Today In Wrestling History 8/10: Hulk Hogan Wins/Spray Paints WCW Belt, Junkyard Dog WWF Debut, More

* 31 years ago in 1984, the WWF ran a combination house show/TV taping for the secondary shows at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis, Missouri. The big news was that the Junkyard Dog made his surprise debut (defeating Max Blue in a squash match) after leaving Mid-South Wrestling without notice. He had been the top babyface in the promotion in 1979, and was especially huge in New Orleans, where they regularly ran supershows at the Superdome. That said, he had developed a drug problem was starting to gain weight in the wrong places, which promoter Bill Watts said on TV was JYD bulking up to be able to properly handle Kamala and King Kong Bundy.

While JYD's drawing power was down at that point in Mid-South, Watts was obviously not happy about him leaving without notice. He buried JYD on TV, saying he left for "easier competition." In the WWF, JYD was the number two babyface behind Hulk Hogan for a while, but he got phased down when his drug problems and weight gain became bigger issues. He slowly moved down the card until leaving in 1988. While still capable of good matches with the right opponents and partners (like the above 1985 bout with Ricky Steamboat vs. Don Muraco and Mr. Fuji) for the first couple years of his WWF run, he became difficult to have a match with by the end. His promo style also changed, progressively getting more cartoonish than it had been in Mid-South and the early part of his WWF run.

* 26 years ago in 1989, NJPW ran a TV taping at Ryogoku Sumo Hall in Tokyo in front of an announced 9,980 fans. The highlight was the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship match, as Naoki Sano defeated Jushin Thunder Liger to end his first reign as champion. Sano, who graduated from the NJPW in the same 1984 NJPW dojo class as Liger and a number of other legends, is one of the most underrated workers in the history of the business, largely because he left NJPW during his prime for a big money offer from the SWS startup promotion. One of the true chameleons of Japanese wrestling, he could fit into any promotion's style (including the shoot-style groups) seamlessly.

While Liger went on to long, storied career under the mask, this was his first real feud, and there's a very strong case it was the best. This was the meanest, nastiest, most heated feud he had, with blood, mask ripping, etc. instead of the more typical NJPW junior heavyweight style match. For the title change, Liger's shoulder had been injured, so he came in wearing football shoulder pads for protection, and Sano put in a tremendous performance going after the injury as a "wrestling heel." The entire feud is a must-watch, and this match is up there with the best of the series.

* 19 years ago in 1996 held their first annual pay-per-view from the Harley Davidson motorcycle rally in Sturgis South Dakota. This show was named Hog Wild, but it became Road Wild in 1997 due to a dispute over the name with Harley Davidson. While the show actually featured a lot of good wrestling a couple major angles (Hulk Hogan winning the WCW Championship a month after joining the NWO and the beginning f the Nick Patrick as the NWO's referee storyline), it's not necessarily remembered well, thanks in large part to the crowd. We'll get to that in a minute.

Hogan regained the title by hitting Giant with the belt behind the referee's back. This is best remembered for Hogan spray painting "NWO" on the belt in one of the era's most repeated clips. It was also his birthday the next day, so The Bootyman (the former Brutus Beefcake) walked out as the newest NWO member carrying a birthday cake. Hogan cut a promo about how you can't mix business with friendship, so he attacked Btuti for no real reason.

It was a crowd of bikers looking for a show as opposed to wrestling fans, and it didn't really seem like that was taken into account when booking and laying out the card. Yes, they had Madusa (with a Harley) vs. Bull Nakano (with a Honda) in a winner destroys the loser's motorcycle match, but that was it.

With it being a rare Saturday night PPV show, they used WCW Saturday Night as a two hour pre-show, meaning that they subjected a group of largely non-fans to a nearly five hour show. The PPV portion included a 27 minute Chris Benoit vs. Dean Malenko match which, regardless of the quality of in-ring wrestling, was totally wrong for that live audience.

Outside of the main event, where the newly villainous Hulk Hogan was cheered because the crowd actually knew who he was, the one match that the bikers actually got into was The Steiner Brothers vs. Harlem Heat. The only reason anyone could deduce as to why was that they a team of two black guys billed from Harlem, New York did not...appeal to them, to say the least. Which was really just part for the course in WCW, when you consider everything that came out in racial discrimination lawsuits.

* 13 years ago in 2002, NJPW ran day 6 of that year's G1 Climax tournament at Sumo Hall. The highlight was the tournament match where Yoshihiro Takayama defeated Osamu Nishimura in an excellent 22 minute match. Takayama had been wrestling for years and never quite put it all together until he suddenly did in a big way in 2002. At the same time, he had just lost a legendary MMA fight to Don Frye on June 23rd, which upped his profile considerably as the fighter who always shows heart and has a great fight even in losing (he lost all four career fights), Meanwhile, Nishimura had reinvented himself by going to Florida to train with Dory Funk Jr., returning to Japan as someone who did throwback '70s style technical wrestling. The result was a tremendous match that really opened a lot of eyes when it came to both men.