30 years ago today, WWF taped Saturday Night’s Main Event (WWE Network link) from the Edmund P. Joyce Center in South Bend, Indiana. The show aired four days later on NBC.

A curious bit of trivia: this is the first time in the show’s history that did not feature a Hulk Hogan match (he does appear in an interview segment). But the show did have the hook of airing footage of Hulk Hogan versus Andre the Giant from Wrestlemania III.

Kamala the Ugandan Giant defeated Jake “The Snake” Roberts.

Macho Man Randy Savage defeated George “The Animal” Steele in a lumberjack match.

The British Bulldogs (Davey Boy Smith & The Dynamite Kid) defeated The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart & Jim Neidhart) 2-0 in a best of three falls match for the WWF Tag Team Championship. The Bulldogs won the first fall via disqualification, meaning the titles did not change hands.

Ricky Steamboat defeated Hercules by disqualification to retain the WWF Intercontinental Championship.

The Can-Am Connection (Rick Martel & Tom Zenk) defeated Nikolai Volkoff & The Iron Sheik.

22 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.

21 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 332,000 homes for the first In Your House in May 1995.

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.

Match ratings are provided by Wrestling Observer Newsletter’s Dave Meltzer as recorded in the Internet Wrestling Database. Ratings are out of a possible five stars.

In a preshow Free for All match, Marc Mero defeated The 1-2-3 Kid.

Owen Hart & The British Bulldog defeated Ahmed Johnson & Jake “The Snake” Roberts. (1.75/5)

The Ultimate Warrior defeated Goldust by countout in a WWF Intercontinental Championship match. (-3.5)

Vader defeated Razor Ramon. (3.25)

The Body Donnas (Skip & Zip) defeated The Godwinns (Henry O. Godwinn & Phineas I. Godwinn) to retain the WWF Tag Team Championship. (1.75)

Shawn Michaels defeated Diesel in a no holds barred match to retain the WWF Championship. (4.5)

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.

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

15 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.

14 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.

That night on RAW from Boston, Massachusetts (WWE Network link), Austin returns to WWE programming as co-general manager of RAW after being fired by Eric Bischoff the night after Wrestlemania XIX on medical grounds.

12 years ago today, Christopher Barrett Candito, best known to wrestling fans as Chris Candido, died of pneumonia due to a blood clot from a surgery in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He was just 33.

Born March 21, 1972 in Edison, New Jersey, Candito was a third-generation wrestler (his grandfather was “Popeye” Chuck Richards, who competed for the WWWF). He began training at age 14, training at Larry Sharpe’s Monster Factory and competing for his World Wrestling Association , using Candido for his ring surname. In high school, he met and fell in love with Tammy Lynn Sytch. The two began a lifelong relationship and would be paired up for much of their wrestling careers. While traveling the independents in New Jersey, he began a lifelong friendship with Jonathan Rechner (who would go on to great fame as ECW’s Balls Mahoney).

In 1992, Candido and Sytch (at the time billed as Tamara Fytch) joined Jim Cornette’s Smoky Mountain Wrestling. The next year, he competed for Eastern Championship Wrestling (the precursor to Extreme Championship Wrestling). He alongside Johnny Hotbody and Chris Michaels were the Suicide Blondes, and the threesome would hold the ECW tag team titles twice during the spring of 1993. They vacated the title when Candido left ECW in July 1993 to return to Smoky Mountain Wrestling.

Success soon came to Candido. In the fall of 1993, Candido would win the SMW United States Junior Heavyweight Championship three times. He also went on to win the SMW Beat the Champ Television Champion twice, winning it in December 1993 and July 1994.

That year, Candido would team with Brian Lee. Managed by Tamara Fytch, the two would win the SMW Tag Team Championship in April 1994. They would lose them, win them, then lose them again in a four day span that August. After the second loss, Lee was fired, and Fytch managed Candido exclusively.

In November 1994, Candido won a ten-man tournament to become the NWA World Heavyweight Champion (he was the first champion since Shane Douglas infamously vacated the title in August). As the NWA at the time had almost no exposure nationally, Candido’s title defenses were confined mainly to SMW and the independents. He held the title until February 1995 when he was defeated by Dan Severn.

Late in the year, Candido teamed with Boo Bradley (a parody of To Kill a Mockingbird character Boo Radley). Candido and Fytch verbally and physically abused Bradley. In a controversial angle in early 1995, Fytch kidnapped Bradley’s cat Boots, then Candido did a leg drop on the bag allegedly containing the cat, killing it (storyline, obviously). The feud culminated in a dog collar match in February, with Radley defeating Candido. It was a write-off; Candido and Fytch were WWF-bound.

In May 1995, Candido and Sytch made their WWF television debuts as Skip and Sunny, the Bodydonnas, a pair of arrogant fitness gurus. The two soon feuded with career jobber Barry Horowitz after Barry scored an upset win over Candido while Chris was doing pushups. The feud continued throughout the remainder of the summer, with Horowitz getting his biggest win at Summerslam with another victory over Candido.

