MARCH 15
1991
Steve Austin faced Gary Young in a *** Coal Miner’s Glove match on a USWA show at the Dallas Sportatorium.
1992
WWF Wrestling Challenge included an excellent segment with Roddy Piper and Bret Hart to set up their Wrestlemania VIII match. Piper was tremendous, telling Bret that they should shake hands now because they would hate each other from there on. At the end of the interview, Piper teases an attack on Bret, who turns around in just the nick of time. Piper calmly tells him he would have had him and walked away.
1993
WWF Monday Night RAW aired live from Poughkeepsie, NY. The planned card was thrown up in the air because of a blizzard and many wrestlers were unable to appear on the show. As a result, the improvised main event was a match between the Nasty Boys and The Headshrinkers which evolved into a food fight. The show did a 2.9 rating, and you can watch it on the WWE Network.
1998
WCW Uncensored aired live on pay-per-view from Mobile, AL, in front of an announced sellout of 7,474 fans. In the main event, Hulk Hogan faced Randy Savage in a cage match that was one of the worst pay-per-view main events of all time, which was only aggravated by a terrible finish and shoddy camerawork that made it difficult to follow the action. Also on the show, Sting defended the WCW World Title against Scott Hall. The most memorable matches and moments happened on the undercard, as Diamond Dallas Page defended the U.S. Title against Chris Benoit and Raven in one of WCW’s first triple threat matches. Chris Jericho also successfully defended the WCW Cruiserweight Title against Dean Malenko. Post-match, Gene Okerlund harassed Malenko about a string of recent losses and said he was simply “going home”, which led to a two-month absence. The show did just shy of 400,000 buys, and you can watch it on the WWE Network.
1999
WWF Monday Night RAW aired live from San Jose, CA, in front of a sellout 13,146 fans. The main event was a star-studded one, as Steve Austin teamed with Mankind to face The Rock and Big Show (who at the time was simply billed by his real name, Paul Wight), which hyped the top two matches at WrestleMania XV. Also on the show, Road Dogg defeated Val Venis to win the Intercontinental title (you will be thrilled to know that Road Dogg did indeed call himself the INTERCONTINENTAL CHAMPION OF THE WORLD after the match) while Billy Gunn defeated Al Snow to win the Hardcore Title. The title changes were a surprise, as Road Dogg had been booked in the Hardcore Title picture for months while Billy Gunn was chasing the Intercontinental title. Other events on the show included The Undertaker’s Ministry of Darkness camping out at Vince McMahon’s home waiting for “her” and Sable and Jerry Lawler visiting the Playboy Mansion. The show did a 5.8 rating.
WCW Monday Nitro aired live from Cincinnati, OH. Nitro countered RAW with a star-studded tag team main event of their own, as Hulk Hogan and Kevin Nash faced Goldberg and Ric Flair. The segment earlier in the show to set up the match was the closest WCW had come to beating the WWF in a quarter hour in months. The in-ring highlight of the show saw Rey Misterio Jr. defeat Billy Kidman to win the WCW Cruiserweight Title in a **** match. Also on the show, Disco Inferno did a memorable parody of Konnan’s music video. The show did a 4.3 rating.
In The “To Watch” Queue:
Jushin Liger & Hiroshi Hase vs Hiro Saito & Norio Honaga (NJPW 03/15/90)
Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs Yumiko Hotta & Suzuka Minami (AJW 03/15/92)
