Wrestling History

July 25th – On This Day In Wrestling History

July 25th - On This Day In Wrestling History

1987 – The Hart Foundation retained the WWF Tag Team Championship against The British Bulldogs and Brutus ‘The Barber’ Beefcake picked up a disqualification win over the Intercontinental Champion The Honky Tonk Man at a WWF house show in Madison Square Garden, New York City.

1993 – At the Monday Night Raw tapings from Alexandria Bay in New York, Jim Cornette and The Heavenly Bodies (Jimmy Del Ray and Dr. Tom Prichard) made their WWE debuts. Cornette was also named as the ‘American Spokesperson’ for WWF Champion Yokozuna.

1999 – WWE’s Fully Loaded PPV took place at the Marine Midland Arena in Buffalo, New York. For the first time in company history, four titles changed hands in the opening four matches. In the opener, Jeff Jarrett defeated Edge to win back the Intercontinental Championship that he had lost to Edge the prior evening at a house show in Toronto, Canada. Secondly, The Acolytes, Faarooq and Bradshaw, won back the WWF Tag Team Championship in a handicap match against The Hardy Boyz and Michael Hayes. The third match saw D’Lo Brown defeat Mideon for the European Championship and finally, The Big Boss Man defeated Al Snow for the Hardcore Championship. The main event saw ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin retain the WWF Championship against The Undertaker in a First Blood match.

2011 – On an eventful episode of Raw from Hampton, Virginia, the tournament final to crown a new WWE Champion (After CM Punk walked out of the company with the title) took place and saw Rey Mysterio defeat The Miz to win the title in the opening match. However, this was not the end of the drama for the night. In the main event, Mysterio was forced to defend his newly won championship against John Cena and lost the match and the title. Following that match, ‘Cult Of Personality’ by Living Color blared out in a WWE arena for the first time and this marked the return of CM Punk for the first time since the Money In The Bank PPV to declare himself as the true champion and setting up a clash to decide an undisputed champion at SummerSlam.

2015 – Progress Wrestling presented ‘Chapter 20: Thunderbastard: Beyond Thunderbastard’ from the Electric Ballroom in Brixton, London. In the main event Will Ospreay defeated Jimmy Havoc in a no disqualification match to win the Progress title.

2016 – On an episode of Raw from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Sasha Banks defeated Charlotte by submission to win her first Raw Women’s Championship. This show also marked the WWE main roster debut of Finn Balor. In the opening match he won a fatal four-way match over Kevin Owens, Cesaro and Seth Rollins which allowed him to qualify for a match with Roman Reigns in the main event which would see the winner granted one of two slots in a match at SummerSlam to become determine the first ever Universal Champion. Balor won the match and would go on to beat Rollins for the title at SummerSlam. Unfortunately his reign would last only 24 hours as he had to vacate the belt due to injury.

2017 – AJ Styles won the United States Championship on an episode of SmackDown from Richmond, Virginia in a three way match with Kevin Owens and Chris Jericho.

Notable Wrestling Birthdays:

  • Finn Balor (1981)
  • KENSO (1974)
  • Pitbull #2 (1967)