Today In Wrestling History 6/6: Raw Drafts John Cena, Diesel's WWF Debut, Wrestlers Convicted, More

* 30 years ago today, Ken Patera and Masa Saito were convicted of various charges including battery on a police officer stemming from a 1984 incident at a McDonald's in Waukesha, Wisconsin. After a nearby AWA house show, Patera and Saito were trying to find something to eat and found a McDonald's that had just closed but still had employees inside. They asked if it would be possible to open back up so they could buy some food, and the employees refused.

So Patera found a 30 pound rock/boulder, picked it up, and threw it through the window. Then he and Saito went back to their hotel.

Police arrived and the wrestlers resisted arrest, permanently injuring a rookie 19 year-old female officer in the process. It turned into a ridiculous scene with mace barely working on Saito and over a dozen officers being needed to fight off and subdue he and Patera. To show how much the world has changed, after they got out on bail, they went back to work as if nothing had happened, with Patera jumping to the WWF and Saito even returning to a full-time career in Japan after mostly living in the United States for many years.

At trial, their attorney tried to argue that he should get less time than Patera because Patera instigated the incident and he didn't understand that the people fighting him were cops. That didn't work, and neither did character testimony from other wrestlers. When the verdict came in, the wrestlers and their lawyer weren't in the courtroom; they were drinking beer on the courthouse lawn. That got them fined.

Saito was a model prisoner and got out earlier, electing to return to Japan, where, at 45 years of age, he had his last big main event run feuding with Antonio Inoki. Patera got out in 1988, returning to the WWF in 1988 as "a changed man" and a babyface in one of the more disastrous storylines in the company's "Hulkamania Era." No good reason was given for why fans should cheer Patera, just some vague claims about manager Bobby Heenan not visiting him in prison.

* 22 years ago in 1993, Shawn Michaels defeated Marty Jannetty with help from the debuting Diesel to regain the WWF Intercontinental Championship at a house show in Albany, New York. While title changes on house shows were not uncommon back then, something like debuting a new character in the process was very rare.

Nash has told the story of how he walked right out of WCW, where he was working as Vinnie Vegas, and into the WWF. Knowing that they had interest in him and he wasn't going anywhere in WCW, so he came up with a plan. He concocted a story that is wife was threatening to leave him if he didn't quit the wrestling business, and confided in wrestlers who were tight with management. The office was sympathetic, he got his release, and immediately faxed a copy to J.J. Dillon, who was running talent relations for the WWF. Fast-forward to 18 months later, and he had already won all three of the recognized mens WWF titles that existed at the time.

* 21 years ago in 1994, Jerry Lawler retained the Unified World Heavyweight Title, defeating Bam Bam Bigelow via disqualification at a USWA show at th Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, Tennessee. Bigelow was on loan from the WWF, renewing the feud with Lawler that put him on the map as more than just a big scary guy who looked great in magazines.

Back in 1986, Bigelow had picked up some media attention for his debut as the star pupil of Larry Sharpe's Monster Factory, but he lived up to the hype in his feud with Lawler. While Bigelow was green when it came to maturity, he was a natural in the ring, and some of his very best matches came when he was a rookie in Memphis, including an absolute classic of a Texas Death Match against Lawler that fall.

* 10 years ago in 2005, the WWE started a slow burn version of the then-annual draft held to switch talent between Raw and SmackDown. Instead of one big draft show followed by some supplemental picks on WWE.com, there was one pick on each episode of Raw and SmackDown for a month. The first pick was Raw taking WWE Champion John Cena from SmackDown, meaning that Raw had two world champions (along with World Heavyweight Champion Batista) and SmackDown had none for the time being.

At first, as they were on the ascent and eventually crowned champions at WrestleMania 21 it seemed as if Batista was the winner and Cena the loser. SmackDown was being established as the B-level brand and getting over being headlined by John Bradshaw Layfield's disastrous (for business) title reign, while Batista beat long-time headliner Triple H after being the first babyface to outthink him in every angle.

That changed on this night. Cena got one of the most memorable big babyface pops in Raw history for the announcement while Batista was drafted to SmackDown at th end of the month. Big Dave's underrated as a performer, draw, and star, but in the star babyface role, he never really recovered from being moved to the show he had buried as being inferior in interviews.