Today In Wrestling History 6/1: Muhammad Ali Decks Jake Roberts, Superstar Graham Retires, And More

* 30 years ago in 1985, Jim Crockett Promotions' World Championship Wrestling on TBS featured one of the most famous angles during the promotion's run at the WTBS studios on Techwood Drive in Atlanta, Georgia. Ric Flair came out and showed clips of his three greatest matches: His NWA World Heavyweight Championship wins over Harley Race and Kerry Von Erich (the first time Von Erich's reign was acknowledged in JCP territory or on TBS) and his $1 million purse win over Dusty Rhodes. But he had a new greatest moment: Beating down Magnum T.A. the week before.

Flair had a token of good faith: A custom $1,500 suit for Magnum...to "class him up." Magnum was not happy, laid out Flair with the belly to belly suplex, tore up the suit, and made a point of leaving the NWA World Heavyweight Championship belt for Flair...as a reminder that the next time Magnum holds it, it will be because h won it. It sounds simple, but the execution was fantastic.

* The same day in New Orleans, Louisiana, Mid-South Wrestling held one of their supercards at the Superdome. The top two matches both happen to be on WWE's "Legends of Mid-South Wrestling" DVD set: Ric Flair vs. Terry Taylor for the NWA World Heavyweight Championship and Jake Roberts vs. The Snowman with Muhammad Ali and Bundini Brown in his corner.

Flair-Taylor is the usual excellent match they were having throughout the territory, while Jake-Snowman is best known for Jake no-selling (relatively speaking) an Ali punch. He felt that since he needed to keep his heat and Ali was only in for one night (plus Ali was starting to show the signs of Parkinson's Syndrome), there was no reason for him to sell big for Ali.

* 27 years ago in 1988, the WWF held a Superstars of Wrestling taping in Oakland, California. Among the more notable events on the shows taped that night were:

While chronologically a day after the first WWF match of The Rockers' second run with the company, their match at this taping, earmarked for the same weekend, aired first in a lot of markets since Superstars often aired before Challenge. They defeated Mike Sharpe and The Intruder. The Big Bossman also made his TV debut.

George "The Animal" Steele unveiled "Mine," a stuffed plush toy/stuffed animal that was, for lack of any other description, a furry creature that resembled Steel with a bald head, green tongue, and so on. Obviously, the goal was the create a hot new piece of merchandise. Being that Steele retired to become a road agent a few months later, Mine wasn't available in the WWF merchandise catalog or at arena merchandise stands very long. As a result, the toy is one of the most sought after WWE collectibles there is. It probably doesn't help that it was a stuffed animal that probably got grouped in with other random stuffed animals by parents and either thrown out or donated to thrift shops, Goodwill, the Salvation Army, and so on.

Superstar Billy Graham and Don Muraco tried to stop Greg Valentine from injuring Ricky Ataki with an extended Figure Four Leglock after the bell, only for Muraco to chase Jimmy Hart backstage. Valentine used the opportunity to put the Figure Four on Graham, injuring him and causing him to be stretched out. On the following week's episode, it was announced that Graham's managerial career was over and he was transitioning to color commentary.

Due to "King" Harley Race suffering a legitimate intestinal injury taking a table bump in his match with Hulk Hogan on the previous edition of Saturday Night's Main Event, Bobby Heenan announced that he had to vacate his throne...and led the crowd in a moment of silence for a ten bell salute. The weeks, they'd act as if he was dead, occasionally showing a graphic of him in the sky as if he was in Heaven. Heenan promised to find a new king, who turned out to be Haku at the next Superstars taping.

* 19 years ago in 1996, Antonio Inoki promoted the World Wrestling Peace Festival at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. The idea was a multi-promotion show with everyone in wrestling coming together to promote world peace and harmony. The WWF declined the invitation, but the show featured talent from NJPW, WCW, both AAA and CMLL (the big political coup of the show, though they weren't in inter-promotional matches), freelancers, and a few wrestlers from affiliated promotions like Michinoku Pro's Great Sasuke, who was NJPW's IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion at the time.

The most promotionally diverse match on the card saw Konnan (WCW/AAA) defeat Bam bam Bigelow (ECW) and Chris Jericho (ECW/WAR) in a triangle match. No titles were on the line, allowing Jushin Thunder Liger to beat Sasuke in their singles match, though WCW World Heavyweight Champion The Giant (Big Show) still defeated Sting in the semifinal. The main event saw Inoki and Dan Severn defeat Yoshiaki Fujiwara and UFC fighter Oleg Taktarov (making his pro wrestling debut), while the consensus best match was sent by AAA: Rey Misterio Jr. (Rey Mysterio) and Ultimo Dragon defeating Psicosis and Heavy Metal in an incredible high flying bout.

* That same night in 1996, ECW ran "Fight the Power" at ECW Arena saw another UFC fighter briefly make his way into pro wrestling, as "Polar Bear" Paul Varelans shot an angle to set up a match with Taz three weeks later. Varelans was a huge (billed as 6'8"), impressive looking guy with a 5-4 MMA record at that point, but it's never been clear just how much martial arts training he had and what it involving. He claimed to be a practitioner of "trapfighting," theoretically a submission-based sport similar to Pancrase or Shooto, but did not appear to be an especially skilled grappler and only one of his wins involved a submission hold.

Also on the show, Pitbull #2 won the ECW Television Championship from Shane Douglas in the last of a series of impromptu title defenses. Though it wasn't long before Pitbull lost the title to Chris Jericho (who lost it back to Douglas), it set up a long feud between the two that carried on through "Barely Legal," ECW's pay-per-view-debut the following April. Being one of the top feuds, that probably has to do with why it went on so long, as there were various delays in getting the PPV date finalized.

In one of the more of its time moments in ECW history (think about the ground that covers with ECW, for better or worse), Divine Brown, the prostitute who actor Hugh Grant was arrested with, made an appearance as the woman Stevie Richards had hand-picked as Raven's new valet. Raven rejected her, saying she hadn't been with enough men yet.