This Day in Wrestling History (April 14)

74 years ago today in Los Angeles, California, Ed "Strangler" Lewis defeated Ed Don George to win the World Heavyweight Championship.

32 years ago today, the Japan Pro Wrestling Alliance shuts down. This comes a few months after their two top stars, Giant Baba and Antonio Inoki left to form their own companies and took many of JWA's wrestlers with them. Those two companies, All Japan Pro Wrestling and New Japan Pro Wrestling respectively, still exist today.

26 years ago today, Jerry Lawler defeated Kerry Von Erich to win the WCWA Unified World Heavyweight Championship.

22 years ago today, WCW makes its debut in New York City at the Paramount Theater in Madison Square Garden.

• Johnny B. Badd defeated Tex Slazenger.
• Maxx Payne defeated Steven Regal.
• Chris Benoit and Ron Simmons fought to a double countout.
• Van Hammer defeated Vinnie Vegas.
• The Hollywood Blonds (Steve Austin and Brian Pillman) defeated Marcus Alexander Bagwell and 2 Cold Scorpio to retain the NWA/WCW World Tag Team Championship.
• Rick Rude defeated Cactus Jack.
• Dustin Rhodes defeated Paul Orndorff by disqualification to retain the WCW United States Championship.
• Barry Windham defeated Ricky Steamboat to retain the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.
• Sting defeated WCW World Heavyweight Champion Big Van Vader by disqualification in a WCW World Heavyweight Championship.

17 years ago today, WCW presented Monday Nitro from the CoreStates Spectrum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This was WCW's first ever event at the building, which was for many years home to WWF events. WWF events in Philadelphia moved to the new Corestates Center (today known as the Wells Fargo Center) in 1996.

• Chris Benoit defeated The Barbarian.
• WCW United States Heavyweight Champion Dean Malenko defeated Hector Guerrero by submission to retain the title.
• Rey Misterio, Jr. defeated Juventud Guerrera.
• WCW World Television Champion Ultimo Dragon defeated Lane Carlson (Lenny Lane) to retain the title.
• WCW Cruiserweight Champion Syxx defeated Prince Iaukea by submission to retain the title.
• Public Enemy (Johnny Grunge and Rocco Rock) defeated High Voltage (Kaos and Rage) in a street fight.
• The Giant defeated Big Al.
• Diamond Dallas Page defeated Konnan.
• Jeff Jarrett and Steve McMichael defeated Harlem Heat (Booker T and Stevie Ray) by disqualification.
• Lex Luger defeated WCW World Tag Team Champion Kevin Nash by disqualification.

11 years ago today at an NWA-TNA weekly PPV taping in Nashville, Apollo & D-Lo Brown defeated Kid Kash & Dallas by disqualification to win the NWA World Tag Team Championship. Under NWA-TNA rules at the time, championships could change hands on a disqualification if said disqualification was deemed to be intentional.

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7 years ago today on RAW from London, England, Mickie James defeated Beth Phoenix to win the WWE Womens Championship. Mickie became just the fourth person to hold the championship more than three times, joining Trish Stratus and Lita. (Technically, it's four if you count the Fabulous Moolah's championship runs separately; however, WWE does not.)

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6 years ago today, ESPN ran an E:60 feature on Vince McMahon and WWE. Next month, ESPN will run a one-hour special on WWE's developmental program, NXT.

4 years ago today, WWE Superstars moves to WWE.com after the show was dropped by WGN America after two years. Today, the show airs on WWE Network.

4 years ago today, Sami Callahan defeated AR Fox to win the 2011 CZW Best of the Best tournament.  Other participants were Drake Younger, Trent 7, MK McKinnan, Chuck Taylor, Johnny Garango, Samuray Del Sol, Lince Dorado, ACH, Alex Colon, Willie Mack, and Greg Excellent.

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2 years ago today, Fandango's theme "Cha La La" comes in at #44 on the UK singles charts. This is the first time a WWE song makes the UK chart since Hacksaw Jim Duggan's single in 1994. "Cha La La" missed the Top 40 by just 239 sales.

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Here's hoping she doesn't read it because I'm sure she doesn't want her age out there, but we at Cageside Seats will wish Amy Dumas, best known as Lita a happy 40^th birthday today anyway. After briefly working on the independent circuit, Mexico, and in ECW, Dumas made her WWF debut in 1999. She was initially paired with Essa Rios, but experienced her biggest success as one-third of Team Xtreme with the Hardy Boyz. She won the WWE Women's Championship four times (only Trish Stratus and Mickie James have more). Controversially, Dumas had an affair with Edge (Adam Copeland), and the love triangle was turned into a storyline. Amy retired in 2006 and formed her own band, The Luchagors. The group released an album in 2007. She's made sporadic appearances on the independent circuit since, but most of her wrestling appearances since her retirement has been with WWE. In 2014, Dumas was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame by her "bestie" Trish Stratus.