Today In Wrestling History 8/8: Hulk Hogan Is Destroyed By Brock Lesnar; Sells For Jay Leno, & More
* 23 years ago in 1992, an episode of WCW Saturday Night that played with one of pro wrestling's most established tropes aired on TBS. The show was taped July 27th at Center Stage Theater in Atlanta, Georgia, but the way that it would play out was not known until the TV show aired.
The main event was Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton (with Paul E. Dangerously, now better known by his real name of Paul Heyman) vs. Larry Zbyszko and Brian Pillman. Zbyszko had been part of the Dangerous Alliance stable with Anderson, Eaton, Steve Austin, and Rick Rude since its inception in 1991 but had been fired after he cost them Wargames. He had accidentally hit Eaton in the shoulder with an unscrewed turnbuckle hook, so Eaton submitted when Sting immediately applied an armbar. On this episode of WCW Saturday Night, Anderson and Eaton got the heat throughout the main event by systematically working over Zbyszko's arm. Not only was it an Anderson trademark, but it called back to the Wargames finish.
Back then, most wrestling shows had the announcers treat the show as live even if it wasn't (which still applies to how WWE treats SmackDown, even doing social media posts, that act as if it's live). When a main event would go to a commercial break, they'd promise us that "tape machines are rolling" and if the ,match ended while they were off the air, we'd see it when they returned. Well, this time, it happened. Anderson barred Zbyszko's arm, and Eaton hit a top rope knee drop to the outstretched limb, "breaking" it, and the referee stopped the match as Zbyszko was screaming in pain. Of course, running WCW at the time was Bill Watts, who insisted on doing things like this to get fans out of their comfort zones and make the shows seem more realistic by having this type of event take place.
The same episode also featured the short lived Junkyard Dog and Big Cat tag team, which grew out of another unique Watts angle. A month earlier, on the first house show of the Great American Bash tour, they shot an angle where JYD saved Dustin Rhodes from an attack by Terry Taylor and Mr. Hughes. In the melee, a JYD headbutt broke Hughes' glasses, sending glass into his eyes. JYD immediately stopped fighting, got Hughes help, and befriended him during his recovery. Hughes turned babyface, went by "Big Cat" Curtis Hughes again, and they were a tag team until they weren't.
* 17 years ago in 1998, WCW held the second annual Road Wild (third annual Harley Davidson rally show, as they changed the name from "Hog Wild" due to legal issues) pay-per-view live from Sturgis, South Dakota. The show was built around the first and only in-ring appearance of Jay Leno. Yes, that Jay Leno.
It grew out of Eric Bischoff starting to do a segment called "NWO Nightcap" where he did a late night talk show style monologue and eventually started outright stealing Leno's jokes from a few days earlier. Somehow this led to the NWO invading the Tonight Show, Diamond Dallas Page making the save, and a challenge being issued for Hulk Hogan and Bischoff against Page and Leno in Sturgis. With Leno being into Harley Davidson motorcycles, that part at least was a natural fit.
Keep in mind that the PPV a month earlier, Bash at the Beach, was headlined by Hogan and Dennis Rodman taking on Page and Karl Malone. Everything fell into place there, with Rodman's Chicago Bulls having just beaten Malone's Utah Jazz in the NBA Finals, as well as Malone and Rodman getting into a fight during the game. The show did huge business. That said, the celebrities they hired were world class athletes who were tall and looked like physical threats, plus Malone was a huge wrestling fan who was thrilled to be there.
Jay Leno, however, was not a world class athlete and didn't look like one. Hell, Bischoff, while on the wrong side of 40, was still clearly a much better athlete in much better shape than Leno, who's five years older. So when Hulk Hogan sold for a Jay Leno armbar...it didn't look good. That photo also made it into every newspaper the next day. The good guys won when Tonight Show bandleader Kevin Eubanks gave Bischoff the Diamond Cutter behind the referee's back and Leno pinned Bischoff.
* 13 years ago in 2002, WWE aired an episode of SmackDown taped four days earlier on Richmond, Virginia. It was built around a main event where Brock Lesnar, being built for his WWE Championship win at SummerSlam over The Rock, obliterated Hulk Hogan in a match with Lesnar's title shot on the line. As noted by Chris Jericho in his second book, Hogan was really inspired by the level of talent in the company at the time and really tried to step up his game in addition to being more willing than ever before to put guys over. Here, Hogan did get some offense and a comeback, but Lesnar hit the F5,, put Hogan in a bearhug, and won by technical submission when Hogan passed out. Then he came back, bloodied Hogan with a chair, and painted his own chest with Hogan's plasma. This was the moment Brock Lesnar officially became scary.
As for Hogan? He left the company for a while when he realized he wasn't getting his win back. Just because he was more willing put people over doesn't mean he didn't want anything in return. That meant that he no-showed the Colonial Stadium show in Australia a few days later, leaving 56,734 fans without Hogan's Australian debut, as he had never gone on the '80s tours of the country. He was supposed to be on the upcoming 2015 tour, but, well...you know...