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THIS DAY IN HISTORY: MISS ELIZABETH PASSES AWAY, JOEY STYLES QUITS RAW, TOMMY RICH'S NWA TITLE REIGN ENDS AND MORE

May 1st

On this day in history in ....

1981 - Harley Race defeats Tommy Rich for the NWA World Heavyweight Title in Gainesville, Georgia.  This ended Rich's reign after four days, and began Harley's sixth NWA title run.

1981 - Gene & Ole Anderson defeats Paul Jones & Masked Superstar for the NWA World Tag Team Title in Richmond, Virginia.  This would begin the eighth and final NWA World Tag Title run for Gene & Ole.

1984 - Tully Blanchard defeats Mark Youngblood for the NWA Television Title.  During Blanchard's reign, the belt was renamed the "NWA World Television Title". 

1993 - Brian Christopher defeats Jeff Jarrett for the USWA Southern Heavyweight Title in Memphis, Tennessee, starting his eighth run with the title while ending Jarrett's seventh.

1994 - Shinya Hashimoto defeats Tatsumi Fujinami for the IWGP Heavyweight Title at the Fukuoka Dome, ending Fujinami's fifth run with New Japan's top title, and starting his second.

1995 - Jerry Lawler defeats Razor Ramon for the USWA Unified Heavyweight Title, starting his 21st run with the belt, in Memphis, Tennessee.  On the same show, PG-12 defeats Brickhouse Brown & The Gambler for the USWA Tag Team Title.  This would begin JC Ice & Wolfie D's seventh run with the straps.

1998 - All Japan Pro Wrestling held the biggest show in the company's history, their first event at the Tokyo Dome (previously, All Japan had only run the Dome as part of joint promotions with other companies).  The show drew 58,000 fans, and here are the results.
- Satoru Asako defeated Yoshinobu Kanemura.
- Manukea Mossman (Tayyo Kea) defeated Daisuke Ikeda.
- Jumbo Tsuruta, Rusher Kimura & Mitsuo Momota defeated Masa Fuchi, Haruka Eigan & Tsuyoshi Kikichi.
- The Headhunters defeated Tamon Honda & Shigeo Okumura.
- Johnny Smith & Wolf Hawkfield (Jim Steele) defeated Gedo & Jado.
- Akira Taue, Takao Omori & Masao Inoue defeated Mike Awesome, Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Hideki Hosaka.
- Steve Williams & Gary Albright defeated Masahito Kakihara & Yoshihiro Takayama.
- Giant Baba, Kentaro Shiga & Hayabusa defeated Hakushi, Jun Izumida & Giant Kamala II.
- Jun Akiyama defeated Hiroshi Hase.
- Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace defeated Vader & Stan Hansen.
- Toshiaki Kawada defeated Mitsuharu Misawa to win the All Japan Triple Crown.

1998 - Booker T defeats Chris Benoit for the WCW World Television Title in Greenville, South Carolina, beginning his third title reign.

2003 - Elizabeth Hulette, known in wrestling as Miss Elizabeth, died at the age of 42.  Elizabeth had been mixing alcohol and painkillers, then began to choke while eating food in the early morning hours of May 1st at the home of Larry Pfohl (Lex Luger).  The Marietta Daily Journal reported she had an alcohol level of 0.29 along with a mix of painkillers, nausea medication and tranquilizers in her system.  The 0.29 level is more than three times the driving alcohol limit in Georgia.  Her death was ruled an "accidental overdose".  During the investigation of her death, controlled substances were found in Pfohl's home.  He was arrested and charged with 13 felony counts of possession of a controlled substance and a misdemeanor count of distribution of dangerous drugs.

2006 - WWE Raw was highlighted by a "shoot style" promo from Joey Styles in which he, in storyline, quit the company.  This was done are part of the push by WWE to launch an ECW brand.  Thanks to Paul LaPorte for doing the following write-up of the promo.

Events leading up to the promo:

The GMs for the evening, the Spirit Squad, called Joey into their office(?) to tell him that if he didn't do a good job of commentary on the title match they would make him wear a cheerleader outfit. Joey then came back out to King mocking Joey and the fact that he may be a cheerleader next week. He was telling Joey to "have spirit" and noted that if this was ECW he'd have spirit, to which Joey replied "If this was ECW, I wouldn't be working with a hack, like you." This led to Joey shoving Lawler a few times, which Lawler liked (he was showing "spirit") then Joey slapped him in the face, which led to King shoving him to the floor and Joey running off to the back.

After the break King apologized to Joey and asked him to come back out and finish out the show. Joey came back out and said the following:

"You want to apologize? Like nothing happened. Like you didn't knock me on my ass in front of millions of people worldwide, and I'm going to come down there and work with you. I'm not coming back, and now thanks to the magic of live television I'm going to show the whole world, why for seven years in ECW I was the unscripted, uncensored, loose cannon of commentary.

Six months ago, WWE called me, I didn't call this company because I was looking for a job. I didn't need a job. WWE called me because they had humiliated and fired...again, Jim Ross. So I get JR's spot, and from week one, week after week I've got an ongoing lecture about the differences in professional wrestling and sports entertainment. I'm not allowed to say 'pro wrestling', I'm not allowed to say 'wrestler'. I have to say 'sports entertainment' and refer to the wrestlers as 'superstars'.  I'm told to deliberately ignore the moves and the holds during the matches so I can tell stories. Well ignoring the moves and the holds is damn insulting to the athletes, the 'wrestlers', not the entertainers who leave their families three hundred days a year to ply their craft in that ring.

Here's the best part, because I'm not a sports entertainment storyteller I get pulled from Wrestlemania, and the reason I'm given is, is because I don't sound like Jim Ross, who's the guy they fired in the first place. That makes sense, right?

So I swallow the bitter pill, I'm a company guy. I get bumped from Wrestlemania. Then I get bumped from Backlash? I'm not good enough to call Backlash!? In ECW, I called live pay-per-views on my own, solo, no color commentators dragging me down. Wasn't done before me, hasn't been done since. But I'm not good enough to call Backlash because I'm not a sports entertainment storyteller.

Well you know what? I am sick of sports entertainment. I am sick of male cheerleaders. I am sick of boogers and bathroom humor and semen and I am sick of our chairman. Who likes to talk about his own semen, he mocks God... he mocks God!  And makes out with the Divas, all to feed his own insatiable ego. I am sick of sports entertainment, and most of all I am sick of you fans who actually buy into that crap! This sports entertainment circus! I never needed this job, and I don't want this job anymore."

[At this point Joey pulls the WWE collar off the microphone and tosses it away.]

"I quit!"

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