Jericho – Van Dam Intercontinental title
Jericho defeats Rob Van Dam to capture WWE Intercontinental championship.
Jericho & Christian – Kane & Hurricane Tag Team titles
Kane and Hurricane drop WWE tag team titles to Christian and Chris Jericho.
Wrestlemania 19
Wrestlemania 19 is held at Safeco Field in Seattle, Washington. The event features Matt Hardy vs Rey Mysterio, The Undertkaker vs Big Show and A-Train, Shawn Michaels vs Chris Jericho, Triple H vs Booker T and Brock Lesnar vs Kurt Angle.
Undertaker – Big Show – A Train Wrestlemania XIX
Undertaker defeats Big Show and A-Train in a handicapped match at Wrestlemania XIX.
Goldberg – The Rock WWE debut
Goldberg debuts on Monday Night RAW by interrupting The Rock and spearing him in the ring.
TNA Debut
Sting makes his first appearance for TNA at one year anniversary show, teaming with Jeff Jarrett to defeat A.J. Styles and Syxx Pac.
I would like to be a part of making TNA a household name worldwide. I’d love to see TNA become a huge force, a huge machine, all over the world. And to become one of the biggest, if not the biggest, wrestling organizations. I was a part of that one time at WCW and I’d like to see that happen again with TNA.
Pro Wrestling Radio interview
Foley talks about his new book, Tietam Brown:
I did feel like it was one of those books that you’d feel compelled to read once they started and to me that is the mark of a good book. One that kind of calls out to you when your’re not reading it and I have read a lot of books that are supposed to be great and I understood while I was reading them that was writing was really good, but I didn’t feel anything in common with the characters or any need to relate to them and I think if there is one strength, and I think that this book does have several strengths, I think that is the strongest point that the main character is very engaging and likable and I think people like you will find that they will be drawn to them.
Pro Wrestling Radio interview
Heenan talks about what it is like the day of a WWE pay per view event:
Well, at Vince McMahon’s pay per view you get there at noon. You go in there and have a production meeting. That lasts about two hours. He’ll ask everyone questions about what we think about the program. He will read us all the program, what everyone is going to do, when they are going to through to this, when they are going to have this tape up, how the entrances are going to come, goes through everything. A whole mess of people in the room from merchandise people to television production people, no wrestlers. Just the agents, announcers, and stuff like that. Then, we get out of there about 2, 2:30.
Pro Wrestling Radio interview
Sammartino gives his thoughts on WWE buying WCW:
That is a tragedy because who loses out? The wrestlers do. In my day, when you had so many different territories, if you wrestled for Vince McMahon for a year or two, and now you were an undercard guy and were not happy, there were so many other territories you could go to, and become a headliner. You had choices, so many different places you could go. Now you don’t, and McMahon, I don’t care how big his organization may be, he can only use so many wrestlers. That means there are a lot of wrestlers that are either no longer in the business or always looking for work on the independent shows. In my opinion, it has been a horribly destructive thing to the business, the fact that there is just one existing major organization.
Pro Wrestling Radio interview
Steamboat addresses WWE purchasing WCW:
I definitely think it does not leave too many options for the guys. If you have another company out there, it at least gave you somewhat of a chance if things did not work out with one organization, you could try and go work for the other. I think that, there was certainly enough money backing WCW, I put some of the blame on the boys. Having people that were up in the office trying to run a wrestling company without that much of any kind of wrestling company background. As you know, first, second, and even third generation families, all usually ran most of the companies that were around in wrestling. Here we got people, they may be great business people but the wrestling business is a different kind of business, you know?
Goldberg – Triple H World Heavyweight championship
Goldberg defeats Triple H at Unforgiven to capture the World Heavyweight championship.
Pro Wrestling Radio interview
Austin speaks about his 1996 Survivor Series match against Hart:
Bret goes to me, Hey man good match. I’ll work with you anytime. So, I guess he is the one that told the office, Hey, I can work with Austin. He kept watching my matches, and I was hand picked by Bret for his comeback, because that was his comeback. Man, it was a blast. I don’t refer to that match a whole lot because I do not think a lot of people just in general don’t remember that match, but if you are a wrestling fan you do remember that match, and I have watched that match just as much as the Wrestlemania XIII match, and some of the other matches that I have had that were my favorites.
Pro Wrestling Radio interview
Blackman discusses his tag team with Snow in WWE:
I don’t know, we just kind of fell into that, they put us together. We were doing something backstage, we had like a funny promo and it kind of stuck. After that people started doing that head cheese gimmick. You know people used to pop see what crazy thing that Al was going to have me do on the next TV. Every week he had me doing something ridiculous. I didn’t even believe him when I’d get there. Somebody would say, Hey, come over here. We are going to do this with you. I would be like, Yeah right. Like ten times in row, I wouldn’t believe them, and every time that was what we would be doing.
Wrestlemania 20
Wrestlemania 20 is held at Madison Square Garden in New York. The event is the 20th anniversary of Wrestlemania. It features John Cena vs Big Show, Goldberg vs Brock Lesnar, Victoria vs Molly Holly, Eddie Guerrero vs Kurt Angle, The Undertaker vs Kane and Chris Benoit vs Triple H vs Shawn Michaels.
Undertaker – Kane Wrestlemania XX
Undertaker defeats Kane at Wrestlemania XX. This is the second time Undertaker has defeated Kane at Wrestlemania.
Goldberg – Lesnar Wrestlemania 20
Goldberg defeats Lesnar at Wrestlemania 20 on his last night with the company.
Cena – Big Show U.S. championship
Cena defeats Big Show at Wrestlemania XX to capture the United States championship. This is Cena’s first title in WWE.
Pro Wrestling Radio interview
Heenan reflects on his WWE Hall of Fame induction speech:
I didn’t have anything. When I was called at home by Jim Ross, I said sure. I was thinking of how I am going to open up, what I was going to say, who’s going to be there. I don’t want start out knocking this guy or I don’t want to put this guy over. I don’t really know what to do. I’m just going to go there and see what happens and I really didn’t have anything. So I was sitting there talking to Muraco and Tito. Then when they started the show and started introducing us, I didn’t know what I’m going to do. See, I never like to rehearse anything. Monsoon and I never rehearsed a thing. There was nothing written. I can’t say other people’s words and I can’t remember things people write. I just have to do it on my own. That’s the only way I’ve ever done interviews or anything, forty years in the business.
Pro Wrestling Radio interview
Sammartino responds to critics of his in ring style:
Well ask people like Killer Kowalski, Don Leo Jonathan, Ken Patera, Gene Kiniski, Ivan Koloff. I mean anyone who has ever seen me with these people, know what kind of action we provided in the ring. For one guy to accuse me of being lazy…if there’s one reputation I had amongst my peers, which makes me feel very proud, was always the great shape I kept myself into, and the great shape I was performing in the ring. I don’t understand why this man would say these things. I just don’t get it.
Pro Wrestling Radio interview
Edge gives his thoughts on playing a heel character in WWE:
Right now, I’m having so much fun. It is so much more fun to piss people off. [It’s so hard] to get people to like you. If you try too hard to get them to like you, they just go ‘too hard,’ and if you don’t try hard enough, they go, ‘what’s his deal?’ As a heel, you can just let it all out. You can be whiny, you can be bitter, disgruntled, whatever you want, and blame it on everybody else. (Laughs) It’s a lot of fun. In a way, I’m taking the year of frustrations and channeling it into the character.