March 11th – On This Day In Wrestling History

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

1993 – At a house show in London, England, Sting defeated Big Van Vader to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.

1993 – Former WWF Superstar Dino Bravo was brutally murdered in his Quebec home at the age off 44. Bravo was shot 17 times, allegedly due to issues with local organised crime families. The murder was never officially solved.

1996 – Steve Austin debuted his new ‘Stone Cold’ gimmick at the WWF Raw tapings from San Antonio, Texas in a double count-out draw with Savio Vega. A rematch between the two would take place at WrestleMania XII a few weeks later. Mark Henry also made his first WWF appearance as he press-slammed Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler.

1996 – The Steiner Brothers returned to WCW for the first time since January 1993. They lost their return match to The Road Warriors.

2002 – On an episode of Raw from Detroit, Michigan, the NWO (‘Hollywood’ Hogan, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash) defeated ‘Stone Cold’ Steve Austin and The Rock in a handicap match. This would be the only time Hogan and Austin were in the same match in a WWE ring.

2003 – The main event of SmackDown saw Kurt Angle defeat Brock Lesnar to retain the WWE Championship. These two were set to meet in the main event of WrestleMania XIX a few weeks later but a severe neck injury to Angle meant this match was scheduled to allow Angle to drop the title to Lesnar before getting surgery. However, after the match was announced, Angle informed management that he had elected for a different type of surgery that would take place after WrestleMania, allowing him to drop the belt to Lesnar on the PPV as planned.

As a result, WWE changed this match into more of an Angle that saw Kurt’s brother Eric stand in for him as an imposter, allowing Kurt to roll up Lesnar, retain the title and roll into WrestleMania as planned.

2006 – At ‘ROH Arena Warfare’ in Philadelphia Bryan Danielson retained the ROH World Heavyweight Title against Alex Shelley. Samoa Joe was victorious in the main event triple-threat match against Christopher Daniels and Colt Cabana.

2007 – At TNA Destination X in Orlando, Florida, Christian Cage retained the NWA World Heavyweight Title against Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle defeated Scott Steiner. Also The Latin American Xchange, Homicide and Hernande,z defeated Team 3D in a Ghetto Brawl, Sting was victorious over Abyss in a Last Rites match, and Rhino defeated AJ Styles in an Elevation X match.

2015 – AJ Styles pinned John Hennigan for the FEW Heavyweight in the main event of FEW XIX: Hennigan vs Styles from New York.

2018 – At WWE Fastlane in Columbus, Ohio, AJ Styles retained the WWE Championship in the Six-Pack Challenge main event against Baron Corbin, Dolph Ziggler, John Cena, Kevin Owen and Sami Zayn. As a result of Cena’s losing effort in this match, and his storyline obsession of featuring on the WrestleMania 34 card, Cena would go on to challenge The Undertaker to a match in New Orleans the following month. Also, Randy Orton defeated Bobby Roode for the United States Championship and Charlotte Flair retained the SmackDown Women’s Title against Ruby Riott.

2018 – Will Ospreay & Jody Fleisch defeated Adam Brooks & Sean Kustom in the tag team main event at the Rev Pro Live event in Southampton. Also, Kurtis Chapman retained the RevPro British Cruiserweight Title against Wild Boar.

2019 – Bobby Lashley defeated Finn Balor for the Intercontinental Championship on WWE Raw from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In the main event, Drew McIntyre defeated Dean Ambrose as part of the build up to his WrestleMania showdown with Roman Reigns.

2020 – On NXT from Orlando The BroserWeights, Matt Riddle and Pete Dunne, retained the NXT Tag Team titles against Bobby Fish and Kyle O’Reilly of The Undisputed Era in the main event.

Notable Wrestling Birthdays:

• Black Taurus (1987)
• Russ Hass (1974)
• Pitbull #1 (1967)
• Robbie Brookside (1966)