Thanks to the competitive nature of the business, professional wrestling is tribalistic by nature. Fans will gravitate towards whatever company fits their taste in wrestling best, and at times will defend their favorite company within an inch of their own lives. After all, if you go on social media and type in "WWE,""AEW," or "wrestling"in general, you aren't going to be scrolling for long before you come across someone defending a questionable booking decision from the company they watch the most, or someone firing shots at a company they wish would go out of business for committing the sin of not being for them.
With all that said, there are times where the wrestlers and companies themselves are more tribalistic than their own fans. Shots will be fired in promos, references will be made in matches, and sometimes entire gimmicks will be created to spite another promotion, just look at Gillberg for example. While these actions will get fans riled up and be ready to go to war, it will lead other fans to think of potential dream matches and scenarios, just in case the promotion they have been programmed to hate by their own favorite promotion ends up going to war for real. But what happens when companies actually do end up in a real life feud?
That is what we are here to talk about today. The points in time where two promotions came to blows for real, producing historic rivalries that have, at times, acted as the first dominoes to fall in a chain of events that ultimately led to some of the most important moments in the history of the business. So sit back, relax, put on your favorite t-shirt from your favorite wrestling company, and join us on a journey around the world as we take a look at some of the most legendary interpromotional feuds of all time.
On Christmas Eve 1996, the world seemed to crash around Extreme Championship Wrestling as their scheduled pay-per-view for 1997 was cancelled due to the infamous Mass Transit incident. ECW fans at the time were outraged, writing letters and e-mails to get their beloved promotion back on the pay-per-view schedule, with Paul Heyman borderline begging the cable and satellite providers to give his company one more shot, promising that people weren't going to be mutilated in front of the entire world. The providers eventually softened their stance on ECW, and Barely Legal 1997 was booked for April 13, but how that show was promoted saw ECW take the WWE to the extreme.
During the February 24, 1997 episode of "WWE Raw," ECW invaded one of their biggest rivals and took over their flagship show for the majority of the night. After The Eliminators attacked a member of the ring crew, Heyman joined Vince McMahon and Jerry Lawler on commentary as ECW mainstays like Taz, Tommy Dreamer, and Mikey Whipwreck all got the chance to strut their stuff on one of the biggest wrestling stages in the world. The Sandman, Sabu, and the Blue World Order also made appearances in an attempt to promote Barely Legal, something that McMahon was more than happy to do as he felt like it would help the wrestling business, while also keeping ECW close to him as a potential working relationship.
Jerry Lawler on the other hand was not a fan of the show, and was openly against both ECW appearing on WWE programming, and what ECW stood for as a company. Barely Legal would go on to be a major success for ECW, but the war they had started with WWE in New York City would follow them back to Philadelphia, as the 1997 Wrestlepalooza event in the ECW Arena would become synonymous with the arrival of both Jim Cornette, and Jerry Lawler. Cornette and "The King" luckily had Sabu, RVD, and Bill Alfonso on his side as Sabu and RVD had been making appearances on "Raw" in the weeks following Barely Legal, and after uttering the now famous line "This bingo hall ought to be built out of toilet paper because there's nothing in it but s**t," Tommy Dreamer would receive a cane shot to the groin that was so hard he legitimately ended up in the hospital.
All of this led to ECW's second pay-per-view, Hardcore Heaven in August 1997, where Dreamer would get his revenge on Lawler. They would meet in a wild grudge match that also saw run-ins from Jake "The Snake" Roberts, Rick Rude, and Sunny, and with Dreamer getting the win, Lawler would return to the WWE commentary desk with his tale between his legs. The feud would eventually fizzle out and revolve primarily around Dreamer and RVD, but the shot of adrenaline that was ECW gave WWE fans a small taste of what was to come as the"Attitude Era" was right around the corner.
In comparison to the United States, wrestling promotions in Japan are a lot more collaborative, especially these days. Granted, there was a point in time where companies like New Japan Pro Wrestling and All Japan Pro Wrestling were sworn enemies, but they were never trying to put the other out of business. Instead, they were simply competitive and wanted to put on the best shows possible for the benefit of themselves, but also the benefit of the wrestling business in Japan. It's this collaborative nature crossed with the sheer variety of styles in Japan that leads us to this feud.
