Today In Wrestling History 6/30: CM Punk Wins His First World Title, The Undertaker's Secret, & More

* 31 years ago in 1984, the first WWF episode of Maple Leaf Wrestling aired in Canada. For years and years, Maple Leaf Wrestling was the TV show of the Tunney family's Toronto promotion, which mostly ran Maple Leaf Gardens, but also ran Buffalo, New York as well as smaller towns for spot shows at times. It also aired throughout other parts of Canada in syndication.

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Tunney kept a crew of local wrestlers that supplemented the bigger stars, which had come from The Sheik's Detroit territory in the past but had been sent by Jim Crockett Promotions in the mid-Atlantic part of the United States from 1978 to early 1984. Other big names (usually from the WWF and AWA) would join the Crockett crew and locals at times, but when the switch happened, Toronto was primarily a Crockett town.

As for the switch, the circumstances were strange in that Crockett saw it coming...so he stopped sending top talent...which made it easier for Jack Tunney to switch. Granted, it's unlikely he'd have turned down Vince McMahon's deal anyway, as it gave him a percentage of every Canadian WWF house show, but the way Crockett threw in the towel was bizarre. Canadian regulations required a certain amount of "Canadian content," so the show would be taped in Canada with local job guys like Ron Hutchinson in addition to airing house show matches.

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While the role of the main taping site would soon be filled by the Civic Center in Brantford, Ontario (with those tapings doubling as All-Star Wrestling in the United States), the first show was a Canadian exclusive taped on June 21st in Montreal. The show occurred in a vacuum with no angles, really just serving to introduce some of the top stars, including Hulk Hogan, who defeated Rene Goulet.

* 20 years ago in 1995, Raven and Stevie Richards defeated The Public Enemy to win the ECW Tag Team Championship at the Flagstaff in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. While a regular stop for ECW, the Flagstaff normally didn't play host to anything important, so the title change came as a big surprise.

What makes this a little more interesting is that originally, ECW had planned a much bigger show for this date at Lackawanna County Stadium (now PNC Field) in Moosic, Pennsylvania. Exactly what was planned that needed an outdoor venue was never made clear ( though it's usually rumored to be Terry Funk vs. Cactus Jack in a fire match) but the show was cancelled after the stadium got new astroturf installed. They wanted ECW to pay for a tarp to cover the turf so folding chairs wouldn't damage it, but ECW balked upon learning it would cost $5,000 to $10,000.

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* 18 years ago in 1997, the WWF ran a live Monday Night Raw from Des Moines, Iowa, which featured a major angle: The first mention of Kane. For months, Paul Bearer had been teasing that The Undertaker had a secret, which he used to blackmail 'Taker and become his manager again. When The Undertaker got fed up, Bearer revealed the secret: He worked as an apprentice for The Undertaker's parents in their funeral home as a young man and got to know both brothers. But The Undertaker set fire to the house and it killed everyone but him. The undertaker refuted this story, saying it was Kane who started the fire by playing with matches around chemicals.

This eventually built up to Bearer saying Kane was alive, Kane debuting to attack Undertaker during the first Hell in a Cell match, and so on. The backstory eventually got tremendously confusing, especially after The Undertaker turned heel and said that not only did he start the fire, but did so intentionally.

* 7 years ago in 2008, WWE had a live Monday Night Raw at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The big news coming out of the show was that CM Punk cashed in Money in the Bank for the first time, quickly defeating Edge to win the World Heavyweight Championship for the first time. Punk had just been drafted to the Raw brand, so after both world titles exclusive to SmackDown for a few days, he brought one back to Raw.

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The segment started with Edge bragging about beating Batista and making it so that Raw had no world title. So Batista came out and beat the ever loving hell out of him. It was so prolonged that as it kept going and going, it started to become clear that something else, probably Punk cashing in, was about to happen. And it did: Batista calmly walked away, Punk's music hit, he dashed past Batista in the aisle, handed over the briefcase, tried to rush Lillian Garcia through the introduction, and hit the Go To Sleep for the win. The crowd went nuts.

Next, he did an interview thanking everyone he could think of, including his best friend Chez...and JBL confronted him. Which led to a title match in the main event. This scared the daylights out Punk fans...but he won! And looked strong! That didn't last long, though, as he ended up being booked as a guy who always barely retained the title by the skin of his teeth even though he was a babyface. Then he lost the title in a match he wasn't in. Things got better, though..eventually.

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