I hope you got your passport ready. We’re travelling to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in this latest edition of The Wrestling Time Machine.
(Content Warning: Blood, Violence, Weapons)
Snap into your Slim Jims, and shut off your Super Nintendo Entertainment System, it’s time for the latest installment of Wrestling Time Machine!
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Posted in Wrestling, Wrestling Time Machine
Tagged "The Franchise" Shane Douglas, "The Giant" Paul Lauria, "The Heartbreak Kid" Shawn Michaels, "The Natural" Dustin Rhodes, "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair, "The Sexiest Man Alive" Jason, 1995, 911, Alex Wright, Arn Anderson, Avalanche, Bam Bam Bigelow, Big Bubba Rogers, Big Van Vader, Blacktop Bully, Cactus Jack, Charles Wright, Chief Jay Strongbow, Chris Benoit, Colonel Robert Parker, Dean Malenko, Diesel, ECW, Eric Bischoff, Extreme Championship Wrestling, February 1995, Harlem Heat, Hulk Hogan, Jason Vorhees, Jeff Jarrett, Johnny B. Badd, Kama, Kevin Sullivan, King Kong Bundy, Lawrence Taylor, Lex Luger, Mick Foley, Mikey Whipwreck, Paul E. Heyman, Paul Roma, Randy "Macho Man" Savage, Raven, Ric Flair, Roadie, Sabu, Sister Sherri, Stars & Stripes, Stevie Richards, Sting, Sycho Sid, Tatanka, Tazmaniac, Ted DiBiase, Terry Funk, The British Bulldog, The Broad Street Bullies, The Butcher, The Dangerous Alliance, The Faces of Fear, The Four Horsemen, The Million Dollar Corporation, The Monster Maniacs, The Nasty Boys, The Sandman, The Triple Threat, The Undertaker, Tommy Dreamer, Tully Blanchard, Vader, Vince McMahon, WCW, WCW Clash of the Champions, WCW Clash of the Champions XXX, WCW Saturday Night, WCW SuperBrawl, WCW SuperBrawl V, WCW Tag Team Championships, WCW Television Championship, WCW United States Championship, WCW World Heavyweight Championship, World Championship Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment, World Wrestling Federation, WrestleMania, WrestleMania XI, Wrestling Time Machine, WWE, WWE Championship, WWE Intercontinental Championship, WWE Monday Night RAW, WWF, WWF Championship, WWF Intercontinental Championship, WWF Monday Night Raw
Grab yourself a bag of Butterfinger BB’s, set your VCR to record TekWar and tune in to the latest Wrestling Time Machine Column, as we flip the switches and travel back to January of 1995!
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Posted in Wrestling, Wrestling Time Machine
Tagged "Spark Plug" Bob Holly, "The Franchise" Shane Douglas, "The Giant" Paul Lauria, "The Natural" Dustin Rhodes, "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair, 1-2-3 Kid, 1995, Alex Wright, Arn Anderson, Avalanche, Bam Bam Bigelow, Bobby Eaton, Bret "The Hitman" Hart, Cactus Jack, Chris Benoit, Dean Malenko, Diesel, ECW, ECW World Heavyweight Championship, Hack Myers, Harlem Heat, Hulk Hogan, Irwin R Schyster, Jason, Jean-Paul Levesque, Jerry "The King" Lawler, Johnny B. Badd, Kevin Sullivan, King Kong Bundy, Mantaur, Marcus Alexander Bagwell, Mikey Whipwreck, Pamela Anderson, Randy "Macho Man", Raven, Razor Ramon, Ron Simmons, Sabu, Scotty Riggs, Shawn Michaels, Stevie Richards, Sting, Tatanka, Ted DiBiase, The Butcher, The Faces of Fear, The Four Horsemen, The Million Dollar Corporation, The Monster Maniacs, The Patriot, The Public Enemy, The Sandman, The Tazmaniac, The Triple Threat, The Undertaker, Tommy Dreamer, Tully Blanchard, Vader, WCW, WCW Tag Team Championship, WCW Television Championship, WCW World Heavyweight Championship, William Shatner, Woman, Wrestling Time Machine, WWE, WWF Championship, WWF Intercontinental Championship, WWF Royal Rumble, WWF Tag Team Championship
Good day my Wrestling Time Travel Compatriots, it is I, your humble docent through this exhibit on the History of Professional Wrestling, and today we will be continuing our journey through January of 1997!
