Wrestling History

January 26th – On This Day In Wrestling History

January 26th - On This Day In Wrestling History

Our full On This Day In Wrestling History section can be found here.

1987 – At a WWF Superstars taping in Tampa, Florida, The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart) defeated The British Bulldogs (Davey Boy Smith and The Dynamite Kid) to win the WWF Tag Team Championships with assistance from their manager Jimmy Hart and crooked referee Danny Davis. At these same tapings, the Piper’s Pit segments between Hulk Hogan and Andre The Giant to set up the WrestleMania III main event were filmed. In the first, Andre introduced his new manager, Bobby ‘The Brain’ Heenan, effectively turning heel and challenging Hogan for the WWF Championship. In the second segment, Hogan accepted the challenge.

1999 – ‘WWF Halftime Heat’ aired during halftime of the NFL Super Bowl on USA Network. The programme was conceived as counter-programming to the Super Bowl halftime show and featured only one match. That match saw Mankind win the WWF Championship in an Empty Arena Match against The Rock. The match was taped earlier in the day in Tucson, Arizona.

2004 – After winning the Royal Rumble the previous night, SmackDown superstar Chris Benoit appeared on Raw and revealed he intended to challenge World Heavyweight Champion Triple H in the main event of WrestleMania XX.

2014 – Batista won the Royal Rumble match at the PPV of the same name from the CONSOL Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was Batista’s first match in WWE since he left the company in 2010. He last eliminated Roman Reigns who broke the record number of eliminations in a single Rumble match with 12 oustings. This beat Kane’s previous record set in 2001 by one. The record was then broken by Brock Lesnar in 2020. Also of historical note, the match was CM Punk’s last appearance in a WWE ring as he walked out on the company the following night.

2015 – For just the second time in company history, Raw was cancelled. The show was due to be held in the state of Connecticut but due to severe and dangerous weather and a subsequent travel ban on residents, the show was called off and replaced with recaps and interview segments. The following night’s SmackDown was also cancelled.

2019 – NXT TakeOver: Phoenix took place at the Talking Stick Resort Arena in Phoenix, Arizona. Two title changes took place at the event. The first saw The War Raiders (Hanson and Rowe) win the NXT Tag Team Championships against Kyle O’Reilly and Roderick Strong. Secondly, Johnny Gargano bested Ricochet for the North American Championship. In the main event, NXT Champion Tommaso Ciampa retained his title against Aleister Black.

2020 – The Royal Rumble PPV took place at Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas. The main event saw Drew McIntyre oust Roman Reigns to win the men’s Royal Rumble match. The match also saw the returns of Edge and MVP for their first WWE matches since 2011 and 2010 respectively, as well as Brock Lesnar setting the most consecutive eliminations before being taken out by McIntyre. Charlotte Flair was the winner of the women’s Rumble match.

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