February 23rd – On This Day In Wrestling History
Our full On This Day In Wrestling History section can be found here.
1990 – On a live edition of The Main Event from the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan, Hulk Hogan faced ‘Macho Man’ Randy Savage for the WWF Championship in a rematch from WrestleMania V. The match was supposed to be refereed by ‘The Baddest Man On The Planet’ and seemingly unbeatable heavyweight boxing champion, Mike Tyson. However, a month prior to this match, Tyson was indeed beaten for his championship by huge underdog Buster Douglas in Japan. As a result, WWE brought in the new champion to referee the bout instead. Hogan retained his championship.
1997 – WCW SuperBrawl VII took place at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, California. The main event saw Hollywood Hogan defend his WCW World Championship against ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper. Earlier on the card, Lex Luger and The Giant won the WCW Tag Team Championship from The Outsiders (Scott Hall and Kevin Nash).
1999 – Richard Wilson, known as The Renegade in WCW, committed suicide at his home in Atlanta, Georgia at the age of 33.
2002 – Ring Of Honor was born when it hosted its first ever event at the Murphy Recreation Centre in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their first ever main event saw Low Ki defeat Christopher Daniels and Brian Danielson in a triple-threat match.
2003 – WWE No Way Out took place at The Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The main event saw a rematch from WrestleMania X-8 with The Rock defeating Hulk Hogan with yet another homage to the Montreal Screwjob. Also on the card, ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin had his first WWE match since dramatically walking out on the company the previous summer when he defeated Eric Bischoff in a short match. Matt Hardy also beat Billy Kidman for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship.
2004 – On an episode of Raw held in Omaha Nebraska, Victoria won the WWE Women’s Championship in a fatal-four way match against Jazz, Lita and Molly Holly.
2008 – Ring Of Honor’s ‘Sixth Anniversary Show’ took place at The Manhattan Centre in New York City. The main event saw Nigel McGuinness defeat Bryan Danielson to defend his ROH World Championship.
2010 – WWE’s brand new NXT show aired its first episode from The Bradley Centre in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The show was very different to what NXT became. In essence it was a limited run series that saw eight supposed ‘rookies’ paired with established WWE stars as their ‘pros’ compete in matches and contests to avoid elimination and ultimately win the competition and a ‘WWE contract’. The main event of the first show saw the debut of Daniel Bryan (who was paired with The Miz as his pro) as he fell to a loss against WWE Champion Chris Jericho (on the show as Wade Barrett’s pro).
2014 – WWE Elimination Chamber took place at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minnestota. Of historical note, this was the last out and out PPV the WWE aired before the launch of the WWE Network which took place the very next day. That service would carry all WWE PPVs from then on in. In the main event, Randy Orton retained the WWE World Heavyweight Championship in an Elimination Chamber match against Antonio Cesaro, John Cena, Sheamus, Daniel Bryan and Christian.
Notable Wrestling Birthdays:
- Tomoko Watanabe (1972)