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Posted in Uncategorized, Wrestling, Wrestling Time Machine
Tagged "Big" Stevie Cool, "Hollywood" Hogan, "Prime Time" Brian Lee, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, "The Franchise" Shane Douglas, "Wildman" Marc Mero, Bret "The Hitman" Hart, Buff Bagwell, Chris Benoit, Chris Candido, Clarence Mason, Crush, Diamond Dallas Page, Diesel, ECW, ECW Championship, ECW Hardcore TV, ECW Tag Team Championships, Eddie Guerrero, Ethanol, Fake Diesel, Farooq, Goldust, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Jeff Jarrett, Jerry "The King" Lawler, Kevin Nash, Miss NWO, Mr. Hughes, Nerdfect Strangers, NWO Souled Out, Owen Hart, Paul Bearer, Randy "Macho Man" Savage, Rick Steiner, Rob Van Dam, Sabu, Scott Hall, Scott Steiner, Scotty Riggs, Shawn Michaels, Sting, Sycho Sid, Syxx, Tazz, Terry Funk, The Blue World Order, The British Bulldog, The BWO, The Four Horsemen, The Giant, The Nation of Domination, The New World Order, The NWO, The Outsiders, The Steiners, The Triple Threat, The Undertaker, Tommy Dreamer, Vader, WCW, WCW Monday Nitro, WCW Tag Team Championships, WCW United States Championship, WCW World Heavyweight Championship, Wrestling Time Machine, WWF, WWF Championship, WWF Intercontinental Championship, WWF Monday Night Raw, WWF Royal Rumble, WWF Tag Team Championships
Just call me “Bobby Styles” and this…is…THE Wrestling Time Machine!
Allow me to preface by saying this is the first volume of my Wrestling Time Machine blog, something I talk at length about on our podcast that we do here. Today we’re going to be tackling ECW, what I would consider the first year. This first year starts with “The Franchise” Shane Douglas defeating 2 Cold Scorpio with a Pinfall decision, in the NWA World Title Tournament on August 27th 1994 and ends with a real BARN BURNER of a match in what was the final confrontation (in Extreme Championship Wrestling, anyways) between a young Eddie Guerrero and Dean Malenko. The WWE Network is a smorgasbord of classic wrestling of all kinds, albeit missing some of wrestling’s essential main courses. The WWE Network, while it boasts “Every WWE/WCW Pay-Per-View”, The WWE Network misses out on just about most of the ECW Pay-Per-Views and Specials. This is unfortunate, because Pay-Per-Views provide of course a sense of closure for much of a given month’s events, and where even new stories can be born.
Though all is not lost, if Paul Heyman and the ECW Brass was good at anything, it was knowing that their target demographic may not always be in the market to pay to view, and so many episodes of ECW Hardcore TV were simply highlight episodes, devoted to the most recent Pay-Per-View, devoted to keeping fans not only enlightened of the match highlights, but also of any major story beats and new developments. By far the biggest omission that deserves mentioning is the lack of actually licensed music throughout the whole show. Now…I get it, WWE’s a big company, and ECW was known for using music without necessarily worrying about frivolous things like getting the rights from the artists, etc. You know, the little things, and so it came to pass that WWE is forced to use very generic tunes for the entrances of the ECW performers. Something is lost in the incredibly generic tunes, some of the attitude-the balls of ECW is muted, it feels almost too sanitized. Now granted, I don’t think we can necessarily fault the WWE for this, or even Heyman and whomsoever was in charge of designating entrance music. ECW was, for all intents and purposes, small show, a small organization. They barely (and often times didn’t even) made end’s meat, let alone had the extra cash to shell out for licensed music. This didn’t stop them from trying though…
Let’s get down to thumbtacks, though. The first year
of ECW is…pretty intense. The very first episode I mentioned at the top of the article also featured another pinnacle in ECW history, Tommy Dreamer being caned by The Sandman. This, along with Douglas’ epic speech about what ECW really is, how important new blood was to wrestling , this set the tone for the entire promotion. This wasn’t your father’s wrestling, and that’s what made it unique. ECW had a finger on the pulse of what wrestling could be, and what many fans at the time and even still to this day, think it should be. While ECW dabbled in extremely violent performances, that was simply the icing on the cake, the real substance of the promotion would be found in performers like Shane Douglas, Eddie Guerrero and Dean Malenko-to name a few-who could put on spectacular matches without the need for barbed wire, or cattle brands. Tazz is another highlight in ECW’s fledgling year, and his first experience on commentary can be heard through the WWE Network’s archive, as he was a guest commentator with Joey Styles for a special match.
While ECW had
few veterans in the form of wrestlers like Terry Funk, the fuel that kept it’s engines running was the
influx of young talent given a stage to shine on that didn’t involve being a jobber to the stars, or relying on silly gimmicks. If I’ve learned anything though, it’s that ECW was no stranger to silly gimmicks. Just ask Surfer Ray Odyssey.
There are many other things to talk about when it comes to ECW’s fledgling first year. The brilliant promo work of Shane Douglas, and The Franchise’s one-sided feud with “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair, the formation of The Triple Threat to serve as combating force against The Four Horsemen. The introduction of the mysterious, brooding Raven and his obsessive groupie goofball Stevie Richards. Towards the beginning of July 1995 we see the introduction of The Dudley Boys, and before too long, their ever-expanding family. For Big Daddy Dudley, THE THIRST was oh-so-real. I’d say one of the biggest highlights though, in watching ECW was the surprisingly decent promo work of The Public Enemy. For those not familiar, this Tag-Team consisting of “Flyboy” Rocco Rock and Johnny Grunge were essentially WWE’s Cryme Tyme, before Cryme Tyme, and they saw much more success than the WWE duo. Though The Public Enemy had some great matches with The Pitbulls and a feud that could only be described as “Actual War crimes of the 1990s” with
The Gangstas, The Public Enemy would soon depart, like many others, for greener pastures in WCW. Sure, Billionaire Ted’s money may have seemed appetizing, but I would argue that The Public Enemy didn’t get a fair shake (again, like countless others) in WCW, at least on the company’s flagship program WCW Monday Nitro. Rocco and Johnny could deliver decent enough promos to carry a story, and yet, WCW’s Tag Team Division was very much an afterthought, even prior to the N.W.O.’s emergence.
