Titles Switching Hands At House Shows

[Guest JaimieOliver]

I saw Wahoo McDaniel beat Tully Blanchard at a house show in L.A. for the NWA National Heavywheight Title back in 86. Actually I was looking the other way when the roll up happened.

[Placebo Effect 0]

They did do a title switch between Kidman and the Artist in early 2000. However, it was never mentioned on TV, which they did a lot in WCW, having champions lose and regain titles at house shows and ignoring the changes on TV.

 

As for Lenny, they were planning to have him appear on the 10/4 Nitro not acting gay or flamboyant at all and job the title, but they decided it would be best not to have him on TV, so they claimed he lost the title at a house show, and then had Psychosis lose the title to Disco later that night. WCW later removed Lenny's name from the CW title history on wcw.com, so as to claim that his reign never took place, but later they put him back on there.

If you read RD Reynolds' Death of WCW book, there's a great line in there about how WCW.com handled the ominous title change situation.

 

There was a star next to Lenny's reign, and it simply said...

 

Lenny Lane had the Cruiserweight Title taken off of him after the West Hollywood Blondes angle was dropped.

 

Not exact wording, but gold nonetheless.

[haws bah gawd 0]

I was at one of the WCW Houseshows where Benoit defeated Booker T for the TV title. It really blew the roof off the place when he won, since the Horsemen were really big down here in the south (Augusta, GA). At the time I was unaware that they were going to switch the belt back and forth over the weekend (no internet), so when Booker appeared on Nitro, with the TV title, with no mention of the multiple title switches, I was more than a little confused.

[Betty Houle 0]

A Television title switching hands on a house show?

 

Groan.

[Slickster 0]

Especially since one year prior at a Seattle house show, Alex Wright beat Ultimo for the title (I think), but they told the fans that since it didn't happen on TV, then it didn't happen.

[JHawk 0]

Haven't seen it mentioned yet, although I might have just missed it, but didn't The Steiner Brothers and Harlem Heat do a double switch of the WCW World Tag Team Title in 1996?

[cawthon777 0]

Yes they did.

 

Bummed me out the Steiners didn't take the belts off them on TV.

[res37618 0]

Actually, a quite infamous house show title change happened in 1989 - Lex Luger won the NWA US title back from Michael Hayes in Bluefield, West Virginia at a tiny building called the Brushfork Armory. I saw a WCW house show there in '92 - it's pretty much just a high school gymnasium-type building in a small town of about 15,000 people.

 

Mid-Atlantic used to make runs through there and Beckley, WV back in the early-mid '80's as well. I'm not even sure if it's still standing, it wasn't in the best of shape the last time I was there, and that was almost 13 years ago.

[Slickster 0]

Actually, a quite infamous house show title change happened in 1989 - Lex Luger won the NWA US title back from Michael Hayes in Bluefield, West Virginia at a tiny building called the Brushfork Armory. I saw a WCW house show there in '92 - it's pretty much just a high school gymnasium-type building in a small town of about 15,000 people.

Yeah, I had wondered about that place when I read it in the title records. Do you know why they did the switch there, of all places?

[res37618 0]

Actually, a quite infamous house show title change happened in 1989 - Lex Luger won the NWA US title back from Michael Hayes in Bluefield, West Virginia at a tiny building called the Brushfork Armory.  I saw a WCW house show there in '92 - it's pretty much just a high school gymnasium-type building in a small town of about 15,000 people.

Yeah, I had wondered about that place when I read it in the title records. Do you know why they did the switch there, of all places?

I have no clue - I was thinking the exact same thing myself. At the time, I was only 12 years old, so I thought it was really cool that the US belt changed hands in Bluefield. But in retrospect, I just think "What the hell?"

 

Maybe it was just a knee-jerk decision - Luger did turn heel just a couple of weeks later at the Clash of the Champions in Fort Bragg, and they wanted the US belt on him for his feud with Steamboat, and they also wanted Hayes ready for the tag belts with the Freebirds - so, they thought "might as well just do it here as anywhere". Also gives the impression that anything can happen when you go to a house show, no one ever expects a title to change hands there anyway.

 

That's all I can think of. Or, maybe the weed-smoking was a little hot and heavy that day.