May 25th – On This Day In Wrestling History
1987 – Soldat Ustinov & Boris Zukhov won the AWA World Tag Team Championship in Lake Tahoe, Nevada with a victory over The Midnight Rockers (Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty)
1989 – Two major titles changed hands in Osaka, Japan. In the main event, Big Van Vader lost his IWGP Heavyweight Championship to Salman Hashimikov. Also, Jushin ‘Thunder’ Liger won the first of his record 11 IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championships with a win over Shiro Koshinaka.
1994 – At the age of 16, Jeff Hardy made his WWE debut at a TV taping in Erie, Pennsylvania in a losing effort to The 1-2-3 Kid. On the same show, Brian Lee was introduced by Ted DiBiase as the fake Undertaker.
1999 – At a taping for Raw Is War, Jeff Jarrett defeated The Godfather to win the Intercontinental Championship in Moline, Illinois. On the same show, The Acolytes (Farooq and Bradshaw) defeated X-Pac and Kane to win the WWF Tag Team Championship.
2002– WWE Confidential made its debut on Spike TV. The debut episode of the show, that focused on controversial real life moments from WWE’s past, focused on Shawn Michaels admitting he was in the know about the Montreal Screwjob for the first time. WWE Velocity debuted on the same night as a B-show for the SmackDown roster.
2002 – CHIKARA held its debut show in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The show was titled ‘The The Renaissance Dawns’ and was main evented by a six man tag team match pitting The Gold Bond Mafia (CM Punk, Chris Hero and Colt Cabana) against The Black T-Shirt Squad (Reckless Youth, Don Montoya and Mike Quackenbush). The match was won by The Black T-Shirt Squad.
2013 – The short-lived World Wrestling All-Stars promotion taped their final event. It was titled ‘The Reckoning’ and took place in Auckland, New Zealand. The show would air on PPV in the USA on June 8th. The main event saw Jeff Jarrett defeat Sting to unify the WWA and NWA World Heavyweight Championships.
2009 – WWE presented what should have been a bog standard episode of Monday Night Raw from the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. What was remarkable about the show was that it was supposed to take place at The Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado but the building ended up being double booked with game 4 of the NBA Western Conference Finals between The Denver Nuggets and the Los Angeles Lakers. This issue forced WWE to move their show to LA at extremely short notice and left Vince McMahon furious with Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke. By means of retaliation, McMahon booked the main event of Raw as a 10-man tag (The same number of players in a basketball game) that featured the babyface team of John Cena, Batista, Jerry ‘The King’ Lawler, MVP and Mr. Kennedy decked out in LA Lakers shirts taking on a heel team of Randy Orton, The Miz, The Big Show, Ted DiBiase Jr. and Cody Rhodes decked out in Nuggets shirts. Needless to say, the ‘Lakers’ prevailed. Also notable about the match was that it was Kennedy’s first match since he injured his shoulder in August 2008. It was also his last match in WWE as he was released days later.
2012 – Chris Jericho was ‘indefinitely suspended’ by WWE following an incident prior to a match with CM Punk in Sao Paulo, Brazil where he desecrated the Brazilian flag in the middle of the ring. Unbeknownst to Jericho, this is an arrestable offence in the country. Ultimately, no charges were filed as Jericho apologised publicly and returned to television on June 25th.
2019 – AEW Double Or Nothing took place at the MGM Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. This was the first official PPV under the AEW banner. The main event saw Chris Jericho defeat Kenny Omega in a match to determine which of the two would participate in the match to crown the first AEW World Heavyweight Champion. Immediately after the match, Jon Moxley made his AEW debut by attacking both men. Earlier in the night, ‘Hangman’ Adam Page won the first Casino Battle Royale to determine the other challenger in the AEW World Title match. Other notable matches on the card included Cody defeating his brother Dustin Rhodes in an bloody encounter and The Young Bucks (Nick & Matt Jackson) defeated The Lucha Bros. (Pentagon Jr. & Ray Fenix) to retain the AAA Tag Team Championship.
2019 – Former WWWF World Tag Team Champion Rene Goulet passed away aged 86.
2020 – WWE taped both Raw and Smackdown from the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, Florida. On the Raw taping, Apollo Crews defeated Andrade to win the WWE United States Championship.
Notable Wrestling Birthdays:
- Bo Dallas (1990)
- Roman Reigns (1985)