ECW Wrestlepalooza ’97 Review: Dreamer vs. Raven, Taz’s Triumph, and Lawler’s Invasion

The Oxford Dictionary defines the word “palooza” as a large-scale festival or event, characterized by a specific thing or person. While CM Punk finds the name “ridiculous,” Wrestlepalooza kicked off a new era of WWE PLEs on ESPN. Wrestlepalooza was originally an event produced by Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW) until the company went out of business in 2001, and WWE acquired the assets in 2003.

Wrestlepalooza is not the first time WWE has used an event name from ECW’s past. Heatwave was ECW’s summertime pay-per-view and is now an NXT PLE. ECW held four Wrestlepalooza events, featuring a total of 29 matches between 1995 and 2000. Despite ECW’s reputation for consistently delivering memorable cards, there is one Wrestlepalooza to rule them all.

Wrestlepalooza ‘97 emanated from South Philadelphia’s ECW Arena on Saturday, June 7, 1997. It was a fun time to be a diehard wrestling fan as the Monday Night War was on fire. WCW Monday Nitro was 12 months into its infamous streak, beating WWF Monday Night Raw in the ratings for 83 consecutive weeks. Meanwhile, ECW influenced changes within the industry, in front of and behind the camera.

Wrestlers were constantly jumping ship to different promotions, creating a “You never know who will show up next” atmosphere across the big three promotions in the United States. A hallmark of ECW was its ability to make the most of its shocking arrivals. One of ECW’s top stars was leaving the promotion for greener pastures, while a star from another company crashed the party in lights-out fashion.

The voice of ECW, Joey Styles, and “Ravishing” Rick Rude opened the show to announce a change to the world title match. Stevie Richards was pulled from the match due to what was thought to be a career-ending neck injury. Terry Funk would now defend the ECW World Heavyweight Championship against the Triple Threat’s Chris Candido on short notice.

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The Absence of Snow as ECW Champion

There have been a lot of wrestling matches over the years where promoters booked the wrong person to win. While booking for financial gain isn’t an exact science, mistakes are made for a variety of reasons.

Sometimes a promoter wants to prolong the story in hopes of a larger return at the box office. Other times, these decisions are made simply to shock the audience with a curveball thrown out of nowhere.

There is one match in particular that took place in ECW where fans vehemently detested the end result, and I was one of those fans. After some information came to light, it turned out to be the right call even though it’s still a little disappointing that such a popular concept never reached its apex. Continue reading “The Absence of Snow as ECW Champion” →

Taz: A Look Into The Path of Rage

Like many wrestling fans in Massachusetts, I discovered ECW while stumbling onto the Spanish channel at 1:00 a.m. I salivated over the brutality on my TV screen set as wrestlers hit each other with steel chairs and putting one another through tables as if it were going out style. Fans threw weapons into the ring, cussing illustrated the diversity of sentence structure, wrestlers mentioned other promotions by name and rabid fans who wanted blood were as common as a headlock.

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EVOLVE 1/14/12 Philadelphia, PA results: The Last Wrestling Show at the ECW Arena

EVOLVE 1/14 Philadelphia, PA results: the last wrestling show at the ECW Arena by Bob Magee of Pro Wrestling Between The Sheets

EVOLVE made its “South Philadelphia debut” last night for the final wrestling event at the ECW Arena (hard to believe I’m writing that). As you’d expect the building was packed, as it was for CZW’s afternoon show.

In the opener, Ahtu had an “open contract”…fans heard familiar music they hadn’t heard anywhere in a couple years…as Low Ki came out to one of the bigger non-ECW pops of the night.

After a sick looking kick, Low Ki defeated Ahtu by knockout

Cheech Hernandez pinned KC “Cloudy” Day

The Scene defeated Alex Reynolds and John Silver when Scott Reed pinned Reynolds

Jigsaw pinned AR Fox after countering a back suplex to the Lo Mein Pain. Fox pulled off the move of the entire day with a spot-on springboard 450 plancha to the floor. Post-match, Sami Callihan came out and tried to taunt Fox into hitting him, clanking beer bottles together (Calihan had hit him with a beer bottle at a previous EVOLVE show)

In one of the few mentions all day of CHIKARA, Jigsaw thanked fans for supporting CHIKARA at the ECW Arena. Given CZW’s strong role in the day’s proceedings, probably not so surprising, given the heat between the promotions and promoters.

