Ep. 375: The Lapsed Funk, ECW (Part 1)

You know, good for nothing eggs secon dumb. We did it our way because we love it that way. We love it that way, and I have this wonderful gut feeling and I've had it all my life. When it's time to go, I think is now much time to go? It's a lapsed funk. It's a transition into the nineties. Boss, It's a transition into nothing less than Extreme Championship Wrestling. We're about to witness some extremities. It's you know, we don't spend a lot of time talking about ECW on

the cast. It's it's been a divisive subject over the years. Yes, you know, folks in our demographics salivate for recollecting the feelings ECW gave them and the angst written nineteen nineties as teenagers looking for a higher level of violence, looking for a wrestling version of South Park before the Attitude era gave us

tits and violence and chair shots and blood and swearing. ECW told us that there was a place for that in pro wrestling and laid down the case for how different it could make the business feel, how it could revitalize the viewing experience, even on the small scale. They operated out of in South Philadelphia. But boss here we are. We must now realize and grapple with the fact that for all the calling cards you think of when you think of ECW,

you might not think of Terry Funk right away. But without Terry Funk, ECW would be much less than the sum of its parts. Yeah, it is funny meal, you don't you know. I don't really think about Terry Funk right away When I think ECW. I think what do you think about? Yeah, I think about vomit. I think about misery and pain. Uh No, I mean I think of honestly, you know, if I I think the thing I think about the moment if you say ECW, there are two things that come to mind. Tas an RVD. That's it.

That's the first, probably the first things that come to my mind, tas an RVD, not even Paul Haymon and I and I think of I think of of grainy television, yes, you know. And honestly, I think about things that I don't want to watch. Why don't you want to

watch them? The limited amount of ECW we've sampled over the years here, over ten years of the lapsed Fan, including the very first pape of You Barely Legal in nineteen ninety seven, which Terry Funk played a key roll in and closed the show, and as a matter of fact, is depict that And beyond the mat what have your thoughts been? I mean, I just don't. It's hard. It's a really hard thing for me to I mean, it's I don't know. I feel like it is a if you didn't

witness it when it happened, yes, you really can't enjoy it. It doesn't hold up. It does not hold up. And I have no nostalgia for it because it was something I never caught on television. I'm not saying I wouldn't have watched I probably I damn well would have watched it back then, you know, mid nineties wrestling on TV wrestling, you know, because they were doing things that I that I wanted more of in the WWE and WW which was like more violence and more you know, just outlandish things that

were that were uh, breaking the mold. More of a sense that wrestling was full of crazy people, which is what we want, right and and that it was and that it was more realistic to you know, in that way, and that they would do violent things, things that really would hurt you. Yeah, yeah, and any price for it, you know. And there I probably would have watched. I probably would have been into it, but I just never it never crossed my radar. I didn't look for

it. I didn't know how to find it, and I only heard about it on the periphery. And so from Terry Funk to Saboo, to Shane Douglas to the Public Enemy, to Tommy Dreamer to Raven to Cactus Jack to so many others, including folks you will not expect. The Lapsed Funk is going to take us through several high points of ECW that I don't think short of a hopper request that comes out of the blue sky, like when we

got the Born to Be Wired Saboo, Terry Funk, barbire Match. Yes from our man there, Ryan Loko, it was it was unlikely, And we're gonnaver sit down and say, Okay, this week it's an ec W

show on the Lapsed Fan, right. I'd to say it would never happen, but this is going to be as the Lapsed Funk has proven to be for All Japan, has proven to be for Memphis, has proven to be for Florida Championship, wrestling has proven to be for just the seventies nw A circuit has proven to be even so some ways for the very initial hult Comania years, not in terms of what was on national television, but was on a local television be it prison in Philadelphia or whatnot, and a lot of

the other stuff from the WCW Flair stuff in nineteen eighty nine that wasn't the big pay per view matches everyone's watched, but the promo's in between, the television, in between, the stuff that gives it its texture. In a lot of ways, the lapsed Funk is going to give us the excuses we need, excuses the wrong word. It's going to make it necessary that we

engage with Extreme Championship wrestling. And what do you know it, Terry Funk is involved in a lot of the absolute high historical points of Extreme Championship. I don't doubt that at all. And that's why, and this is why he celebrated. Honestly, if his career ended in nineteen eighty nine with that incredible series of brick Flair, if his career on a national basis, or you know, his career in terms of having prominent matches ended in nineteen.

He would absolutely been a Hall of Famer first ballot. He would have absolutely been one of the best pro wrestlers to ever do it, but he wouldn't have had that extra bit of magic dust of the guy who when everybody else was resting on their laurels, when everybody else had settled into their routines of what got them over and kept them over and kept them earning. We know WCW is rife with those guys. Terry Funk said, fuck this, I

Am not going to be somebody that plays the greatest hits. I'm going to be somebody that goes in there and tries to match what the contemporary wrestlers are trying to do. I'm going to be known as somebody who, despite the fact that he's fifty, is still going out into that ring and doing things designed to make it seem like I belong with the current crop. And I'm not sure that anybody else ever did it before Terry Funk let alone did it

as well. And ecw' is that proving ground because as we talked about, these guys, women and this company formed in nineteen ninety three as Eastern Championship Wrestling and as we'll talk about transferring to Extreme Championship Wrestling, in no small part with Terry Funk at the HELM. In terms of the roster, this company said, we need to do absolutely everything that the Big two wouldn't be

willing to do on television to stand out right. And so it was necessarily a petri dish for some of the edgiest stuff going on in the wrestling business, because that was their whole rezon detro that was ECW's whole reason to exist, was to do a litany of things that would make these small crowds go absolutely insane that the WWFNWW couldn't in the right minds copy in those early ECW hey day years of ninety four, ninety five, ninety six, and to

