This Day in Wrestling History (Apr. 14): Daniel Bryan's Last Match

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

33 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.

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

23 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.

19 years ago today, WCW presented Monday Nitro (WWE Network link) 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.
• Dean Malenko defeated Hector Guerrero by submission to retain the WCW United States Championship.
• Rey Misterio, Jr. defeated Juventud Guerrera.
• Ultimo Dragon defeated Lenny Lane to retain the WCW World Television Championship.
• Syxx defeated Prince Iaukea by submission to retain the WCW Cruiserweight Championship.
• 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 Kevin Nash by disqualification.

12 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.

8 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.)

5 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 and still runs in many international markets.

5 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.

3 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.

1 year ago today at a Smackdown taping in London, England (WWE Network link), Daniel Bryan and John Cena defeated Cesaro and Tyson Kidd. It turns out to be Bryan's last professional wrestling match. Bryan was sent home from the European tour after he's diagnosed with a concussion following the taping. He's pulled from the tour as a precautionary measure, but after months of "will he, won't he", it turned out Bryan's cumulative injuries were enough for the four-time world champion to call it a career at age 34 this past February.

For the record, Bryan went out a winner, with a submission on Tyson Kidd.

1 year ago today, PWInsider reports that Taz missed a commentary session with Josh Matthews that was to correspond with the next few weeks of Impact tapings. The report cites Taz had issues with the company in terms of back pay. Soon after, all references to TNA were removed from his social media, leading to believe that he had left the company. The next day, Taz made it official: he left the company after six years. Today, he hosts a podcast, The Tazz Show: Bodyslams and Beyond. The podcast was recently picked up by CBS Sports Radio.