On this day in Pro Wrestling history on January 18, 1971, the World Wide Wrestling Federation held a televised house show at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
This live event included the most shocking title change in professional wrestling history, when Ivan Koloff surprisingly ended Bruno Sammartino’s 7-year run as the WWWF World Champion.
According to reports from people who were there in the arena that night, you could almost hear a needle drop after the pinfall victory, because nobody expected Ivan to win the title (similar to how the fans reacted when The Undertaker’s undefeated streak was broken at WrestleMania 30 in 2014).
You can watch this match below:
The show also made a new wrestling attendance record for that era, with 21,666 fans in the crowd.
Below are the results from this event:
– Jean DuBois defeated Joe Turco
– Vincente Pometti defeated The Black Demon
– Manuel Soto defeated Mike Conrad
– Blackjack Mulligan defeated Jose Rivera
– Bulldog Brower defeated Tony Marino
– Pedro Morales defeated The Wolfman
– Best-of-2-out-of-3-Falls: Chief Jay Strongbow & Gorilla Monsoon wrestled WWWF International Tag Team Champions The Mongols to a draw
– WWWF World Championship: Ivan Koloff defeated Bruno Sammartino (c)
WATCH: WWE NXT Diva Lola Vice Exposes Her Buns:
