This Day in Wrestling History (February 25)

Today's This Day in Wrestling History will be presented in two parts. The second part will focus solely on the birthday of a legend.

25 years ago today, NWA in association with WCW presented Wrestlewar '90: Wild Thing from the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, North Carolina. 9,894 were in attendance with 170,000 homes watching on PPV. That's up from 120,000 for the 1989 event.

• Kevin Sullivan and Buzz Sawyer defeated The Dynamic Dudes (Shane Douglas and Johnny Ace).
• Norman the Lunatic defeated Cactus Jack.
• The Rock 'n' Roll Express (Ricky Morton and Robert Gibson) defeated The Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton and Stan Lane).
• The Road Warriors (Hawk and Animal) defeated The Skyscrapers (Mark Callous and The Masked Skyscraper) in a Chicago Street Fight.
• Brian Pillman and Tom Zenk defeated The Freebirds (Jimmy Garvin and Michael Hayes) to retain the NWA United States Tag Team Championship.
• The Steiner Brothers (Rick and Scott) defeated Arn Anderson and Ole Anderson to retain the NWA World Tag Team Championship.
• Ric Flair defeated Lex Luger by count-out to retain the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.

20 years ago today, ECW presented Return of the Funker from the ECW Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The show's hook: you guessed it, the return of Terry Funk after he'd been gone from the company for the past five months.

• The Pitbulls (Pitbull #1 & Pitbull #2) defeat Chad Austin & Joel Hartgood.
• Jason Knight & Paul Lauria defeat Hack Myers & Mikey Whipwreck.
• Too Cold Scorpio defeats Hector Guerrero.
• Axl Rotten defeats Ian Rotten.
• Shane Douglas defeats Marty Jannetty to retain the ECW World Championship.
• Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko defeat Sabu & The Tazmaniac to win the ECW World Tag Team Championship.
• Cactus Jack defeats DC Drake. Post-match, Cactus and Sandman get into a brawl. Sandman gets knocked into a large box. Cactus pulls Sandman out of the box...or so he thought. He pulled out Terry Funk in Sandman gear. The three men brawl, then Tommy Dreamer comes in. Funk and Dreamer have a staredown, but gets beaten down by Sandman. Then Shane Douglas joins in. Woman tries to convince him to join Funk and Sandman in beating down Dreamer and Cactus, but Douglas ends up running off Funk and Sandman and helps Cactus. It turns out the two trained together when they first broke into the business. The angle is forever immortalized in wrestling lore as "Funk in a Box".

14 years ago today, WWF presented No Way Out from the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. 15,223 were in attendance with 590,000 homes watching on PPV.

• In a Sunday Night Heat preshow match, Rikishi defeated Matt Hardy by disqualification.
• The Big Show defeated Raven to win the WWF Hardcore Championship.
• Chris Jericho defeated Chris Benoit, Eddie Guerrero, and X-Pac in a fatal four way match to retain the WWF Intercontinental Championship.
• Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley defeated Trish Stratus.
• Triple H defeated Steve Austin 2-1 in a Three Stages of Hell match. Austin won the standard match, Triple H won the street fight to tie it, and Triple H landed on top of Austin to win the steel cage match.
• Steven Richards defeated Jerry Lawler. With the loss, The Kat was forced to join Right to Censor. The angle never played out, as The Kat-and Lawler-quit the WWF the next day.
• The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray and D-Von) defeated Edge and Christian and The Brothers of Destruction (Kane and The Undertaker) in a triple threat tables match to retain the WWF Tag Team Championship.
• The Rock defeated Kurt Angle to win the WWF Championship. The win made The Rock the first six-time WWF Champion in company history.