On this day in 1983, Rick Steamboat beat Roddy Piper in a match aired on World Championship Wrestling to win the NWA world heavyweight crown. It was Steamboat's third NWA championship and first world singles title.

On this day in 1983, Ric Flair and Arn Anderson defeated the team of Paul Jones & Stan Hansen in a tournament final to win the previously vacant NWA world tag team championship. That same day in Minneapolis, former NWA tag champ Bad News Allen signed a contract to join the AWA.

On this day in 1983, Terry "Hulk" Hogan demolished "Psycho" Tommy Rich in less than nine minutes in the main event at the first Wrestlemania to win the WWF world heavyweight title; in the biggest match on the undercard, Greg "The Hammer" Valentine and Adrian Adonis beat Pedro Morales and Rocky Johnson to win the WWF world tag team titles.

On this day in 1983, newly crowned WWF world champion Terry "Hulk" Hogan beat Nikolai Volkoff in Hogan's first title defense.                                                            

On this day in 1983, Bad News Allen defeated second-generation grappler Greg Gagne in the main event of a live AWA card in St. Paul, Minnesota; among the crowd that night University of Minnesota graduate and former Pittsburgh resident Eric Bischoff, who would later become an AWA TV commentator and subsequently play a major roll in the 1994 AWA-NWA merger.

On this day in 1983, Rick Steamboat successfully defended the NWA world heavyweight title on World Championship Wrestling against Japanese ring legend Antonio Inoki. However, Steamboat's win turned sour when former champion Roddy Piper attacked him after the bell and broke three of his ribs.

On this day in 1983, Rick Steamboat and Roddy Piper fought in an NWA world heavyweight title match aired on WCW; Steamboat won by disqualification when Rick Rude interfered on Piper's behalf. That same evening on Monday Night Raw, former WWF world heavyweight champion "Psycho" Tommy Rich demanded a rematch against reigning champion Terry "Hulk" Hogan.

On this day in 1983, Rick Steamboat took on Roddy Piper in a rematch of Steamboat's NWA world title defense the week before on WCW. Piper thought he'd won the return bout only to have the decision reversed and the victory awarded to Steamboat on a disqualification when it was learned that Piper's cornerman for the match, Rick Rude, had interfered to keep Steamboat from escaping a pin attempt by the Rowdy Scot.

That same night on Raw, defending WWF world heavyweight champion Terry "Hulk" Hogan said he would put his belt on the line in two weeks against former champion Tommy Rich in a no-holds barred match. That bout would in turn set the stage for a final showdown between Hogan and Rich at Summerslam II.

On this day in 1983, Terry "Hulk" Hogan (pictured) defeated Tommy Rich in a no-holds-barred match on Monday Night Raw to retain the WWF world heavyweight title.

Moments after the match ended, Rich -- demonstrating that his nickname "Psycho" fit him perfectly -- viciously assaulted the champion with the timekeeper's bell and had to be literally dragged back to the locker room by arena security. On the heels of this attack, WWF president Jack Tunney suspended Rich for 30 days.

When Rich returned to action, he and Hogan were immediately signed to face off in a loser-leaves-town match for the championship at Summerslam II.

On this day in 1983, AWA world tag team champions B. Brian Blair and George "The Animal" Steele lost by countout in a rematch against former champs Jerry "Crusher" Blackwell and Adrian Adonis; the countout resulted from Blair being double-teamed by "Bad News" Allen and Larry Zbyszko after leaving the ring to defend Steele when "The Animal" was sucker-punched by Zbyszko.

On this day in 1983, Roddy Piper interrupted a Terry Funk interview on WCW to challenge reigning NWA world champion Rick Steamboat to a steel cage match at the third annual Great American Bash. Indignant at being interrupted, Funk hauled off and slugged Piper in the face, and before the show was off the air Piper and Funk had been booked to face each other on the next WCW.

On this day in 1983, Terry Funk and Roddy Piper, picking up right where they'd left off the week before on WCW, battled each other in a grudge that at its peak recalled both the Funk-Rich wars and the early days of the Piper-Steamboat feud.

Piper won by submission when a seriously weakened Funk succumbed to the Rowdy Scot's signature sleeper hold; the fireworks didn't end when the match was over, however, as reigning NWA world champion Rick Steamboat confronted Piper on the way back to the locker room and demanded a final showdown with Piper at the third annual Great American Bash.

On this day in 1983, former NWA and WWF world heavyweight champion "Psycho" Tommy Rich, in his first WWF appearance following the end of his thirty-day suspension, beat Mike Rotundo in a singles bout on the undercard of a WWF live event in San Francisco.

