December 7th – On This Day In Wrestling History
Our full On This Day In Wrestling History section can be found here.
1987 – WWE taped the 14th ‘Saturday Night’s Main Event’ in Landover, Maryland. The featured bout saw Hulk Hogan retain the WWF Championship against King Kong Bundy. The other title match saw Strike Force (Tito Santana and Rick Martel) retain their WWF Tag Team Championship against The Bolsheviks (Nikolai Volkoff & Boris Zhukov) 2-0 in a two out of three falls match.
1988 – WCW Clash Of The Champions IV: Season’s Beatings took place at the UTC Arena in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In the opening match, The Fantastics (Bobby Fulton and Tommy Rogers) defeated Eddie Gilbert and Ron Simmons to win the vacant NWA United States Tag Team Championship. The main event was also a tag match, seeing Barry Windham and Ric Flair defeat The Midnight Express (Stan Lane and Bobby Eaton). The other notable match on the card saw Road Warrior Animal defeat Dusty Rhodes by disqualification to gain possession of the NWA World Six-Man Tag Team Championship. Rhodes and The Road Warriors had been reigning champions but Hawk and Animal dumped Rhodes and took on Genichiro Tenryu as their new partner.
1989 – Haystacks Calhoun died in his home town of Collin County, Texas at the age of 55.
1996 – ECW ‘Holiday Hell’ took place at the ECW Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The ECW World Heavyweight Championship changed hands on the show when Raven defeated The Sandman in a ‘Barbed Wire Massacre’ match.
1997 – WWE ‘D-Generation X: in Your House’ took place at the Springfield Civic Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. This was the first WWE PPV since the infamous ‘Montreal Screwjob’ at Survivor Series the month prior. In the main event, Ken Shamrock defeated WWE Champion Shawn Michaels by disqualification. The DQ finish came about when Owen Hart returned to the company to attack Michaels to gain revenge for his treatment of his brother Bret. In the opening match of the night, Taka Michinoku defeated Brian Christopher in the final of the tournament to crown a new WWF Light Heavyweight Champion. The title was being reacted in the company for the first time since it was created in 1981.
1999 – At a taping of WCW Thunder in Madison, Wisconsin, Bret Hart and Goldberg defeated Creative Control (Gerald and Patrick) to win the WCW Tag Team Championship.
2007 – WWE taped their annual ‘Tribute To The Troops’ special from Tikrit, Iraq. The show aired instead of a regular episode of Raw on Christmas Eve. The main event saw D-Generation X (Triple H and Shawn Michaels) defeat Umaga and Mr. Kennedy.
2008 – TNA presented the ‘Final Resolution’ PPV from Orlando, Florida. The main event saw The Main Event Mafia (Sting, Kevin Nash, Scott Steiner and Booker T) defeat The Front Line (AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Brother Devon and Brother Ray). As a result. Sting retained the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. Earlier in the night, Eric Young beat Sheik Abdul Bashir to win the TNA X-Division Championship.
2010 – At a TNA Impact taping, Jay Lethal beat Robbie E to win the TNA X-Division Championship.
2014 – Alberto El Patron defeated El Texano Jr. to win the AAA Mega Championship at AAA ‘War Of The Titans’ in Zapopan, Mexico.
2014 – Ring of Honor ‘Final Battle’ took place in New York City. In the main event, Jay Briscoe retained the ROH World Championship in a Fight Without Honor against Adam Cole. Jay Lethal also retained the ROH World Television title against Matt Sydal and reDRagon (Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly) successfully defended the tag team titles against Time Splitters (KUSHIDA and Alex Shelley).
Notable Wrestling Birthdays:
- ACH (1987)
- Jon Moxley (1985)
- Sunny (1972)
- Curtis ‘Mr.’ Hughes (1964)
- ‘Ravishing’ Rick Rude (1958)
- Skull Murphy (1930)
Notable Wrestling Deaths:
- Haystacks Calhoun (1989)