ECW Barely Legal (April 1997)

Ramblemania has been delayed again... because I still haven't got around to seeing the entirety of the four-night "buy one, get one free at the buffet line" or whatever Punk called it months ago. However, I did see the first ECW PPV from 1997. Yeah, Barely Legal turns 25 this year and to celebrate the occasion for a show that I have no personal nostalgia for, I'd figure it'd be appropriate to give it a PPV musings of sorts.

Just so we're clear on where this is coming from: my exposure to ECW was largely relegated to the occasion mentions in wrestling magazines and such until they started airing ECW PPVs in Canada in around 1999. By the point, ECW had a show on TNN, but most of its big stars were jumping ship to greener pastures in the WWF and WCW. Even during the twilight years of the promotion, I was fascinated by the more rough-around-the-edges style of production and wrestling that I made it a point to try and expose myself to as much ECW as possible, whether it'd be on the stray ECW VHS tape I'd find in stores or some of the later DVD compilations that WWE would put out.

So long story short; I wasn't an ECW fan during its prime years, but I have a weird fascination with this promotion that I got some of their DVDs and stuff. So now I'm watching the first PPV they put out in 1997, which had its own interesting backstory.. that I'm not going to tell here because it's been told better elsewhere.

Let's just get this over with before I start rambling about other shit.

We open the show with the voice of ECW himself, Joey Styles, standing in the middle of the ECW Arena ring before a packed crowd of rabid ECW faithful.

The Eliminators (John Kronus and Perry Saturn with hair) defeated ECW Tag-Team Champions The Dudley Boyz (Buh Buh Ray and D-Von) in what is essentially a short one-sided match to win the tag titles. Then Joel Gertner cries foul and he gets total eliminated as a result. If I were an ECW faithful following the ECW shows and angles, this would've resonated more. Since I'm not, this was just a thing that happened. You could argue that about any promotion, but this is ECW's first PPV; their first exposure to a potentially wider audience and while it wouldn't be ideal, they needed to establish some bits for the newcomers to sink their teeth into and seeing the promotion's tag champs get beaten like a bunch of geeks is not an endearing sign. This sounds like WWE-style booking.

Chris Candido comes out in a sling and tells everyone he's not going to compete tonight, thus leaving rat-tail Lance Storm without a partner. Fortunately, someone was able to call in Rob Van Dam and he ends up beating poor Lance in the match before cutting a promo about playing second fiddle to Candido while he was doing spots on Monday Night. The match itself was nothing special - just two really good wrestlers doing their thing and a chair gets involved - but listening to bitter RVD gripe to the world is amusing. Clearly, I need to see more of this RVD... I wonder if his last run in Impact comes close to that sort of thing.

Time for Japanese puroresu action, I suppose, in a six-man tag match that saw the team of Gran Hamada, The Great Sasuke & Masato Yakushiji defeat Men’s Teioh, Dick Togo & TAKA Michinoku in the first genuinely awesome match on Barely Legal. Hamada getting the Power Ranger chants is kinda funny

ECW Television Champion Shane Douglas defeated Pitbull #2 with a Belly-To-Belly Suplex to retain the title. The match was fine, but the ending made me roll my eyes because Pitbull has been hit with tables, chairs, brass knux, and a bell - all head shots, by the way - and none of them took him down, but a fucking BELLY TO BELLY SUPLEX does him in? Get the fuck out of here. I'd buy that if it was a big monster dude like Brock Lesnar, but Shane Douglas ain't Brock Lesnar.

Oh, and somewhere along the way, Candido comes out and helps Douglas wins. Then a masked dude comes out and offers to unmask in exchange for the girl (Francine, I think), but Douglas gets ambushed by Rick Rude in riot gear and the masked dude ends up being Brian Lee, who was best known for being the fake Undertaker in that classic Summerslam main event. Apparently, this was part of that whole WWF vs. ECW invasion thing that was a thing and... again, if I were an ECW faithful, this would've meant more and honestly, I enjoyed the bit that took place... maybe I'll hold off on that for now.

Taz defeated Sabu via Tazmission in an entertaining enough little match that seemed less hot than the typical ECW fare, which surprised me because this seemed like one of those feuds that was supposed to be a big deal. They held off having a match for a good long while because they wanted to save it for the PPV, which got moved because of controversial stuff involving religion (of course it was) and this was supposed to be one of the hottest feuds in the extreme promotion. And the match was fine; Taz was the human suplex machine that lived up to his name, Sabu was the crazy man with botches that will knock your socks off, but you don't mind because this is good shit. There were some weapons used, but not many. Crowd seemed less into it and I don't know why. Not that they were dead silent or anything, but they semed a little more muted. Maybe it's the aired product that doesn't quite resonate or whatever.

Terry Funk defeated The Sandman and Stevie Richards (flanked by fellow bWo members Blue Meanie and Nova) in a three-way dance to earn an ECW World title match against Raven right after... and you know, stuff happened, weapons were used, that sort of thing. Feels odd watching this match that is supposed to have major ramifications and it feels like any other hardcore match on the show. Imagine that one.

And Raven comes in, puts Terry through a table, Big Dick Dudley and Tommy Dreamer go at it, and then after a bit of stuff happens, Terry Funk defeated ECW World Champion Raven to win the title and the show almost immediately goes off the air to prevent the power from shorting out. I suppose Terry winning the title should feel like a big moment and in fairness, the Beyond The Mat film makes this moment seem more special than it actually is. The match was just stuff happening and 50+ year old Terry Funk pinning the hot heel for the title. It's funny because this was during a time when people were making fun of WCW for pushing a bunch of old guys past their primes in top spots (Wheel Chair Wrestling, anyone?) and here is ECW doing the same thing. Nothing against Terry and I know this was a sentimental gesture of sorts, but it feels at odds with this whole "wrestling alternative" schtick that people try to push, you know?

Barely Legal is essentially the ECW equivalent of the first Wrestlemania; as a wrestling show on its own merits to the average viewer watching this years down the line, it's really nothing special beyond maybe a couple big moments here and there. You might get a good match, but for the most part, this show isn't really about that.

I've heard people call Barely Legal ECW's best PPV outing and I'm neither in a position to agree or disagree with that assessment. All I know is that their best effort on PPV is merely so-so on its own, which makes me wonder how badly the other shows turned out. Still, the show has its moments and it's always fun to revisit a historically important show to see what the fuss was all about. It might not be the best wrestling show out there and there were a fair share of WTF moments, but it wasn't boring and I had a fun time. Take that for what it's worth.