Happy 24th Anniversary to one of the most important events in ECW history and to one of my favorite main events of all time, I'll never forget seeing ECW for the first time as a kid, i saw One Night Stand 2005 and was instantly hooked and HAD to see everything else, i eventually saw Barely Legal 97 and it completely blew my mind, especially those two last matches, seeing these definitely cemented Extreme Wrestling as my favorite style and it's stuck with me ever since, long live E C Fucking W!
Yo, so I seem to have a problem in installing the mod of ECW barely legal for no mercy. Would be great if anyone would like to help Thanks.
I can't find it online anymore for some reason, does someone have it or has the link? Thanks
Barely Legal
April 13, 1997
Philadelphia, PA
ECW Arena
ECW, the hardcore company that could, offered its product on pay-per-view for the very first time. ECW was a syndicated program; its shows would be taped and sent out to the various TV stations that it had deals with and they would air the show when it became convenient for them. It was the rough way of getting on television for wrestling in the 90;s but it had to be done. ECW was wildly, radically different than what was being offered by WCW and WWE. It was the most controversial, adult-orientated, uninhibited wrestling company in the world, and now it would be able to be seen by the world.
ECW got big exposure when WWE Raw hosted them in an invasion show in 1997 during its return to the Manhattan Center. If people dislike the crowds at Full Sail today, they should be aware that Full Sail has nothing on the most rabid of ECW crowds which would be found in New York's Hammerstein Ballroom or Philly's ECW Arena. Raven would later reminisce that it was ultimately easier to get things over in front of ECW crowds because they could use their smark-nature against them.
The main event of this show was Terry Funk, Stevie Richards, and the Sandman competing in a three-way dance (an elimination rules triple threat) for the opportunity to challenge Raven immediately afterward for the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. There are beyond dangerous spots in this match, one including Sandman see-sawing a ladder into Stevie Richards' face. Funk won the match, bloodied and all, and his title shot with Raven began. The main event isn't much of a main event as it is basically Raven beating the hell out of Funk for five minutes until Tommy Dreamer comes in and spikes Raven with the DDT. For ECW this was an amazing moment; Funk was the veteran who saw hope in ECW and was willing to use his legacy to help the new generation get over, and his reward was the ECW Title, an acknowledgement of his importance to the company.
The co-main event was the long-awaited one-on-one confrontation between Taz and Sabu. Taz had called out Sabu for months and Sabu finally answered the call. This is a pretty good match; though the ECW Title match went on last, this was recognized as the main event heading into the show. Following Taz choking out Sabu, his manager Fonzie would turn on him and a double-turn would take place. Sabu, Rob Van Dam, and Bill Alfonzo would team up to make up ECW's "anti-ECW" brigade while Taz would begin a
... keep reading on reddit ➡Last I checked, Rob hadn't gone to work for any other promotion at the time, and anything he had done with other promotions was before signing with ECW. So, why do they say he sold out? Is there something I missed?
I'm aware that they were around before ECW's first pay-per-view but I feel as if they might be the first to go in who were around for ECW in its prime.
By Dave Meltzer
December 2nd 1995
One of the strangest deals in a long time, a combination angle and non-angle, took place on 11/23 in Revere, MA. A 17-year-old named Eric Kulas was put in the ring with The Gangstas and New Jack juiced him, apparently with an Xacto knife. Apparently Kulas, who had never had much in the way of formal training and probably had never been gigged before, moved as he was being sliced and it hit an artery and blood flowed like a faucet. Kulas, who used the name Mass Transit, subbing for no-show Axl Rotten in a tag title match teaming with D-Von Dudley, needed 50 stitches to close the wound. Supposedly Kulas came to the building with some midget wrestlers and thought he was going to do something with them, and then they bailed on him. The idea of the angle was for him to where a uniform like a public official and get destroyed by The Gangstas, and New Jack asked him before the match if he wouldn't mind bleeding and he apparently said that he wouldn't. He wanted to cut himself, but New Jack wanted to do it since he was more experienced. The show was held up after this incident for a long period of time because various people, including Kulas' father, were freaking out and because it took 25 minutes to clean the ring up from all the blood. The father was screaming about suing the promotion and later claimed that when he brought his son to the hospital, that they wanted to press charges of child abuse against him because the authorities were alerted because of how bloody he was, and nobody believed that something like that happened in a pro wrestling match. To get their babyface character over more, New Jack after the incident on the house mic said that either for all he cared the guy could bleed to death or even he hoped the guy would bleed to death, depending upon which version one chooses to believe.
