June 28th – On This Day In Wrestling History
1983 – Chief Jay Strongbow and Jules Strongbow defeated Mr Fuji and Mr Saito for the WWF Tag Team titles at a WWF house in Madison Square Garden in New York City.
1986 – Sherri Martel defeated Candi Devine for the AWA World Women’s Championship at AWA Battle at the Bay in Oakland, California. In the main event Curt Hennig, Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty defeated Alexis Smirnoff, Buddy Rogers and Doug Sumers in the six-man tag team main event.
1997 – The Undertaker retained the WWF Championship against Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart and ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin at a WWF house show in Anaheim, California.
1997 – Chris Jericho defeated Syxx for the WCW Cruiserweight Championship on WCW Saturday Night from Inglewood, California. This was a unique show in that WCW offered the event to fans as a ‘Pay Per Listen’ broadcast over the internet.
1997 – In the main event of ‘ECW: Orgy of Violence’ from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Rob Van Dam and Sabu defeated The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer in a tag team match. The Dudleys retained the ECW World Tag Team Titles against Mustafa and New Jack, and Taz retained the ECW World Television Title against John Kronus.
1998 – WWE’s King Of The Ring PPV was held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Ken Shamrock was crowned the tournament winner and new king by defeating the Intercontinental Champion The Rock in the finals. ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin lost the WWF Championship to Kane in the main event in a ‘First Blood’ match with interference from The Undertaker and Mankind. However, this PPV is famous for the match prior to the main event .Mankind and The Undertaker competed in the second Hell In A Cell match to be held on PPV. This match birthed one of the most iconic moments in WWE history. During his ring entrance Mankind climbed to the top of the cell structure and goaded The Undertaker to join him. The two battled on the top of a very fragile cell roof top, what happened next has been discussed about by perhaps every casual and dedicated wrestling fan and analyst ever sin. Undertaker threw Mankind from the top of the cage, and Foley crash-landed through the announcer table set-up below. Jim Ross who was on color commentary duty for the match and uttered the immortal lune “Oh my God they’ve killed him! As God as my witness this man is broken in half!”. Whilst that spot was planned, what followed was not. After Mankind recuperated, both men went back to the top of the cell. Undertaker delivered a chokeslam to Foley but the mesh cage underneath them gave way and Foley fell all the way into the ring below with a chair landing on his face for good measure. After Terry Funk and numerous officials tended to Foley/Mankind, he climbed off a stretcher to finish the match, finding time to be chokeslammed on to a pile of thumb tacks for good measure.
1999 – The day after the King Of The Ring PPV, ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin defeated The Undertaker to win the WWF World Championship for the fourth time on WWE Raw from Charlotte, North Carolina. With a 9.5 TV rating, this match is the most watched wrestling match in the history of cable television.
2001 – In the main event of ‘OVW Last Dance’ from Louisville in Kentucky, Kane and The Undertaker made an extremely rare appearance for WWE’s development organisation and picked up a disqualification win over Diamond Dallas Page and Leviathan (Batista) in the main event. Flash Flanagan retained the OVW World Title against Chris Jericho.
2003 – At ‘ROH Wrestlewave’ from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Samoa Joe retained the ROH World Heavyweight Championship against Dan Maff. AJ Styles retained the NWA World Title over Chris Sabin and Trent Acid defeated Homicide in a ‘Fight Without Honor’ match in the main event.
2009 – Three title changes took place at WWE’s ‘The Bash’ PPV in Sacremento, California. Rey Mysterio defeated Chris Jericho for the Intercontinental Championship in a Mask vs Title match, and then Jericho teamed up with Edge to win the WWE Unified Tag Team titles in a Triple Threat match against Carlito & Primo and Ted Dibiase Jr & Cody Rhodes. Michelle McCool pinned Melina to win the WWE Women’s Championship. Also Randy Orton retained the WWE Championship against Triple H in a ‘Three Stages of Hell’ match, John Cena defeated The Miz, and Tommy Dreamer retained the ECW World Championship in a ‘Five Way Championship Scramble’ against Christian, Finlay, Jack Swagger and Mark Henry.
2010 – Evan Bourne, John Morrison, R-Truth and Randy Orton defeated Chris Jericho, Edge, Ted Dibaise Jr and The Miz in the eight-man tag team main event on WWE Raw from Philadelphia.
2012 – Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian defeated AJ Styles and Kurt Angle for the TNA World Tag Team titles at the TNA Impact taping in Orlando, Florida.
2013 – Matt Borne the second generation wrestler and son of Tony Borne passed away aged 55 in Planto, Texas. Borne was most well known as the wrestler to originally portray the character of Doink The Clown in the WWF in the early 1990s. He also wrestled under his own name on the very first WrestleMania. Aside from the WWF Borne competed in several wrestling organisations such as the NWA and WCW.
2015 – Jeff Jarrett defeated Bobby Roode, Drew Galloway, Eric Young and Matt Hardy to win the Five Way King Of the Mountain Match and the TNA King Of The Mountain Championship at TNA Slammiversary in Orlando, Florida.
2019 – Matt Taven retained the ROH World Heavyweight Championship against Jeff Cobb in the main event of ‘ROH: Best In The World’ in Baltimore, Maryland.
Notable Wrestling Birthdays:
- John Heidenreich (1972)
- Villano I (1948)
- Boris Malenko (1933)