Wrestling History

September 24th – On This Day In Wrestling History

September 24th - On This Day In Wrestling History

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

1979 – On WWF’s Madison Square Garden show from New York, the main event of Nikolai Volkoff vs. Chief Jay Strongbow ended in a draw after the show overran the 11 PM curfew in place at Madison Square Garden. (Officially known as a ‘curfew draw’.) Earlier in the night Bob Backlund defeated Pat Patterson in a steel cage match.

1984 – Greg Valentine defeated Tito Santana in London, Ontario, Canada to win the WWF Intercontinental Championship.

1990 – Herb Abram’s Universal Wrestling Federation (UWF) held their first-ever television tapings in Reseda, California. A stacked 21-match card featured an impressive list of talent including Cactus Jack, Paul Orndorff, ‘And Dr Death’ Steve Williams and B. Brian Blair but the attendance at ringside was just 450 people.

1996 – WWF presents In Your House 3: Triple Header from Saginaw, Michigan. The main event was a winner-take-all match featuring Diesel (WWF Champion) and Shawn Michaels (Intercontinental Champion) against the Tag Team champions of Owen Hart and Yokozuna. Due to Hart going ‘missing’ it was decided that the British Bulldog would take his place. However, Owen Hart made an appearance before the end of the match and ended up being the one pinned for Diesel/Michaels to become the ones to hold all the gold. (The next night on Raw it would be decided that Owen wasn’t legal in the match, the results were voided and the tag belts returned to Hart and Yokozuna.)

2000 – WWF Unforgiven was live from the First Union Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Matt and Jeff Hardy defeated Edge and Christian in a steel cage match to win the Tag Team titles (with a slight assist from Lita.) Elsewhere in the night, Eddie Guerrero defeated Rikishi by disqualification to keep possession of the Intercontinental Championship and a returning Stone Cold Steve Austin gave a Stunner to Steve Blackman followed by three Stunners to Shane McMahon. The main event was a Fatal 4 Way in which The Rock retained his WWF Championship against the Undertaker, Kane and the man he would pin to end the match, Chris Benoit.

2005 – ROH Survival of the Fittest had a 6-way Elimination main event in which Roderick Strong, Christopher Daniels, Samoa Joe, Austin Ares, Colt Cabana and Jay Lethal fought a 50-minute main event. Each wrestler had won matches earlier in the evening to get into the final match, which was ultimately won by Strong.

2006 – TNA No Surrender came from the Impact Zone, Orlando, Florida. The main event was billed as a ‘fans revenge Lumberjack match’ between Samoa Joe and Jeff Jarrett with 18 fans surrounding the ring equipped with leather straps, Joe would win the match via pinfall. This wasn’t the most unique match on the card, as earlier in the night there was a ’16 man triple chance tag team battle royal.’ When a wrestler got eliminated over the top rope they would stay at ringside until their partner was eliminated, then both would leave ringside.

However, when the match got down to the last two wrestlers their partners would rejoin the action and it would become a standard two vs. two tag team match. Andy Douglas and Chase Stevens won the match and became number one contenders for the tag team belts. The card also featured a wild Ultimate X match.

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