AS I SEE IT
Bob Magee
Pro Wrestling Between the Sheets
PWBTS.com
Amanda Huber, Jon Huber's widow tweeted about last night:
"It resonates because it’s real."
Real? No. But in its best moments, it's something better. As
Terry Funk once said, it's magic. Amanda's son Brodie said
it best last night when WWE aired the promo for the Bray
Wyatt
“When I start wrestling, this is what I want to see. All the
fireflies for dada and uncle Bray. I’m telling you now mama.
This is what I want”
Brodie gets it....in its best moments free of all the
tribalistic bullshit, the sniping by management, announcers
and nameless online trolls...as the Funker said, "it's not
real, it's not fake, it's magic."
Now.... this weekend celebrated Philadelphia and
wrestling....in a major way.
But 27 years ago....another celebration of wrestling took
place.
ECW Barely Legal took place, the one and only PPV ever held
from the ECW Arena in Philadelphia on April 13, 1997.
Here are some of the moments that led to that day.
Let's start on May 14, 1993. I was ready to go to that first
ECW show at this new arena, the Saturday that Eddie Gilbert
and Tod Gordon scheduled their first show of Eastern
Championship Wrestling in a nondescript looking bingo hall,
located in a section of Philadelphia that former Strictly
ECW head Tony Lewis then described as "West Hell".
Even that requires some prelude.
What was then called Eastern Championship Wrestling started
after Tod Gordon picked up the remains of Joel Goodhart's
Tri-State Wrestling Alliance in February 1992. The Tri-State
Wrestling Alliance, best known for its classic series of
Cactus Jack-Eddie Gilbert matches that permanently put
hardcore wrestling on the map in Philadelphia, blew apart on
the eve of Winter Challenge III, a show that would have been
the promotion's largest.
The show was scheduled on January 25, 1992; and would have
featured matches including "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers vs.
"Nature Boy" Buddy Landel, Steve Williams/Terry Gordy vs.
Dan Kroffat/Doug Furnas, Chris Benoit vs. Shiro Koshinaka,
and Eddie Gilbert vs. Kevin Sullivan. Goodhart cancelled the
show and ended his involvement in wrestling as a whole live
on his WIP 610 radio show only days before the Winter
Challenge III show would have taken place.
Gordon ran shows as Eastern Championship Wrestling promoter
with the local talent from the former Tri-State roster,
including The Sandman (who was then doing a surfer gimmick),
JT Smith, Tony Stetson, Sal Bellomo, Larry Winters, Glenn
Osbourne, and The Super Destroyers, along with names Jimmy
Snuka and Don Muraco.
The fledging ECW ran its earliest shows at the
Philadelphia's Original Sports Bar (now the basement of a
Ross Dress for Less), the Chestnut Cabaret (later a club
called the Blockley Pourhouse), the Tabor Rams Youth
Association, and finally Cabrini College. A handful of
Chestnut Cabaret shows were taped for airing on a local low-
power TV station, but EC! W was at that point just another
independent. Most notable was the fact that the TV announcer
for WWF Philadelphia Spectrum house shows (aired on local
cable sports/movie station PRISM) Dick Graham did
commentary.
Cabrini College, a Catholic school in suburban Philadelphia,
was the site of the promotion's first TV taping on March
1993 for a small part-time sports station called
SportsChannel Philadelphia. 60 people gathered there at
Cabrini College on the eve of a massive super-snowstorm that
left as much as three and a half feet of snow all over the
East Coast. Then Cabrini College kicked out ECW after two
shows because the college decided they didn't want
wrestling. Mind you, not "extreme" wrestling...ECW was
nothing remotely near that yet. But at that point, Cabrini
College decided that they just plain didn't want wrestling.
Back to May 14th, 1993...
I was told by friend and ECW employee Kathy Fitzpatrick that
this new building was at Swanson and Ritner Streets. In
those pre-internet days, I looked up the intersection o! a
SEPTA map in my office. According to that and another map I
looked at, the intersection didn't exist. But she insisted
that was the place.
