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We at Cageside Seats extend our condolences to the family, friends, and many, many, many fans of Roderick George Toombs, best known as Roddy Piper. He passed away Friday at age 61. (photo via wwe.com)
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3 years ago today, Beth Phoenix wins a battle royal to earn a shot at the WWE Divas Championship at Summerslam. The story, however, is what happened during the match, and chances are, you may not have seen it in its original airing. At 16 seconds of the above video, Gail Kim eliminates herself from the match by going under the bottom rope. It turned out to be her final appearance in the WWE, as she announced on Twitter days later that she had quit the company. Kim tried to get released, but WWE would not budge, seeing she only had a couple of months left on her contract. Her contract expired September 30, and returned to TNA, where she had her biggest success, less than a month later.
2 year ago today, Tito Ortiz made his return to TNA as the infamous August 1 Warning. This, by the way, came at a time when TNA was in the midst of some serious budget cutting that saw over a dozen wrestlers released from the company. It turned out that the angle was mandated by Spike to promote an upcoming Bellator matchup between Ortiz and Quinton "Rampage" Jackson that would take place at their very first PPV...a fight that never took place because Ortiz got injured the week the fight. In a side note, shortly after Ortiz turned on the Main Event Mafia to join the Aces and 8s, both Ortiz and Jackson were pulled from TNA programming, making the whole #August1Warning...entirely pointless.
A happy 43rd birthday today to Devon Edgar Hughes, best known to wrestling fans as D-Von Dudley, but more recently known as Brother Devon. One half of the famous--and infamous--Dudley Boyz in ECW and WWE (later Team 3D in TNA), Hughes collected two dozen championships, most of them tag team titles across TNA, WWE, ECW, and New Japan Pro Wrestling. Last October, he and Mark Lomonaco, aka Bubba Ray Dudley (later Brother Ray, then Bully Ray) was inducted into the TNA Hall of Fame.
Happy 50th birthday to Michael Laauli Hayner, best known to wrestling fans as Prince Iaukea. Hayner was a two-time WCW cruiserweight champion and in 1997 won the WCW World Television Championship. Today, Hayner owns an independent promotion in American Samoa and New Zealand, and wrestles himself along with his son Nick for a few small independents in Florida.