Today In Wrestling History 7/21: Owen Hart's 1st WWF Match, ECW Kicked Off TV In Florida, & More

* 31 years ago in 1984, the WWF held a combination house show and TV taping at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis, Missouri. The M.O. for Kiel shows at the time was that the fans would get a regular house show full of star vs. star matches, but it would also include some squashes, as the shows were taped for airing on both Superstars of Wrestling (then the C-level syndicated show, which doubled as the "Wrestling at the Chase" A-level show in St. Louis) and recap shows like World Championship Wrestling on TBS as well as All-American Wrestling on USA Network.

If you're a fan of the WWF's old Coliseum Home Video VHS releases, then you may recognize two of the key matches. The co-main event saw "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka defeat "Rowdy" Roddy Piper in a very good Fijian Strap Match. While a strap match, it ended the same way a regular match would (as opposed to "touch all four corners" rules), and Snuka won with a flying body press off the top rope. This was one of very few clean pinfall jobs that Piper did in his entire WWF career.

The card also featured an arm wrestling match between Jesse Ventura and Ivan Putski. This was just about every arm wrestling angle in wrestling ever has, with Ventura on the verge of losing when he attacked Putski and turned over the table. Between the setting (a packed major arena), airing on TV in syndication, and living on through several home video releases,it's one of the most memorable versions of the arm wrestling angle, though.

* A year later in 1985, the WWF had another house show taped for television and home video, this time at the Capital Center in Landover, Maryland. Most of the matches were taped for the August 6th episode of Prime Time Wrestling, with one, Ricky Steamboat vs. Bob Orton Jr., also being featured on two different Coliseum Home Video VHS tapes in short order. Not only was it released on Best of the WWF Vol. 3 in a pretty quick turnaround, but it also showed up a year later on Best of the WWF Vol. 6. Normally, they didn't repeat matches in the same series like that. At any rate, it's an excellent match, possibly Orton's best of his mid-'80s WWF run. They were two of the smoothest workers of their generation and they gelled as well as you'd hope they would.

* 29 years ago in 1976, a 21 year old Owen Hart, then on his way to becoming the top babyface in Stampede Wrestling, wrestled his first WWF match at a house show at the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Washington. He worked several WWF matches throughout the rest of 1986, both as himself and using the name "Owen James." He even ended up teaming with S.D. Jones later in the year against the Hart Foundation, his brother Bret and brother-in-law Jim Neidhart, at a house show in Denver, Colorado.

Bret was able to get him an official tryout at a TV taping in Rochester, New York. Unfortunately, not only was his opponent not coordinated enough to do Owen's fancier moves, but it was the same night that Bret made bodybuilder/strongman/gymnast Tom Magee look like the most amazing prospect in the business (he wasn't), distracting Vince McMahon from anything else. That said, Owen did get his "golden ticket" to Japan as NJPW's top foreign junior heavyweight the following year.

* 20 years ago in 1995, ECW held a TV taping at Expo Park in Tampa, Florida. It was the company. The Florida trips were becoming a regular thing at this point, and often turned out even better shows than tapings in Philadelphia. The episode of ECW's TV show with most of the key moments (the August 1, 1995 show) is available on demand for WWE Network subscribers. It was becoming a key market, but...well, read on.

There was a title change n the show, as Dean Malenko defeated Eddie Guerrero to win the ECW Television Title. This was in the middle of their big program where, being that they didn't wrestle on every ECW show, they pretty much always wrestled each other. They had the usual quality match here, with Malenko winning with a cradle after a series of reversals. Malenko didn't hold the title long, though, as Guerrero regained the title exactly a week later during a lightning storm at the Orange County Fair in Middletown, New York.

The main event saw The Public Enemy defeat The Gangstas as part of their ongoing feud. After the match, The Public Enemy beckoned the fans into the ring, something they had done before in Philadelphia in a memorable scene that ended up in the opening montage of the ECW TV show. This time, the ring collapsed. Thankfully, nobody was hurt. This aired on TV, too.

The big story of the show involved The Sandman and Mikey Whipwreck. First, Mikey won a battle royal for a title shot, last eliminating Marty Jannetty after a really good mini-match. The title bout went on as the semi-main event, and the stipulation was added that the loser would get ten lashes with The Sandman's "Singapore Cane"/kendo stick.

Sandman won, and after three lashes, Mikey could barely stand. Ring announcer Ron Lemieux offered to take the remaining lashes, but his valet, Woman, said no. They got to seven when ECW Commissioner Tod Gordon had Mikey stretchered out. Bill Alfonso, then the heel referee representing the various state athletic commissions, ordered that the final three lashes must take place or else Gordon would be guilty of fraud and lose his promoter's license, so Sandman ran over and caned the hell out of him until jannetty made the save. During all of this, Woman screamed things like "YES, SANDMAN! YES!" while acting like the violence was giving her an orgasm.

The Sunshine Network, ECW's TV outlet in Florida, refused to show the episode and cancelled ECW. The brutality of the caning combined with Woman's "orgasmic wails" on the house mic was too much for them. ECW eventually got back on, but it was a big blow for a while.