Today In Wrestling History 7/12: Vader Wins First WCW Title, Jack Tunney Fired, Trial Continues

* 23 years ago in 1992, WCW held the Great American Bash pay-per-view live from the Albany James H. Gray Sr. Civic Center in Albany, Georgia. The show was built around the completion of the NWA World Tag Team Championship tournament and Sting defending the WCW World Heavyweight Championship against Vader.

Steve Williams and Terry Gordy won the tournament, which fell flat for a lot of fans since they had just won the WCW titles days earlier, meaning that the titles were now unified and the NWA titles were introduced for new real reason. The tournament featured several very good matches, but something was missing, and the production was so underwhelming that the show didn't feel like a major PPV event at all.

That said, Sting vs. Vader was a classic, one of the greatest matches in WCW history. They had wrestled a few times in the past, but this was their first big match, and it was fantastic. While some of Sting's other matches might have been better, his best performances were against Vader. Against Vader, he pulled out all sorts of new moves, sold better than ever, and overall looked like a real world title level pro wrestler. Here, Vader won the first chapter, getting the win after Sting hit the ringpost head first while trying the Stinger Splash. If you've never seen the Sting-Vader matches from this show, Starrcade '92, and Superbrawl III, you should check them out on WWE Network as soon as you can.

* 21 years ago in 1994, Vince McMahon's federal steroid distribution trial continued across the street from the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY.

** They started by continuing Pat Patterson's testimony. He said that being a senior vice president was "just a title," then contradicted his previous day's testimony by saying he first heard about Dr. George Zahorian dealing steroids in 1986 or 1987. Prosecutor Sean O'Shea started going back and forth with Patterson about when he tipped off Zahorian about a government investigation into him and Patterson seemingly tried to keep it from going anywhere. On cross-examination, Patterson's testimony was focused on things like how McMahon was too busy to conspire with Zahorian and the WWF being sold on more than just muscles.

** Anita Scales, then Titan Sports' Director of Compliance and Regulations, was up next. When the law changed in Pennsylvania, requiring that the promotion hire the ringside doctor instead of the athletic commission, her research into what specialties would be appropriate led her to doctors other than Zahorian, a urologist. Zahorian started to call her regularly and she took notes of each call, including one where he said he'd go over her head. Regarding a call from road agent Joe "Jay Strongbow" Scarpa asking her to hire Zahorian: I said no, but he said 'the boys need their candies.' I said they can get their damn candies somewhere else."

Both Mel Phillips and Robert "Gorilla Monsoon" Marella told her Zahorian was "sleazy," with Gorilla telling her there was no place in the business for someone like him. On a call from Tony Garea, which she said was similar to what Gorilla said: "He said his bag was so heavy, he had to roll it in. I was left with the distinct impression Zahorian dealt in volume, not in samples." Zahorian showed up at a house show in Hershey, anyway, and Scales then made a point of making sure he wasn't hired or allowed backstage. While Patterson pushed her to hire Zahorian, she conceded that if it had come from McMahon, she would have done it, and it meant something that he didn't order anyone to do so.

Also: Scales had taken files out of the office to give to the government as an "insurance policy."

** James "Ultimate Warrior" Hellwig/Warrior/James Warrior (he had already changed his legal name in 1993) was next. He used deca durabolin and testosterone before he started in the WWF. 85-90% of the wrestlers were on steroids when he was there. McMahon once asked him where he could get human growth hormone. In February 1991, there was an incident where he got in trouble for leaving steroids in his hotel room. Before that incident, McMahon never told him not to take steroids, but he also never told him to take steroids, get bigger, etc. He never bought from Zahorian.

** Margaret Sharkey, Scales' assistant, was the last witness of the day. She said Patterson told her to hire Zahorian because the wrestlers loved him and reiterated a lot of what Scales said.

Tomorrow: Titan Sports CFO Doug Sages and Emily Feinberg, the former Executive assistant to Vince McMahon.

* 20 years ago in 1995, Jack Tunney "resigned as President of the World Wrestling Federation." In reality, as part of various cost-cutting moves, the WWF dropped its association with Tunney's Toronto office (Billy "Red" Lyons was also gone since he helped Tunney run the office) which had a received a percentage of every show the company ran in Canada starting in the Summer of 1984. This led to the creation of the new WWF Canada office headed by Carl "Carlo" DeMarco, who broke in as Bret Hart's friend and agent.

On TV, Tunney's role was the occasionally seen figurehead authority figure, which was much more effective than having one that was always around. He was theoretically neutral, and he wasn't any kind of official heel, but he often made ridiculous, unpopular decisions. Regardless, he's looked back at fondly, probably because of how ineffective the role was rendered starting during the Monday Night War.

He was replaced by Gorilla Monsoon as "Interim President." Apparently, someone had forgotten (or wasn't aware) that months before this, they had Sgt. Slaughter appear as the new Vice President of the World Wrestling Federation on Saturday morning recap show WWF Mania. He made it very clear that "if Tunney's out, I'm in," but it wasn't followed up on at all when Tunney was actually out.