51 years ago today in Omaha, Nebraska, Tim Woods defeated Mad Dog Vachon to win the AWA World Heavyweight Championship.
AWA President Stanley Blackburn overturns the decision a week later when replay shows Woods had his feet on the ropes during the fall. The match was ruled a no contest and the title returned to Vachon, who would defeat Woods in the return bout the same day.
22 years ago today from Atlanta, Georgia on a live edition of WCW Main Event, Arn Anderson defeated Johnny B. Badd to win the WCW World Television Championship.
19 years ago today, WCW presented the debut episode of Thunder from the Ocean Center in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Created on orders of Ted Turner due to the massive success of WCW Monday Nitro, WCW President Eric Bischoff was reluctant to go with another two hours of weekly wrestling programming (it had nine hours already between Nitro on Mondays, WCW Saturday Night, and Main Event and Pro on Sundays—Pro would actually be cancelled by TBS in January 1998—plus Worldwide in syndication) due to possibly spreading the talent too thin and making storylines less significant.
Not helping matters: at the time of Thunder’s inception, Time Warner, the parent company of WCW, was under a hiring freeze, so no new people could be brought in to run the show. Also not helping matters: the show ate into WCW’s profits, as the company was responsible for all production costs, which ran from $12 million to $15 million a year. WCW added additional house shows to help ease the burden.
The debut episode of Thunder is most noted for the vacating of the WCW World Heavyweight Championship following two controversial bouts between Sting and Hollywood Hulk Hogan. Moments after Sting forfeited the title, he spoke for the first time since October 1996, and he was not pleased with WCW commission J.J. Dillon’s decision, telling him he had no guts and that Hogan was a dead man.
- Randy Savage defeated Chris Adams via reverse decision. Adams initially won with help from Lex Luger hitting Savage with a chair. The decision was reversed by WCW commissioner J.J. Dillon.
- Rick Martel defeated Louie Spicolli.
- Hiroyoshi Tenzan defeated Michiyoshi Ohara.
- Ric Flair defeated Chris Jericho.
- The Giant defeated Meng.
- Bill Goldberg defeated Steve McMichael.
- The Steiner Brothers (Rick Steiner & Scott Steiner) defeated Buff Bagwell & Konnan.
- Ray Traylor defeated Scott Hall.
- Juventud Guerrera defeated Ultimo Dragon to win the WCW Cruiserweight Championship.
- Lex Luger defeated Scott Norton.
- Diamond Dallas Page defeated Kevin Nash by disqualification to retain the WCW United States Championship.
14 years ago today at an NWA-TNA weekly PPV taping in Nashville, Tennessee, America's Most Wanted (Chris Harris & James Storm) defeated the Disciples of the New Church (Brian Lee & Slash) to win the NWA World Tag Team Championship.
11 years ago today, WWE presented New Year's Revolution (WWE Network link) from the Pepsi Arena in Albany, New York. About 11,000 were in attendance with 294,000 homes watching on PPV.
- In a preshow dark match, Chavo Guerrero defeated Snitsky.
- Ric Flair defeated Edge by disqualification to retain the WWE Intercontinental Championship.
- Trish Stratus defeated Mickie James to retain the WWE Women's Championship.
- Jerry Lawler defeated Gregory Helms.
- Triple H defeated The Big Show.
- Shelton Benjamin defeated Viscera.
- Ashley Massaro defeated Maria Kanellis, Torrie Wilson, Victoria, and Candice Michelle in a bra and panties gauntlet match.
- John Cena defeated Kurt Angle, Chris Masters, Carlito, Shawn Michaels and Kane in a Elimination Chamber match for the WWE Championship. Moments after the match ended, Vince McMahon announced the show wasn’t over, and that Edge was cashing in his Money in the Bank briefcase.
- Edge defeated John Cena in just 106 seconds to win the WWE Championship.
5 years ago today, TNA presented Genesis from the Impact Zone at Universal Orlando.
- Austin Aries defeated Jesse Sorensen and Kid Kash and Zema Ion in an elimination match to retain the TNA X-Division Championship.
- Devon defeated D'Angelo Dinero.
- Gunner defeated Rob Van Dam.
- Gail Kim defeated Mickie James by disqualification to retain the TNA Knockouts Championship.
- Abyss defeated Bully Ray in a Monster's Ball match.
