On this day in wrestling history 12/11

[Guest Sassquatch]

ON THIS DAY IN PRO WRESTLING HISTORY

 

1916 - In a match for the world heavyweight title, John Olin defeated Joe Stecher in Springfield, MA when Stecher was unable to continue due to what was reported as neuritis in his shoulder. Olin never claimed the title after winning, but months later was billed as world heavyweight champion based on the win, to set up a match where he dropped the title, ironically with the same finish, claiming to be unable to continue due to a shoulder injury, in a match against Ed "Strangler" Lewis in Chicago with legendary Frank Gotch as referee to give it world title credibility with the local fans.

 

1958 - Mark Lewin & Don Curtis captured the WWWF United States tag team titles (predecessor to the current WWF tag titles) for the second time beating Jerry & Eddie Graham in Washington, DC.

 

1965 - Adolfo Tapia, who went on to become one of Mexico's most charismatic wrestlers until his career derailed when he came to the United States and was stopped dead in his tracks, was born. Tapia is better known as La Parka.

 

1980 - Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta won the annual World Tag League tournament defeating Dory & Terry Funk via count out in about 50:00 of one of their classic matches. The other teams in the tournament that year were Abdullah the Butcher & Tor Kamata, Nick Bockwinkel & Jim Brunzell, Ricky Steamboat & Dick Slater, Billy Robinson & Les Thornton and The Sheik & The Great Mephisto (Frankie Cain).

 

1987 - Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu defeated Bruiser Brody & Jimmy Snuka to win the annual World Tag League tournament before approximately 10,000 fans at Tokyo Budokan Hall. The show was noteworthy because it was Terry Funk's final show in All Japan Pro Wrestling, as he was suffering from a bad back injury suffered in Puerto Rico and was working in great pain the entire tour and was limited in what he could do. Giant Baba as well as many others felt after this tour that his career was over as far as being a serious main event wrestler. It was also the final tag team tournament that Brody was in, as he was murdered the next summer. The final night was highlighted more by the semifinal, as Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy went to a double count out, in the days before Baba turned the company around business-wise by going to the all clean finish format, thereby eliminating both teams from championship contention in a match that went more than 28:00. Also in the tournament were Abdullah the Butcher & TNT (Savio Vega), Baba & Hiroshi Wajima (a legendary sumo star who was a short-term gimmick attraction), Tiger Mask (Mitsuharu Misawa) & Shinichi Nakano, Great Kabuki & John "Earthquake" Tenta, Rusher Kimura & Goro Tsurumi, Tom Zenk & The Terminator (Marc Laurinaitis) and Mark & Chris Youngblood.

[Guest Sturgis]

Damn I miss Brody

 

I match I really wanted to see(but never happned... I think) was:

 

Brody/Hansen vs. Gordy/Williams