Today In Pro Wrestling History: September 12th

Well this article nearly made me a liar from a day or so ago with never wanting to make a purely one company article. Since WCW is now under the WWE umbrella, this almost turned into the WWE’s own personal highlight reel. But thankfully ROH remembered September 12th existed. So mostly WWE fans…enjoy the events!

• WCW Fall Brawl (1999)

This was probably the real beginning of the death knell for WCW. We had the very first Fall Brawl…with no WarGames. Ironically, Eric Bischoff wanted to pivot away from that, and was fired days before the event went off. Given the sudden departure, chaos ensued and the show was a mess. Buff Bagwell refused to job to Berlyn (Alex Wright’s new gimmick), so they inserted Jim Duggan and he just made Berlyn look like garbage the entire. Rey Mysterio legitimately blew out his knee during the Filthy Animals vs Dark Carnival match, so Eddie Guerrero had to carry the load. Harlem Heat defeated the West Texas Rednecks for the WCW Tag titles for their 9th reign. Sid Vicious took out Chris Benoit and won the United States title. But the most laughable moment came from the overbooked trash parade that was the main event. Interference for days and Sting was intended to turn heel by hitting Hogan with the baseball bat and locking him in the Scorpion Deathlock, to win his 6th and final WCW Heavyweight Championship…but the crowd said no. The crowd cheered the attack on Hogan and outright refused to boo Sting. Only one company successfully turned Sting heel, and that was TNA.

• WWE Unforgiven (2004)

We find ourselves with another event where two moments are pretty important, so I can’t just highlight the one. The main event of Randy Orton defending his World Heavyweight Title against Triple H holds a lot of weight. Not just because it was the end of Orton’s first reign, but because of how much fans still debate if it was a good call. Even though it wasn’t a clean win, since all of Evolution and Jonathan Coachman had to help Triple H win, people still contend that it hurt Orton’s early babyface momentum. But a match that isn’t debated about, and just agreed on for being great, was Christian vs Chris Jericho for the vacant Intercontinental Championship, in a Ladder match. Edge had to vacate the title because of injury, so it set these two on a collision course. And unlike previous ladder matches involving both or one of the Edge and Christian duo, this was more psychological. Not a ton of spots, just classic physicality. Jericho won the match and broke the record at the time with his 7th reign as Intercontinental champion.

• WWE Mae Young Classic: Finals: Kairi Sane vs Shayna Baszler (2017)

This did everything a tournament should do. Both finalists brought something different to the table. Kairi was more of the agile and showy Joshi style that was popular in Japan at the time, while Shayna was a no nonsense MMA oriented master technician. The clash of styles and size difference was exactly what old school wrestling was build off of. Kairi had more fanfare because her time in Stardom gave her more visibility to the hardcore fans, whereas Shayna, had more legitimacy since she had an MMA career before going to wrestling. The match was surprisingly not that long, barely over 12 minutes. But the story was easy to follow and fantastic. Shayna dominated most of the match with Kairi proving that she was an effective babyface underdog. The crowd rallied for Kairi, so her occasional strikes and resiliency started to where down the ribs of Shayna. Kairi counters the Kirifuda Clutch, hits a flurry including her Sliding Forearm, which position Shayna perfectly in the drop zone for the Insane Elbow. Kairi was definitely the correct choice for the inaugural winner.

• ROH Death Before Dishonor XVIII: Inaugural ROH Women’s World Championship: Miranda Alize vs Rox-C (2021)

So I know what some of you are thinking, Sumie Sakai won the Women’s title a few years before this. You be partially correct. That title was known as the Women of Honor Championship, but after the drama with Kelly Klein in 2019 that caused her to be stripped of the title and her contract wasn’t renewed, the Women of Honor title was deactivated. This started a whole new lineage. In a harbinger of sorts, Sumie Sakai was in the tournament for this title as well, but Rox-C beat her in Round 1. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Rox-C (aka Roxanne Perez) won the entire tournament, making true on that Prodigy moniker since she was only 19 when she became champion.

• AAA/WWE Worlds Collide Las Vegas: AAA Mega Championship: El Hijo del Vikingo (c) vs Dominik Mysterio (2025)

While some may remember the silliness of the mixed tag match with Lola Vice & Mr Iguana vs Roxanne Perez & Finn Balor, especially the La Yesca vs Demonito moment…it’s hard to ignore the main event. Dominik Mysterio goaded El Higo del Vikingo into this match, claiming that Vikingo’s 500+ day reign was just because of help (irony much?), but it was effective. The match saw a clash of styles, Vikingo’s amazing aerial tactics against Dominik’s more Americanized grounded heel tactics. JD and Finn interfered on behalf of Dom, so Dragon Lee and Rey Mysterio took them out. One last swerve was as Vikingo was about to win, El Grande Americano showed up and pulled the referee out of the ring. This gave Dom time to use the loaded Lucha Mask Headbutt, and then hit the Frog Splash to become the AAA Mega Champion.

A little bit of cross over between events with Roxanne Perez and Rey Mysterio. So that’s always nice to see when people just have a day that’s significant to their career. Now we see if Dom can continue to Lie, Cheat and Steal his way to holding the Mega Championship or if the last year of El Grande going from a comedic heel to a beloved hero, will end up adorned in gold. September 13, 2026 is the night that matters…let’s see if El Grande can do it again!