- Crimson & Matt Morgan defeated Magnus & Samoa Joe to retain the TNA World Tag Team Championship.
- Kurt Angle defeated James Storm.
- Jeff Hardy defeated Bobby Roode by disqualification in a TNA World Heavyweight Championship match.
4 years ago today at a Smackdown taping in Miami, Florida (WWE Network link), Alberto Del Rio defeated The Big Show in a last man standing match to win the World Heavyweight Championship.
It’s the first time the title changed hands on Smackdown since Randy Orton defeated Christian for the title in May 2011. It would also be the last. The championship is retired at the end of the year when it’s unified with the WWE Championship.
4 years ago today, Elijah Burke, aka "The Pope" D'Angelo Dinero announced via Twitter that his TNA contract had expired and would not re-sign with the company.
After briefly returning to Ohio Valley Wrestling, Burke returned to TNA in 2015 as a color commentator reprising his D’Angelo Dinero gimmick.
4 years ago today, WWE announces via press release that John Cena would appear on boxes of Post Fruity Pebbles and Cocoa Pebbles in the run-up to Wrestlemania 29.
This would not be the first time Cena appeared on the cereal boxes; he did so as well in the run-up to Wrestlemania XXVIII. This stems from The Rock's return promo in 2011 that Cena's bright shirts "made him look like he was running around like a big bowl of Fruity Pebbles".
3 years ago today in Las Vegas, Nevada, WWE announces it will launch its own streaming service, the WWE Network, on February 24.
The announcement more than two years after the company first announced plans to launch their own cable channel. Originally set to launch in 2012, it became a punchline among the online wrestling community when it didn't launch. Plans changed to a possible premium TV channel in April 2013.
The WWE Network, the first video “24/7 streaming service” combines an on-demand video library (in this case, nearly every PPV put on by WWE, WCW, and ECW ever) with original programming, including NXT, Legends House, Wrestlemania Rewind, and WWE Countdown.
The big hook of the announcement was its on-demand video library with access to its (nearly) complete PPV library as well as live airings of future WWE PPVs. The service would be available on desktops and laptops, as well as the WWE app on most mobile devices and game systems.
The service would officially launch following the conclusion of the February 24 RAW, and subscribers could get in for $59.94 ($9.99/month with a six month commitment), or about the price of the upcoming Wrestlemania XXX.
The announcement would come with an unintended consequence: satellite providers DirecTV and Dish Network, upset that their PPV revenue was about to disappear, announced that they would discontinue carrying WWE PPVs. Dish briefly reneged on this, later deciding to air Wrestlemania XXX.
2 years ago today, WWE announces via press release they're shuffling the commentary teams for their top two shows, RAW and Smackdown. The biggest change would be the split of Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler from RAW; the duo had called the flagship show together since 2008.
The RAW team would be Michael Cole, Booker T, and John "Bradshaw" Layfield, while Smackdown would have Cole, Lawler, and Byron Saxton.
There had been quite a few changes on commentary since then; currently the RAW commentary team consists of Michael Cole, Byron Saxton, and Corey Graves (who also does color commentary for NXT). Smackdown has Mauro Ranallo (who made his debut a year ago yesterday when the show moved to USA Network), Tom Phillips (who also does play-by-play for NXT and briefly did play-by-play for Smackdown in 2014), John “Bradshaw” Layfield (who had multiple stints on color commentary for Smackdown, most notably from June 2006 to December 2007), and David Otunga.
The best of cSs on this day:
2016: Finn Bálor talking about a main roster debut with Bullet Club (Finn Balor teases a Bullet Club reunion in a WWE.com interview)
2015: WWE reveals new announce teams for Raw and Smackdown (RAW announce team is split up; Lawler to Smackdown, Booker T to RAW)
2014: WWE Network announced: Details on new online subscription service channel (WWE announces it will launch a 24/7 streaming service)
2013: SmackDown spoilers: Alberto Del Rio wins world heavyweight championship (Alberto Del Rio wins World Heavyweight Championship at Smackdown 700th episode taping)
2012: Chris Jericho returns to WWE house shows ... with his light up jacket (Chris Jericho, Lite-Brite jacket and all, hits the house show circuit)
2011: Jim Ross Discusses Strikeforce Challengers, MMA Broadcasting (Jim Ross in his blog says the Strikeforce Challengers show did nothing to bring in casual viewers)