Wrestling History

October 25th – On This Day In Wrestling History

October 25th - On This Day In Wrestling History

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

1976 – In Madison Square Garden, Bruno Sammartino retained his WWWF World Heavyweight Title against Nikolai Volkoff by pinfall in an 18-and-a-half-minute main event.

1998 – WCW’s annual Halloween Havoc PPV was held in the MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas. Due to complications with the run time (3.5 hours instead of the usual 3 hours), a lot of stations showing the PPV cut the show before it ended, meaning that the main event wasn’t seen by fans at home. Because of this the main event was replayed the next night on Nitro and had a record 7.78 million viewers, which was the most for any wrestling match on cable up until that time. (Although due to PPV refunds, WCW reportedly lost around $2 million.)

On the PPV Chris Jericho beat Raven by submission to retain the WCW World Television Championship, Bret Hart defeated Sting to retain the WCW United States Heavyweight Championship and, in what was voted as the worst match of 1998, Hollywood Hogan beat The Warrior by pinfall in a WrestleMania VI rematch. In the main event, Goldberg beat Diamond Dallas Page to retain the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.

1999 – On Monday Night RAW, the Fabulous Moolah (the 76-year-old WWF Women’s Champion) announced that she was retiring and therefore would vacate the championship. However, Ivory decided to invoke her rematch clause and beat Moolah in just 24 seconds to officially win the WWF Women’s Title.

1999 – On WCW Monday Nitro in Phoenix, Arizona, Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart defeated Bill Goldberg to win the WCW United States Championship. The World Tag Team Championships also changed hands as The Filthy Animals (Billy Kidman and Konnan defeated Harlem Heat.

2003 – Stephanie McMahon and Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque were married.

2005 – MNM (Johnny Nitro and Joey Mercury) won the SmackDown Tag Team Titles by winning a fatal-four way match against The Legion Of Doom (Animal and John Heidenreich), The Mexicools (Super Crazy and Psicosis) and Paul Burchill and William Regal.

2005 – At an Impact taping in Orlando, Florida, Jeff Jarrett defeated Rhino to regain the NWA World Heavyweight Championship he had lost to Rhino just two days prior at Bound For Glory.

2008 – Blue Demon Jr beat Adam Pearce in Mexico City to win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. With the win, he became both the first Mexican and the first masked wrestler to win the NWA title.

2009 – WWE PPV Bragging Rights was held in the Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Team SmackDown (Chris Jericho, Kane, Finlay, R-Truth, Matt Hardy, David Hart Smith and Tyson Kidd) defeated Team RAW (Triple H, Shawn Michaels, The Big Show, Cody Rhodes, Jack Swagger, Kofi Kingston and Mark Henry) in a 14 person tag team match to claim said bragging rights. The main event for the WWE Championship saw John Cena face Randy Orton in a “60-minute, anything goes, falls count anywhere, no DQ Ironman match” which Cena won 6-5 in the closing seconds.

2010 – After winning the tag team titles the night before, John Cena and David Otunga lost the belts to Heath Slater and Justin Gabriel when Otunga laid down for his Nexus teammates.

2015 – From the Staples Centre, LA comes WWE Hell In A Cell. United States Champion John Cena issued an open challenge which was answered by a returning Alberto Del Rio, who went on to pin Cena and become the new U.S. Champion. Four other titles were on the line on the show and all were retained by the champions.

  • The New Day (Big E & Kofi Kingston) defeated The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray & D-Von Dudley) to retain the WWE Tag Team Championship.
  • Charlotte submitted Nikki Bella to retain the WWE Divas Championship.
  • Seth Rollins defeated Kane to retain the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
  • Kevin Owens defeated Ryback to retain the WWE Intercontinental Championship.

Two Hell in a Cell matches were held. In the first Roman Reigns beat Bray Wyatt by pinfall and the main event saw Brock Lesnar defeat the Undertaker. After the match, The Wyatt Family (Bray Wyatt, Luke Harper, Erick Rowan and Braun Strowman) attacked the Undertaker and when he was subdued, carried him off to the back.

2019 – At an Impact Wrestling taping in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, Sami Callihan defeated Brian Cage in a steel cage match to win the Impact World Heavyweight Championship.

2020 – WWE presented Hell in a Cell at the ThunderDome in Orlando, Florida. Two titles changed hands inside the structure, with Sasha Banks defeating Bayley for the SmackDown Women’s Championship, and Randy Orton toppling Drew McIntyre to win the WWE Championship.

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