This Day In Wrestling History – November 26th

November 26 includes the first ever Survivor Series and the last ever Starrcade, and more!

After an intended hiatus, This Day In History is back! We have firsts, lasts, birthdays, and more!

Born On This Day

•  1961 – Lisa Moretti (Ivory)
• 1966 – Brian Harris (Brian Lee)
• 1976 – Maven Huffman (Maven)

This Day In Wrestling History

1960 – Al Costello & Roy Heffernan defeats Johnny Valentine & Chief Big Heart for the United States Tag Team Title, which is the forerunner to the WWF World Tag Team Title.

1987 – The inaugural Survivor Series broadcast from Richfield, Ohio.  The main event tag team match was the first televised meeting between Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant since Wrestlemania III. What else is news worthy about this date? It was the first (and presumably last) time two opposing companies held PPV’s on the same day. NWA aired Starcade in the afternoon, Survivor Series aired in the evening. There was plenty of strong arming from Vince with the cable companies, he told the cable companies they would have to pick one. Most, not surprisingly, chose his product. The cable companies later informed the companies never to hold PPV’s on the same day. Below are the results from the first Survivor Series. (winners in bold)

• Brutus Beefcake, Jake Roberts, Jim Duggan, Randy Savage, and Ricky Steamboat defeated Danny Davis, Harley Race, Hercules, Ron Bass, and The Honky Tonk Man 5-2 in a Survivor Series match.
• Rockin’ Robin, The Fabulous Moolah, The Jumping Bomb Angels (Itsuki Yamazaki and Noriyo Tateno), and Velvet McIntyre defeated Dawn Marie, Donna Christianello, Sensational Sherri, and The Glamour Girls (Judy Martin and Leilani Kai) 5-3 in a Survivor Series match.
• Strike Force (Rick Martel and Tito Santana), The British Bulldogs (Davey Boy Smith and Dynamite Kid), The Fabulous Rougeaus (Jacques Rougeau and Ray Rougeau), The Killer Bees (B. Brian Blair and Jim Brunzell) and The Young Stallions (Jim Powers and Paul Roma) defeated Demolition (Ax and Barry Darsow), The Bolsheviks (Boris Zhukov and Nikolai Volkoff), The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart), The Islanders (Haku and Tama), and The New Dream Team (Dino Bravo and Greg Valentine) 10-6 in a Survivor Series match. In this match, eliminations occurred in pairs; when one member of a team was defeated, his partner was also eliminated.
• Andre the Giant, Butch Reed, King Kong Bundy, One Man Gang, and Rick Rude defeated Bam Bam Bigelow, Don Muraco, Hulk Hogan, Ken Patera, and Paul Orndorff 5-4 in a Survivor Series match.

1997 – Diesel defeated Bob Backlund in just eight seconds to win the WWF Championship. It is still the shortest championship win on record. Randy Orton did match this feat in a win over Daniel Bryan at SummerSlam in 2013. The win made Diesel the first man to win the WWF’s triple crown (WWF world, Intercontinental, and tag team) championships in less than a year.

1995 – Smoky Mountain Wrestling presented Thanksgiving Thunder from the Knoxville City Coliseum in Knoxville, Tennessee. About 1,100 fans were in attendance for what would be the last show presented by the company.

• Flash Flanagan defeated Thrasher.
• Sgt. Rock defeated The Wolfman.
• Butch Cassidy defeated Jim Cornette by disqualification.
• Brad Armstrong defeated Terry Gordy in a Country Whipping match to become the last SMW Heavyweight Champion.
• Buddy Landel & The Bullet defeated The Punisher & Tommy Rich.
• Robert Gibson & The Heavenly Bodies (Jimmy Del Ray & Tom Prichard) defeat Dirty White Boy, Ricky Morton, and Tracy Smothers by disqualification. At the end of the event, all of the wrestlers attacked Cornette and hit them with their finishers. Brian Hildebrand, who would go on to fame as Mark Curtis in WCW, pinned Cornette to end SMW

1995 – WCW presented the first World War 3   from the Norfolk Scope in Norfolk, Virginia.  The show featured a three-ring, 60-man battle royal for the vacant WCW World Heavyweight Championship. The title was vacated the previous month following the events of Halloween Havoc involving Hulk Hogan and The Giant.  It is said that Hulk Hogan changed the booking of the match as the match was in progress. The original plan was for Giant to cleanly eliminate Hogan; but Hogan got cold feet about it and changed it so that Giant pulled Hogan under the ring out of the line of sight of any of the referees. This was not well received, especially as Savage’s winning elimination was missed on camera.

2000 – WCW presented Mayhem  from the US Cellular Arena in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. About 3,800 were in attendance, with just 55,000 homes watching on PPV. That is just over a quarter of what the first Mayhem got (200,000 buys), and down 15,000 buys from Halloween Havoc the previous month. The end was near indeed for WCW.

2007 – Tyson Tomko signed a deal to return to WWE, although he would be released before returning to the main roster.

2014 – On Colt Cabana’ s “Art of Wrestling” podcast, CM Punk broke his silence, almost a year after leaving WWE. Much was said, with the biggest taken away being that he did not quit, he was fired.

Notes: There are 86 events listed across multiple promotions for this day in wrestling. The majority being house shows, television shows and a scattering of PPVs. 

Died On This Date

• None found