Today In Wrestling History 6/14: Daniel Bryan Out Of Nexus, Chris Benoit Wins Tourney, Thesz, More
* 58 years ago in 1957 was one of the most famous matches in wrestling history, as Edouard Carpentier defeated Lou Thesz in Chicago to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship...sort of. He won the third fall by "disqualification," though the wording was deliberately confusing, as it was a referee stoppage when Thesz couldn't continue. The idea was that while Thesz spent two months on a tour of Asia, Carpentier could tour North America as "World Title Claimant" (an angle they'd tried before with Killer Kowalski). Eddie Quinn, the promoter of the Montreal territory where Carpentier was the top draw, balked because the "claimant" was his "personal property" (he actually said this) and it fell apart.
The match's legacy grew when various promotions split from the NWA. Carpentier went to places like Los Angeles and Minneapolis where he was used to start the lineages of the WWA and AWA World Heavyweight Titles, respectively.
* 26 years ago in 1989, WCW had Clash of the Champions VII: Guts and Glory, which aired live on Superstation TBS from the Ritz-Epps Fitness Center in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. This is an incredibly fun show to watch thanks in large part to the rowdy, at least mildly intoxicated military base crowd. Oh, and it was in a non-air conditioned building on a day where the temperature topped out at 95 degrees fahrenheit outside, so it was over 100 degrees inside. Taking full advantage of the setting, one of the most over wrestlers on the card was Ranger Ross (a legitimate army ranger) during his quick squash of The Terrorist (Jack Victory under a mask).
The main event saw Ricky Steamboat defeating Terry Funk by disqualification in an excellent match, one of just a few singles bouts between the two legends. The whole closing segment is excellent, as after the match, the dispute over who the the real number one contender to Ric Flair's title was came to a head when Lex Luger walked to ringside after the match. Steamboat was the recent former champion, Funk was going after the top contenders to get his shot, and Luger, being the United States Champion, had the title that traditionally led to a formal number one contender ranking. So he turned heel and beat the heck out of Steamboat.
The other key thing on the show was the end of the NWA World Tag Team Title tournament, as the semifinals and finals were held on this show. In the semis, The Fabulous Freebirds (Michael Hayes and Jimmy Garvin) defeated The Dynamic Dudes (Johnny Ace and Shane Douglas), while The Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane) defeated The Samoan Swat Team (Samu and Fatu). In the finals, the Freebirds won the titles with help from Terry Gordy, who powerbombed Eaton while the referee was distracted.
For pure fun with an awesome atmosphere, this is one of the better Clash shows and is worth checking out on WWE Network.
* 22 years ago in 1993, NJPW ran a house show/TV taping at Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium that featured the playoffs and finals of that year's Top of the Super Junior tournament (the name was changed to Best of the Super Junior the following year). In the semifinal matches designed to break the tie at second place between the wrestlers with 12 points, Dean Malenko defeated Eddie Guerrero while El Samurai defeated both Malenko and 2 Cold Scorpio to make it to the finals.
In the finals, Samurai lost to Pegasus Kid (Chris Benoit) when his attempt at a superplex was countered with a powerbomb off the top rope. Benoit was finishing up with WCW and the tournament win re-established him as one of the top wrestlers in the division.
* Later that day in 1993, The Steiner Brothers won the WWF Tag Team Championship for the first time by defeating Money Inc. (Ted DiBiase and I.R.S.) in Columbus, Ohio. The show was a Wrestling Challenge taping, but the match was not taped for television. They switched the tag titles back two days later in Rockford, Illinois before switching the titles back to the Steiners three days after that to begin their extended run that lasted through the Summer. The reason for this was that they were trying build up house show attendance by showing that titles can change hands anywhere at any time. Usually, it doesn't seem to have much of an impact, though.
* 5 years ago in 2010 at a live Monday Night Raw in Charlotte, North Carolina, The Miz won the WWE United States Championship from R-Truth in a Fatal Four-Way match that also included Zack Ryder and John Morrison. Miz had lost the title to Bret Hart Toronto four weeks earlier to give the fans in Toronto a nice moment. That led to hart vacating the title a week later since his Lloyd's of London insurance settlement barred him from having any kind of "real" match, and R-Truth beat Miz to win the vacant title that night.
On the same show, the Nexus storyline continued with Wade Barrett announcing that Daniel Bryan (fired for choking Justin Roberts with his tie during the big beatdown seven days earlier) was gone from The Nexus for showing remorse. All of this would tie together at SummerSlam, when Miz waited until the last minute to agree to join John Cena's team against The Nexus in the main event, so Cena picked the returning Bryan (Miz's "rookie" on NXT) instead. This set up a Miz-Bryan feud where Bryan won the U.S. Title, getting him off to a strong start as a full-time member of the main roster.