This Day in Wrestling History (October 29)

26 years ago today in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Road Warriors (Hawk & Animal) defeated The Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane) to win the NWA World Tag Team Championship. Amazingly, this is the only time the legendary duo wins the NWA tag titles.

19 years ago today, WCW presented Halloween Havoc (WWE Network link) from the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan. About 13,000 were in attendance, with 120,000 homes watching on PPV. While it's down 90,000 buys from the 1994 edition that had the Hogan-Flair "retirement match", It's up from 95,000 buys for Fall Brawl the previous month (however, it's down from 160,000 for Bash at the Beach). The show featured the in-ring debut of The Giant.

• Johnny B. Badd defeated Diamond Dallas Page to win the WCW World Television Championship.
• Randy Savage defeated Zodiac in just 90 seconds.
• Kurasawa defeated Road Warrior Hawk.
• Sabu defeated Mr. JL. It was Sabu's only PPV match in WCW, as he returned to ECW just three weeks later.
• Lex Luger defeated Meng by disqualification.
• In a match taped the previous night on the roof of Cobo Hall, Hulk Hogan defeated The Giant in a monster truck Sumo match. Post-match, the two would come to blows and Hogan knocked The Giant off the roof, assumingly plunging to his death.
• Ric Flair & Sting defeated Arn Anderson & Brian Pillman by disqualification. Near the end of the match, Flair turned on Sting (of course!) and reformed the Horsemen with Anderson and Pillman (and soon after, newcomer Chris Benoit).
• Randy Savage defeated Lex Luger.
• The Giant defeated Hulk Hogan by disqualification to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship. A few notes: Giant returned for the match with nary a scratch on him and it was never explained how he survived the fall. I mean, it was a five story fall. I never fell five stories, but I know I'm not coming out uninjured and you're probably not either. Hogan hits the leg drop of death, then as the referee counts, Jimmy Hart nails the referee, getting Hogan disqualified. Post-match, you get the always awesome Giant-YET-TAY double hug/humping experience thing (also the WCW debut of Ron Reis who would be repackaged as Super Giant Ninja a few weeks later--no I'm not making that up) and about seventy-three run-ins. Turns out all this was an elaborate scheme: the belt shot disqualifies Hogan, and per a pre-match stipulation, the title could change hands on a disqualification, meaning the Giant in his debut match is the WCW World Heavyweight Champion thanks to new Dungeon of Doom member Jimmy Hart. That's how the longest WCW world title run in history ends. Let that give you comfort at night. This didn't last as The Giant was forced to vacate the title just over a week later due to the controversial finish.

14 years ago today, WCW presented Halloween Havoc (WWE Network link) from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. 7,582 were in attendance, with just 70,000 homes watching on PPV. These are the end times indeed, as (1) this was less than a third of 1999's buyrate (230,000 buys) and (2) this was the end of the Russo era in WCW, as a concussion he suffered in a cage match earlier that month virtually ended his time with the company.

• The Natural Born Thrillers (Mark Jindrak and Sean O'Haire) defeated The Filthy Animals (Billy Kidman and Rey Mysterio, Jr.) (with Konnan) and The Boogie Knights (Disco Inferno and Alex Wright) in a triangle match to retain the WCW World Tag Team Championship.
• Reno defeated Sgt. AWOL to retain the WCW Hardcore Championship.
• The Misfits In Action (Lt. Loco and Cpl. Cajun) defeated The Perfect Event (Shawn Stasiak and Chuck Palumbo).
• Konnan and Tygress defeated Shane Douglas and Torrie Wilson.
• Buff Bagwell defeated David Flair in a First Blood DNA match. Don't laugh, that's what the match was called. The match was such so that the one of the two men could submit a sample as to who fathered Stacy Keibler's unborn child (an angle which ultimately went unresolved).
• Mike Sanders (with Shawn Stasiak and Chuck Palumbo) defeated Ernest Miller (with Ms. Jones) by countout in a kickboxing match.
• Mike Awesome defeated Vampiro.
• General Rection defeated Team Canada (Lance Storm and Jim Duggan) in a handicap match to win the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship.
• Jeff Jarrett defeated Sting.
• Booker T defeated Scott Steiner by disqualification to retain the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.
• Goldberg defeated KroniK (Brian Adams and Bryan Clark) in a handicap elimination match.

2 years ago today, Hulk Hogan and Bubba the Love Sponge settle their lawsuit over a leaked tape that had Hogan and Bubba's wife at the time Heather Clem. As part of the settlement, Bubba released the following statement:

October 29, 2012
Re: Public Apology to Hulk Hogan (Terry Bollea) and Retraction of Statements

After further investigation, I am now convinced that Hulk Hogan was unaware of the presence of the recording device in my bedroom. I am convinced he had no knowledge that he was being taped. Additionally, I am certain that he had no role in the release of the video.

It is my belief that Terry is not involved, and has not ever been involved, in trying to release the video, or exploit it, or otherwise gain from the video's release in any way.

Regrettably, when Hulk filed the lawsuit against me, I instinctively went on the offensive. The things that I said about him and his children were not true. I was wrong and I am deeply sorry for my reaction, and for the additional pain that it caused Hulk and his children on top of the pain that they already were feeling from having learned that Terry was taped without his knowledge, and the public release of the video.

I am committed to helping Hulk and his attorneys find whoever is responsible for the release of the tape and holding them accountable to the fullest extent of the law.

1 year ago today, WWE 2K14, the first WWE game to be released under the 2K banner, is released in North America. The games two main hooks were the "30 Years of Wrestlemania", allowing players to play through the history of Wrestlemania, and the "Streak" mode, where players could face and endless string of opponents as The Undertaker "defending the streak", or players could challenge a higher-difficulty Undertaker in "defeating the streak".