ECW Barely Legal
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| Barely Legal | ||
|---|---|---|
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| Details | ||
| Promotion | Extreme Championship Wrestling | |
| Date | April 13, 1997 | |
| Venue | ECW Arena | |
| City | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | |
| Attendance | 1,170 | |
| Pay-per-view chronology | ||
| N/A | Barely Legal | Hardcore Heaven 1997 |
Barely Legal was the first professional wrestling pay-per-view event held by Extreme Championship Wrestling. It took place on April 13, 1997 from the ECW Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Contents |
[edit] Results
- Pre-show match: Louie Spicolli defeated Balls Mahoney(5:00)
- Spicolli pinned Mahoney.
- Pre-show match: J.T. Smith and Chris Chetti defeated The FBI (Little Guido and Tommy Rich)
- The Eliminators (John Kronus and Perry Saturn) defeated The Dudley Boyz (Buh Buh Ray and D-Von) to win the ECW Tag Team Championship(6:11)
- Saturn pinned Buh Buh.
- Rob Van Dam defeated Lance Storm(10:10)
- Van Dam pinned Storm.
- Storm's original opponent was Chris Candido, but Candido was injured.
- The Great Sasuke, Gran Hamada, and Masato Yakushiji defeated bWo Japan (TAKA Michinoku, Terry Boy, and Dick Togo)(16:55)
- Sasuke pinned Michinoku.
- Yakushiji replaced an injured Gran Naniwa.
- Shane Douglas defeated Pitbull #2 to retain the ECW World Television Championship(20:43)
- Douglas pinned Pitbull #2 after a belly-to-belly suplex.
- Taz defeated Sabu(17:49)
- Taz forced Sabu to submit with the Tazmission.
- Terry Funk defeated The Sandman and Stevie Richards in a Three-Way Dance(19:10)
- Funk and Sandman simultaneously pinned Richards after a double powerbomb.(15:43)
- Funk pinned Sandman to earn a shot at the ECW World Heavyweight Championship(19:10)
- Terry Funk defeated Raven to win the ECW World Heavyweight Championship(7:20)
- Funk pinned Raven with a roll-up after a DDT from Tommy Dreamer.
[edit] Trivia
- With this event, Joey Styles became the first (and as of 2006, the only) play-by-play announcer to call an entire pro wrestling PPV broadcast by himself, without a color commentator. Styles would later reference this in his (kayfabe) walkout on WWE RAW before returning to ECW. However, Tommy Dreamer was a guest commentator during the three-way dance.
- The event was put in jeopardy when iN DEMAND cancelled the show in response to the "Mass Transit" incident. However, iN DEMAND eventually changed their minds after much pleading from ECW promoter Paul Heyman.
- Barely Legal was released as part of a two-disc set with One Night Stand 2006 on July 11, 2006. It had previously been released in 2000 by Pioneer Entertainment as part of its "The Best of ECW" line of DVDs. The Pioneer release trimmed out many of the ring entrances, removed the music on the entrances not edited out (with the exception of songs ECW owned the rights to, including changing "Enter Sandman" from the Metallica version to Motörhead's cover), and edited out the backstage promos and part of Shane Douglas's promo in the ring. The release included with One Night Stand's DVD censored offensive language and changed the majority of the entrance music to music produced by WWE to avoid licensing fees.
[edit] Production
Getting the pay-per-view on in the first place was a struggle. iN DEMAND, which at the time was called Viewer's Choice, was very hesitant at putting ECW on pay-per-view because they felt that ECW was too vulgar and brutal, and did not air the show. Paul Heyman claimed that this was part and partial due to the fact that Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was being reprimanded over its violent content at the time, but it was still getting PPVs. Request TV agreed to give ECW a pay-per-view under the condition that it aired at 9:00 p.m. rather than the usual 8:00 p.m. time slot. A power transformer blew out shortly after the show went off the air due to all the power being used by the building. It is believed, had the show gone on even 10 seconds too late, they would have lost the feed.
