May 1, 1994. A complete of 53,500 people have jampacked the Fukuoka Dome in Fukuoka Japan for the second-ever Wrestling Dontaku event hosted by Latest Japan Pro Wrestling. The 1994 edition of Wrestling Dontaku was a special one because it was the one time within the history of the event that it was co-promoted with WCW, who had a working relationship with NJPW in the course of the Nineties. While lots of the top names in NJPW on the time had travelled to WCW for one-off appearances because the partnership began, the celebs from the US also made the trip east, and for one in every of the WCW representatives, they were unaware that they were travelling to what would find yourself being the ultimate match of their profession.
Shortly after The Road Warriors and The Steiner Brothers beat the colour out of one another in among the finest matches of the entire night, the short-lived WCW International World Heavyweight Championship can be up for grabs. The title was effectively born out of WCW withdrawing its membership from the NWA in 1993, but still owning the large gold belt that was used to represent their top champion, and since of its association with the “WCW International” brand, the title was defended in each the US and Japan. At Wrestling Dontaku 1994, it was Sting defending the title against “Ravishing” Rick Rude, and provided that Sting ended up having his retirement match at AEW Revolution 2024, you possibly can probably tell who we’ll speak about here.
Outside of a one-off return in ECW in 1997, the match against Sting in Fukuoka would find yourself being the match that sent Rick Rude into retirement, despite the undeniable fact that after a hard-hitting contest, it was Rude who emerged victorious, becoming the brand new champion in the method.
How Did Rick Rude Get Injured?
Towards the midway point of the match, Rude was on the skin, allowing Sting to hit a giant dive to the skin on to Rude which appear like it went off with out a hitch, but that wasn’t the case. In a variety of Japanese venues, especially the larger ones, the ringside area is frequently placed on a raised platform to ensure that the fans with floor seats to have a greater view of the motion. This platform is frequently gated off with a steel barricade, with the barricade for the fans a bit further back, but for this event, the barricade wasn’t positioned at the sting of the platform, and when Sting dove to the skin, Rude caught him but fell backwards and the center of his back hit the sting of the raised platform.
Rude and Sting wouldn’t only proceed wrestling, but they’d take some very big bumps (Rude particularly) on each the hard ring canvas, and even the doorway ramp. All while this was occurring, fans were blissfully unaware that they’d just witnessed Rude damage his C4 and C5 vertebrae while catching Sting as a result of the raised platform. Rude may be very slow to rise up to the purpose where you think that that his selling is nearly too good and that something is definitely very improper with him. Despite the injury, Rude not only carried on, but ended up winning and have become the brand new WCW International World Heavyweight Champion.
It wasn’t until after the match was over that the severity of Rude’s injury became clear, and it was clear that WCW needed to take the title off of Rude because it was looking likely that he might never wrestle again. Briefly, WCW had Rude vacate the title to crown a brand new champion, with the storyline reason being that Rude had used the title belt as a weapon with the intention to retain it in Fukuoka. Nevertheless, Sting, who was going to be given the title in consequence, desired to win it the proper way, and would beat Big Van Vader at Slamboree in July 1994.
The Heat Between Rick Rude And Sting
With Rude’s profession effectively over, it was only natural that there can be some growing resentment between Rude and Sting over the match in Japan. The 2 men would eventually reconcile years later, but one incident within the state of Georgia still gets talked about to at the present time.
Based on Sting’s close friend Buff Bagwell, Rude confronted Sting on the side of a highway and threatened him with a gun. This all sounds a bit extreme on paper, however the implied threat of violence ended up being over money. Rude was seeking to get a hefty payday due to his Lloyds of London insurance policy, something a variety of wrestlers used to receive financial compensation when checking out that they were now not capable of wrestle. Nevertheless, to ensure that the pay-out to go ahead, Sting needed to make an announcement in court that backed up Rude’s side of the story, who was attempting to sue WCW on the time, blaming them for his back injury despite no records of the lawsuit ever existing.
It’s relatively unknown as to what Sting said in court, and “The Icon” was reportedly very nervous as telling the reality would have jeopardized Rude’s pay-out. Nevertheless, Rude got his money, and retired with a cool sum of somewhere between $350,000 and $450,000. Eventually, Lloyds of London grew uninterested in wrestlers profiting from their insurance policy and stopped representing them, resulting in Rude working for ECW, WWE, and eventually returning to WCW as an on-screen character, the latter of which being the place where he apparently reconciled with Sting. Rude was reportedly eyeing up a return to the ring by the top of the last decade, but tragically passed away on April 20, 1999 following a mixed medication overdose.