Another day, another look back on today’s date in wrestling. A packed October 13th brings us a legendary Bruno Sammartino vs Ivan Koloff match and John Cena’s The Marine opening in theaters.

Born On This Date:

• 1926 – Wladek Kowalski (Killer Kowalski)
• 1983 – Kelvin Ramirez (Jose Maximo)

On This Day in Wrestling History:

1975 – WWWF World Champion Bruno Sammartino defended his title against Ivan Koloff, the man who ended his first title reign in 1971, at the building where the loss took place, Madison Square Garden in New York City.  The match ended in a draw after a 20-minute brawl when the referee ruled that both men were bleeding too heavily to continue.  A slew of wrestlers had to come out to separate the two. This was the first of three straight MSG shows headlined by the two, culminating a few months later in the first steel cage match ever held at Madison Square Garden.

1981 – Mr. Fuji & Mr. Saito defeat Tony Garea & Rick Martel for the WWWF World Tag Team Title  when Martel had salt thrown in his eyes as he went for a flying body press. This ended Garea & Martel’s second title reign.

1985 – Ivan & Nikita Koloff defeat The Rock N’ Roll Express (Rick Morton & Robert Gibson) for the NWA World Tag Team Title. This began the second reign for the Koloffs, who actually lose the belts to Morton & Gibson three months earlier when Ivan & Krusher Khrushchev defended (and lost) the belts.

1990 – WWF airs their 28th Saturday Night’s Main Event special on NBC, earning a 7 broadcast rating. The show featured five matches taped on September 18th in Toledo, Ohio.

1992 – Money, Inc. (Ted DiBiase & IRS) defeat The Natural Disasters (Typhoon & Earthquake) for the WWF Tag Team Title to begin their second title reign.

1997 – The Monday Night Wars continued, and this time the spotlight focused on tag teams, as both shows featured World Tag Team Title changes. WCW Monday Nitro on TNT scored the win over WWF Monday Night Raw on USA, 3.8 to 2.3

2001 – The NWA World Heavyweight Title was held up when Steve Corino was unable to continue during a title defense against Shinya Hashimoto in St. Petersburg, Florida.

2003 – WWE broadcast Raw from the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with Bill Goldberg & Shawn Michaels defeating Ric Flair, Randy Orton & Mark Henry in a handicap match when Goldberg pinned Henry with a Jackhammer. After the match, Michaels superkicked Goldberg as payback for Goldberg spearing him the week before.  However, the show is better remembered for Steve Austin running off Scott Steiner as he was threatening Stacy Keibler.  Then, during his customary beer bash, Austin gave Stacy a stunner when she refused to drink beer.

2006 – WWE Films’ The Marine starring John Cena opened in theaters.  It ranked 6th for Friday evening, earning an estimated $2,250,000.   Over the course of it’s theatrical run, the film made $22,165,608 worldwide.

2008 – Karen Angle and Johnny Devine both departed TNA.  Angle, now Karen Jarrett, would return to an on air role years later.

2008 -Johnny Knoxville and the cast of Jackass were the guest hosts on Raw.

2009 – Torrie Wilson was hospitalized after a bad reaction to medication she was taking.

2009 – Matt Hardy appeared on an episode of SyFy’s Scare Tactics.

2009 – Dragon Gate USA released their very first DVD release “Open the Historic Gate.”

2010 – Former WWE World champion The Great Khali signed on to join the cast of “Big Boss House”, the Indian version of Big Brother.

2010 – Actor and producer Freddie Prinze, Jr. once again began working for WWE.

2010 – Paul Heyman’s marketing and production agency “Looking for Larry” signed on with EA Sports for a series of viral videos to promote the upcoming EA Sports MMA videogame.

2011 – John Parsonage, who wrestled in TNA as “Hot Shot” Johnny Devine, was released from TNA. Two days later, he wrote an op-ed piece for Canadian website Slam!, claiming he left the company because wrestling was no longer fun for him. He would become an analyst for The Fight Network and wrestle on the independent circuit until his retirement in 2013.

2014 – New Japan Pro Wrestling presented King of Pro-Wrestling from New Sumo Hall in Tokyo, Japan.

• Kota Ibushi, Togi Makabe, Tomoaki Honma and Yuji Nagata defeated Bullet Club (Bad Luck Fale, Doc Gallows, Karl Anderson and Tama Tonga).
• Chase Owens defeated Bushi to retain the NWA World Heavyweight Championship.
• K.E.S. (Davey Boy Smith Jr. and Lance Archer) defeated Tencozy (Hiroyoshi Tenzan and Satoshi Kojima) to win the NWA World Tag Team Championship.
• Kazushi Sakuraba and Toru Yano defeated Suzuki-gun (Minoru Suzuki and Takashi Iizuka).
• Time Splitters (Alex Shelley and Kushida) defeated Forever Hooligans (Alex Koslov and Rocky Romero) and The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson) in a three-team match to retain the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship.
• Ryusuke Taguchi defeated El Desperado to retain the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship.
• Tomohiro Ishii defeated Yujiro Takahashi to win the NEVER Openweight Championship.
• Meiyu Tag (Hirooki Goto and Katsuyori Shibata) defeated Chaos (Shinsuke Nakamura and Yoshi-Hashi).
• Kazuchika Okada defeated Tetsuya Naito to retain his right to challenge for the IWGP Heavyweight Championship at Wrestle Kingdom 9.
• Hiroshi Tanahashi defeated A.J. Styles to win the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. The win gave Tanahashi New Japan’s top prize for a seventh time, a company record.

Died On This Date:

• None