This Day in Wrestling History (Apr. 23): John and Shawn's All-Nighter

37 years ago today in Greensboro, North Carolina, Paul Jones & Ricky Steamboat defeated The Masked Superstar & Ken Patera to win the vacated NWA World Tag Team Championship.

28 years ago today in Greensboro, North Carolina, Sting & Lex Luger defated Tully Blanchard & Arn Anderson to win the Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup tag team tournament. This was the last time the tournament was done; later in the year, Turner Broadcasting would buy Jim Crockett Promotions, which would be rebranded as World Championship Wrestling.

26 years ago today in Austin, Texas, Mr. Perfect defeated Tito Santana to win the vacated WWF Intercontinental Championship. The title was vacated when The Ultimate Warrior won the WWF Championship at Wrestlemania VI.

12 years ago today, WWE through a press release reveals for the first time just exactly how much they bought WCW for back in 2001: $6.6 million. This was revealed through the company filing forms with the Securities and Exchange Commission for fiscal years 2003 and 2004 in relation to the acquisition of WCW in March 2001. The press release:

STAMFORD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--04/23/2004--World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWE) announced today that it has filed an amended Form 10-K for fiscal 2003 and amended Form 10-Qs for fiscal 2004 with the Securities and Exchange Commission to revise the accounting related to the March 2001 acquisition of certain assets of World Championship Wrestling, Inc. ("WCW"(TM)). These changes principally affect fiscal 2001 and 2002 as follows:

-- $6.6 million of costs, which were originally recorded and capitalized as intangible assets, are now recorded as $1.7 million and $4.9 million of selling, general and administrative expense in fiscal 2001 and 2002, respectively. These costs arose from the termination of certain WCW licenses and related agreement assumed in the transaction. 

-- The remaining $2.5 million of purchase price, which was originally assigned an indefinite life for accounting purposes, is now being amortized over a six-year period. This increases annual amortization expense by approximately $0.4 million in fiscal 2002 through 2007. 

-- There were no changes to revenue or costs of revenues in any of the periods. 

The company has also amended its fiscal 2004 quarterly financial statements to reflect the impact on the opening balance sheet, most significantly a $6.6 million decrease in its gross intangible assets, and additional amortization expense of approximately $0.3 million for the nine months ended January 23, 2004. 

The complete Forms 10-K/A and 10-Q/A are available on our Web site and have been filed with the SEC.

10 years ago today, PWInsider.com first reports that WWE would bring back the ECW brand and have began contacting former ECW to work for the brand. Among those contacted were The Sandman, Balls Mahoney, and Francine. No decision at the time was made on how the company would be brought back, though they were targeting a September return. ECW would return just two months after the news first broke, just two days after their second ECW One Night Stand PPV.

10 years ago today, TNA presented Lockdown from the Impact Zone at Universal Orlando. Per TNA tradition, every match on the show was conducted in a steel cage.

• Team Japan (Black Tiger IV, Minoru Tanaka and Hirooki Goto) defeated Team USA (Sonjay Dutt, Jay Lethal and Alex Shelley).
• Senshi defeated Christopher Daniels. Daniels' original opponent was Jushin "Thunder" Liger, but Liger backed out due to lack of steel cage match experience.
• Bob Armstrong defeated Konnan in an Arm Wrestling challenge.
• Chris Sabin defeated Elix Skipper, Petey Williams, Chase Stevens, Shark Boy and Puma in an Xscape match.
  • Williams pinned Shark Boy.
  • Skipper pinned Stevens.
  • Williams pinned Skipper.
  • Sabin pinned Puma.
  • Sabin escaped the cage to win the match.
• Samoa Joe defeated Sabu to retain the TNA X Division Championship.
• Team 3D (Brother Ray, Brother Devon and Brother Runt) defeated Team Canada (Bobby Roode, Eric Young and A-1) in an anthem match. The winning team got to sing their country's national anthem.
• Christian Cage defeated Abyss to retain the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.
• Sting's Warriors (Sting, A.J. Styles, Ron The Truth Killings and Rhino) defeated Jarrett's Army (Jeff Jarrett, Scott Steiner and America's Most Wanted (Chris Harris and James Storm) )via submission in a Lethal Lockdown match.

9 years ago today on RAW from London, England, Shawn Micheals defeated WWE Champion John Cena in a non-title match. The bout, going nearly an hour, was voted fourth best match of the year by Wrestling Observer Newsletter readers and was ranked in WWE.com lists in 2012 and 2014 as the greatest match in RAW history.

4 years ago today on RAW from Detroit, Michigan, Nikki Bella defeated Beth Phoenix in a lumberjill match to win the WWE Divas Championship. The win made the Bellas the first sisters to hold the Divas Championship (Brie won it just over a year prior).