Today In Pro Wrestling History: June 28th

Getting towards the end of June, and we’re starting to take a page from AJ’s book and get kind of funky with the choices and the gymnastics. Nothing is so far removed that it makes no sense, so hopefully it’s interesting and less “why is it here”.

• AWA Battle by the Bay (1986)

AWA was hemorrhaging talent like Hulk Hogan and the Road Warriors, so this was their attempt to push some of the younger talent to the forefront and hang in with a surging WWF. Stan Hansen defended the AWA World title against Jerry Blackwell, so that didn’t push the young talent, but the main event did. The main event was a 6 man with Curt Hennig and the Rockers facing off against Buddy Rose, Doug Somers and Alexis Smirnoff. The young team went over in a match that actually highlighted solid action and the younger talent’s athleticism. The biggest match of note was Sherri Martel defeating Candi Devine for her third reign as AWA Women’s Champion. It would go on to be a 392 day reign.

• WWF King of the Ring (1998)

This was a show packed with a few moments that alone would’ve defined a PPV, but the one match overshadows them all. Yes Ken Shamrock won the King of the Ring over The Rock, but also, that’s the least interesting thing that happened on this show. The main event was a First Blood match between Kane and Stone Cold. A huge moment for Kane since this was one of the few times Stone Cold lost clean during the height of his popularity. So what moment outshone Kane, Stone Cold, The Rock and Ken Shamrock in 1998? Undertaker vs Mankind’s Hell in a Cell match. Yup, THAT match. Some of you may have forgotten that it was just the semi-main event on this PPV, but that also proves how much the match has eclipsed normal wrestling memory and lives in a pantheon of its own. I’m not going to even wax poetic for a sentence or two, you should know why its relevant.

• WWF Raw is War: WWF World Championship: Stone Cold Steve Austin vs Undertaker (c) (1999)

While the match itself wasn’t overly memorable with the Austin kayfabe CEO gimmick just trying to put Taker behind the 8 ball with stipulations, it’s on here because of legit history reasons. The segment still holds the record for highest Nielsen rating for a professional wrestling segment in television history. The segment scored a 9.5 on the rating scale, which equated to about 10.7 million viewers. While The Rock vs Shane McMahon in 2000 holds the record for most viewers (11.05 million), cable boxes expanded so the rating number was only around 7.4.

• TNA Slammiversary: Inaugural King of the Mountain Championship Match: Drew Galloway vs Eric Young vs Jeff Jarrett vs Bobby Roode vs Matt Hardy (2015)

Yet another rebranding for the TNA Legends/Television/Global championship…now with a new face plate being called the King of the Mountain Championship! The title helped to insinuate the incoming GFW vs TNA invasion story by framing the belt as a “belt without borders”. With Jeff Jarrett winning, that cemented him as the person with the most King of the Mountain wins (3), and felt correct since he was the King of the Mountain in the early days of TNA. The match in general helped to showcase TNA originals like Eric Young and Bobby Roode, as well as newer names with some cache in Matt Hardy and Drew Galloway. While this whole angle was a dumpster fire, we get to say that with the benefit of hindsight. At the time it was at least interesting and I still contend that GFW is a better name than TNA or Impact.

• WWE Night Of Champions (2025)

This was the Global Netflix debut of Night of Champions, as well as a show that just had a lot. Jade Cargill and Cody Rhodes were crowned Queen and King of the Ring respectively. Solo Sikoa defeated Jacob Fatu for the United States Championship thanks to the return interference of Tanga Loa. Plus we had a long awaited match between CM Punk and John Cena. Cena with his Pipebomb parody and Punkanomics leading up to the show did a good job to set the stage, simmer the heat and bring up nostalgic feelings for fans. The match was 26 minutes, and about 20 minutes of a good match. While the finish was a WCW level of overbooked garbage with ref bumps, The Vision, Penta and Sami, a stifled Cash-In and just generally too damn much, Cena retained to continue his heel run. The crowd were into it, so visually it sent the crowd home buzzing, but the more critical fans felt robbed of one final classic match.

So there’s a smattering of a bunch of different things. Stone Cold and Undertaker do tie two events together where the rest are just solid cards with historic or historic adjacent action. Like I said, a little funky, but nothing egregiously stretched today.