Today In Wrestling History 8/5: Black World Champion, Great Sasuke Becomes 8 Belt Champion, More

* 27 years ago in 1988, World Class Championship Wrestling ran one of its last really memorable angles when "Iceman" King Parsons defeated Kerry Von Erich to win the World Class Wrestling Association World Heavyweight Championship at the Sportatorium in Dallas, Texas. Late in the match, Terry Gordy walked to ringside and starting gesturing "kill it" to someone. The lights went out, and when they came back on, not only was Kerry knocked out in the ring, but Michael Hayes, who was seconding him at ringside, was laid out on the floor in a pool of his own blood. Iceman danced around, celebrated, and pinned Kerry to win the title.

The angle got a ton of magazine coverage in a time where that still meant something. Not only was it creative, but Parsons was allegedly the first black world heavyweight champion in the history of the sport. Unfortunately, it didn't pop business much at all, and the company was bleeding money so badly that Jerry Jarrett came in three months later as a new majority investor to take over and fix the company.

* 19 years ago in 1996, the J-Crown tournament concluded on the undercard of Day 4 of the G1 Climax at Ryogoku Sumo Hall in Tokyo. In the finals, the first J-Crown Champion (octuple unified lighter weight champion) was crowned when IWGP Junior Heavyweight, NWA World Junior Heavyweight, WWA World Junior Light Heavyweight, and WWF World Light Heavyweight champion The Great Sasuke defeated WAR International Junior Heavyweight, British Commonwealth Junior Heavyweight, NWA World Welterweight, and UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Champion Ultimo Dragon. In a memorable bit of pageantry, with so many belts, each wrestler was accompanied by four women in swimsuits holding up his belts.

This was something of a dream singles match, the top two proteges of Gran Hamada facing off n the big stage and showing off their versions of lucha libre-inspired Japanese junior heavyweight wrestling. They were well on their way to a match as good as or better than Dragon's semifinal match of the year candidate against Shinjiro Ohtani when a weird twist of fate intervened. At one point, Dragon teased powerbombing Sasuke off the apron to the floor, the same move that fractured his skull when Dos Caras did it a year earlier. The crowd knew the history and went nuts for the tease, Later, a little over 12 minutes in, Sasuke went for some sort of somersault dive off the top turnbuckle to the floor. What exactly he was trying to do has become a bit of an urban legend, but he undershot Dragon (who still tried to catch him) and hit the back of his head on the floor.

Yes, he fractured his skull again. Once Sasuke was up, they quickly got back in the ring and went home with an understandably botch finish. After the match, we got the famous shot of Sasuke holding all eight belts and he was rushed to the hospital. He didn't wrestle again until October 10th as part of a trios match at Sumo Hall where he, Mil Mascaras, and Original Tiger Mask lost to Dos Caras, Dynamite Kid (in his last career match), and Kuniaki Kobayashi. The next night in Osaka, he lost the J-Crown to Dragon, giving him a total of nine belts (he was also NWA World Middleweight Champion), and he made it 10 at Starrcade that year when he won the WCW Cruiserweight Championship from Dean Malenko.

* 15 years ago in 2000, Pro Wrestling Noah ran their first card at Differ Ariake (the building that became both their home venue and the location of their offices) in Tokyo, Japan. When Mitsuharu Misawa, then president of All Japan Pro Wrestling, fell out with Giant Baba's widow, he arranged a deal where almost the entire roster would leave for his own new company. They wouldn't have TV at first (a concession to make it look less like he was effectively stealing the company), so the first few shows were shot primarily for home video releases.

The immediately noticeable changes were all about the look of the shows and the wrestlers. The ring had a bright green mat, inspired by Misawa's trademark ring gear. The rest was a mixed back. Jun Akiyama switched from blue to white with a Ric Flair style robe, Team No Fear (Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama) switching from black to white with bleached blond hair, and Daisuke Ikeda walking to the ring brandishing a gigantic, person-sized plastic sword. They junked most of the "sports entertainment" elements before long.

The main event was about re educating the fans and getting Akiyama over at the level of Misawa and Kenta Kobashi. Akiyama and Kobashi defeated Misawa and Akira Taue in two straight falls, with Akiyama taking both of the falls. They attempted to break away from the AJPW style by having Akiyama beat Misawa with a guillotine choke/front headlock submission, as AJPW rarely used submissions to the point that attempts got no heat. It was a good idea, but didn't really pan out. Eventually, with network TV and Kobashi as long-term world champion, they became the top promotion in Japan for a few years, but the inability for the new, smaller stars to get over at the level of the legends hurt. A decade later, Misawa died in the ring and they lost network TV. Today, they're owned or effectively owned by NJPW (they pay the wrestlers), who uses it as a secondary brand.