This Day in Pro Wrestling History (August 27)

24 years ago today, WWF presented Summerslam (WWE Network link) from the Spectrum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 19,304 were in attendance with 508,000 watching on PPV. That's more than 100,000 down from the previous year.

• Power and Glory (Paul Roma and Hercules) defeated The Rockers (Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty).
• The Texas Tornado defeated Mr. Perfect to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship. Brutus Beefcake was originally scheduled to compete for the title, but was pulled out after a parasailing incident.
• Sensational Queen Sherri defeated Sapphire by forfeit.
• The Warlord defeated Tito Santana.
• The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart) defeated Demolition (Smash and Crush) two falls to one to win the WWF Tag Team Championship. In an interesting note, The Hart Foundation won one of the falls via disqualification. Usually, the titles do not change hands if one of the falls was decided by disqualification, but that was not the case here.
• Jake Roberts defeated Bad News Brown with special guest referee The Big Bossman.
• Nikolai Volkoff and Hacksaw Jim Duggan defeated The Orient Express (Tanaka and Sato).
• Randy Savage defeated Dusty Rhodes. Before the match, Ted DiBiase came out to announce that he had bought out Sapphire. Savage would surprisingly make quick work of Rhodes.
• Hulk Hogan defeated Earthquake.
• The Ultimate Warrior defeated Rick Rude in a Steel Cage Match to retain the WWF Championship.

20 years ago today in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Shane Douglas defeats 2 Cold Scorpio in the finals of a one-night tournament to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. The story wasn't what went down with the match or the tournament (which featured the ECW debuts of Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, and Osamu Nishimura). Post-match, Douglas, at the time the Eastern Championship Wrestling heavyweight champion, ran down the NWA and threw down its world title belt, and declared himself the ECW World Heavyweight Champion. NWA's Dennis Coraluzzo was in attendance at the show and was left in a state of confusion as ECW, which would change its name to Extreme Championship Wrestling in the days following the shocking actions, officially broke away from the NWA. In interviews since then, Paul Heyman admitted that he was one of only three men who knew what would go down that fateful day: himself, Douglas, and ECW commissioner Tod Gordon). In a side note, on the same show, Cactus Jack and Mikey Whipwreck defeated Public Enemy to win the ECW World Tag Team Championship.

19 years ago today, WWF presented Summerslam (WWE Network link) from the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. An arena record 18,062 were in attendance, with 220,000 watching on PPV. That's down 95,000 from the previous year and the second lowest viewership in the promotion's history (next year's event with just 145,000 buys is the low).

• Hakushi defeated The 1-2-3 Kid.
• Hunter Hearst Helmsley defeated Bob Holly.
• The Smokin' Gunns (Billy and Bart) defeated The Blu Brothers (Jacob and Eli).
• Barry Horowitz defeated Skip.
• Bertha Faye defeated Alundra Blayze to win the WWF Women's Championship.
• The Undertaker defeated Kama in a casket match.
• Bret Hart defeated Isaac Yankem by disqualification.
• Shawn Michaels defeated Razor Ramon in a ladder match to retain the WWF Intercontinental Championship.
• Diesel defeated King Mabel to retain the WWF Championship.

15 years ago today, ECW on TNN debuts. The first edition is a recap of ECW's history, highlighted by Rob Van Dam versus Jerry Lynn for the ECW World Television Championship. The show ran for fourteen months, ending in October 2000, about a month after the network got the rights to WWF programming.

14 years ago today, WWF presented Summerslam (WWE Network link) from the Entertainment and Sports Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina. 18,124 were in attendance, with 570,000 watching on PPV. That's down slightly from 1999's 600,000 buys. The show debuted the Double S logo, the logo that would be used for the event for much of the decade.

