Erich in the finals of a 20-man tournament to be crowned the Missouri champion. The title became vacant when Missouri champion Harley Race beat Flair for the NWA World title on June 10.
October 23: The Tommy Rich-Buzz Sawyer feud, which has been raging for more than 18 months, comes to a bloody climax at “The Last Battle Of Atlanta” cage match in The Omni. Rich defeats Sawyer, but hardly looks like a winner.
November 24: The first Starrcade card is held, in Greensboro, North Carolina. A crowd of 15,447 in the Greensboro Coliseum is joined by about 30,000 fans in closed-circuit locations throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. In the main event, Ric Flair captures his second NWA World heavyweight title from Harley Race.
1984
January 22: Two-time NWA World champion and pro football Hall of Famer Bronko Nagurski, 75, is given the honor of tossing the coin at the start of Super Bowl XVIII in Tampa, Florida. The Los Angeles Raiders win the toss—and the game, defeating the Washington Redskins, 38-9.
February 7: Dynamite Kid beats The Cobra in Tokyo Japan to win the vacant WWF junior heavyweight title. Kid beats British Bulldog teammate Davey Boy Smith in the semifinals of what is considered one of the greatest junior heavyweight tournaments in wrestling history.
March: Ric Flair and Harley Race exchange the NWA World titles in a pair of matches never acknowledged at the time by the NWA. Race beats Flair on March 21 in Wellington, New Zealand, while Flair regains the title on March 23 in Kallang, Singapore. The title changes were finally recognized by the NWA in the 1990s as “official.”
April : Japan-based UWF is formed, at the time featuring such stars as Akira Maeda, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Nobuhiko Takada, and Rusher Kimura.
April 6: Ken Patera and Mr. Saito throw a 30-pound boulder through the window of a McDonald’s in Waukesha, Wisconsin, when they are refused service after hours. A brawl with Waukesha police officers takes place shortly thereafter at the Holiday Inn where Patera and Saito are staying.
April 25: Bruiser Brody and Stan Hansen thrash the field to win All-Japan’s tournament to crown the first PWF tag team champions.
May 29: The first card of NWA wrestling in the New York area in 20 years, dubbed “The Night Of Champions,” is held in New Jersey’s Byrne Meadowlands Arena.
June 14: Antonio Inoki beats Hulk Hogan to win the IWGP heavyweight title.
July 14: The WWF takes over the NWA’s airtime on Atlanta SuperStation WTBS’ World Championship Wrestling. Hundreds of calls of complaint are received, to which WWF head Vince McMahon responds in an Atlanta Constitution news article: “We’ll show those complainers the difference between a major league and a minor league production, given time.” NWA wrestling is quickly reinstated on TBS on Saturday mornings, and returns to the Saturday evening time slot about nine months later.
September: In the top Japanese story of the year, the JWP (Japan Wrestling Promotion) is formed and affiliates itself with All-Japan. The organization features top New Japan stars who walked out in a dispute with the promotion: Riki Choshu, Masa Saito, Kuniaki Kobayashi, and Yoshiaki Yatsu. New Japan is crippled by their departure, while All-Japan enjoys banner years in 1985 and 1986 with Choshu’s Army wrestling at the top of their cards against such All-Japan stars as Jumbo Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu.
September 17: Sports Illustrated checks in with this sartorial criticism of Lord Al Hays, who at the time is serving as co-host of the WWF’s Tuesday Night Titans program: “Lord Alfred Hays is a syrupy British wimp who wears frilly tuxedos of the type fashionable in Las Vegas in the late-’60s.”
September 29: In an attempt to counter the rising power of the WWF, a new wrestling program, Pro Wrestling USA, makes its debut on New York’s WPIX. The program, also aired in Japan, features a combination of NWA and AWA talent, and most notably brings Bob Backlund back into the public eye just months after the birth of Hulkamania in the WWF.
December 28: The Cobra beats Black Tiger in Madison Square Garden to win the vacant WWF junior heavyweight title.
1985
February 18: “The War To Settle The Score” is broadcast live on MTV. The Madison Square Garden bout pits Roddy Piper against WWF World champion Hulk Hogan, who wins by disqualification when Mr. T and Cyndi Lauper interfere.
February 21: ABC airs an installment of 20/20 during which “Dr. D” David Shultz hits reporter John Stossel in the ears; Stossel later sued and received a $280,000 settlement from the WWF.
March 9: The Road Warriors make their Tokyo wrestling debut and are an instant sensation.
March 10: Bill Watts’ Mid-South Wrestling debuts on WTBS, but its run lasts only a few months.