The show that night in Revere, MA drew a sellout 974, but a television taping the previous night in Webster, MA drew only 300.
Dec 9th, 1995
There was more discussion this past week regarding the incident on 11/23 in Revere, MA where New Jack bladed 17-year-old Eric Kulas (350-pound Mass Transit) who bled like a water faucet, with people live saying it was more blood than they'd ever seen in a pro wrestling match. Since it was the slowest week for news in a long time in the U.S. scene, it became a prime topic of conversation because of the age of the kid, the public reaction from New Jack, and the she
... keep reading on reddit ➡Just some thoughts after watching this ppv
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Joey Styles' "Oh My God!" was quite annoying
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I hope when Sandman passes away, we can study his brain, like the likes of Mick Foley and Jeff Hardy have requested
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Chants like "She's got herpes" and "Show your tits"
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I forgot Shane Douglas existed
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Taz and Sabu are fantastic (I knew this already, but could watch these two fight quite a bit)
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53 year old Terry Funk doing a moonsault off the top of a ladder was ridiculous
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"Big Dick Dudley is back and out of jail!" Favorite line of the night
Fairly certain I'm going to watch all the ECW ppvs in order now
The opening match, Dudleys vs The Eliminators, what a great opening. As a kid, I always thought Perry Saturn was a weird guy with a mop. Now I see that he can really fucking go. The Eliminators double team spots were on point every time, would be awesome to see more of that in today's tag matches. Anyways, Perry Saturn has a new found respect from me. Holy shit.
Like Hardcore Heaven, November to Remember, Heatwave e.t.c.
By Dave Meltzer
The issue of whether the over the edge style of Extreme Championship Wrestling would be a short or long-term hindrance to the growth of the company to the next level has been debated for the past few years. During that period, the style has gone further to the so-called extreme and with it, the audience it attracted has changed as well. As recently as one year ago the ECW crowd, particularly in its home base of Philadelphia had been compared by many to the hardcore Japanese audience for its appreciation of top level wrestling and overall sophistication and knowledge regarding the business.
It appears that style has taken its toll on the company's future growth as Request Television officially announced this past week cancellation of the scheduled PPV in the spring. Request President Hugh Pinero said the company would be breaking its contract with ECW after confirming a series of events that he was unaware of beforehand and that the company was uneasy about. The incident a few weeks back in Revere, MA involving the blading of an underage performer perhaps being the straw that broke the camel's back. Earlier in the week Viewers Choice made its final decision against airing ECW on PPV due to uneasiness about the product.
The decision by Request, which covers the vast majority of addressable PPV households, was made on 12/20, and apparently there were discussions all weekend with ECW desperately trying to keep its date. Pinero said on 12/23 that Request had decided to send ECW a letter saying it was going to cancel its contract for either the 3/30 or 4/13 dates that ECW was talking about doing, exercising its escape clause in the contract. Viewers Choice had earlier decided independently against carrying ECW on PPV, which had cut several million homes out of its potential PPV universe, largely due to having qualms about a few of the angles and storylines, and in particular the usage of Tyler Fullington and the characterization of his mother Lori.
Paul Heyman said on 12/23 that there was no chance Viewers Choice would carry the first event but still held out hope it might carry a second event down the line. He was still hopeful of a reversal in the Request position as ECW had a meeting with them on 12/26. He said that as of Monday he hadn't heard Request wasn't carrying the potential event, but said that between the problems that had arisen this past week and the fact that Extreme Fighting Championships had moved its PPV show to 3/28 which
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