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THIS DAY IN HISTORY: THE LARGEST CROWD IN WRESTLING HISTORY

By Buck Woodward on 2009-04-29 08:00:01

April 29th

On this day in history in ....

1995 - The largest crowd to attend a professional wrestling event ever assembles in Pyongyang, North Korea for the second New Japan Pro Wrestling event held in Pyongyang Stadium as part of the World Peace Festival.  The show drew a crowd of 190,000, shattering the record of 150,000 from the previous day.  The show was attended by Muhammad Ali, and pictures of Ali, Antonio Inoki and Ric Flair were published in all the major Korean and Japanese newspapers. Select matches from the two days were later aired in the U.S. as a WCW PPV special. Here are the results from the show: 
- Hiro Saito defeated Yuji Nagata.
- Black Cat defeated El Samurai.
- Wild Pegasus (Chris Benoit) defeated 2 Cold Scorpio.
- Scott Norton & Masahiro Chono defeated Akira Nogami & Takayuki Iizuka.
- Road Warrior Hawk defeated Tadao Yasuda.
- Rick & Scott Steiner defeated Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki when Scott pinned Hase after a Steiner Screwdriver.
- Akira Hokuto defeated Bull Nakano.
- In their first and only meeting, Antonio Inoki defeated Ric Flair with an enzugiri

1996 - Shinya Hashimoto defeats Nobuhiko Takada for the IWGP Heavyweight Title in Tokyo, Japan to start his third reign with the title. The match was the main event of New Japan Pro Wrestling's "Battle Formation" show, drawing 65,000 fans to the Tokyo Dome. This was the culmination of the New Japan vs. UWF storyline that resulted in some of the biggest gates in the history of New Japan. Here are the results of the show:
- Yuji Nagata & Tokimitsu Ishizawa defeated Shinjiro Ohtani & Koji Kanemoto when Nagata pinned Kanemoto.
- Riki Choshu, Takashi Iizuka, Osamu Nishimura & Satoshi Kojima defeated Shiro Koshinaka, Kuniaki Kobayashi, Tatsutoshi Goto & Akira Nogami when Choshu pinned Nogami.
- Great Sasuke defeated Jushin Liger to win the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title.
- Randy Savage defeated Hiroyoshi Tenzan.
- Masahiro Chono defeated Lex Luger.
- The Road Warriors (Hawk & Animal) & Power Warrior (Kensuke Sasaki) defeated Rick Steiner, Scott Steiner & Scott Norton when Animal pinned Rick.
- The Great Muta defeated Jinsei Shinzaki (Hakushi).
- Genichiro Tenryu defeated Tatsumi Fujinami.
- Shinya Hashimoto defeated Nobuhiko Takada via submission to win the IWGP Heavyweight Title.

2000 - Sabu defeats The Messiah for the vacant XPW Heavyweight Title in California. Chris Candido vacated the title to go work for WCW.

2001 - WWE Backlash was held in Chicago, Illinois at the Allstate Arena. Here are the results:
- In a match broadcast on Heat, Jerry Lynn defeated Crash Holly to win the WWF Light Heavyweight Title.
- In a match broadcast on Heat, Lita defeated Molly Holly.
-
X-Pac, Albert & Justin Credible defeated The Dudleys (Bubba, D-Von & Spike) when X-Pac pinned Bubba.
- WWF Hardcore Champion Rhyno defeated Raven.
- William Regal defeated Chris Jericho in a "Dutchess of Queensbury" match.
- Chris Benoit defeated Kurt Angle in an Ironman Submission match, 4-3.
- Shane McMahon defeated Big Show in a Last Man Standing match.
- WWF European Champion Matt Hardy defeated Eddie Guerrero and Christian in a three way match.
- WWF World Champion Steve Austin & WWF Intercontinental Champion Triple H defeated Kane & Undertaker to win the WWF World Tag Team Title. All three titles were on the line for this match.

 

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