Wrestling History

September 11th – On This Day In Wrestling History

September 11th - On This Day In Wrestling History

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

1995 – WWE Raw and WCW Nitro went head-to-head for the very first time in the now-infamous Monday Night War. On Raw, the newly-turned heel British Bulldog took on Razor Ramon, and Shawn Michaels defended the Intercontinental Title against Psycho Sid. Whilst over on Nitro, Hulk Hogan defended the World Heavyweight Championship against Lex Luger, and Randy Savage faced Scott Norton.

1997 – ‘Wrestlefest: 50 Years Of Funk’ took place in Terry Funk’s hometown of Amarillo, Texas. The event was promoted as Funk’s retirement match (which lasted less than six months). The main event saw Funk take on WWF Champion Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart in a match refereed by Hart’s first professional opponent, Dennis Stamp. The build to the match and the match itself was a key storyline strand in the ‘Beyond The Mat’ documentary released the following year.

2000 – WWE commissioner Mick Foley began his investigation into who ran over Stone Cold Steve Austin the previous year at the Survivor Series. Also, Kurt Angle took on Test & Albert in a handicap match, Lita defended the WWE Women’s Title against Ivory, and in the main event, WWE Champion The Rock teamed with The Undertaker to take on Kane and Chris Benoit in a No-DQ Tag Team match.

2000 – Wedding bells were in the air on the go-home edition WCW Nitro for Fall Brawl as David Flair was set to marry Stacy Keibler, and Kevin Nash was forced to defend the WCW Championship against Scott Steiner with special referee Booker T, and special enforcer Goldberg.

2001 – A taping of SmackDown due to be held in Houston, Texas is cancelled in the aftermath of the infamous terrorist attacks that took place in New York and Washington that day. A few days later, the rearranged show would be the first mass gathering of people in the USA after the attacks and would be one of the finest hours in WWE history.

2006 – Lilian Garcia sang “America The Beautiful” to kick off the go-home edition of WWE Raw for Unforgiven from Madison Square Garden on the 5th anniversary of the events of 9/11. John Cena teamed up with Jeff Hardy and Carlito to take on WWE Champion Edge, Intercontinental Champion Johnny Nitro and Randy Orton. Also, Mr McMahon went one-on-one with Triple H in the No Holds Barred main event.

2010 – ROH Glory By Honor IX took place at the Grand Ballroom at the Manhattan Center in New York City and featured Roderick Strong in the main event taking on Tyler Black in a No-DQ match for the ROH World Championship. The undercard also featured Christopher Daniels against Austin Aries, Colt Cabana and El Generico vs. Kevin Steen and Steve Corino in a Double Chains match, and Eddie Edwards defending the ROH World TV Title against Shawn Daivari.

2010 – Mike Shaw, known in WWE as Bastion Booger, died, aged 53 as a result of a pulmonary embolism.

2014 – NXT presented NXT TakeOver: Fatal 4-Way from Full Sail University. The main event saw Adrian Neville retain the NXT Championship against Sami Zayn, Tyler Breeze and Tyson Kidd.

2016 – WWE’s SmackDown brand presented their first PPV of the new brand split era, Backlash. In the main event, AJ Styles defeated Dean Ambrose to win the WWE Championship. Elsewhere, two new SmackDown-specific championships were awarded for the first time. Becky Lynch won a six-pack challenge to become the brand’s first Women’s champion. Feel good tag team Heath Slater and Rhyno were victorious over The Usos in a tournament final to be crowned SmackDown Tag Team Champions.

Notable Wrestling Birthdays:

Notable Wrestling Deaths: