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July 15th
On this day in history in ....
1983 - Ric Flair defeats David Von Erich in a tournament final for the Missouri State Heavyweight Title in St. Louis, Missouri. Previous champion Harley Race had vacated the title when he won the NWA World Heavyweight Title, ironically, from Ric Flair on June 10th.
1986 - Outlaw Ron Bass defeats Kendall Windham for the Florida State Heavyweight Title in Tampa, Florida.
1991 - Jeff Jarrett & Robert Fuller defeat The Barroom Brawlers for the USWA World Tag Team Title in Memphis, Tennessee, starting their second title run.
1996 - Brickhouse Brown & Reggie B. Fine defeat Flex Kavana & Bart Sawyer for the USWA Tag Team Title, ending their second reign.
2002 - On a live edition of Raw, Eric Bischoff, former President of WCW, makes his WWE debut in the on-camera role of "General Manager" of Raw. After being introduced and embracing Vince McMahon, Bischoff talked about his success with WCW, and the long war between Raw and Nitro. He promised to bring the "E" into WWE. The manner in which he appeared was very close to the scenario that Vince Russo had laid out to Vince McMahon when the two men were discussing Russo's return to the company the previous month. McMahon was intrigued by Russo's idea at the time and all signs pointed to him running with it when he brought Russo in. Then, according to sources close to the situation, when the members of the creative team heard Russo's ideas, they reportedly went to Vince McMahon and talked him out of the program. In the interim, Russo (who had just returned to the company) was taken off the WWE creative team and was given a consultant role. Russo then left that job to go work for TNA. The idea obviously stuck with McMahon however, since they used it for Bischoff.
WWE.com later posted a story on Bischoff's arrival. The story stated that Bischoff was not backstage at Raw during the day and that everyone saw him for the first time as he debuted. He didn't get to the building until 8:45, spending a lot of time in a limo in the parking lot. When asked how the deal with WWE came about Bischoff said, "We've been talking unofficially through third parties for almost a year now. We've come close to doing something a couple of times, but for a variety of reasons it's just never worked out. About a month or two ago, we'd gotten a little bit more serious in our conversations, and I got a chance to talk directly to Vince (McMahon). I think we were able to break a lot of ice, just over the phone. Once we did that, it just seemed like it was much easier to move forward and get a deal done for sure. Really, this just came together within the last week or 10 days."
Bischoff's WWE on-camera role would last for well over two years, to the surprise of many, before ending on December 5, 2005 when Vince McMahon threw him into a garbage truck.
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