Back in the 1980s, the original Universal Wrestling Federation was born after a number of NJPW wrestlers decided to leave the company and create something that celebrated the shoot style of professional wrestling. While its original run only lasted for two years, the UWF is widely considered as a company that if it didn't exist, MMA promotions like Pancrase, RINGS, and PRIDE FC would have never been created, which is why the UWF was reformed in 1988, but once again died in 1990. However, one of its founding fathers, Nobuhiko Takada, was hellbent on making the UWF a success, and revived it for a third and final run, this time under the banner of the Union of Wrestling Forces International, or UWFI for short.
By 1995, UWFI had lasted longer than the previous two incarnations of the UWF combined, but had fallen on hard times financially and turned to NJPW founder Antonio Inoki for some help. An interpromotional feud was proposed and agreed to under the condition that NJPW would control the booking, with the goal of the feud being to establish which style of wrestling was better, the UWFI's shoot style, or NJPW's strong style, and it did not disappoint.
As the popularity of MMA grew in Japan throughout the 1990s, so did the shoot style wrestling that UWFI produced, meaning that the October 9, 1995 event appropriately titled "NJPW vs UWFI" at the Tokyo Dome drew a staggering 67,000 people to one of Japan's most famous venues. The show was a massive success, and unsurprisingly given that they were in charge of the booking, NJPW reigned supreme on that night, but Takada would produce a massive victory for UWFI on January 4, 1996 when he defeated Keiji Muto to become the IWGP Heavyweight Champion, proving that even on the biggest stage NJPW had to offer, shoot style could reign supreme.
The feud would eventually die down as 1996 went on, and UWFI would eventually close its doors by the end of the year, but the feud between the two promotions ended up contributing a lot more to wrestling than some would suspect. Former WCW President Eric Bischoff has credited the UWFI invasion of NJPW in 1995 as one of the main influences on what would eventually become the New World Order in WCW, and was even in Japan for the feud's conclusion in April 1996.
A tale of two companies with completely different philosophies that wanted one thing; to be seen as the top independent promotion in the United States, and it just so happened that they were both based in Philadelphia.
On one side, you had Ring of Honor, a promotion that celebrated the sporting nature of professional wrestling, who had firmly established themselves as one of the must-see promotions in the world by the mid-2000s. On the other side, you had Combat Zone Wrestling, a promotion that revelled in being ultraviolent, and was the much more dangerous successor to ECW after that company went bankrupt in 2001. Both companies had their own momentum behind them heading into 2006, and when Chris Hero decided to call out ROH for forcing CZW to run their show in the afternoon just because they were in town on the same day, the fuse was lit. For more than half of 2006, ROH and CZW were at each other's throats.
Wrestlers from both promotions would routinely show up on the opposition's show, with CZW being primarily led by the aforementioned Hero, Necro Butcher, Claudio Castagnoli, and Super Dragon. ROH had the likes of Samoa Joe, Adam Pearce, BJ Whitmer, and after a lot of convincing, Homicide, to fight for their side, and through some of the biggest events in ROH's history at that time, there were tables broken, chairs smashed, and blood spilled all over the United States.
Everything would culminate in an iconic showdown at Death Before Dishonor 4 in July. It might have been an ROH event, but the match between the members of ROH and CZW would take place in a CZW staple, the Cage of Death. It was a match full of twists and turns, barbed wire and thumbtacks, and enough blood to make even the toughest of death match fan wince. Despite all of that, the main event of Death Before Dishonor 4 is often heralded as one of the greatest matches in ROH history, independent wrestling history, and some would even argue that there aren't many WarGames-style matches better than the ROH/CZW Cage of Death.
The feud between ROH and CZW was the rare example of an actual invasion storyline in the United States done correctly. It didn't outstay its welcome, the two companies had such different styles that every brawl, fight, and officially sanctioned match felt unique and different compared to anything else on any given night. While some stories like this one are often hampered by egos getting in the way of a natural conclusion, this wasn't one of them as both companies understood the assignment; get everyone over. Even John Zandig, the former CZW owner who had an ego so large that when the story was initially pitched to him he literally threw someone down the stairs out of anger, got on board with it. One of the greatest storylines in independent wrestling history from start to finish, and essential viewing for any American wrestling fan.
Back to NJPW for another interpromotional rivalry that drew huge crowds on the Tokyo Dome, and is considered by some to be the single greatest example of how to do a rivalry between two promotions.
