Today In Wrestling History 7/31: Hulk Hogan Versus Andre The Giant In A Cage, WarGames II, & More

* 28 years ago in 1987, Jim Crockett Promotions ran the final card of the second annualGreat American Bash tour at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida drawing 20,000 fans. The card featured a mix of mainline Crockett talent and wrestlers assigned to Championship Wrestling from Florida, which Crockett had all but taken over by this point.

The main event was WarGames II, the only rematch of the gimmick's July 4th debut at the Omni in Atlanta, Georgia. In Miami, the babyfaces went up 2-0 when The Road Warriors, Dusty Rhodes, Nikita Koloff, & Paul Ellering defeated The Four Horsemen (Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, Lex Luger) & The War Machine. J.J. Dillon had been injured in the first match trying to take the Doomsday Device/Double Impact with the low ceiling in the cage, so War Machine was his replacement.

In a bit of an odd move, War Machine was very obviously (but never stated or implied to be) Big Bubba Rogers (Ray "Big Bossman" Traylor), who had been off the main Crockett shows, first working in Kansas City to get more experience on lower profile shows, and then in the UWF, where he won their world title on the first TV taping after JCP bought the company. Yes, he had lost the title to Steve "Dr. Death" Williams on July 11th in Oklahoma City, and yes, he was under a mask, but it was so obviously him that it made no sense for him to be the designated jobber in a match with the biggest stars in the company.

* 27 years ago in 1988, the WWF ran the WrestleFest card at County Stadium in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, drawing 25,866 fans paying $350,000. It was a long, star-studded show, taped for home video release as well as use on Prime Time Wrestling.

The main event was about as big as you could get for a house show: Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant in a steel cage match. This was the only time they met in a cage and the last singles match between the two (they still had SummerSlam to meet in a tag), so it was effectively rhe blowoff to their singles feud. It was about what you'd expect from the two, but they made it into a really fun spectacle with Hogan bleeding heavily, Bobby Heenan taking some crazy bumps, and the insane visual of Andre looking like King King on the Empire State Building as he tried to climb the cage, and both guys feeding pff of the big, hot crowd.

The best-known version of the card is the VHS release from Coliseum Home Video, though some enterprising fans have mixed in the other matches or versions thereof, whether from Prime Time Wrestling or other home videos, depending on the match. The big holy grail of the show was, for many years, the Curt Hennig vs. Terry Taylor match, as both had just debuted in the promotion, and it wasn't released until WWE put out a Mr. Perfect DVD set. The urban legend was always that both were in contention to be Mr. Perfect, but that gimmick grew out of a conversation between Hennig and Vince McMahon. They might've been in contention for the same main event push, but not the gimmick itself.

The rest of the show consisted of the biggest matches that the WWF was running around the horn and various undercard matches sprinkled throughout as buffers. Bad News Brown vs. Bret Hart, Randy Savage vs. Ted DiBiase, Jake Roberts vs. Rick Rude,The Ultimate Warrior vs. Bobby Heenan in a Weasel Suit Match, and Demolition vs. The British Bulldogs were all on the card when they'd normally be split up among multiple regular WWF house shows. On home video, Savage-DiBiase was omitted from the WrestleFest tape proper, instead saved for a "Macho Madness' tape around the same time. Warrior-Heenan made it, but was edited, as for some reason, they decided to try to to erase the presence of local wrestling legend Da Crusher as Warrior's second.

* On the same day in 1988, Jim Crockett Promotions ran a card at Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan that drew a strong crowd of 7,000 fans thanks to a unique main event. To tak out Kevin Sullivan and Dusty's former best friend/tag team partner Dick Murdoch, the American Dream enlisted the craziest partner he could find: The Original Sheik. The Sheik had been the biggest draw in the city for years as top heel (and secretly the promoter), but went out of business around the end of the '70s due to repetition, repeated false advertising, and other factors. Still, he had been out of the spotlight for years AND the Texas Outlaws team of Dusty on Murdoch had been huge in the city, so it clicked.

The match itself was typical Sheik: A crazy four minute brawl that went to a disqualification. As you might expect, Sheik turned on Dusty. As you might NOT expect, Murdoch made the save, turning him babyface, reuniting him with Dusty on Crockett's TV shows, and setting up more matches in the city.