As part of the remembrance of the history of the ECW Arena, intermission saw the tape used at the “Then and Now” show when CZW returned to the ECW Arena after XPW had taken over the building in 2002, honoring the history of ECW..and connecting it with 2002 CZW.

Uhaa Nation pinned Pinkie Sanchez after two shooting star presses. This young wrestler is talented as hell, and will wind up with Vince McMahon one day, mark my words. He has the body McMahon likes…but incredible athletic talent.

Ronin (Chuck Taylor and Rich Swann) defeated the Super Smash Brothers (Players Uno and Dos) when Taylor pinned Dos

Jon Davis pinned Kyle Matthews

Bobby Fish (seconded by AR Fox) submitted Sami Callihan with a knee bar. Post-match, Fox tried to goad Callihan into hitting him with the beer bottle, handcuff his own hands behind his back (great visual).

In the final “official match” of the ECW Arena’s history, Johnny Gargano retained his Open the Freedom Gate Championship, submitting Ricoche with the Hurts Donut and the Gargano Escape. Post-match, Gargano was taken out of the Arena by ambulance, with reports of a back injury. He seemed off for the later half of the match, though, which makes me wonder if he got his bell rung.

After the final official match, Joey Styles came out to a huge ovation, Tod Gordon (the first time Gordon’s been in the building in many years), JT Smith, and gart “Pitbull #1″ Wolfe came out to close the Arena, and what everyone assumed was the feel-good moment to close the show.

Not so fast.

DJ Hyde and Team CZW came out to say if anyone were going to close the ECW Arena, it would be them, given that they ran more shows at the ECW Arena than ECW (true, actually) The saves began with Ballz Mahoney. CZW turned the tide again.

Then “Gangsta’s Paradise” kicked in….with New Jack crashing the ring with a garbage can full of crutches, and other plunder. Justin Credible came in…but on DJ Hyde’s side and Sabu make run-ins on ECW’s behalf and Justin Credible on CZW’s.

In the real final match ever at the ECW Arena, Sabu pinned Justin Credible

After the match, Callihan attacked Sabu and cut a promo about how he had “taken ownership of the Arena from ECW”; and in a really charged promo, said he was “tired of extreme reunions, and the funerals”; and said to turn out the lights. The lights went out with Metallica’s “Fade to Black”, a reference which went over the head of a lot of fans, who when the light went off, were waiting for some other sort of run-in to make the save.

There is already a lot of online controversy about this ending. I get that Gabe Sapolsky promoted this as an EVOLVE show well ahead of time, and made clear beforehand that this was what it going to be; but with an ECW remembrance. He used the ending to get over Calihan as a despicable heel…the right thing for his promotion.

In addition, during the afternoon’s CZW show, there was also a Shane Douglas (Douglas had been booked months ago for a Crossfire Entertainment show in Nashville, TN) promo for an “Extreme Reunion” show to be held at the Philadelphia National Guard Armory on April 28. Mike Johnson reported overnight that this is not just a one-off show, but is part of some longer-term “project”. Given open-ended things were…and given the involvement in the night-time show of CZW, it seems that CZW and EVOLVE are somehow involved with this project.

So those two elements somehow come into play with the ending. But a lot of people were pissed. They wanted the feel-good ECW ending. Instead, Gabe Sapolsky gave them a different ending. Only time will tell what effect that will have on any shows EVOLVE intends to run in the Philadelphia area. A lot of people came to the show, not because it was an EVOLVE show…but because it was the last show at the ECW Arena; pretty obviously when some of them got impatient at moment during the Gargano-Ricochet match.

There will be wrestling at Swanson and Ritner at a future date, after the “extensive renovations” are done. I have no doubt about that. But when fans walk into that building, it won’t be the ECW Arena. It’ll be a concert hall at that address.