On this day in wrestling history 12/12 (Part 2)

[Guest Sassquatch]

From Dave Meltzer:

 

ON THIS DAY IN PRO WRESTLING HISTORY 12/12 (PART TWO)

 

1981 - Stan Hansen made his first appearance ever in the All Japan ring in one of the most famous matches in the history of the promotion. Hansen, who was arguably the most popular foreign wrestler ever in Japan, who is having his retirement ceremony next month at the Tokyo Dome, was Antonio Inoki's leading rival in New Japan when, in the middle of a wrestling war, All Japan bookers Dory & Terry Funk made a secret agreement with him to jump for at the time an unheard of price of $8,000 per week. That figure itself shows just how much things have change, because except for Andre the Giant and a world champion in a great week, nobody was ever making that kind of money in those days. Hansen had just wrestled the previous day for New Japan in their final show of the year in Osaka, finishing the tag team tournament for that company as Dick Murdoch's partner. He showed up coming to the ring with Bruiser Brody & Jimmy Snuka as they wrestled The Funks in Tokyo in the finals of the Real World Tag League tournament, and late in what is always on lists as the best match in All Japan history, Hansen gave Terry a lariat outside the ring, Brody pinned Dory inside the ring, and Giant Baba and Jumbo Tsuruta hit the ring and brawled with Hansen starting a series of new feuds that lasted the rest of the decade.

 

1982 - Dory & Terry Funk won the All Japan Real World Tag League tournament beating Brody & Hansen in the finals in Tokyo, winning over teams such as Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta, Harley Race & Dick Slater, Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara, Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood and Super Destroyer & Umanosuke Ueda.

 

1983 - Bruiser Brody & Stan Hansen won the All Japan Real World Tag League tournament over Dory Funk & Giant Baba in the finals. Other teams involved were Tsuruta & Tenryu, Mil Mascaras & Dos Caras, Tiger Jeet Singh & Ueda, Ron Fuller & Barry Windham, Ashura Hara & Mighty Inoue and Goro Tsurumi & The Mongolian (now Cousin Luke)

 

1984 - Tsuruta & Tenryu won the Tag Team tournament via DQ in the finals over Brody & Hansen at Yokohama Bunka Gym on a tour in which nearly every show on the tour was sold out.

 

1985 - Both All Japan and New Japan scheduled the tag team tournament finals on the same night. The New Japan finals, to determine the first ever IWGP world tag team champions, were scheduled as Bruiser Brody & Jimmy Snuka, the top team thus far in the tournament, to lose to Antonio Inoki & Seiji Sakaguchi. However, while on the train to Osaka for the finals, Brody & Snuka suddenly got off the train. Brody had heat for a real-life in-ring brawl with Sakaguchi, the booker at the time, the previous night and tensions were high. Snuka left showing loyalty to Brody. New Japan, faced with a catastrophe, put Inoki & Sakaguchi vs. Tatsumi Fujinami & Kengo Kimura as the makeshift final and did the shocking at the time finish of Fujinami pinning Inoki, who never did jobs in those days, so fans had a huge story to counteract the story of Brody no-showing the finals. On the All Japan side, Hansen & Ted DiBiase beat Tsuruta & Tenryu to win the tournament

 

1986 - Tsuruta & Tenryu won the tag team tournament finals in Budokan Hall over Hansen & DiBiase, in a loaded tournament that included The Funks, Riki Choshu & Yoshiaki Yatsu, Terry Gordy & Killer Khan, Baba & Tiger Mask (Misawa), Rick Martel & Tom Zenk, Rusher Kimura & Goro Tsurumi and Super Strong Machine & Ashura Hara.

 

1991 - Before a crowd of about 40,000 fans, of which about 30,000 were paid and a gate of $1.5 million, Hulk Hogan pinned Tenryu in a Tokyo Dome main event for the Super World Sports promotion more famous for the back story. Although all logic, being it was in his country and he needed the win because his company was struggling, pointed to a Tenryu win, it didn't happen. Hogan arrived late for the show because he took the last plane out of Florida because his father was ill. Great Kabuki, one of the bookers, told the reporters before the show that everything was under control, that everything had been worked out with the WWF and that Tenryu was going to win, letting them know to tell the newspapers ahead of time about the big story to hold up evening deadlines since at that time Hogan doing a job for Tenryu was a big story. He also told the finish, because the show was going to run late and the match wouldn't end in time for some morning newspaper deadlines. There were more than 100 reporters at the show, and as these reporters were faxing and phoning in their "Dewey defeats Truman" story, on the television monitor watching from the Dome, Hogan pinned Tenryu after two clotheslines, causing a mass panic in the press room. Some interesting undercard matches included Masakatsu Funaki over Jerry Flynn in a UWF style match, looking totally out of place on a card with a lot of WWF talent, Ultimo Dragon pinned Jerry Estrada, Ted DiBiase pinned Kerry Von Erich, Naoki Sano pinned Rick Martel to win the newly created WWF junior heavyweight title (boy that one didn't last long) and the Road Warriors beat Earthquake & Typhoon.

 

1999 - WWF held its Armageddon PPV in Fort Lauderdale, FL before a sellout 15,749 fans, of which 13,981 paid $402, 413 headlined by HHH pinning Vince McMahon in the famous match that never ended, Big Show pinned Big Bossman to retain the WWF title (was that only one year ago) and The Rock & Sock Connection beat the New Age Outlaws and Chris Jericho beat Chyna to win the IC title.

[Guest DeputyHawk]

The Hogan - Tenryu backstory isn't very well explained there. What happened to change things between telling the journalists the planned finish and Hogan going through the curtain to win?

[Guest dreamer420]

You forgot that Miss Kitty showed her tits at that Armageddon PPV too!

[Guest NoSelfWorth]

The Hogan - Tenryu backstory isn't very well explained there. What happened to change things between telling the journalists the planned finish and Hogan going through the curtain to win?

I'm guessing Kabuki felt he or someone could talk Hogan into doing the job, and were so confident of that that they went ahead and told the reporters the 'finish'. More fools them.