Today In Wrestling History 6/27: JBL Wins WWE Championship, Undertaker Angle Leaks Before PPV, More

* 16 years ago in 1999, the WWF ran the seventh annual King of the Ring pay-per-view live from the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina. While not a great show on paper, a lot of fans were being looked forward to it because the tournament itself had been built up in an uncharacteristically (for the WWF historically as well as Vince Russo) strong manner. There were a number of tag matches, multi-person matches, etc. on TV with the tournament entrants and they were all presented with the idea that these wrestlers were competing for an incredibly important prize.

In practice...it wasn't so good. The only match that got significant time was Chyna vs. Road Dogg, and while it was an entertaining storytelling match, everything else came up short. Well, sort of: Big Show vs. Kane went seven minutes but felt much longer, with an interminable ref bump and a strangely length choking spot. It was a dull, lifeless show. While they did try to give tournament winner Billy Gunn an increased push, he was a flop for various reasons, a mix of not being a good fit as well as bad booking.

The main event was Steve Austin vs. Vince & Shane McMahon in a ladder match for control of the WWF. Austin had been named CEO in the fallout of the Greater Power storyline where Vince and Shane had Stephanie kidnapped for reasons that were never adequately explained. After the first Austin vs. Vince match was a tremendous spectacle just a few months earlier, this match didn't really click at all. It did end with a famous moment, as Austin had the match won when someone raised the briefcase full of contracts out of his reach, leading to the McMahons taking over for the win.

For years, fans asked "Who raised the briefcase?" as if it was some giant mystery, but it was strongly implied to be Big Bossman the next night on Raw. Even if it wasn't him, Vince's influence was always such that we didn't really need a concrete explanation.

* 12 years ago, IWA Mid-South ran the Revolution Strong Style Tournament at the IWA Arena in Clarksville, Indiana. Technically, "Strong Style" was a term coined by New Japan Pro Wrestling to refer to their house style of wrestling. In the west, it's become a colloquial term (sometimes "indie strong style") for matches featuring wrestlers hitting each other really hard and, to a lesser extent, dropping each other on their heads. With IWAMS being full of guys willing to do the former and sometimes the latter, they booked this tournament.

IWAMS was putting on a really tremendous run of shows in 2003 and this was no exception. B.J. Whitmer (who defeated Ian Rotten and Chris Hero earlier) won the tournament, defeating CM Punk (went through Tarek the Great and Stan Dupp) in the finals. This was the second consecutive time Whitmer beat Punk in a tournament final, having previously defeated him to win the Ted Petty Invitational (and Punk's IWAMS Heavyweight TItle, which he defended in every match in that tournament) several months earlier. While not quite as good as their previous outing, which was one of Whitmer's career best matches, it was really good and a worthy final.

As far as the rest of the show, both of Punk's other matches were standouts. While the match with Tarek the great went about 90 seconds with Punk winning out of nowhere by hitting the Shining Wizard, it was one of the best 90 second matches you'll ever see and the finish went over perfectly. While Stan Dupp (Trevor Murdoch) didn't have a lot of matches in IWAMS, he made every appearance count, and his semifinal bout with Punk was arguably the best of the show.

As for the rest of the bracket, the highlight was Chris Hero defeating Tracy Smothers in the first round. On IWAMS shows, Smothers was best known for brawling and getting old-school southern style heat, but here, he showed he was still a well-rounded performer and he had a really strong match (which wasn't out of sync with the rest of the tournament at all) with Hero, who he had been mentoring for a few years.

* 11 years ago in 2004, WWE ran the Great American Bash pay-per-view live from the Norfolk Scope in Norfolk, Virginia. There were two big stories coming out of the show:

JBL defeated Eddie Guerrero to win the WWE Championship in a bullrope match with touch all four corners rules. Leading up to the match, business on the SmackDown shows had been disappointing. While not necessarily Guerrero's fault (JBL was rising to the occasion as top heel but meant nothing as a draw), he was taking it hard, eventually having a very public outburst arguing with a fan at a house show. For his own good, they decided to take the belt off of him. JBL, being his rival at the time, got the nod. He went on to be the worst drawing champion of the modern era, but it wasn't close to all his fault. He was thrown to the wolves without being groomed and everyone paid for it.

The match that closed the show saw The Undertaker beat The Dudleys in a handicap match with an elaborate storyline involving Paul Bearer being buried alive in a concrete tomb. It was completely ridiculous, the first of many on-screen near-deaths for Bearer. The Undertaker ended up turning on and burying Bearer himself, but the real story was that the run-through of the angle surfaced online before the PPV since it went out on an unencrypted satellite feed (they were shooting close-ups of Bearer since a stuntman was in the tank during the PPV). While other feeds have gotten out with interesting things on them, this was the only time anything like this got out in advance of a live broadcast.