2019 in professional wrestling

2019 in professional wrestling describes the year's events in the world of professional wrestling.

List of notable promotions

These promotions held notable events in 2019.

Calendar of notable shows

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Cancelled events

Notable events

• April 10 – Dark Side of the Ring premiered on Viceland.
• May 1 – Impact Wrestling launched their online streaming service Impact Plus.
• September 18 – WWE NXT premiered on USA Network.
• October 2 – AEW Dynamite premiered on TNT.
• October 4 – WWE SmackDown premiered on FOX.
• October 8 – AEW Dark premiered on YouTube.
• October 8 – NWA Power premiered on YouTube, Facebook, and FITE TV.
• October 29 – Impact! premiered on AXS TV.
• October 31 – At WWE's Crown Jewel pay-per-view, the first women's match was contested in Saudi Arabia between Natalya and Lacey Evans.
• November 5 – WWE Backstage premiered on Fox Sports 1.

Accomplishments and tournaments

AAA

AEW

CMLL

Impact

MLW

NJPW

NWA

WWE

Title changes

AEW

CMLL

FIP

Impact Wrestling

IWRG

Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide

MLW

NJPW

NWA

ROH

The Crash Lucha Libre

WWE

– Raw

– SmackDown

– 205 Live

– NXT

– NXT UK

– Unbranded

Raw, SmackDown, and 205 Live

Raw and SmackDown each had a world championship, a secondary championship, a women's championship, and a male tag team championship, while 205 Live just had one title for their cruiserweight wrestlers.

NXT

NXT UK

Unbranded

These titles are not brand exclusive. The colors indicate the home brand of the champions (names without a color are former WWE wrestlers, Hall of Famers, or non-wrestlers).

Awards and honors

AAA

AAA Hall of Fame

WWE

WWE Hall of Fame

Debuts

• January 2
• Atsuki Aoyagi
• Dan Tamura
• January 4 – Unagi Sayaka
• February 8 – Kosuke Sato
• February 23 – Mahiro Kiryu
• February 28 – Heidi Howitzer
• March 10 – Haruka Umesaki
• March 17 - Miranda Gordy
• March 30 – Issei Onitsuka
• April 10 – Strong Machine J
• April 16 – Jacky Kamei
• April 21 – Akari
• April 30 – Momo Kohgo
• May 2 – Yappy
• May 3 – Mirai
• May 4 – Jack Cartwheel
• May 7
• Maika
• Ryuya Takekura
• May 12 –
• July 7 – Crea
• July 8
• Kanon
• Tomoka Inaba
• August 3 – Cain Velasquez
• August 9 – Erina Yamanaka
• August 10 – Saya Kamitani
• August 12 – Suzume
• August 14 – Nao Ishikawa
• August 17 – Yuki Mashiro
• August 31 – Teal Piper
• September 24 – Hayato Tamura
• September 28
• Leon Slater
• Takuro Niki
• Yurika Oka
• October 6 – Nanami
• October 18 – Keigo Nakamura
• November 2 – Action Andretti
• November 6 – Yoshiko Hasegawa
• November 7 – Odyssey Jones
• November 10
• Daiju Wakamatsu
• Naka Shuma
• December 22 – SB Kento

Retirements

• January 30 - Abyss (wrestler) (1995-2019)
• February 21 – Takashi Iizuka (1986–2019)
• March 9 – Mil Máscaras (1963–2019)
• March 11 – Brie Bella (September 15, 2007 – 2019)
• March 19 – Matt Morgan (2002–March 19, 2019)
• March 24 – Nikki Bella (September 15, 2007 – 2019)
• April 6 – George Julio (1965–2019)
• April 7
• Kurt Angle (1998–2019)
• Batista (1999–2019)
• April 21 – Command Bolshoi (1991–2019)
• April 26 – Kris Wolf (2014–2019)
• April 28 – Sawako Shimono (2010–2019)
• April 29 - Rock Riddle (1972-2019)
• May 11
• Bob Armstrong (1961–2019)
• Wendell Cooley (1981–2019)
• May 31 – Metálico
• June 26 – Riki Choshu (1974–June 26, 2019)
• June 30 – Charlie Morgan (2011–2019)
• July – X-Pac (1989–July 2019, came out of retirement in 2022)
• July 5 – Claude Roca (circa 1960s–July 5, 2019)
• July 22 – Barbi Hayden (2010–2019)
• August 3 – Dwayne Johnson (1996–2004, 2012-2019)
• August 10 – Koko B. Ware (1978–2019)
• August 17 – Sergio El Hermoso (1960s–2019)
• August 18 – Tinieblas (August 20, 1971 – 2019)
• September 15 – Jaque Mate (wrestler) (September 15, 1971 – 2019)
• September 19 – Kim Duk (1968–2019, returned in 2022)
• September 21 – Lisa Marie Varon (2000–2019)
• December 14 – Bill Dundee (1962–2019)

Deaths

• January 2 – "Mean" Gene Okerlund (b. 1942)
• January 5 – Alexis Smirnoff (b. 1947)
• January 22 – Belladonna (b.1979)
• February 1 – Les Thornton (b. 1934)
• February 10 – Kōji Kitao (b. 1963)
• February 9 – Salvatore Bellomo (b. 1951)
• February 12 – Pedro Morales (b. 1942),
• March 4 – King Kong Bundy (b. 1957),
• March 7 – The Destroyer (b. 1930),
• March 18 – Roger Kirby (b. 1939),
• April 8 – Héctor del Mar (b. 1942),
• April 22 – John Quinn, (b. 1940),
• May 11 – Silver King, (b. 1968),
• May 16 – Ashley Massaro, (b. 1979),
• June 3 – Atsushi Aoki, (b. 1977),
• June 8 – Willie Williams (b. 1951)
• June 19 – Lionheart, (b. 1982),
• July 2 – Jacques Rougeau Sr., (b. 1930),
• July 3 – Perro Aguayo, (b. 1946)
• July 6 – Paco Alonso, (b. 1952)
• August 1 – Harley Race, (b. 1943)
• August 14 – Gerry Hoggarth, (b. 1922)
• August 15
• Wrestling Pro, (b. 1938)
• Eddie Marlin, (b. 1930)
• August 22 – Norman Frederick Charles III (b. 1941)
• August 26 – Dr. Karonte, (b. 1957)
• September 20 – Rick Bognar, (b. 1970)
• December 14 – Moondog Rex, (b. 1950)
• December 23 – Mr. Niebla, (b. 1973)
• December 28 – Izzy Slapawitz, (b. 1948)

See also

• List of WWE pay-per-view and WWE Network events
• List of AEW pay-per-view events
• List of NWA pay-per-view events
• List of NJPW pay-per-view events
• List of ROH pay-per-view events
• List of Impact Wrestling pay-per-view events
• List of MLW events

References