Jerry Lynn-Rob Van Dam, August 8, 1998 and August 28, 1999 - For two straight years these two created Match of the Year candidates. For whatever reason, Lynn and Van Dam seemed so perfectly matched with one another that they could turn the Arena crowd on, and made them remember the way they used to before the Arena crowd changed, and before the pure bloodmarks discovered ECW.
Along with the moments o!
f great action, there were the moments of humor; including the night that the bWo imitated KISS at the ECW Arena. I don't know if I've ever laughed so hard in my life at a wrestling show as to watch Stevie, Meanie and Nova doing "Rock and Roll All Night" in full KISS makeup. That's another moment for readers to catch on tape if they can.
Philadelphia Civic Center
The Philadelphia Civic Center was one of my favorite wrestling venues, for the sight lines and the fact that a few hundred people could sound like thousands because of the acoustics. No matter the size of the crowd, given that it was a Philadelphia crowd, the crowd was NEVER quiet.
Three of the PPVs held there bring back some memories, first, the 1989 Halloween Havoc, which featured the Thunderdome main event of Ric Flair and Sting (with Ole Anderson) against The Great Muta and Terry Funk (with Gary Hart as manager and Bruno Sammartino as guest referee) . The "electrified" cage actually !
caught fire around the Halloween like display. An unintentionally hila
rious moment saw Muta actually attempting to put out the fire with his "Muta mist".
Then there was the 1992 Halloween Havoc, where poor Jim Ross was trapped into one of the more hilarious remarks by an live announcer ever. The show's opener saw Tom Zenk, Tom "Johnny Gunn" Brandi, and Shane Douglas taking on Arn Anderson, Michael Hayes and Bobby Eaton.
Given that this was Philadelphia, who do you think the crowd popped for? I don't mean just the ringsiders or the "smart fans" either. The Civic Center fans took a nuclear crap all over the babyfaces in this match.. It was so noticable (even McMahon wouldn't have been able to hide it with his notorious WWF Hogan-era sound sweetening, unless the sound had been outright cut off) that Ross HAD to acknowledge it in commentary, but couldn't very well say we were popping for the heels. So Jim Ross actually said live on air "Philadelphia fans sure like their...er, 'veterans'".
"Veterans"... Rrrrrright.
Then !
there was Slamboree 1994. The PPV was more or less a coming-out party for Philadelphia hardcore fans, as ECW was just starting to hit its stride, with the most vocal ECW fans ringside at the Civic Center. Terry Funk even climbed into the crowd to celebrate with fans any of you who've seen ECW Arena shows can easily identify, such as "Hat Guy" John Bailey.
Legends honored over the Slamboree weekend included The Assassin, Ole Anderson, Harley Race, Ernie Ladd, The Crusher, and Dick the Bruiser.
Notable on the PPV was WCW realizing that they couldn't forget this was Philadelphia, with an actual Philadelphia-style hardcore match that saw Cactus Jack and Kevin Sullivan defeated The Nasty Boys (Brian Knobbs and Jerry Sags) (with 1970s Flyers enforcer Dave Schultz as guest referee) in a Broadstreet Bully match to win the WCW World Tag Team Championship.
Honorable mention for Civic Center memories also go to the Cactus Jack-Eddie Gilbert August 3, 1991 classic !
three falls/three matches at the Tri-State Wrestling Alliance show at
Pennsylvania Hall of the Philadelphia Civic Center. Even though this was in the secondary building of the Civic Center and not the main hall, these three matches (counted as separate falls) throughout the show come to mind.
Philadelphia Spectrum
The Spectrum was the home of Philadelphia WWF shows for years, including house shows aired the next day on the local PRISM cable network (the local precursor to Philadelphia's version of Comcast SportsNet, except PRISM showed movies when not showing sports and wrestling). NWA fans went to shows more when nothing else was going on then to see WWF's Titan Toon Adventures of the day, it at all.
