ECW Barely Legal
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| Barely Legal | ||
|---|---|---|
| Details | ||
| Promotion | Extreme Championship Wrestling | |
| Date | April 13, 1997 | |
| Venue | ECW Arena | |
| City | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania | |
| Attendance | 1,170 | |
| Pay-per-view chronology | ||
| First | 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
Numbers in parentheses indicate the length of the match.
- 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) (w/Joel Gertner & Sign Guy Dudley) to win the ECW Tag Team Championship(6:11)
- Saturn pinned Buh Buh after a Total Elimination.
- Rob Van Dam defeated Lance Storm(10:10)
- Van Dam pinned Storm after a Vandaminator and a standing Moonsault Splash.
- 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 after a Tiger Suplex.
- Yakushiji replaced an injured Gran Naniwa.
- Shane Douglas (w/Francine) defeated Pitbull #2 to retain the ECW World Television Championship(20:43)
- Douglas pinned Pitbull #2 after a Belly-to-Belly Suplex.
- Taz (w/Bill Alfonso) defeated Sabu(17:49)
- Taz choked Sabu out with the Tazmission.
- Terry Funk defeated The Sandman and Stevie Richards (w/The Blue Meanie, Hollywood Nova, Thomas Rodman, 7-11) in a Three-Way Dance(19:10)
- Funk and Sandman simultaneously pinned Richards after a double Powerbomb(15:43)
- Funk pinned Sandman after Richards Stevie Kicked Sandman with a trash can and Funk followed up with the Funk Moonsault 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 2008, the only) play-by-play announcer to call an entire pro wrestling pay-per-view event by himself, without a color commentator. (However, Tommy Dreamer was a guest commentator during the three-way dance.) Styles would later reference this in his (kayfabe) walkout on RAW before returning to ECW.
- The event was put in jeopardy when Viewer's Choice cancelled the show in response to the "Mass Transit" incident. However, Viewer's Choice 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 (used by the performers when they would cut promos, not used for the fans' chants) 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. Viewer's Choice (now named In Demand) was very hesitant at putting ECW on pay-per-view because they felt that ECW was too vulgar and brutal, and refused to air the show without restrictions on the content. Paul Heyman claimed that this was a double standard because Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was being criticized for its violent content at the time, but it was still getting pay-per-view time. Request TV agreed to give ECW a pay-per-view under the condition that it aired at 9:00 p.m. rather than the 7:00 p.m. time slot that pay-per-views usually held during that time frame.
An electric power transformer blew out moments after the show went off the air due to all the power being used by the building. It is said that had the show gone on even 10 seconds longer, they would have lost the feed.
