Today In Wrestling History 6/29: Matt & Jeff Hardy Win WWF Tag Team Titles For The 1st Time, & More
* 29 years ago in 1986, Stan Hansen was stripped of the AWA World Heavyweight Championship and it was awarded to the top contender, Nick Bockwinkel, at a show in Denver, Colorado. Hansen's primary job was as top foreigner in All Japan Pro Wrestling, and in fact he got the title through a deal with AJPW promoter Shohei "Giant" Baba, It was mutually beneficial: The AWA was on its last legs and got a legitimate international star as champion, while Baba got to put a big name American world title on his top foreigner to defend on AJPW shows.
It fell apart when AWA promoter Verne Gagne asked Hansen to drop the title to Bockwinkel that night in Denver, Hansen was about to go back to Japan for a tour where he was advertised as defending the title, so it made no sense for him to drop it. Gagne wouldn't listen, so Hansen left with the belt and Bockwinkel had to use one of the tag titles for a while. After that AJPW tour, Hansen sent the belt back...though not before running over it with his truck. Baba and Gagne still worked together after that, though not for long, as Curt Hennig was the last AWA Champion booked by AJPW.
* 16 years ago in 1999, the WWF held a Raw is War taping (to be broadcast the following Monday) at the Crown Coliseum in Fayetteville, North Carolina. It was highlighted by the Hardy Boyz winning their first WWF Tag Team Championship from The Acolytes. This was the Hardys' first real push, but they weren't quite total babyfaces, didn't get promo time, etc. and as such it fell flat. That went doubly so when this turned out to be a VInce Russeo speciality meaningless quickie title reign. The Hardys' second tag title win in September 2000 was built to much better and feels like a much bigger deal with this win just being a trivia note.
* 6 years ago in 2009, twin brothers Alberto and Alejandro Pérez, better known as the original La Parkita and Espectrito II, respectively, were killed in Mexico City. They were 35 years old. What happened was that two women, presenting themselves as prostitutes, solicited the brothers. It turned out they were part of an organized crime ring that would drug men's drinks and rob them. The brothers, being dwarves, had a much lower tolerance for whatever their drinks were spiked with, so they overdosed. The women were apprehended, convicted, and eventually sentenced to 47 years in prison.
* 7 years ago in 2008, WWE ran a pretty newsworthy Night of Champions pay-per-view live from the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas. Depending on how you count the previous year's Vengeance: Night of Champions show, this was either the first or second annual Night of Champions PPV.
The big cliffhanger coming out of the show was that Edge (defeating Batista) and Triple H (defeating John Cena) retained their respective World Heavyweight and WWE Championships. Since both were on SmackDown, with Triple H having just been drafted over, that meant that Raw had no world champion. That would be resolved quickly, as you'll read about tomorrow.
As far as title changes go, there were three to get the gimmick over: First, Kofi Kingston beat Chris Jericho to win the Intercontinental Championship. This was Kofi's first real push and it was a nice moment. In a fun angle later on the show, Cody Rhodes turned heel to reveal himself as Ted DiBiase Jr's mystery partner and win the World Tag Team Championship from himself and Hardcore Holly. This was a clever angle where DiBiase's mystery partner was "late" to set up the reveal, and since the Rhodes/Holly team started with a feud between the two, it made more sense than this type of angle might otherwise. Mark Henry also won the ECW Championship from Kane in a Triple Threat Match that also included Big Show, which started a very nice run for him.
* 4 years ago in 2011, the pilot for All Wheels Wrestling was taped at Universal Studios' original Impact Zone in Orlando, Florida. For whatever reason, Jeff Jarrett was spearheading multiple TNA spinoff projects at the time, and this was one of the, with Indian TV show Ring Ka King being the other. That one went to series and ran for a season in India. It had a lot of promise and was backed by the deep pockets of Endemol, but didn't get picked up for a second season. It was fun while it lasted, though, so you might as well check it out if you've never seen it:
All Wheels Wrestling wasn't so lucky, never getting picked up after negotiations with Fox to put the show on Speed Channel (now Fox Sports 1) or Fuel TV (now Fox Sports 2). Exactly how much interest they had in the first place was unclear, as it was little more than a gimmicky pro wrestling show with five minute iron man matches (yes) and stuff like Jay Lethal being renamed "RPM." It would probably be fun to see this at some point, but it seems unlikely that it'll ever show up anywhere.