March 28: Richard Belzer is injured when Hulk Hogan drops him on the floor while demonstrating a front facelock during a broadcast of Belzer’s cable-TV show, Hot Properties. He received nine stitches in his head and an undisclosed sum of money following a lawsuit in which he sought $5-million in damages.
March 31: The first WrestleMania card is held, in New York’s Madison Square Garden. The card is made available to 135 closed-circuit locations, drawing an estimated viewership of 400,000. In the main event, Hulk Hogan and Mr. T defeat Paul Orndorff and Roddy Piper when Hogan pins Orndorff.
April : The first-ever wrestling videotape—Pro Wrestling Illustrated’s Lords Of The Ring—is released by Vestron Video.
April : In need of revenue, Vince McMahon sells his TBS time slot to Mid-Atlantic-based promoter Jim Crockett for a reported $1-million.
April 11: Bruiser Brody jumps from All-Japan to New Japan.
April 18: Brody wrestles his first ever singles match against Antonio Inoki at Tokyo’s Sumo Hall before a packed house.
April 29: Hulk Hogan appears on the cover of Sports Illustrated; next to the swimsuit issue, the magazine is the year’s best seller.
May 11: Professional wrestling returns to network television after a 30-year absence as the WWF’s Saturday Night’s Main Event premieres on NBC. In the main event, WWF World champion Hulk Hogan battles Bob Orton, with Roddy Piper, Mr. T, and Paul Orndorff at ringside.
June 5: Steve Williams receives 108 stitches in his right eye following a match against Brad Armstrong in Shreveport, LA. He wrestles again just hours after being stitched up.
June 6: After seven hours of deliberation, a jury finds Ken Patera and Mr. Saito guilty of several assault charges stemming from a fight with police officers in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Patera is convicted of two counts of battery on a peace officer and one count of criminal damage to property; Saito is convicted of three counts of battery on a peace officer and one count of obstructing an officer. Both men are sentenced to two years in prison.
July 2: Pro Wrestling Illustrated reinstates world title recognition for the WWF heavyweight title after more than two years of viewing it as a regional championship.
August 22: Mike Von Erich is operated on at Granville C. Morton Cancer and Research Hospital in Dallas, Texas, for an injured shoulder. He is released four days later with no apparent complications, but readmitted a day after that with a 105-degree fever. His temperature soars to 107 degrees as he begins a month-long battle against toxic shock syndrome.
August 27: ESPN airs wrestling for the first time as it begins broadcasting a weekly AWA program.
September 2: A Florida-based “Battle Of The Belts” card from Tampa is aired on free TV throughout Florida as well as in Boston, Dallas, and Charlotte, North Carolina.
September 20: The St. Louis Wrestling Club holds its final card at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis.
September 20: Fred Blassie and Lou Albano “wrestle” each other inside a steel cage at Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York.
October 8: New York State Senator Abraham Bernstein opens hearings to ban professional wrestling in New York.
November 19: Lex Luger captures the Southern heavyweight title from Wahoo McDaniel in Tampa, FL—less than three weeks after making his pro debut.
December 12: Tatsumi Fujinami and Kengo Kimura beat Antonio Inoki and Seiji Sakaguchi to win the annual New Japan tag tournament and become the first IWGP tag team champions. The end is a major upset as Fujinami scores his first pin ever over his mentor, Inoki, at 31:53.
1986
February: Dallas-based World Class Championship Wrestling secedes from the NWA.
February 6: Shiro Koshinaka beats The Cobra in Tokyo in the finals of New Japan’s tournament to crown the first IWGP junior heavyweight champion.
February 7: WTBS airs its first prime time wrestling special, Superstars On The SuperStation, more than two years before the first Clash of the Champions.
March 1: MTV airs the WWF’s first-ever “Slammys” awards program.
April 19: The Superdome in New Orleans hosts the first-ever Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup tag team tournament. The Road Warriors emerge from the 24-team field to defeat Magnum T.A. and Ronnie Garvin and claim the $1-million prize.
May : The Four Horsemen are formed, a quartet consisting of Ric Flair, Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson, and Ole Anderson, with management by James J. Dillon.
June 4: Kerry Von Erich, driving his motorcycle south on U.S. 373 in Argyle, Texas, pulls to his left on a two-lane two-way highway to pass a van. Von Erich skids into the rear of the police car that had stopped in front of the van to make a left turn, then flies 50 feet through the air and lands in the road. He suffers a dislocated hip and a severely damaged right knee and ankle.
June 17: Antonio Inoki beats Andre the Giant via submission in 9: 30 in Nagoya, Japan.
September 16: Chris Adams is convicted of misdemeanor assault for headbutting an airline pilot on a June 30 flight from Puerto Rico to Texas. He is sentenced to three months in prison.
