This Day in Wrestling History (Apr. 28): Steve Austin Retires

21 years ago today, WCW and New Japan co-presented the two-day event Collision in Korea from May Day Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea. About 150,000 were in attendance for the event, the largest for a professional wrestling event ever. The record stood for all of one day, as 190,000 were in attendance for the second day.

The actual combined attendance is disputed; wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer contends only 160,000 total were in attendance for the two days, still making it the largest attendance for a wrestling event ever. Portions of the two-day event were broadcast on PPV later that summer. The event is not available for streaming on WWE Network.

April 28

• Yuji Nagata defeated Tokimitsu Ishizawa by submission.
• Bull Nakano and Akira Hokuto defeated Manami Toyota and Mariko Yoshida.
• Hiroshi Hase defeated Wild Pegasus.
• Masahiro Chono and Hiro Saito defeated El Samurai and Tadao Yasuda.
• 2 Cold Scorpio defeated Shinjiro Ohtani via referee stoppage due to excessive blood loss.
• Kensuke Sasaki pinned Masa Saito.
• Shinya Hashimoto fought Scott Norton to a 20-minute time limit draw for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.

April 29

• Hiro Saito pinned Yuji Nagata.
• CMLL Women's Champion Akira Hokuto defeated Bull Nakano.
• Black Cat defeatd El Samurai.
• Wild Pegasus defeated 2 Cold Scorpio.
• Masahiro Chono & Scott Norton defeated Takayuki Iizuka & Akira Nogami.
• Road Warrior Hawk defeated Tadao Yasuda.
• The Steiner Brothers (Rick and Scott) defeated Hiroshi Hase and Kensuke Sasaki.
• Antonio Inoki defeated Ric Flair.

20 years ago today, WWF presented In Your House 7: Good Friends, Better Enemies (WWE Network link) from the Civic Auditorium in Omaha, Nebraska. 5,500 were in attendance, with 210,000 homes watching on PPV. That's down from 340,000 homes for the late April 1995 event, the first In Your House.

The event is noted for being the last televised event for Scott Hall and Kevin Nash before leaving for WCW. Both men would not return to the company until 2002.

• In a preshow Free for All match, Marc Mero defeated The 1-2-3 Kid.
• Owen Hart & The British Bulldog defeated Ahmed Johnson & Jake Roberts.
• The Ultimate Warrior defeated Goldust by countout in a WWF Intercontinental Championship match.
• Vader defeated Razor Ramon.
• The Body Donnas (Skip & Zip) defeated The Godwinns (Henry O. Godwinn & Phineas I. Godwinn) to retain the WWF Tag Team Championship.
• Shawn Michaels defeated Diesel in a no holds barred match to retain the WWF Championship.
• In a post-show dark match, Savio Vega defeated Steve Austin.
• In a post-show dark match, Hunter Hearst Helmsley defeated Marc Mero.
• In a post-show dark match, The Undertaker defeated Mankind.

28/4/97 Rocky Maivia vs. Owen Hart by nawabrocks

19 years ago today on RAW is WAR from Omaha, Nebraska (WWE Network link), Owen Hart defeated Rocky Maivia to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship.

14 years ago today, Aloysius Martin Thesz, born Lajos Tiza, best known to wrestling fans as Lou Thesz, dies of complications from triple bypass surgery in a hospital in Orlando, Florida. He was 86.

Born April 24, 1916 in Banat, Michigan, Thesz moved to St. Louis as a young boy. His working class father instilled the foundation of Greco-Roman wrestling from a young age; it would not take long for Thesz to parlay that success. He had prominent success on his high school wrestling team and trained with Ad Santel. He made his professional debut in 1932 at just age 16. He would soon cross paths with Ed "Strangler" Lewis, the premier wrestler of the 1920s, and would learn the art of hooking (stretching an opponent in painful holds). The two would form a lasting friendship.

In late December 1937, Thesz, one of the biggest wrestling stars in the St. Louis territory, would win the National Wrestling Association World Heavyweight Championship from Everett Marshall. At 21, he became the youngest world champion ever. He would hold the title two more times, in 1939, and again in 1948.

It was in 1948 where Thesz was to meet Orville Brown to crown the first champion of the National Wrestling Alliance. Just weeks before the match, however, Brown was involved in a career-ending automobile accident. The championship would be awarded to Thesz as a result. Over the next few years, Thesz would unify other world championships, and by 1952, he was recognized as the undisputed world heavyweight champion. Thesz would finally lose the title in 1956 to Whipper Billy Watson. During this period, he won over 900 consecutive matches.

In 1957, Thesz would forfeit the title due to injury to Edouard Carpentier. The NWA did not recognize Carpentier as champion, though some promotions did. In the same year, Thesz defended the NWA world title against Rikidozan in Japan, often going to one-hour draws. Their series of matches popularized professional wrestling in Japan. Thesz would finally drop the championship to Dick Hutton in late 1957. He would then embark on a tour of Europe and Japan, billing himself as the NWA International Champion; the title still exists today as a part of All Japan Pro Wrestling's Triple Crown Heavyweight Championship.

Thesz would win a fifth world championship in 1963 when he defeated longtime rival Buddy Rogers. Thesz was 46 at the time. He held the title for three years before dropping it to Gene Kinski. Lou would wrestle part time for over a decade, winning his last major championship in 1978, the Universal Wrestling Alliance Heavyweight Championship. He would drop it about a year later to El Canek. Thesz retired in 1979 after a bout with Luke Graham.

Over the next decade, he would referee some of the most famous matches in wrestling, including Ric Flair vs. Dusty Rhodes for the NWA world title in 1981 and Big Van Vader vs. Shinya Hashimoto for the IWGP heavyweight title in 1989. As it usually goes in wrestling, retirements don't stick; he finally called it a career in December 1990 at age 74. His final opponent: one of his protégés, Masahiro Chono.