I found out years later that the members of the Viking Club
Mummers group had paved over freight train tracks and
created an unofficial extension of a street. Thus, the
intersection did exist...sort of.
So on the afternoon of the show, after asking around the
neighborhood, and finally checking at the local Forman Mills
discount store, I asked where the Mummers practiced. The
sales clerk pointed down the street. Finding the building, I
went inside, and saw the Bingo equipment up on the walls. I
went into a place that looked nothing like any wrestling
venue I'd ever been to, and thought "What in the hell is
this?" Even those of us used to shows in flea markets, bars,
schools, and even parking lots thought..."a Bingo Hall?"
How little we knew.
We found out that this building was Viking Hall, the home of
the South Philadelphia Viking Club, the neighborhood Mummers
group that pra cticed there for the yearly Philadelphia New
Years Mummers parade. We also found out that they did
"Midnight Bingo" there to fund the group. This meant that in
the promotion's early years, they were supposed to be out of
there in enough time to allow set-up for Midnight Bingo.
From May 14, 1993, until the promotion's last Philadelphia
show on December 23, 2000... ECW created unparalleled magic
in one of the most improbable locations ever to hold
wrestling on a regular basis... the building that became the
world's most famous Bingo Hall... the building that truly
became the ECW Arena.
On May 14, 1993, we couldn't ever have known what was to
come.
If someone had told us that this fledging wrestling
promotion owned by a center city pawnbroker would make a
longtime home in this building... would eventually be seen
nationwide on cable television... would go on PPV from this
building in 1997... and would have wrestling fans around the
world chanting "ECW... ECW... ECW"....to this very day...
If someone had told us that it would feature talent ranging
from New Japan stars Eddie Guerrero, Dean Malenko, Chris
Jericho, and Chris Benoit to lucha stars Rey Misterio, Jr.,
Juventud Guerrera, La Parka, and Psicosis... to Four
Horsemen and Midnight Express members Arn Anderson and Bobby
Eaton... to All Japan stars Steve Williams, Terry Gordy, Dan
Kroffat and Doug Furnas, and Gary Albright... to Japanese
lucha style stars Great Sasuke, Gran Hamada, and TAKA
Michinoku... to wrestling legends like Stan Hansen, Abdullah
The Butcher, Jerry Lawler, Terry and Dory Funk, and Kevin
Sullivan...
If someone had told us that it would see the creation of the
most memorable new character of the last decade, a character
called Raven... and that the company would change the
direction of the professional wrestling industry... if
someone had told us ALL these things would happen and
more...
We would have looked at you, and told you that you were in
need of serious psychiatric help.
1993
Eddie Gilbert and Terry Funk go at it in the "Texas Chain
Match Massacre" to give ECW its largest crowd to date, with
the match seen across the country via the first of many ECW
commercial tapes.
In August 1993, many ECW fans got their first live exposure
to Japanese wrestling through W*ING workers The Headhunters,
Miguelito Perez, Crash the Terminator (aka Hugh Morris), and
Mitsuhiro Matsunaga.
September 1993's Ultra Clash brought Stan Hansen, Abdullah
The Butcher, Kevin Sullivan, and The Dark Patriot (Doug
Gilbert) against JT Smith in a Scaffold Match.
September also brought an end to the Eddie Gilbert era and
the beginning of the Paul Heyman era in ECW; as Gilbert left
the promotion ! due to disagreements over a prospective
involvement with Jim Crockett' s World Wrestling Network (a
promotion that, ironically enough, never took off). During
the show, Eddie Gilbert walked into the Arena unannounced,
acknowledged he was leaving ECW, but told fans to keep
supporting the promotion.
