• OLD SCHOOL HISTORY (May 21, 1989) – WWF Wrestling Challenge
On this day in 1989, the World Wrestling Federation aired an episode of their weekly TV show ‘WWF Wrestling Challenge’.
It was broadcasted from the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines, Iowa and featured pre-taped matches, promos & storyline segments on the road to the ‘WWF SummerSlam 1989’ PPV.
The card can be found right here:
– Brutus Beefcake vs. Mike Richards
– Dino Bravo vs. Dave Wagner
– Tito Santana vs. Tom Stone
– Ted DiBiase vs. Jim Powers
– The Fabulous Rougeau Brothers vs. The Rockers
– The Ultimate Warrior vs. Barry Horowitz
• Chris Jericho Recalls How He Came Up With The Money In The Bank Idea
During a recent edition of Talk Is Jericho, Old School WWF Legend Chris Jericho recalled how he came up with the idea of the Money In The Bank ladder match.
Below is what Y2J said:
“WrestleMania 2005 – there was a group of guys going into WrestleMania, all high profile kind of former World Champion type guys, who did not have a match for WrestleMania. Such talents as Edge, Chris Benoit, Kane, myself, maybe RVD, Shelton Benjamin was one of the cats that was in that. And nobody had a program or a match.
So, they were trying to think of something for everyone to do. Everyone was coming up with all these dumb ideas. Like one of the ideas was for me, Benoit, and Edge to have a three way submission match. The only way to win would be through submission. That would be kind of boring.
So I came up with the idea of a six man ladder match. So, I took the idea to Brian Gewirtz, who was a good writer at the time and he said ‘What’s at stake?’ I said ‘Why don’t you have a contract where the winner gets a title shot the next night’. Then Brian said ‘Why don’t you make it so you can use it at any time over the following year and you can cash it in at any time’. So we took that to Vince and Vince agreed. Loved the idea. His only concession was the contract had to be in a briefcase.
Knowing how Vince is, maybe he wanted people to actually see it. Rather than just a piece of paper hanging there. You could carry it. You could use it. It was a really cool three way invention of the match, even though Vince’s little thing was just the briefcase, the briefcase has become synonyms with the show. It’s on the poster right now as a matter of fact.”