Post-retirement, he wrote an autobiography, Hooker in 1995, became president of the Cauliflower Alley Club, an organization for retired pro wrestlers, and a trainer for Union of Wrestling Force International (UWF-I). He also dabbled in announcing, doing color commentary for World Class Championship Wrestling. In 1999, Thesz got a professional wrestling hall of fame named after him along with George Tragos in Newton, Iowa, a suburb of Des Moines.

Until his last illness, Thesz worked out three or four times a week near his home. At the time of his death, he was survived by his wife, Charlie, three sons, three sisters, and ten grandchildren.

13 years ago today, Steve Austin makes it official in an interview with WWE.com: he's retired from in-ring performing. Austin in the interview, where he also spoke publicly about why he left WWE the previous summer:

"In this business, I've learned never say never....But I would say probably 99.9 percent out of 100 that you'll never see Rock and Stone Cold in the ring again.....I'm not wrestling anymore. That was my last match...

"I've got some serious problems in my neck. It's too long and too complicated to discuss. But a lot of the reasons I walked out of this company seven or eight months ago were things I didn't want to talk about at the time because we had WrestleMania coming up. The biggest reason I walked away was because my health is going downhill so badly, and I can't compete at an acceptable level to me, and at a risk factor that's high enough to me. Everything I do in that ring is very dangerous and makes me go even further downhill. It's potentially something where I could end up being a quadriplegic. That was the biggest reason I walked out. The creative and the political issues were just icing on the cake -- the straw that broke the camel's back...

"I refuse to go out there anymore, perform at a substandard level and have people judge me on what I'm putting out right now. I had a hell of a run. I'm completely satisfied with it."

Though Austin has teased a return to the ring on multiple occasions, the 2009 WWE Hall of Famer has stayed retired.

Steve Austin Is The Co-GM by KazDaGr81

On the same night, Austin returns to WWE as co-general manager of RAW after being "fired" the night after Wrestlemania XIX on "medical grounds".

10 years ago today, Viacom Networks pick up two series: Wrestling Society X, primarily featuring talent out of West Coast independent Pro Wrestling Guerilla, and Hogan Knows Best for a third season.

Wrestling Society X, airing on MTV, was cancelled after just four episodes, with the most of the remainder of the series burned off in a marathon a few weeks after cancellation. Hogan Knows Best, airing on sister channel VH1, would halt production just over a year later following Nick Hogan's accident and Hulk and Linda's divorce. The series was officially cancelled in January 2008. Hogan Knows Best would be spun off with daughter Brooke starring in Brooke Knows Best, which aired for two seasons before getting the axe.

8 years ago today, RAW ends early due to general manager William Regal pulling the plug on a WWE Championship match between Randy Orton and Triple H. If you're wondering, the live crowd didn't get a conclusion either.

6 years ago today, Lisa Marie Varon, aka Tara (but is best known as Victoria from her WWE days), announces via MySpace she was leaving the company. Her statement:

"It appears that I'm winding down at TNA. Unfortunately some organizations "leak" information to wrestling websites to put their spin on a situation, to make sure they come out in the best light. Not me. I'm gonna say it. I'm gonna put my name on it. And I'm going to stand behind it.

I came to TNA last year because I still had a lot of wrestling left in me. I was paid a fraction of what I thought I deserved. But I wanted to show I was still at the top of my game. Now my contract is up in May. I want a modest pay increase. They don't want to pay me what I think is fair. I have no problem going my own way.

But about 12 hours after the conversation where we didn't agree on pay, unnamed sources claim that I am hard to work with and that I don't give my best effort. My only response is that TNA made an aggressive effort to re-sign me, among other things saying that they want to build the women's division around me. And I think wrestling fans see, both on TV and at live events, that I always give 100%. I take pride in that. Smearing me on the way out the door is an act of second rate character.

I take pride in making my best effort to elevate my own wrestling and the entire TNA Women's Division. If people were rubbed the wrong way in the process, I stand behind my work and my positive intentions.

In closing I will say this. In the few weeks that I have left in TNA, I will be the same wrestler that you have seen for the past ten years. After that, I haven't decided if I will stay in wrestling, or finally make the jump to MMA. I do have a lot of irons in the fire. We'll see where life takes me. But wherever that is, there's gonna be competition, and I'm gonna give it my all."

She was written off following Sacrifice a few weeks later. But Lisa would be back about two months later and would remain with the company until July 2013.

4 years ago today, Extreme Rising presents its debut show, Extreme Reunion from the Pennsylvania National Guard Armory in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Essentially presented as an ECW reboot, the show was, in a nutshell, a trainwreck. Terry Brunk, aka Sabu, and PJ Polaco, aka Justin Credible, were both removed from the show as neither man were in condition to perform. Read Keith Harris' review of the event here.

Just how bad was this show? It finished ahead of all other wrestling events for Wrestling Observer Newsletter's Worst Major Show of 2012, and finished behind only UFC 149 for that same award.

• In a preshow dark match, Los Dramaticos (Dramatico #1 and Dramatico #2) defeated BLK Jeez & Ruckus.
• Little Guido & Tony Mamaluke defeated Stevie Richards & The Blue Meanie.
• CW Anderson defeated Al Snow.
• Axl Rotten defeated Balls Mahoney.
• Gary Wolfe defeated Raven.
• Jerry Lynn defeated Devon Storm.
• Shane Douglas defeated 2 Cold Scorpio.

1 year ago today in Moline, Illinois, Bad News Barrett defeated Neville in the final to win the 2015 King of the Ring tournament. It was the company's first King of the Ring tournament in five years.