October 9: Antonio Inoki pins former boxing world champion Leon Spinks in the eighth round of a wrestler-boxer bout in Tokyo before a sellout crowd of 11,520 fans. On the undercard, rising star Akira Maeda beats Don Neilsen in a thrilling match that steals the show.
October 14: Magnum T.A. crashes his Porsche into a utility pole at 2: 30 a.m. in Charlotte, North Carolina. Magnum’s fifth cervical vertebra from the top explodes, sending bone fragments into his spinal cord and resulting in extensive surgery and physical therapy. Remarkably, he beats the odds to survive and walk again.
December 12: “Dr. Death” Steve Williams defeats UWF champion One Man Gang in 21: 43 in Houston, Texas, to become the winner of the $50,000 Pro Wrestling Illustrated/UWF Challenge Cup Tournament.
December 13: Dynamite Kid collapses due to a severe back injury during a match in Hamilton, Ontario.
1987
February 28: Jim Neidhart is indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of assaulting and interfering with a flight attendant; he is subsequently acquitted.
February: Riki Choshu decides to jump back to New Japan from All-Japan. Masa Saito, Kuniaki Kobayashi, Super Strong Machine, and Hiro Saito follow Choshu back to New Japan. Yoshiaki Yatsu, Choshu’s regular tag team partner, stays with All-Japan.
March 1: Two-time former WWF World champion Bruno Sammartino is inducted into the Italian-American Sports Hall of Fame at a banquet in his hometown of Pittsburgh.
March 12: The Road Warriors beat Jumbo Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu in Tokyo to win the International tag team title, at the time the oldest and most prestigious tag title in Japan.
April : The Global Wrestling Alliance becomes the first publicly traded wrestling organization, with seven million shares of stock hitting the market at an initial offering of 40 cents per share.
April 9: Jim Crockett Promotions purchases the Universal Wrestling Federation, headed by Bill Watts.
April 10-11: The Baltimore Arena hosts the second Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup tag team tournament. Dusty Rhodes and Nikita Koloff down Tully Blanchard and Lex Luger in the final round of the 24-team tournament to capture the $1-million prize.
April 27: Jerry Lawler and Austin Idol wrestle a hair vs. hair cage match for the Southern title in Memphis. Tommy Rich comes out from underneath the ring to aid Idol in winning, causing Lawler to lose not only the match but his hair. The Mid-South Coliseum crowd nearly riots in outrage.
May 11: Kevin Von Erich collapses in the middle of the ring during an eight-man bout pitting him, The Fantastics, and Bruiser Brody against Brian Adias, Black Bart, Al Madril, and Al Perez. Fantastic Tommy Rogers, seeing Von Erich turning blue, administers cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
May 26: Hacksaw Duggan and The Iron Sheik are arrested by New Jersey state police. Duggan is charged with possession of marijuana and drinking alcohol while driving; Sheik is charged with possession of cocaine and marijuana. Duggan receives a conditional discharge; Sheik receives one year probation.
November 19: Akira Maeda takes a cheap shot kick at Riki Choshu’s face, breaking Choshu’s orbital bone. Maeda never wrestles again for New Japan, as he and New Japan cannot come to terms on a suitable punishment. The following year, Maeda reopens the Japanese UWF, which becomes a red hot promotion.
December 27: Big Van Vader debuts in Japan, destroying and pinning Antonio Inoki in 2: 27 in the main event of the Sumo Hall card. The match incites a riot, causing New Japan to be banned indefinitely from its home major arena. On the undercard, Hiroshi Hase wrestles his first professional match in Japan and defeats Kuniaki Kobayashi to win the IWGP junior heavyweight title.
1988
February 5: Wrestling returns to prime-time network television after a 33-year absence with the broadcast of WWF’s Main Event program.
March 27: Bruiser Brody pins Jumbo Tsuruta in Tokyo to win the International heavyweight title for the third time. It would be the final major title Brody would ever hold.
March 27: The first-ever Clash of the Champions card is held, in Greensboro, North Carolina. In the main event, Sting and Ric Flair battle to a 45-minute draw.
April 22-23: The third Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup tag team tournament is held in Greenville, South Carolina, and Greensboro, North Carolina. Sting and Lex Luger combine to win the $1-million prize, defeating Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson in the final round.
June: In Japan, Jumbo Tsuruta and Yoshiaki Yatsu pull off a double in a week. On June 6 in Sapporo, they beat top rivals Genichiro Tenryu and Ashura Hara to win the PWF tag team titles. In Tokyo on June 10, they end The Road Warriors’ 15-month International tag title reign by winning a double title match, thus creating All-Japan’s Unified tag team title.
