This Day in Wrestling History (Nov. 9): EVOLVE

60 years ago today in St. Louis, Missouri, Lou Thesz defeated Whipper Billy Watson to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.

41 years ago today in Greensboro, North Carolina, Terry Funk defeated Paul Jones to win the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship.

The championship was vacated following an October 4 plane crash that killed pilot Joseph Farkus and injured Ric Flair, David Crockett, Bob Bruggers, Tim Woods, and then-United States Champion Johnny Valentine.

17 years ago today at a Smackdown taping in Baltimore, Maryland (WWE Network link), Arnold Schwarzenegger guest stars to promote his new movie End of Days. Along with some usual hobnobbing with wrestlers, Vince McMahon presents the future Governator with a honorary WWF Championship belt and gets involved in the main event, pimpslapping then-WWF Champion Triple H back to the New Generation era.

Schwarzenegger was inducted into the celebrity wing of the WWE Hall of Fame in 2015, and is a playable character in WWE 2K16 both in his human and Terminator forms.

14 years ago today, Ring of Honor presented All-Star Extravaganza from the Murphy Recreation Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

• The SAT (Jose & Joel Maximo) defeated Da Hit Squad (Mafia & Monsta Mack), Divine Storm (Chris Divine & Quiet Storm), and Special K (Dixie & Joey Matthews) in a Tag Team Scramble match.
• Bryan Danielson defeated The Amazing Red, CM Punk, Michael Shane and Paul London in a gauntlet match.
• The Prophecy (Christopher Daniels, Donovan Morgan, and Samoa Joe) defeated Low Ki, Doug Williams, and Homicide to retain the ROH Tag Team Championship.
• Alexis Laree defeated Allison Danger.
• The Carnage Crew (HC Loc & Tony DeVito) defeated The Ring Crew Express (Dunn, Marcos, and the ring crew) in a Bunkhouse Brawl.
• Xavier defeated Jay Briscoe to retain the ROH Championship.
• AJ Styles defeated Bryan Danielson to win the Number One Contender's Trophy.
• Shinjiro Otani & Masato Tanaka defeated Low Ki & Steve Corino.

8 years ago today, TNA presented Turning Point from the Impact Zone at Universal Orlando.

• Eric Young last eliminated Jay Lethal to win a ten-man X Division rankings match. Other participants in order of elimination were Sonjay Dutt, Volador, Jimmy Rave, Homicide, Consequences Creed, Petey Williams, Hiroshi Tanahashi, and Doug Williams.
• Roxxi & Taylor Wilde defeated Awesome Kong & Raisha Saeed.
• Rhino defeated Sheik Abdul Bashir.
• Beer Money Inc. (James Storm & Robert Roode) defeated The Motor City Machine Guns (Alex Shelley & Chris Sabin) to retain the TNA World Tag Team Championship.
• Booker T defeated Christian Cage to retain the TNA Legends Championship.
• Kurt Angle defeated Abyss in a Falls Count Anywhere match.
• Kevin Nash defeated Samoa Joe.
• Sting defeated AJ Styles to retain the TNA World Heavyweight Championship.

7 years ago today, Gabe Sapolsky, Davey Richards, and Sal Hamoui announce the launch of EVOLVE Wrestling.

Richards would leave the project just two months later when he re-signs with Ring of Honor; however, he would wrestle in the company’s first main event when he took on Kota Ibushi.

EVOLVE still exists today as the premier promotion on the WWNLive Network. In 2015, the promotion formed a relationship with WWE, allowing their talent to be scouted for WWE’s developmental property, NXT. Earlier this year, the promotion held qualifying matches for the Cruiserweight Classic.

Last month, WWNLive entered into an agreement with FloSports to stream events from the WWNLive family, including EVOLVE.

7 years ago today on RAW from Sheffield, England (WWE Network link), former boxing welterweight champion Ricky Hatton defeated Chavo Guerrero by knockout in a boxer versus wrestler match.

3 years ago today, New Japan Pro Wrestling presented Power Struggle from the Bodymaker Colosseum in Osaka, Japan.

• In a preshow dark match, Chaos (Alex Koslov, Rocky Romero, Yoshi-Hashi and Yujiro Takahashi) defeated Bushi, Captain New Japan, Kushida and Manabu Nakanishi.
• The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson) defeated Suzuki-gun (Taichi and Taka Michinoku) to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship.
• Katsuyori Shibata defeated Tomoaki Honma.
• Kazushi Sakuraba and Yuji Nagata defeated Crazy Ichizoku (Takashi Iizuka and Toru Yano).
• The IronGodz (Jax Dane and Rob Conway) defeated K.E.S. (Davey Boy Smith and Lance Archer) and Tencozy (Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima) in a three-team tornado tag team match to win the NWA World Tag Team Championship.
• KES defeated Tencozy and the IronGodz in a three-team tornado tag team match to win the IWGP Tag Team Championship.
• Kota Ibushi and Togi Makabe defeated Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale and Prince Devitt).
• Tetsuya Naito defeated Masato Tanaka to retain the NEVER Openweight Championship and the right to challenge for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship at Wrestle Kingdom 8.
• Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Minoru Suzuki to retain the IWGP Intercontinental Championship.
• Kazuchika Okada defeated Karl Anderson to retain the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.

