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THIS DAY IN HISTORY: THE MONDAY NIGHT WARS BEGIN, 50 YEARS OF FUNK AND MORE

By Buck Woodward on 2008-09-11 08:00:00

September 11th

On this day in history in ....

1959
- Rey Mendoza (father of Los Villanos) defeats Dory Dixon for the EMLL NWA Light Heavyweight Title in Guadalajara, Mexico.

1967 - Fritz & Waldo Von Erich defeat Brute Bernard & Mike Paidousis to win the NWA American Tag Team Title in Fort Worth, Texas.

1973 - Professor Toru Tanaka & Mr. Fuji defeaed Tony Garea & Haystacks Calhoun for the WWWF World Tag Team Title in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, starting their second reign as champions.

1976 - Wahoo McDaniel defeats Ric Flair in Greenville, North Carolina to win the NWA Mid Atlantic Heavyweight Title, ending Flair's second reign with the belt and starting Wahoo's third run as champion. 

1995 - Brian Christopher defeats Billy Jack Haynes for the USWA Southern Heavyweight Title in Memphis, Tennessee, ending Haynes' second reign and starting Christopher's 18th run with the belt.

1995 - The Monday Night Wars officially begin, as WWF Monday Night Raw on USA Network and WCW Monday Nitro on TNT air on the same night for the first time (Nitro debuted the previous week, when Raw was preempted). Nitro scored the first win in the ratings, with a 2.5 to Raw's 2.2. Nitro featured the debut of Sabu (who lost to Alex Wright on a reverse decision when he put him through a table after beating him), Sting defeating V.K. Wallstreet (Mike Rotundo), Randy Savage defeating Scott Norton, and World Champion Hulk Hogan defeating Lex Luger (who jumped from WWF the previous week) via disqualification. Raw offered up Davey Boy Smith defeating Razor Ramon via disqualification, The Smoking Gunns defeating Brooklyn Brawler & Rad Radford (Louie Spicolli), Isaac Yankem (Kane) defeating Scott Taylor (Scotty 2 Hotty), and a main event of Shawn Michaels defeating Sid Vicious.

1997 - Tracy Smothers defeats Bull Pain in Louisville, Kentucky for the IWA Mid-South Heavyweight Title.

1997 - Wrestlefest - 50 Years Of Funk, a card put together by Terry Funk in Amarillo, Texas to celebrate fifty years of the Funk family wrestling in Texas, was held at the Amarillo Fairgrounds Coliseum, drawing almost 4,000 fans to see a show that combined ECW, WWF, Independent and Japanese talent. Here are the results of the show:
- Wing Kanemura defeated Roadkill.
- ECW World Television Champion Taz defeated Chris Candido.
- Shark Tsuchiya defeated Cooga.
- Mark & Chris Youngblood defeated The Bushwackers.
- Balls Mahoney defeated Bubba Ray Dudley.
- ECW World Heavyweight Champion Shane Douglas defeated Tommy Dreamer.
- Dory Funk Jr. defeated Rob Van Dam.
- Mankind defeated Sabu via disqualification.
- Hayabusa, Masato Tanaka & Hakushi defeated Jake Roberts & The Headhunters.
- WWF World Heavyweight Champion Bret Hart defeated Terry Funk. The special referee for the match was Dennis Stamp, who was the opponent in Bret Hart's debut match, which took place in the Funk's old Amarillo territory. Prior to the main event, Terry was presented with a title belt, proclaiming him "lifetime" ECW World Champion.

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