This day in wrestling history moments are moments of greatness that are impossible to ignore and draw us closer, then there are the smallest details we often miss for this reason or that.
In this case, it was a small thing that was done during ECW’s Holiday Hell ’95 that quickly got the attention of the WWE and WCW, and it was the tap out.
It’s become standard across all of wrestling in the 27 years, but like everything else, the Tap Out Rule came about in a simple action during Holiday Hell’s opening match when Taz made Koji Nakagawa tap out.
Taz creates history
The win marked Taz’s return and a new creative direction for his character, and this was the perfect way to start things off.
Paul Heyman talked about it in the book, The Rise and Fall of ECW. Special thanks to @awrestlinghistorian for the excerpt.
“We were bringing Taz back, and this was under a new gimmick. He was going to be our ultimate fighter style wrestler. We were going to market him as the toughest guy on the planet. He was going to be a lot of what Austin’s character became. A lot of what Austin was, the beer drinking came from Sandman, but the attitude came from Taz.”
The tap out was a trend that would quickly gain a foothold between WWE and WCW as they quickly copied it with Chris Benoit getting a tap out win in WCW and Ken Shamrock in WWE.
It was one of many ways the top two companies took what ECW was doing and added it to their arsenal, igniting a brutal phase of the Monday Night Wars many of us still fondly remember.
It’s one of those moments where Taz should be widely recognized, but with the WWE owning the rights to ECW and their penchant for rewriting history Taz may or may not get his due respect.
He didn’t as a wrestler during his time in the WWE with a top championship, but things change.
More than one moment
An added bonus to Holiday Hell is there were two other memorable moments that have been largely forgotten in history.
One of those is this was the first ECW show to even come from the New York City area. It also marked the final major appearance of Public Enemy as full time ECW wrestlers and they left to work for WCW a few weeks later.
This day in wrestling history is one of those with several layers, and we appreciate every one of them.
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