By far, one thing that does bear mentioning when discussing ECW, is the strange weapons opponents sometimes used to inflict pain on one another, even during this first year. Often when reading about ECW, or even watching it, you’ll see the Hardcore standbys-chairs (wooden and steel!), tables, Singapore canes, trashcans, etc. but eagle-eyed viewers will see such strange weapon fodder as plastic dinosaurs and cheese graters.
I suppose I’ll close out this first edition of The Wrestling Time Machine by giving just some final thoughts on the first year of ECW…ECW was a welcome alternative to the then-WWF, and WCW, both promotions which suffered from their own problems. The WWF was struggling to push and build younger talent into main event stars, while still relying on hackneyed cartoon gimmicks based on garbagemen, french pirates and Portuguese Man-o-Wars, while WCW was ramping up it’s cartoon gimmicks to eleven with the Dungeon of Doom all whilst relying on older stars in Hulk Hogan, “Nature Boy” Ric Flair and Randy “Macho Man” Savage. ECW focused on just being unique, and what made wrestling good. Stories didn’t need to be larger than life, and opponents that could go out and wrestle with the skilled technician of a brain surgeon didn’t necessarily need to have a built-in story for the match beyond, “These two guys are fighting”. ECW wasn’t afraid of it’s fans, and didn’t push matches, agendas, or stories it knew the fans didn’t want, something any person in the creative field should take away as an important lesson.
Posted in Wrestling, Wrestling Time Machine
Tagged ECW, WCW, Wrestling, Wrestling Time Machine, WWE, WWE Network, WWF
About a week ago, I discussed in detail my history with pro wrestling. Therein, I spoke on 2001 being a terrible year for wrestling fans. AOL Time Warner had sold WCW to WWE as ECW, after losing its TV deal with TNN, would likewise sell out to WWE. What’s interesting about these events is that TV deals were at the root of both downfalls. For WCW, Eric Bischoff had secured funding to buy the company but wouldn’t sign the deal unless TNT and TBS agreed to continue airing Nitro and Thunder, respectively. Reportedly, that sticking point lead AOL Time Warner to sell WCW to WWE for a ridiculously low price (as several WCW personalities claimed they could have bought it themselves for the price sold). As for ECW, it was a company on the rise that was abandoned by TNN after airing the promotion for a year and that was troubled by its past use of adult content to find another network. Now, it’s important to note, neither WCW or ECW had bad ratings. At the height of Nitro, it was one of the highest rated shows on TV and even when it fell, it was still a huge draw for TNT. It just lost money because of poor management within the company (part of which stemmed from its parent company being unfamiliar with the industry it was invested into). All of these details considered, if some circumstances would have been amended, both companies could have easily survived and likely thrived. For example, if Bischoff won his battle to buy WCW, it either could have had the arrangement to remain on the AOL Time Warner channels or he could have moved to another station (like, perhaps, TNN which was looking to drop ECW when it saw how much wrestling could draw for the station). Also, what if ECW either remained on TNN or moved to another network (say, perhaps, MTV, which got into the wrestling game in 2001 with WWF Tough Enough and later Wrestling Society X). Lets take a look at what could have been.
Considering the popularity of my introductory post to the Nerdfect Nation, I thought I’d speak on my history with pro wrestling considering it’s such a huge aspect of our content and coverage. I first came into contact with the WWF in its auxiliary ventures, receiving some of the LJN action figures as a youth (an eight-inch rubber Hulk Hogan and some of the thumb wrestlers), watching Hulk Hogan’s Rock ‘n’ Wrestling on TV, playing WWF WrestleMania on the NES, and getting my face painted like the Ultimate Warrior because everyone else was doing it (I always wanted to get a Tonka Wrestling Buddy but they alluded me). The earliest aspect of an actual wrestling program I can recall is my dad leaving it on one night when he fell asleep and I saw Papa Shango put a voodoo curse on Mean Gene Okerlund in 1992 on Superstars which terrified me. I would, however, come back to the product later where I became a big fan of Hakushi (as I was seemingly born into an interest in Eastern martial arts thanks to my father) and where I was introduced to wrestlers like the “Portuguese Man O’ War” Aldo Montoya, 1-2-3 Kid, and Tatanka all of whom in which I also became a fan. A casual viewer at best, Hakushi seemed to appear less as my interest grew in the “Heartbreak Kid” Shawn Michaels. I officially wouldn’t became a fan of wrestling, however, until WrestleMania XII in 1996.
Posted in Bios & Introductions, Wrestling
Tagged Chikara, ECW, Jerry Whitworth, Kaiju Big Battel, Lucha Underground, New Japan, WCW, Wrestling, WWE, WWF