We made an exception one for one 1992 Saturday afternoon matinee house show with a main event of Hulk Hogan/Roddy Piper vs. Ric Flair/Sid "Justice" Vicious. The Philadelphia Civic Center fans managed to get ringside popping for Piper and Flair in their old school identities, with signs asking them to go old school. Fla!
ir laughed his ass off at the signs, and audibly yelled at Piper to "look", pointing to the signs. Sid walked around pretty much going "duh", and Hogan wondered why we weren't popping for him like all the other sheep...er, WWF fans.
Baltimore
I went to lots of WCW shows at the Baltimore Civic Center, and the post-show festivities at the Marriott, featuring who else but... Ric Flair and friends, as mentioned in pervious columns.
Oddly enough, the two memories in Baltimore that stand out the most, though, are about former WCW referee Brian Hildebrand.
Back in October 1997, I saw Eddie Guerrero saying a prayer at the Beltimore Airport Marriott bar/restaurant before his post-show meal, to find out later from friend Kathy Fitzpatrick that they'd all gotten the news that Brian had received his initial cancer diagnosis.
Just under two years later, Brian died, with many of us remembering him in Baltimore, also at a WCW show.
I wrote !
about it in the September 11, 1999's AS I SEE IT, not realizing that v
ery day would be tragic for very different reasons only two years later:
Last night at the Baltimore Arena, WCW ran its first show since the death of their friend and co-worker Brian Hildebrand on Wednesday.
The show began with David Pinzer announcing the news to those who hadn't read the news online or seen the FAR too brief mention on Thunder...then signaled for the traditional 10 bell salute given to those who have fallen in wrestling and boxing.
Personally, attending this show was far more special, as I was at this show with several that knew Brian well, including my brother John, and friends Kathy Fitzpatrick.
Many of those working the show wore black armbands in tribute to Brian. Charles Robinson, who was with Brian and the family when he passed away Wednesday night, as well as Scott Dickenson were given special greeting by those of us who knew their relationship with Brian.
The group of us made sure that we gave Dickenson his trad!
itional joke greeting about donuts (one that Brian gave us to rib him with at the first Philly Monday Nitro). Our seats were close enough that he clearly saw and heard it.
Then late in the show after a Chris Benoit-Bam Bam Bigelow US Title match, Shane Douglas, Chris Benoit, and Dean Malenko came out and dedicated the evening's show to Brian with heartfelt words for their friend.
It may have only been a WCW house show for most of the relatively small Baltimore Arena crowd last night. But it was a way for those of us who were there together to say goodbye to Brian in the most appropriate atmosphere possible...a wrestling show.
Cow Palace
I was scheduled to go on vacation in San Francisco, CA in 1996 when I saw an ad for upcoming shows on WWF TV, and saw they were running the Cow Palace.
Needless to say, I was going regardless of the show, even if just for the historic value of going to a venue that saw Ray Stevens, Pat Patterson,!
Leo Nomellini, Angelo Mosca, Kenji Shibuya, Wilbur Snyder, The Sheik,
Andre the Giant, and Verne Gagne.
I've told the story before about going to the show and standing around the parking lot, waiting for the doors to open with the locals and kids milling around...and a car screeches to a stop, and goes into rapid reverse.
The door opens, and it's Chris Candido and Tammy Sytch (who had already broken up in storyline, but even the kids in the parking lot knew better than to ask) with a collective "What are YOU doing here!?!?!" We said our hellos and they drove into the building. Until the doors to the Cow Palace opened, I then had to listen to at least a hundred kids screeching at me without end..."You know Sunny?!?!?".
Somehow, I can imagine Chris getting a chuckle from a far better place at that, even today.
Hamburg
My brother and I took the long ride from South Jersey to ECW's house show up at the old Hamburg Fieldhouse, more to see the place where the WWWF TV tapings had occurred for years.
T!
he show wound up featuring Cactus Jack vs. Sabu in an almost sickening hardcore match that Mick Foley described in his book (and the story of having to hand off his young son to ECW's 911 to quiet him down while Foley went out to the ring for this match). During the match, Sabu cracked (or outright broke) his ribs after landing on the guard rail doing a Asai moonsault, but went on. Cactus Jack also got nailed with a (apparently) non-gimmicked beer bottle by Sabu at least 6 to 8 times before it broke. The "clank" of the beer bottle echoed throughout the Fieldhouse.
Until next time...
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