January 29th – On This Day In Wrestling History

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

1996 – At a taping of WCW Main Event, Konnan defeated One Man Gang to win the WCW United States Championship in Canton, Ohio.

2002 – At a SmackDown taping in Norfolk, Virginia, Diamond Dallas Page defeated Christian to win the WWE European Championship.

2006 – WWE presented the Royal Rumble PPV at the American Airlines Arena in Miami, Florida. The Royal Rumble match itself was won by Rey Mysterio, who set a record for the longest time spent in the match with 62 minutes. He last eliminated Randy Orton.

Elsewhere on the show, John Cena defeated Edge to win back the WWE Championship he had lost earlier that month. In the main event, Kurt Angle retained the World Heavyweight Championship against Mark Henry. After the match, The Undertaker made his first appearance in WWE of the year to challenge Angle. In addition, Gregory Helms won the WWE Cruiserweight Championship in a Cruiserweight Invitational match including Kid Kash, Funaki, Jamie Noble, Nunzio and Paul London.

2007 – On an episode of Raw in Dallas, Texas, Shawn Michaels and John Cena defeated Rated RKO (Edge and Randy Orton) to win the World Tag Team Championships.

2012 – Sheamus won the Royal Rumble match at the PPV in St. Louis, Missouri. He last eliminated Chris Jericho for the victory. Two interesting historical notes from the match – Kane missed the Royal Rumble match for the first time in 15 years, marking the end of the longest streak of appearances in the match. Kharma became the third woman to enter the Royal Rumble in what would go to be her only match in WWE.

2017 – WWE presented the annual Royal Rumble from the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. In the main event, Randy Orton won a star-studded Royal Rumble match. Three titles changed hands on the night.

• John Cena won the WWE Championship in a match against AJ Styles.
• Neville defeated Rich Swann for the WWE Cruiserweight Championship.
• Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson defeated The Bar (Sheamus and Cesaro) to win the SmackDown Tag Team Championship in a dark match.

2019 – On an episode of WWE SmackDown from the Talking Stick Arena in Phoenix, Arizona, R-Truth defeated Shinsuke Nakamura to win the United States Championship.

2021 – Braun Strowman returned on an episode of Friday night SmackDown, taking out The Miz and John Morrison as they continued an assault after a ten-man tag, which emanated from a six-man contest which in turn started as a singles match between Daniel Bryan and AJ Styles.

Notable Wrestling Birthdays:

• Bob ‘Hardcore’ Holly (1963)