Late in the year, the Bodydonnas would gain a Bodydonna in training in Rad Radford. The alliance was brief; after Candido and Radford lost a tag title match to the Smoking Gunns in December 1995, Raford was fired from the group. They would be joined by Tom Pritchard, repackaged as Skip’s cousin Zip. The two would challenge for the tag titles at Royal Rumble, but were unsuccessful. They would win the titles, at the time vacated following a Billy Gunn neck injury, in a tournament final at the Wrestlemania XII preshow. They would lose the titles in May 1996 to the Godwinns; after they lost the titles, Sunny left the group. Sunny would be replaced at King of the Ring by the cross-dressing Cloudy (played by Candido’s friend James Haney). This incarnation of the group never gained traction, and Chris would leave the WWF late in the year.

In late 1996, Candido rejoined ECW (by this point named Extreme Championship Wrestling) as part of a new version of Shane Douglas’ Triple Threat with Brian Lee. He had feuds with Lance Storm and Bam Bam Bigelow, and ironically would win gold with Storm in December 1997. Despite their contempt for one another, the two held the tag titles for six months before losing them to Sabu and Rob Van Dam in June 1998. He remained in ECW until late 1999.

In 2000, Candido had a brief run in California-based independent Xtreme Pro Wrestling. In February 2000, Candido defeated Damien Steele for the XPW World Heavyweight Championship. He would be stripped of the title in late April following Candido signing with WCW (in a bit of trivia, he did wrestle a few matches for XPW while under contract to WCW).

In March 2000, Candido joined World Championship Wrestling. Less than a month in, Chris would win a six-way match for the WCW Cruiserweight Championship. He held the title for just a month before losing it to Crowbar and Daffney. He briefly joined a reformed Triple Threat with Shane Douglas and Bam Bam Bigelow, but Candido and Sytch were fired after drug paraphernalia was found in their dressing room’s trash can.

Candido spent the next four years on the independent circuit, most notably a stint in New Japan Pro Wrestling and a second run in XPW.

In January 2005, Candido joined TNA. He was mostly a jobber to the stars in his brief time there. At Lockdown on April 24, Candido broke his leg when Sonny Siaki landed on it following a dropkick in the early moments of the match. The injury necessitated surgery, with a plate, screws, and pins placed in his ankle.

Just three days after the operation, Candido was rushed to the hospital after he had collapsed due to a blood clot from the surgery. Candido would suffer acute pneumonia, and it would claim his life. He was just 33. The next day, Candido was posthumously featured on Impact in a wheelchair. On that episode, taped the day before Candido’s death, he managed the Naturals (Andy Douglas & Chase Stevens) to the NWA World Tag Team Championship. In 2007, the moment was listed as one of the ten greatest in TNA history.

Candido’s final match, originally planned to be removed from the Lockdown DVD, was left intact following the family’s blessing. A portion of sales from the DVD went to the Chris Candido Memorial Fund. In late 2005, TNA held the Chris Candido Memorial Tag Team Tournament that summer, with Alex Shelley and Sean Waltman winning the tournament in September.

The 1995 Wrestling Observer Newsletter Most Underrated Wrestler award winner was inducted into the Hardcore Hall of Fame posthumously in 2009.

11 years ago today, Viacom Networks greenlights Wrestling Society X and renews Hogan Knows Best for a third season.

Wrestling Society X, presented as a wrestling show taking place in an underground fight club, aired on MTV in early 2007 and was cancelled after just four episodes after the show drew criticism stemming from Ricky Banderas throwing a fireball at Vampiro.

Five of the remaining six episodes were “burned off” in a marathon (i.e. airing the episodes in less conspicuous timeslots or to fill a contract) with the finale, featuring an exploding cage match, left unaired.

Hogan Knows Best, the VH1 reality series based around Hulk Hogan and his family, would go on to get a fourth season, but the series would discontinue production following some very real-life drama involving Hulk (real name Terry Bollea), his wife Linda, and his son Nick.

In August, Nick was involved in a car accident that left his friend, John Graziano, paralyzed. Nick was sentenced to eight months in prison in early 2008. Three months after the accident, Terry and Linda divorced after 24 years of marriage after it was found through his mistress that Terry had cheated on her. The divorce was finalized in 2009.

9 years ago today, RAW from East Rutherford, New Jersey (WWE Network link) ends early due to general manager William Regal pulling the plug on a WWE Championship match between Randy Orton and Triple H.

For those curious, no, the live crowd didn't get a conclusion either, officially rendering the main event’s result a no contest.

7 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.

5 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. Keith Harris has a full 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.

2 years ago today in Moline, Illinois, Bad News Barrett defeated Neville in the final to win the 2015 King of the Ring tournament (WWE Network link). It was the company's first King of the Ring tournament in five years.