For those unfamiliar with Wrestle Association R (formerly known as Wrestling and Romance), it was a promotion founded by Japanese wrestling icon Genichrio Tenryu after his original attempt to run his own company, Super World of Sports, faded away in 1992 as Japan entered an economic downturn a few years earlier. Aided by the fact that they relied on freelancers instead of a full roster of contracted wrestlers, WAR ended up running a number of major cards with names from around the world, and just a few months into their existence, WAR were looking to make an immediate impact.
That impact came in the form of Tenryu and Koki Kitahara defeating Kengo Kimura and Shiro Koshinaka at a WAR event in October 1992. Just to prove that the homefield advantage wasn't a factor, the WAR boys would show up in NJPW towards the back end of the year, with Kitahara and Takashi Ishikawa getting one over on Akira Nogami, and more importantly, NJPW legend Tatsumi Fujinami. This would lead to a NJPW vs. WAR double main event for New Japan's annual TokyoDome show on January 4, as around 63,500 people packed themselves into the building to see Fujinami take on Ishikawa, and Tenryu take on one of the true icons of professional wrestling in Japan, Riki Choshu.
Like we said earlier, there is friendly competitiveness about some interpromotional rivalries in Japan, but there was no friendliness by the time these two matches took place. The New Japan fans hated Ishikawa with a passion, which made Fujinami's victory over him feel that much sweeter, but the physicality didn't stop when Choshu and Tenryu hit the ring for the main event of the night. There is an underlying level of hatred in Tenryu's work during the NJPW/WAR feud that really needs to be seen to be believed. As the founder of the company, he will stop at nothing until he gets his hand raised, and the end of NJPW's annual January 4 show in 1993 ended with a WAR wrestler having their hand raised as Tenryu had his hand raised in victory.
This naturally caught the attention of NJPW founder Antonio Inoki, who challenged Tenryu to a match for the following year's January 4 show as Tenryu had proven that WAR wasn't just a flash in the pan, they were here to stay. While the Tenryu and Inoki match would go ahead on January 4, 1994 (with Tenryu getting the win over the NJPW founder), the feud would eventually fade away throughout 1993. With that said, the feud between NJPW and WAR is an example of an interpromotional rivalry where the challenger brand gets put over to such a degree that they're able to stand tall as a force to be reckoned with.
There's a reason why we titled this the most "legendary" interpromotional feuds and not the "best" feuds, and it's mainly because we couldn't do a list like this without talking about the single biggest missed opportunity in the history of wrestling; the invasion storyline.
From 1995 to 2001, WWE and WCW were locked in a battle for television supremacy that is now commonly referred to as the "Monday Night Wars." During this time, WWE almost went out of business, WCW became the biggest company in the world, and wrestling was at an all-time high when it came to popularity. Then the roles were reversed as WCW would consistently shoot themselves in the foot as WWE gained momentum, grew to be larger than WCW has ever been, and eventually bought their competition one week before WrestleMania 17.
Once WCW was under the WWE umbrella, an invasion storyline was a very real possibility, and the thought of the New World Order, Sting, and Goldberg all going facing off with the biggest stars in WWE had people salivating. It was the easiest slam dunk story that WWE could possibly do, but there was a problem; all of those WCW names we just mentioned were still under contract with Time Warner until the end of 2001, and with Vince McMahon not willing to buy them out, the WCW performers that did make the jump to WWE didn't exactly light the world on fire.
Outside of DDP and Booker T, the WCW stars that did get involved in the eventual invasion that started in June 2001 were midcarders and performers who were never going to stand a chance in WWE. This forced WWE to parachute ECW into the storyline to bolster the WWE's opposition, but again, outside of people like RVD, they had to rely on names who were already in WWE at the time to stand of chance of looking like a legitimate threat.
Sure, the actual Invasion event that took place in July 2001 was the most bought non-WrestleMania pay-per-view in WWE history, but all that show did was prove just how one-sided the feud would end up being. The story was reportedly set to run a lot longer, with rumors of a finale at WrestleMania 18 being discussed, but WWE rushed to the finish at Survivor Series 2001 in November, and the Winner Takes All, ten man elimination tag team match to determine who would stay in business or not would only end up featuring one man who was working for WCW when the company was bought in March.
Ironically, after the story was over, all of the big money contracts that McMahon didn't want to buy out had expired, and by WrestleMania 18, the nWo were all on the WWE roster, Scott Steiner would join at the end of 2002, and Goldberg debuted the night after WrestleMania 19. It's the biggest dropped ball in WWE history, and interpromotional feud that is legendary for all of the wrong reasons.