Some of the other names in ECW during that year included
Kevin Christopher, Herve Rinesto, Don E. Allen, Jimmy Snuka,
JT Smith, Tony Stetson, Larry Winters, Tommy Cairo, Rockin'
Rebel, Sandman, Don Muraco, Sal Bellomo, Stevie Wonderful,
Super Destroyer, Johnny Hotbody, Chris Michaels, and Hunter
Q. Robbins III.
1994
There was a January weekend of ice storms that cut off power
to 350,000 people in the Philadelphia area. Yet ECW drew a
crowd of 200 just on word of mouth and from calling the
company's telephone hotline in the basement of annoucer Bob
Artese's house to see Terry Funk and Shane Douglas work a 45
minute broadway that set up the original "three-way dance"
on February 5, 1994 with "The Night The Line Was Cross! ed"
featuring Sabu vs. Shane Douglas vs. Terry Funk.
The April night when Arn Anderson and Bobby Eaton invaded
the ECW Arena unannounced in one of the best kept secrets in
wrestling history. The TV of that night shows one of the
wilder crowd pops in ECW history.
The Public Enemy-Dory/Terry Funk barbed wire match that took
place at Heat Wave 1994 in a full house despite indoor
temperatures within the Arena estimated at as much as 130
degrees.
Cactus Jack's ECW debut in July 1994..in what became one
more chapter in his love affair with the Philadelphia
fans...that made his "anti-hardcore" program, that included
shoot comments directed at the Philadelphia fans all the
more memorable.
The NWA Title Tournament in August 1994 featuring Dean
Malenko, Chris Benoit, Osamu Nishimura, Shane Douglas, and
Two Cold Scorpio, a show that would be better remembered for
Shane Douglas trashing the NWA Title, then declaring that
the promotion was! no longer NWA Eastern Championship
Wrestling, but EXTREME Championshi p Wrestling.
The October-November 1994 Sandman "blinding angle" that was
voted Angle of the Year: so well done, it had the late Brian
Hildebrand calling me to ask if it was a work.
Some of the other names seen in the ECW Arena during 1994
were 911, Chad Austin, Mr. Hughes, Sal Bellomo, Tommy Cairo,
Sandman, Gary Wolf, Public Enemy (Rocco Rock and Johnny
Grunge), The Sheik, Pat Tanaka, Road Warrior Hawk, The
Bruise Brothers, and Mike Awesome.
1995
February 1995 gave fans both the "Double Tables" show
featuring the main event of Sabu and Tazmaniac against The
Public Enemy, Chris Benoit vs. Al Snow, and "Return of The
Funker"; featuring Terry Funk's return after a six month
absence.
April 1995 had the debut of the two and a half year
storyline of Raven and Tommy Dreamer, and the first match
actually billed as a "Three Way Dance" with The Public Enemy
vs. Chris Benoit/Dean Malenko vs. Tazmaniac and Rick
Steiner. Another Ar! ena show one week later brought the
first of the classic Eddie Guerrero-Dean Malenko matches we
saw for the next five months.
The spring also brought the psychotic bloodletting of the
Axl Rotten-Ian Rotten matches, with matches involving barbed
wire baseball bats all the way to the Taipei Death Match in
July, with each man having glass glued to his hands.
On August 29, 1995, the Dean Malenko-Eddie Guerrero farewell
match happened...with the smartest wrestling audience in
North America in tears (not to mention Guerrero and Malenko
themselves)... chanting "Please don't go...please don't go"
with a heartfelt passion from the crowd worthy of two
departing world class talents and people.
September 1995 featured one of the top matches in Arena
history in a best 2 out of three falls Double Dog Collar
Match for the ECW Tag Team Championships with The Pitbulls
vs. Raven & Stevie Richards.
November to Remember 1995 was one of the best top to bottom
shows ever held in the Arena with such matches as Rey
Mysterio, Jr.-Psicosis, and Terry Funk/Tommy Dreamer vs.
Cactus Jack/Raven.
Fall 1995 also brought lucha libre to Philadelphia for the
first time with Rey Misterio, Jr. Juventud Guerrera,
Psicosis, Konnan, and La Parka appearing.
Some of the other names seen in the ECW Arena during 1995
were Hack Myers, Al Snow, Osamu Nishimura, Tully Blanchard,
Paul Lauria, Mikey Whipwreck, Stevie Richards, Hector
Guerrero, Marty Jannetty, DC Drake, Jason Knight, Ron
Simmons, Vampire Warrior (aka Gangrel), Dudley Dudley, and
Dances With Dudley.