July 16: Bruiser Brody is stabbed to death in the showers of Bayoman Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Jose Gonzales is charged with the murder but later aquitted.
July 27: Riki Choshu scores his first-ever singles pin over Antonio Inoki, in Sapporo, Japan.
October 17: Forbes magazine reports that the estimated worth of the World Wrestling Federation is $100-million.
November: Ted Turner purchases NWA cornerstone Jim Crockett Promotions, renaming the organization World Championship Wrestling.
November 7: TitanSports promotes its first-ever non-wrestling pay-per-view, a boxing match between Sugar Ray Leonard and Donny Lalonde.
December 13: Stan Hansen and Terry Gordy beat Genichiro Tenryu and Toshiaki Kawada in Tokyo to win All-Japan’s annual tag tournament and the vacant Unified tag team title.
1989
April 18: International champion Jumbo Tsuruta beats PWF and United National champion Stan Hansen in Tokyo to become All-Japan’s first Triple Crown champion.
May 25: A month after putting on the costume, Jushin Liger beats Shiro Koshinaka in Osaka to win the IWGP junior heavyweight title for the first time.
May 28: Jake Roberts undergoes surgery to remove a ruptured disk from his neck. He is sidelined for nearly four months.
June 6: After a two-year feud, Genichiro Tenryu finally pins Jumbo Tsuruta in a singles match, winning the Triple Crown in the process. The match, held at Budokan Hall in Tokyo, is the consensus Japanese Match of the Year.
June 25: Boxer Leon Spinks loses to Greg Wojokowski in a boxer-wrestler bout in Toledo, Ohio.
July 4: Davey Boy Smith, Jason the Terrible, and Chris Benoit are injured in a head-on automobile accident in Jasper, Alberta. Smith suffers a cracked vertebra in his back and needs 100 stitches in his head after being thrown through the windshield of the vehicle. Jason suffers two fractures in his left leg, while Benoit suffers an injured right knee. All three eventually return to ring action.
August 11: Art Barr, also known as Beetlejuice, is arrested in Eugene, Oregon, and is charged with raping of a 19-year-old fan on July 16.
August 28: The first issue of Pro Wrestling Illustrated Weekly, cover-dated September 11, is published.
September 16: Terry Allen—Magnum T.A.—marries Tracey Cedarburg in Chesapeake, VA.
November 22: Big Van Vader beats El Canek in Mexico City to win the UWA heavyweight title. With the win, Vader simultaneously holds major heavyweight titles in Asia (New Japan’s IWGP title), Europe (CWA title), and North America (UWA title).
November 28: Veteran NWA referee Tommy Young suffers career-ending neck and back injuries while officiating a match between Mike Rotundo and Tommy Rich at Center Stage Theater in Atlanta.
November 29: The Japanese wrestling world is shocked as Akira Maeda’s UWF promotion draws 60,000 fans to sell out the Tokyo Dome. Maeda beats Willie Wilhelm in the main event.
1990
February 6: Sting suffers a ruptured left patella tendon at Clash of the Champions X. He’s forced to bow out of an upcoming title match against Ric Flair, and Lex Lugar takes his place.
February 10: Rival promotions New Japan and All-Japan work together for only the second time. The result is a sold-out Tokyo Dome crowd of 63,900 fans, paying $3.2-million. Among the 11 matches, Genichiro Tenryu and Tiger Mask II beat Riki Choshu and George Takano, and Big Van Vader retains the IWGP title by going to a double-countout against Stan Hansen.
February 23: Twelve days after kayoing Mike Tyson in Tokyo for the undisputed heavyweight boxing championship, special referee Buster Douglas kayos Randy Savage during an argument following a Savage-Hulk Hogan bout (part of an NBC prime time special). Tyson had originally been scheduled to serve as special referee in the bout, but that changed with Douglas’ Tokyo win.
April 13: All-Japan, New Japan, and the WWF put on a combined show at the Tokyo Dome. The top matches see Hulk Hogan pin Stan Hansen and Genichiro Tenryu pin Randy Savage.
May 14: After nearly six years as the second Tiger Mask, Mitsuharu Misawa takes off the mask in the middle of a tag match in Tokyo to reveal his identity.
June 8: A new superstar is born at Tokyo’s Budokan Hall as Mitsuharu Misawa upsets long-time top All-Japan star Jumbo Tsuruta. In the semifinal, Stan Hansen pins Terry Gordy to win the Triple Crown for the first of a record four times.
