Today In Wrestling History 6/12: ECW One Night Stand, Clash Of The Champions XV, And More

* 40 years ago in 1975, Negro Navarro made his pro debut in Mexico. He went on to become a legendary historical figure as part of Los Misioneros de la Muerte (The Death Missionaries) with El Signo and El Texano by virtue of their being El Santo's opponents when he had a near-fatal heart attack. They became one of the top heel acts in Mexico and were hugely influential when it came to trios matches becoming the dominant match type in Mexico, and especially when it came to having trios with team names and matching outfits.

In the ring, he's best known as a master technician, or "maestro," and still wrestles today at a very high level even though he's pushing 60. Much of the time he tours with fellow legend El Solar, and they have incredible chain wrestling matches on smaller shows throughout Mexico. His sons are wrestlers as well; an up and coming tag team named Los Traumas.

* 24 years ago in 1991, WCW aired Clash of the Champions XV: Knocksville USA on Superstation TBS live from the Civic Auditorium in Knoxville Tennessee. What could have been a fantastic show was marred by the inexplicable decision to try to cram 11 matches into a two and a half hour broadcast.

With Dustin Rhodes vs. Terry Taylor, Sting vs. Nikita Koloff, Arn Anderson & Barry Windham vs. Brian Pillman & El Gigante, The Steiner Brothers vs. Hiroshi Hase & Masahiro Chono, Lex Luger vs. The Great Muta, and Ric Flair vs. Bobby Eaton on the card, you'd think it was one of the best of the Clash specials, but for some reason, they had to insert The Young Pistols and Tom Zenk vs. The Fabulous Freebirds, Oz vs. Johnny Rich, Dan Spivey vs. Big Josh, The Diamond Studd vs. Tommy Rich, and Steve Austin vs. Joey Maggs as unneeded filler.

The end result was a mess, Pillman's match had the stipulation that the loser of the fall left WCW, and he ate the pin at just past the three minute mark. There was no time to let the result set in and the show cut away right after the finish. Luger and Muta had less than four minutes. Eaton worked his tail off getting into the best shape of his life to have a classic two out of three falls main event with Flair and they got less than 15 minutes for all three falls. The matches that you'd expect to be good were good while they lasted, but they didn't have time to develop.

* 10 years ago in 2005, WWE held the original ECW: One Night Stand pay-per-view event at the Hammerstein Ballroom of the Manhattan Center in New York, New York. The idea came to fruition after Rob Van Dam pitched it to Vince McMahon. Whether or not someone else put Van Dam up to it is a matter of conjecture.

The big surprise was just how authentic it was, including ECW's Ron Buffone directing the show instead of WWE's Kerwin Silfes, a 16 foot ECW style ring being used, Atlas Security working the show handling crowd control, and perhaps most importantly, Joey Styles as lead announcer in a deal that was pretty much made at the last minute. It felt like a genuine ECW show.through and through.

There was one hook to try to tie it into current WWE, which was heel factions led by Eric Bischoff and John Bradshaw Layfield promising to invade the show. In practice, this consisted of them going to their seats. cutting one promo each, and being the victims of a beatdown by the ECW wrestlers (with Steve Austin directing traffic) at the end of the show.

In many ways, the real highlight of the show was The Sandman's entrance for the main event. Up to this point, everyone had been using their WWE entrance music if applicable, WWE-owned music (like the Harry Slash-composed ECW entrance music they had acquired), or production music. Not Sandman; he got to come out to Metallica's "Enter Sandman" as the whole crowd sang along in utter glee. Few moments, if any, sum up the emotion and aesthetic of ECW like that one.

* 5 years ago in 2010, Grizzly Smith (the father of Jake "The Snake" Roberts and a major drawing card in his own right) passed away. Normally, I'm not sure if I would have included anything about him since I've been reserving deaths for when the death itself was newsworthy. Today, I might as well since he has the distinction of being Dusty Rhodes opponent's in the match that got him his first big break.

Dusty was working underneath in Dallas and Gary Hart, the top heel manager who had some pull with the booking, saw something in him. He felt that being squashed by Grizzly Smith on TV would ruin his shot at stardom in the territory, so he fought to change the finish as the match hit the ring.

Hart walked to the ring, talked to the referee, and Dusty went over clean, with Hart raising his hand afterwards and announcing himself as Dusty's new manager. Fritz Von Erich was surprised, as he didn't realize Hart would go so far as to change the finish to a clean win as opposed to a countout or disqualification, but the "damage" was done. Dusty quickly became the tag team partner of top heel The Spoiler, and he never looked back.