On this day in 1983, the Rick Steamboat-Roddy Piper war reached its explosive climax as the former tag team partners slugged it out for the NWA world heavyweight championship at the third annual Great American Bash.

It was one of the longest and bloodiest title matches ever seen at an NWA pay-per-view event, with the referee twice nearly calling a double disqualification before Steamboat finally won by submission by applying a Boston crab on Piper at the 43:37 mark. This would turn out to be Piper's final NWA appearance: after spending more than two months recuperating from the injuries he sustained in the title bout against Steamboat, he got involved in a serious contract dispute with the NWA's top executives and was soon let go by the company. Following his release from the NWA Piper signed on with the WWF, making his official debut with that federation at the second annual Royal Rumble in January of 1984 and quickly establishing himself as the heir to Tommy Rich's mantle of chief nemesis to reigning WWF world heavyweight champion Terry "Hulk" Hogan.

On the undercard of the Piper-Steamboat match at the Great American Bash an up-and-coming tag team known as the Road Warriors stunned fans around the world by winning the NWA world tag team titles from Ric Flair and Arn Anderson; hailing from one of the rougher sections of Chicago and managed by fellow Chicago native Paul Ellering, the Warriors(a.k.a. the Legion of Doom) would go to make wrestling history again by being the only duo to hold the NWA and AWA tag team belts simultaneously and achieving a unique trifecta by winning the WWF tag team titles in the early '90s.

In 1981, on this day Tommy "Wildfire" Rich, who'd already shocked the wrestling world once by beating Harley Race for the NWA world heavyweight title five days earlier, proceeded to shock it a second time by defeating the veteran grappler in a rematch to retain the belt. After the match a frustrated Race could be heard shouting, "What the hell does it take to beat this kid?!"

On this day in 1983, reigning WWF world heavyweight champion Terry "Hulk" Hogan and former champion "Psycho" Tommy Rich squared off for the last time before a sellout crowd at Kansas City's Kemper Arena in the main event of Summerslam II.

Rich's cornerman for the evening, veteran WWF manager "Classy" Fred Blassie, tried repeatedly to interfere in the bout on the ex-champ's behalf but got little for his efforts other than a slug in the jaw by Hogan and a one-way trip back to the arena locker rooms courtesy of the Kansas City police. A thunderous ovation erupted from the stands when Hogan nailed Rich with a flying legdrop to win the match and retain the title; Gorilla Monsoon, doing blow-by-blow commentary, announced the end of Rich's WWF tenure with the exuberant declaration "The Psycho Ward is closed!"


On the Summerslam II undercard Greg "The Hammer" Valentine won the Intercontinental championship from the Junkyard Dog; Mike Rotundo fought Nikolai Volkoff to a double countout; and former NWA world champion Bret "Hit Man" Hart made his WWF debut with a win over Tony Garea. Sixteen years later, Kemper Arena would be the scene of one of the worst tragedies in wrestling history when Bret's younger brother Owen(a.k.a. "Blue Blazer") was killed in a fall from the arena ceiling after a pre-match entrance stunt went horrifically wrong.

On this day in 1983, former NWA and WWF world champion "Psycho" Tommy Rich signed on with the AWA; within weeks of the signing Rich would form an alliance with Bad News Allen and "Living Legend" Larry Zbyszko to destroy then-AWA world heavyweight champion Nick Bockwinkel.

On this day in 1983, Rick Steamboat's first reign as NWA world heavyweight champion came to a stunning and highly controversial end when his ex-Four Horsemen teammate Barry Windham (picture), with an assist from Windham's new manager Jim Cornette, beat Steamboat in the main event of that week's WCW to capture the title.

For Cornette, who had recruited Windham a few months earlier as part of a broader plan to build a new stable to take the place of the defunct Enforcers, Windham's victory and the surrounding controversy were a sign that his star was on the rise again in the NWA after being in decline for months.


Joining Windham in Cornette's new ensemble were the tag team of Dennis Condrey and Bobby Eaton, collectively known as the Midnight Express; in their first incarnation the Express would win the NWA U.S. tag team titles but repeatedly fall short in their quest for the world tag team belts. When Cornette replaced Condrey with Florida native and Ric Flair protege Stan Lane, the Express would become one of the NWA's most dominant tag combos.

On this day in 1983, George "The Animal" Steele and B. Brian Blair defeated Jerry "Crusher" Blackwell and Baron von Raschke to win the AWA world tag team titles at an AWA televised card in Mankato, Minnesota.