Today In Wrestling History 7/8: Ultimate Warrior/WWF Drama, McMahon Trial Day 4, Nash's Quad, More

* 24 years ago in 1991, the WWF ran a Wrestling Challenge taping at the Saddledome in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Being a Challenge taping, not much of note happened, but since it took place before that weekend's Superstars taping, it featured the in-ring debut of Sid Justice, AKA Sid Vicious and Psycho Sid. He had been on TV for a little while, but his dark match win over Ted DiBiase was his first actual in-ring appearance. Famously, Jim Herd had given him a full release from WCW because he felt they were better off yet having a bitter version of Sid around if he couldn't go to the WWF. His last match was a stretcher match and he jumped off the stretcher immediately, no-selling the gimmick.

* 21 years ago in 1994, it was the fourth day of the federal steroid distribution trial of Vince McMahon. The day opened with McMahon's defense continuing to cross-examine Dr. George Zahorian, the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission physician convicted of distribution, who McMahon was being accused of conspiring with.

Zahorian never split profits with Titan Sports (now WWE) or vice versa, nor was such an offer ever made. The owners of Titan's predecessor, Capitol Wrestling Corporation, never asked him to sell steroids to wrestlers. Nobody from Titan ever encouraged him to help wrestlers get "bigger than life" to boost business. He used to think of the wrestlers as legitimate patients but realized they weren't. While he wasn't used at WWF events after the law changed to the promotion hiring the ringside doctor in 1989, he did go to two more shows in an unofficial capacity before they asked him to stop coming in December of that year. Zahorian didn't go directly to Vince McMahon to try to get hired, with McDevitt trying to establish that meant they weren't especially close.

The list of wrestlers who Zahorian never sold steroids to included Nikolai Volkoff, Raymond Rougeau, Butch Miller, King Kong Bundy (Zahorian noted he was diabetic), Sgt. Slaughter, George Steele, Bob Backlund, Tugboat (Fred Ottman, who came in around the end of 1989), and Mike Rotunda. He sold steroids by mail to various wrestlers after they left the WWF. After the defense continued to spend a lot of time trying to establish the idea that Zahorian got special treatment for his grand jury testimony, that was the end of the day. Since it was a Friday, they returned on Monday, July11th.

* 19 years ago in 1996, the drama between the WWF and The Ultimate Warrior took an interesting turn. Warrior got home from the San Diego Comic Con and sent this fax to the McMahons:

Vince/Linda-

Hello. The personal issues in regards to the recent death of my father have been resolved and I am ready, willing, and able to perform in accordance with my scheduled events and the agreement we have between us at this time. I will await confirmation that this is what you wish me to do.

Always Believe-
Warrior

That night on Monday Night Raw, figurehead/storyline WWF President Gorilla Monsoon announced that Warrior would only be allowed to return if he posted a $250,000 appearance bond for the good of both the company and the fans. This was not far off from what the company was asking of Warrior in real life.

They did air a previously taped match (like all of the in-arena segments, taped June 24th in Green Bay) against Owen Hart (explaining it away as Warrior being allowed to wrestle this one match), probably because he was laid out by Camp Cornette afterwards. So then Shawn Michaels and Ahmed Johnson, his partners at the next pay-per-view, needed a new partner for the main event against Camp Cornette.

After various eases throughout the show (which is on WWE Network), this led to a closing segment. Michaels and Johnson had been doing promos from the company's TV studios in Stamford throughout the show. In the final segment, they confronted Jim Cornette "via satellite" and revealed their new partner: Sycho Sid, returning from six months off on the fifth anniversary of his in-ring WWF debut. The whole angle was one of the best hail Mary plays WWE ever pulled, frantically edited into Raw when they realized they were effectively done with Warrior.

Meanwhile, on Monday Nitro, the next chapter of the WCW cruiserweight division began when Rey Misterio Jr. defeated Dean Malenko to win the WCW Cruiserweight Championship. As important as Malenko was to the division, Misterio was the one who really drew the eyeballs to them with the idea that it represented an exciting, new kind of wrestling.He was now a star, and from this point until the division slowed down in 1999, the division kept getting bigger and more important.

* 13 years ago in 2002, Kevin Nash tore his quad in his first match back from long layoff due to a bicep injury. Historically, this has been viewed as the one wrestler injury we're allowed to laugh at because all he did was tag in and walk a few steps before he went down screaming. Personally, your mileage may vary, and it probably should, but at the very ;east, it was an incredibly strange sight. The 10 man tag team match he was in completely fell apart, with Shawn Michaels (who was working ringside) running into the ring to direct traffic and call the finish. Nash needed surgery from Dr. James Andrews and wouldn't return until April of 2003.