1996
January 1996 featured the first of many Rob Van Dam-Sabu
matches, Raven and Sandman battling for the ECW Heavyweight
title, and the Gangstas-Eliminators feud.
March 1996 featured Rey Mysterio, Jr. and Juventud Guerrera
giving a lucha clinic in a 2 out of 3 fall match. It also
featured the emotional farewell of Cactus Jack, who defeated
Mikey Whipwreck.
Chris Jericho debuted! in ECW at the "Matter of Respect"
show in May 1996 against Mikey Whipwreck. The summer of 1996
also featured the wars of The Eliminators against The
Gangstas in a "steel cage weapons" match.
Heatwave '96 gave us a tremendous four way ECW TV Title
Match Scorpio-Chris Jericho-Pitbull #2-Shane Douglas.
Autumn 1996 featured such world class tag team action as
Terry Gordy and Steve Williams against The Eliminators and
Sabu and Rob Van Dam against Dan Kroffat and Doug Furnas. It
also featured one of the sickest scaffold matches in history
in October at "High Incident" with Tommy Dreamer throwing
Brian Lee off a "scaffold" attached to the roof of the ECW
Arena, into a ring full of tables.
Some of the other names seen in the ECW Arena during 1996
included Mr. Hughes, The Blue Meanie, Too Cold Scorpio, El
Puerto Ricano, Bad Crew, The Headhunters, Big Titan, Damien
Kane, Little Guido, Brian Lee, Beef Wellington, Devon Storm,
and the Samoan Gangsta Par! ty.
A brief detour here. Things wouldn't have been ECW withour
some drama involved.
In 1995 and 1996, the New York-based fan group Strictly ECW
got ECW back on MSG TV, almost entirely by itself. It's a
fact that Paul Heyman publicly acknowledged more than once.
Strictly ECW also played a major role in getting ECW on PPV
in the New York market.
The first AS I SEE IT column I wrote dealt with the role
Wade Keller and Bruce Mitchell played in attempting to delay
or outright prevent ECW from going on PPV through then- PPV
provider Request TV. Bruce Mitchell had circulated a tape of
the infamous Eric "Mass Transit" Kulas incident from Revere,
MA. Mitchell bragged about what he'd done, going so far as
to say "someone had to stop them...they should have burned
the tape while they had the chance" on the Wrestling
Observer 900 line (remember those, folks?). The remark was
edited off the Mitchell report the same day, but the word
had already gotten out about Mitchell's comments.
Nevertheless, drama eventually put aside, ECW was to take
place on April 13, 1997.
1997
So on to April 13, 1997...
The moment that ECW fans had waited for since the last
year's worth of rumors had started finally arrived on April
13, 1997. Even with the usual pre-show atmosphere at the ECW
Arena... this was something special. Fans waited outside the
ECW Arena from early on that morning.
The Arena was filled as full as physical space would allow
(and then some), well beyond anything permitted by city or
state fire laws. The atmosphere was electric.
At 8:00 pm Eastern Standard Time, in the most improbable of
locations: the converted Bingo Hall that staff had painted
and fixed up on their own, down the street from a bargain
basement store and vacant buildings... the home of a
wrestling promotion founded by a downtown storefront
pawnbroker, started with little more than hopes and
dreams... the impossible dream came true, as "Barely Legal"
went hot and started the era of ECW on PPV to the United
States.
The show itself included The Eliminators defeating ECW Tag
champs D-Von & Buh Buh Ray Dudley for the ECW Tag team
Titles, Rob Van Dam-Lance Storm, Taz over Sabu, Great
Sasuke/Gran Hamada/Masato Yakushiji wrestling TAKA
Michinoku/Dick Togo/Terry Boy (aka Men's Teioh), and Terry
Funk defeating Raven for the ECW Heavyweight Title.
Once upon a time...there was a Bingo Hall...and once upon a
time, what went on was Barely Legal.
