Today In Wrestling History 6/10: Steve Austin Walks Out, Hulk Hogan Does Damage Control, And More
* 32 years ago in 1983, Harley Race defeated Ric Flair in St. Louis, Missouri to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship for the seventh time, ending Flair's inaugural reign at the 476 day mark. This switch was done for two reasons: So Race set the new record for most title reigns, eclipsing Lou Thesz, and to help Jim Crockett Promotions build up Flair regaining the title on Thanksgiving night at the first annual Starrcade.
This set up a rematch a month or so later on Crockett's Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling TV show. Race had put a bounty out on Flair, and Dick Slater tried to cash it. Flair's good friend Bob Orton Jr. ran in to make the save, only to join in with Slater, who had been his tag team partner in other territories like Georgia and east Tennessee. They injured Flair's neck and set up a few months of storylines and matches leading into Starrcade. WWE's "Ultimate Ric Flair Collection" DVD set has a lot of the feud on it and it's great stuff.
* 20 years ago in 1995, the WWF ran a fairly mundane house show at Madison Square Garden. What makes it notable is that it was the beginning of the end of a house show experiment that had been going on for about a year. With the introduction of themed house show "tours" in 1994 like the WrestleMania Revenge Tour, they started to do things like run all three major arenas at the time in the New York market in one weekend. They had been advertising the same lineups for all three shows and it seemed to be a flop. This was the first tour where they still went to all three New York stops in one weekend but booked distinct cards for each arena. When they returned in November, they started to space the shows further apart on separate weekends.
* 13 years ago in 2002, Steve Austin walked out before a few hours before Monday Night Raw started due to disagreements over creative. Several days earlier, he had complained about the writing staff and overall creative direction on Byte This, WWE's internet talk show. Seemingly as "punishment," he was booked to lose to Brock Lesnar on Raw. Austin had absolutely no problem putting Lesnar over, but felt it made absolutely zero sense under the circumstances, a match on free TV with no advanced build that also happened to be part of a political hit on him. Lesnar was getting a gigantic immediate push to the top, so why not build to a big pay-per-view match? Unable to get through to anyone, he left.
Raw was hastily re-written with the brand split of Raw and SmackDown being blown up very early, or at least the storyline reason for it was. WWE had theoretically been split into different brands because Vince McMahon and "co-owner" Ric Flair couldn't get along, with the idea they could just be left to their own devices if they didn't have to deal with each other. On this Raw, they did a hotshot angle Vince vs. Flair in a no holds barred match for full control of the company, and Vince won. This led to the introduction of Eric Bischoff and Stephanie McMahon as general managers.
The following weekend saw the famous episode of WWE Confidential where Austin was accused of "taking his ball and going home." It's among the more public burials in wrestling history, but he returned after several months before retiring at 2003's WrestleMania.
* 10 years ago in 2005, Shane Douglas and Jeremy Borash promoted Hardcore Homecoming at the ECW Arena, which was, more or less, the unofficial TNA counterpart to WWE's ECW: One Night Stand two days later. Since a number of former ECW names were either in TNA or unlikely to be booked by WWE for other reasons, Douglas and Borash used the opportunity to run their own show.
Of the freelance talent, the big get for Hardcore Homecoming was Terry Funk, who both promotions tried to book. In addition to Funk, Joey Styles originally planned to just work this show, but he also accepted WWE's offer without much advance notice. Funk felt he wouldn't be able to deliver two matches during the weekend and made the decision to take this booking, where he was slated for a main event Three Way Dance against Sabu and Shane Douglas. A rematch of one of the most famous ECW matches, they made it a barbed wire match to have more tricks up their sleeves to hide whatever limitations came with age.
Live, this was said to have been an incredibly emotional event on par with One Night Stand or maybe even better. Unfortunately, it didn't translate to video. Whether WWE sent any preemptive legal threats or not is unclear, but the audio track of the DVD was heavily edited to the point that the constant "ECW" chants from the crowd were removed, making the show sound flat and lifeless.
* 7 years ago in 2008, Hulk Hogan appeared on Larry King Live to do damage control for comments he made when visiting his son Nick in jail. Specifically, there was a lot of outrage at their comments about John Graziano, Nick's friend who was in a permanent vegetative state due to the accident Nick caused. The most incendiary part featured Hogan and Nick agreeing that Graziano "was a negative person" in a way that sounded like they were blaming him. The other part that got the most attention was Hogan telling Nick that when he gets out of jail, they'll work with Eric Bischoff and Jason Hervey on a reality show called something like "The New Nick" designed to rehabilitate his image.
Hogan apologized, explaining that the audio was from a time where Nick was on the verge of a breakdown due to his conditions. For various reasons including his age (he was 17 going on 18 and sentenced as an adult) and celebrity, Nick was held in solitary confinement. For the same reasons it's a controversial punishment likened to torture even for hardened criminals, Nick was in a bad state and as his father, Hogan says he was grasping at straws for ways to console him.