It’s a happy 57th birthday to Joseph Nicholas Patrick Hamilton, Jr., but he is best known to wrestling fans as Nick Patrick.

Born in Lakeland, Florida, Hamilton is the son of wrestling legend Jody Hamilton, aka The Assassin. He wanted to be a wrestler, but he suffered a career ending injury early into his wrestling career. He didn’t want to give up wrestling because he loved it so much, so he tried refereeing instead. He took on the name Nick Patrick (his two middle names) so he could make a name for himself without his father’s help.

Nick began refereeing for Georgia Championship Wrestling in 1980. He moved to Jim Crockett Promotions and was retained when the promotion became World Championship Wrestling.

In 1996, Patrick became the official referee for the New World Order; he allowed members of the faction to cheat and heavily favored them in matches. In January 1997, Patrick refereed the entire card for nWo Souled Out.

His association with the group came to an end at Spring Stampede when Kevin Nash repeatedly performed the Snake Eyes maneuver on Rick Steiner. Patrick along with another nWo associate, Ted DiBiase, attempted to stop Nash; when Kevin refused, DiBiase and Patrick went to get help. In the show’s main event, Patrick counted a proper pin for Diamond Dallas Page over nWo member Randy Savage. Nash attack Patrick afterwards, essentially kicking him out of the nWo. After pleading his case on Nitro two weeks later, Nick Patrick was rehired to WCW on a probationary basis.

Patrick’s most controversial moment came during the main event of Starrcade 1997. He was to make a “fast count” in favor of Hollywood Hogan over Sting, but he counted normally. It has been suggested that this was done on purpose as Hogan had creative control over anything he was involved in. Another possibility was that Patrick was the backup plan and that WCW tried to get Earl Hebner. In any event, Bret Hart (who had refereed a match earlier on in the show), declared a restart with Sting winning. The title was declared vacant following a rematch, and remained so until SuperBrawl VIII in February 1998. Sting would win the match, and it was Nick Patrick that counted the fall.

Nick was brought over to the WWF following the purchase of WCW. Patrick was one of three WCW referees that had their contracts purchased (the other two were Charles Robinson and Billy Silverman). He became a heel referee, siding with members of the WCW-ECW Alliance against the WWF. Patrick even wrestled, losing to fellow referee Earl Hebner at Invasion. His heel refereeing continued for sometime even following the end of the Invasion era, but he would revert to being a neutral referee following Wrestlemania X-8.

Patrick would be Smackdown’s senior referee following the first brand extension in 2002, and would remain at the post until February 2007 when he left to officiate for Florida Championship Wrestling. He returned to Smackdown exactly one year later, refereeing a tag team match. He would soon leave again due to a chronic back injury. Nick was released in August 2008.

Patrick temporarily retired, but returned in February 2009 for independent promotion Rampage Pro Wrestling. He would soon become the director of their weekly TV show, replacing his father Jody Hamilton. Late in the year, he would take over the company’s booking duties with his father. The promotion temporarily closed in June 2010 after some internal disputes. The disputes were eventually settled, but both Patrick and Hamilton were given their walking papers.

Though he occasionally referees for independents in Georgia, Nick is considered retired from the wrestling business.

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2015: WWE title tournament bracket revealed (Ahead of that evening’s RAW in the United Kingdom, WWE’s championship tournament bracket is spoiled)

2014: Roman Reigns' entrance through the crowd could soon be a thing of the past (In an interview with Giant Bomb, Roman teases that he’s got something cooler in mind replacing the “through the crowd” entrance. SPOILER: It was not cooler.)

2013: Edge has the best response to Triple H yet (In an interview with WWE.com, Edge responds to comments made by Triple H on RAW that long-haired guys like he, Chris Jericho, and Rob Van Dam weren’t ‘the guy’)

2012: Linda McMahon's attempted babyface turn hurt by campaign manager Corry Bliss's action (Linda McMahon talks nice about her defeat in the Connecticut Senatorial election; her campaign manager does not play nice)

2011: Video: John Cena cuts another promo on The Rock at WWE house show in Newcastle (John Cena goes on his weekly “he’s here, The Rock’s not” promo tirade)

2010: [Spoilers] - TNA unveils new personalised World title belt at last night's Impact tapings (Jeff Hardy gets his own world title belt. Looks like this)