This day in Pro Wrestling history - 26th December

The WWE shows around Christmas time tend to have an overload of the ‘Happy holidays’ feeling with Santa being a prominent part of many of the shows. Whether it was Austin stunning Santa during the Attitude era days or Alberto Del Rio running Santa over in a car, WWE makes sure they incorporate the Holidays into appropriate storylines.

This list, though, steers clear of all the holiday shenanigans and focuses only on actual wrestling events – What a downer, eh?

Did you know that WCW actually produced its premier PPV on the night after Christmas? Also, check out the amazing roster that put on an ROH show in 2004 on 26th December!

#1 That ROH card! – 26th December 2004

One of the coolest things in show business is to look at celebrities’ “before they were famous” appearances and attempt to suppress a guffaw. Have you seen Channing Tatum as a supporting act in ‘Coach Carter’ or Ryan Gosling’s blink-and-miss appearance in ‘Remember the Titans’?

The wrestling equivalent of that would be looking at a Ring of Honor show of the past decade. Many of the current generation of WWE stalwarts laced up their boots in an ROH ring during their formative years and put on stellar matches there.

An example would be ROH’s Final Battle 2004 which was presented on 26th December 2004 from Pennsylvania. The card had so many talented performers that it is difficult to count. Let’s just say that CM Punk and Daniel Bryan were on the card and weren’t even in the main event.

The show also featured Jay Lethal, Alex Shelley, Roderick Strong and Steve Corino and was headlined by an ROH Championship match between the champion Samoa Joe and Austin Aries. Aries would win the match, ending Joe’s (still-standing) record 645-day title reign.