January 16th – On This Day In Wrestling History
Our full On This Day In Wrestling History section can be found here.
1992 – Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton defeated Dustin Rhodes and Ricky Steamboat to win the WCW World Tag Team Championships in Jacksonville, Florida.
1999 – Taz retained the ECW World Heavyweight Championship against Chris Candido, and then Shane Douglas at ECW House Party in Philadelphia.
2000 – WCW presented the ‘Souled Out’ PPV in Cincinnati, Ohio. The main event saw Chris Benoit defeat Sid Vicious for the WCW World Heavyweight Title in the main event. The win came despite the fact Benoit had signalled his intention to leave the promotion the next day. Management believed giving him the title win would change his mind. It didn’t. Also on the card, Oklahoma (Ed Ferrara) pinned Madusa for the WCW Cruiserweight Championship.
2001 – ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin, The Rock & The Undertaker defeated WWF Champion Kurt Angle, Kane & Rikishi in the six-man tag team main event of the WWF SmackDown taping in Chicago.
2005 – Jeff Jarrett retained the NWA World Heavyweight Title against Monty Brown in the main event of TNA ‘Final Resolution’ in Orlando, Florida.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80vIiI07Ktc
2005 – At a live event in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, the WWE World Tag Team Championships changed hands when La Resistance (Rob Conway and Sylvan Grenier) defeated William Regal and Jonathan Coachman (who was substituting for an injured Eugene).
2006 – Edge retained the WWE Championship against Ric Flair in a TLC match on an episode of WWE Raw from Raleigh in North Carolina.
2009 – Hardcore Holly was released from WWE after a 16-year stint with the company.
2012 – Jack Swagger defeated Zack Ryder for the WWE United States Championship on WWE Raw from Anaheim, California.
2014 – TNA taped two special episodes of IMPACT themed under the ‘Genesis’ name. Most notably, the event was the final night in TNA for Sting, who had worked for the company since 2003. He lost matches to Ethan Carter III and Magnus.
2018 – Bobby Roode defeated Jinder Mahal for the WWE United States Championship on WWE SmackDown Live from Laredo, Texas.
2021 – IMPACT Wrestling presented Hard To Kill. In the main event, Kenny Omega and The Good Brothers defeated Rich Swann, Chris Sabin and Moose.
Notable Wrestling Birthdays:
- Takashi Sasaki (1975)
- Rick Bogner (1970)
- Sir Oliver Humperdink (1949)