Today In Pro Wrestling History: July 20th

A pretty casual friendly article if you ask me! Well, all except one, but the one entry is still something that many should be aware of, given the names that have traveled through the promotion. Now lets get to the events.

• WCW Nitro (1998)

Two fairly sizable things happened on this show. Firstly, the nWo Hollywood team of The Giant & Scott Hall faced the nWo Wolfpac team of Sting & Kevin Nash for the WCW Tag Team Titles. Thanks to interreference by Bret Hart, the nWo team managed to win the tag titles from the nWo Wolfpac. Which would prove a precursor for later in the show. During the match for the vacant United States Championship, The Giant attacked Diamond Dallas Page, allowing Bret Hart to lock in the Sharpshooter on the outside and force the referee to stop the match since DDP was unresponsive. Meaning Bret Hart won his first WCW title via Knock Out, as a member of the nWo Hollywood.

• WWE Battleground (2014)

An interesting event where the two most memorable moments didn’t involve a new champion being crowned. So let’s get to it. Due to Bad News Barrett’s injury, there was an Intercontinental Championship Battle Royal, that culminated with Miz eliminating Dolph Ziggler last to begin his third reign as IC champion. As for the larger moments, there was a 2 out of 3 falls match for the tag titles between the Usos and the Wyatt Family. While the Usos retained two falls to one, the match itself is praised heavily for great chemistry and solid work rate. Lastly we have the Dean Ambrose & Seth Rollins angle. Ambrose attacked Rollins in the back causing him to get kicked out. Rollins wandered out to be officially declared the winner via forfeit, which was granted. But than Ambrose attacked him and the brawl continued, setting up for future post-Shield fallout.

• Dragon Gate Kobe World Festival (2014)

Two big title changes happened at this show, which helped to keep the main event scene framed well. Eita & T-Hawk challenged Shingo Takagi & Akira Tozawa for the Twin Gate titles. T-Hawk and Eita won the titles to begin their second reign. Then the main event was Dream Gate Champion YAMATO vs BxB Hulk. Hulk was a fan favorite, but also began to have this reputation for being a choker. So when Hulk actually won the match, it was a huge moment for the Dragon Gate fans. Hulk won with the Phoenix Splash, finally overcoming a huge rival and getting his emotional crowning moment.

• ROH Manhattan Mayhem: ROH Tag Team Titles Street Fight: Guerrillas of Destiny (c) vs The Briscoes (2019)

G.o.D. won the belts at the G1/NJPW Supercard in Madison Square Garden in the four corners survival match, becoming double champions with both the IWGP and ROH tags. The Briscoes being the most decorated ROH team in company history, of course wanted to bring the belts back to an ROH team. While the match was a little on the short side for most main event matches at the time, it was still filled with constant actions and great spots. The finish was clever with Mark and Jay hitting the Froggy Bow Doomsday on Tama, through a table, to capture the ROH tag titles for their 11th reign.

• TNA Slammiversary (2025)

The show was the largest North American gate in TNA history with 7,623 fans in attendance. On the show, this was the Trick Williams sneaky retain, when Santana had the match won, but Trick ran in to dump Mike and pin Joe Hendry. This pissed off many fans (I wasn’t happy either), since Mike was the hometown hero and it was obvious he was the next in line. There was a four way tag team ladder match with The Hardyz, Nemeths (c), Rascalz and Fir$t Cla$$. It was a really solid match with innovative moments from the Hardyz with the rope ladder, the AJ Francis crotching himself during the fall into the ladder, KC Navarro wrestling with a torn ACL. The Hardyz winning didn’t seem forced since the match was structured very well and looked fun. The most notable, given the direction of his career, is Leon Slater defeating Moose for the X Division title. I’m not a fan of Leon Slater at all, but I at least acknowledge he’s had some cross over success on NXT and WWE shows, his title reign was a big talking point for many people and he’s seen as a future star. I don’t have to like it or agree to notice the way things are going. The match also started to signal for Moose’s babyface turn when he put the belt on Leon after Leon’s victory. This show set up a lot of where we currently have been in 2026 TNA.

It’s nice to have an article where TNA’s egregious decisions aren’t the highlight. We had some crowning achievements, some shenanigans and a lot of fan favorites in different stages of their careers. Exactly what history should reflect!