July 4: Brutus Beefcake suffers massive facial injuries in a parasailing accident in Lutz, Florida, as the knees of a parasailer crash into his head. He undergoes 8 1/2 hours of surgery during which eight steel plates, 40 screws, and more than 100 staples are inserted into his head.
September: Tully Blanchard announces his retirement from wrestling to devote his life to the ministry.
September 1: Eddie Gilbert, driving his brother Doug’s car, attempts to run down Jerry Lawler during a broadcast of USWA Championship Wrestling. Lawler was trying to save USWA matchmaker Eddie Marlin, who had just fired Eddie and Doug Gilbert from the USWA and was escorting them from the building. Remarkably, Lawler escapes the incident with just a bruised hip.
November 6: Jesse Ventura is elected May or of Brooklyn Park, MN, defeating 18-year incumbent Jim Krautkremer.
December 26: Lou Thesz, 74, wrestles impressively, but is defeated by his former student, Masa Chono, 27, on a New Japan card in Hamamatsu, Japan. In the main event, Tatsumi Fujinami beats old Ishingun rival Riki Choshu to regain the IWGP heavyweight title.
1991
March 21: New Japan and WCW hold a joint show that draws 64,500 fans to the Tokyo Dome. The main event sees IWGP heavyweight champion Tatsumi Fujinami pin NWA World champion Ric Flair in a double title match to “win” the NWA title. In Japan, Fujinami is recognized as the NWA champion, while in the U.S., WCW disputes the finish. In the summer of 1991, the NWA Board “officially” recognizes the match as a title change, and that Flair had regained the title by pinning Fujinami on May 19 in St. Petersburg, Florida.
June 8: AWA and PWA wrestler Derrick Dukes squares off against former New York Jets defensive end Mark Gastineau in Salem, Virginia, in Gastineau’s pro boxing debut. Dukes, 2-1 as a boxer coming into the bout, is kayoed by Gastineau in the first round. He later admits to having taken a dive.
June 12: Scott Steiner’s left biceps tendon is torn from the bone when he is attacked by Dick Slater and Dick Murdoch following a successful defense of the Steiners’ WCW World tag team title against Hiroshi Hase and Masa Chono at Clash of the Champions XV.
June 27: Dr. George T. Zahorian, a physician who formerly served as a ringside physician at WWF events in Pennsylvania, is convicted on 12 of 14 counts of selling anabolic steroids to four pro wrestlers and a weightlifter in a trial held in Harrisburg, PA. He is subsequently sentenced to three years in prison.
July 2: In one of the decade’s most shocking events, NWA/WCW World champion Ric Flair quits/is fired by WCW.
July 16: At a press conference in New York, WWF head Vince McMahon announces that WWF stars will now undergo mandatory testing for anabolic steroids as part of its anti-drug policy. The policy is called into question when testing does not begin until November, and the second round of tests are not taken until early-1992.
July 16: Appearing on The Arsenio Hall Show, WWF World champion Hulk Hogan sternly declares, “I’ve trained 20 years, two hours a day, to look like I do. But the thing I am not, is I’m not a steroid abuser, and I do not use steroids.” Hogan would contradict those statements at Vince McMahon’s 1994 trial.
August 3: Cactus Jack and Eddie Gilbert wrestle a best-of-three series in Philadelphia. The first match is a fall-counts-anywhere bout, the second is a stretcher match, and the third is a cage match.
August 11: Masahiro Chono wins New Japan’s first Grade One (G1) tournament by beating The Great Muta (Keiji Muto) in the finals in Tokyo. Chono beats Riki Choshu, Bam Bam Bigelow, and Shinya Hashimoto on the way to the finals.
August 26: After the SummerSlam PPV ends, Jake Roberts, and The Undertaker crash the reception of Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth. The incident launches a heated and twisted feud between Roberts and Savage, that includes at one point Savage being bit by one of Roberts’ snakes. The feud climaxes with a Savage win at the Tuesday in Texas PPV on December 3.
September 8: The NWA Board strips Ric Flair of recognition as NWA champion.
September 10: Ric Flair wrestles his first WWF bout, forcing Jim Powers to submit to the figure-four leglock in Cornwall, Ontario.
October: Ralston Purina Co. launches WWF Superstars cereal in television commercials broadcast on the West Coast.
October 23: The first-ever match between WWF World champion Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair takes place in Dayton, Ohio; Flair wins the bout by countout.
December 6: Dynamite Kid, long a legend in Japan and best known in the U.S. as part of The British Bulldogs tag team with Davey Boy Smith, announces his retirement from the ring during a ceremony in Budokan, Japan. Also on the card, Terry Gordy and Steve Williams become the first team to win All-Japan’s annual tag team tournament in consecutive years.
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