• Right to Censor (Steven Richards, Bull Buchanan and The Goodfather) defeated Too Cool (Scotty 2 Hotty, Grand Master Sexay, and Rikishi).
• X-Pac defeated Road Dogg.
• Eddie Guerrero and Chyna defeated Val Venis and Trish Stratus in a mixed tag team. Chyna won the WWF Intercontinental Championship.
• Tazz defeated Jerry "The King" Lawler.
• Steve Blackman defeated Shane McMahon to win the WWF Hardcore Championship.
• Chris Benoit defeated Chris Jericho in a 2-out-of-3-falls match.
• Edge and Christian defeated The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray Dudley and D-Von), and The Hardy Boyz (Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy) in a Tables, Ladders and Chairs match to win the WWF Tag Team Championship.
• The Kat defeated Terri Runnels in a Stinkface match.
• The Undertaker and Kane went to a no contest.
• The Rock defeated Triple H and Kurt Angle in a Triple Threat Match to retain the WWF Championship. Angle suffered a concussion and missed most of the match due to an announce table collapsing as Triple H went to Pedigree Angle.

13 years ago today on RAW is WAR from Grand Rapids, Michigan, The Hurricane defeated Matt Hardy to win the WWF European Championship.

9 years ago today in Buffalo, New York, Nigel McGuiness defeated Samoa Joe to win the ROH Pure Championship.

5 years ago today, Dixie Carter makes her television debut on TNA Impact. In her first interview, she announces TNA's new deal with Spike TV that would extend through 2012.

4 years ago today, Gertrude Elizabeth "Luna" Vachon was found dead at her home in Pasco County, Florida. She was 48. A second-generation wrestler born in Atlanta, her family and friend Andre the Giant at first were not too approving of her looking to get in the business, but around age 16, she began to train with her aunt Vivian Vachon, and later The Fabulous Moolah, for whom she would wrestle early in her professional career. She was part of a four-woman traveling troupe led by Mad Maxine. She debuted for Florida Championship Wrestling as Trudy Herd in 1985, but while giving an award to Kendall Windham, she would be knocked unconscious, then eventually assimilated into Sullivan's Army of Darkness as Luna Vachon. There, she got her trademark style (half-shaved Mohawk, facial paint, sneer). She would begin a long-standing rivalry with Madusa Miceli while in Florida. Over the next three years, she would wrestle for Powerful Women of Wrestling in the States, in Puerto Rico, and in Japan under the management of her father Butcher Vachon. She transitioned into managing in the early 1990s, seconding the Blackhearts. One half of the duo, David Heath, would be her future husband. After a stint in All-Japan Pro Wrestling and the Universal Wrestling Federation, she was discovered by the WWF in 1992, but would not debut until Wrestlemania IX in 1993 (true story: a private investigator was hired to find Luna-she was found working as a waitress). Luna would develop an on-screen relationship with Bam Bam Bigelow and developed a rivalry with Sensational Sherri then Doink. Luna would briefly feud with Madusa before leaving the company, but not before becoming the first woman to appear in a WWF game, WWF RAW in 1994. She would have brief stints in ECW and WCW before returning to the WWF in 1997 as Goldust's manager, feuding with Marc Mero and Sable (the latter feuding spilling to behind the scenes). Luna would chase Sable and the WWF Womens Championship in late 1998 and early 1999, but a backstage fight with Sable would get her suspended and a PPV bout cancelled. She would briefly again chase the Womens Championship later in the year against Ivory, but would ultimately be unsuccessful . She would briefly manage her husband Heath (then known as Gangrel) before being released in early 2000 following another fight. She would manage Gangrel on the independent circuit through 2007, a year after the couple divorced. She retired in December 2007 as Great Lakes Championship Wrestling Ladies Champion, having won the belt six months earlier. Post-retirement, she was honored with the Ladies Wrestling Award in April 2009 at the Cauliflower Alley Club reunion. She also took an interest with Canadian wrestlers, particularly Nattie Neidhart. Around Christmas 2009, Vachon's house was destroyed in a fire, prompting others to come to Luna's aid, including Mick Foley. Luna was found dead in her home with crushed pill residue and snorting straws, having died via accidental overdose of oxycodone and benzodiazepine. Just a year earlier, she underwent successful rehabilitation paid for by WWE. She is buried at the ranch once owned by Andre the Giant.