some extent ninety seven. But once Vince had his back against the wall in WW was whipping that ass, he just fucking did ECW. That's what he did, did Hew, and he did it with Steve Austin who was in ECW and really showed us out of his personality that was much closer to Stone Cold than he ever showed in WCW than his boofle of DCW Stint did with Brian Pellman who if it wasn't for the angle injury, wouldn't have been right

up there with Steve Austin. He did it with Cactus Jack, of course, who pretty much brought the character he played on ECW television more so than the character he played on WCW television to the attitude era. Yeah, and he did it, of course with Terry Funk to some small but significant degree. Because when you call the Funker, it doesn't, as we talked about it, and as we've discovered over the weeks here on this special, it

doesn't necessarily mean Businesses is knocking him dead. Right, You call the Funker when you need a really, really good bet that somebody can come in and create a spark. Someone can come in and cut promos that jump off the

screen. Someone can come in and suggest angles against your top babyface that will seem like a fresh coat of paint, that will bring something new out of the baby face, something intense, something the fans can believe in, and just somebody that is going to get on the screen and not rest at letting you be sort of impasted passive I should say, or impassionate about what dispassionate

I should say about what he's doing right. Terry Funk absolutely insists that you believe he put all of the effort he possibly could into every match you ever saw him have in front of your eyes. Yeah, And that is a direction, that is a sharp detour he took in the nineties that almost none

of his contemporaries did. And that's why he celebrated above and beyond just the former NWA World Champion of the seventies, just the sort of absolute heart throb baby face of all Japan through the seventies and eighties, just the absolute wild man, cutting bloodthirsty promos against his most bitter rivals on the territorial stage and on TBS for Jim Hurd's WCW. This is it. This is why we remember Terry Funk with that much more of an extra dimension than we will remember

any pro wrestler who's ever lived. Heartshop. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's I mean, this is this is the stuff that for I guess, lack of a better term, this is what I know him for, really is what I remember. I mean, I'm not really this ECW per se, but the the nineties stuff, this is the stuff. For everything else we've seen him done, I've seen him do thus far in the lapsed Funk. This is the stuff that no one else could have or did do is

this period of his career. This I hesitate to call it a reinvention. It's really just him insisting on being relevant to the fans that take wrestling most seriously. They may be small and mighty, they may not be the profile that fills the WWF arenas. They may not be you know, your mainstream wrestling fan that were in WoT shirts in ninety six, ninety seven, ninety eight, but they were the fans that were going to buy tickets to wrestling

until they were in the grave. Right. Terry Funk was about those fans. And it's not to you know, begrudge of Vince McMahon or Eric Bischoff for not being about those fans in the Attitude era, because the fans,

they were about keeping their pockets well lined and their buildings full. But off in the shadows here in places like the Elks Lodge in Queens and the former Viking Hall, the Bingo Hall in South Philadelphia and so many other ECW signature intimate small, fucking, steaming hot one hundred degrees, no matter what it was like outside venues, and I went to several of them, insisting that he be respected by the wrestling fan that had seen it all and thought they

had seen it all from the Funker, and indeed hadn't. It's now time to go extreme as the Funker enters the nineteen nineties. Happy holidays everyone, and we have greatly enjoyed having you along for the Lapsed Funk Ride, which we ought to let you know, is gonna march on on the back of that horse right up through twenty twenty four into our tenth year. We're going to finish it up in the early part of a twenty twenty fourfold goes according

to plan. But this thing is just unfolded before us, like so many journeys before. And it's pretty ridiculous to think, Boss, that we're only now getting to what is definitive about Tarry Funk. I mean, that is really I mean, it's it's wild. But I'm also not surprised at all all the lives he touched in careers he touched, you know, it's at

his most voluminous in the ECW locker room. That was kind of the band of brothers that absolutely had the greatest reverence for Terry Funk because of who he was by the nineties in terms of his stature in the business, the places he'd been, the roads he traveled, the opponents he'd worked so wild, and it's just there was just, you know, everyone we've talked about it, from Eddie Guerrero to Hulk Hogan, to Stan Hansen, to so many

others, to Tito Santana just an absolutely Dusty Rhodes to some degree, you know, in terms of hearing Terry Funk tell it oh so much, Terry Funk. Rick Flair just a fanboy of the Funker when he started in the

business. Everyone you care about in pro wrestling the last fifty years at some point had Terry Funk say or do something that encouraged them to step up their game or to stick with it. And you take all that and in the ECW locker room, you can combine that impact by ten, because this was just a band of guys who for the most part, had no stature outside of ECW, you know, hadn't achieved much in the business outside of this ragtag promotion, and just looked at the Funker for a signal that they were

on the right track, that they were doing things in a way that was actually respectful of pro wrestling, even though what they did in the ring was so outlandish and often so against the grain of what Terry Funk had done in the ring his whole career, and actually, as we're about to find out, wasn't that far of a stretch from what the Funker was comfortable is defining

the next logical evolution of his character in the nineteen nineties. So we're really going to get into that lasting impact and why the tributes poured forth to an almost unprecedented degree upon his passing this year, of course, launching this very journey which we never could have anticipated coming into twenty twenty three, Boss,

and this all of the terry, not at all total NonStop terry. I mean, folks who give you a tribute show, well, okay, be careful what you wish for now you can't, as we have learned, there are some people you can't just do a tribute show, that's right, okay, And of course those are the people that we're going to get shouted at, most loudly to do a show about right, play with fire, get burned Funker style, and that's a flaming branding Iron, Thank you very much.

So we're entering the extreme, We're entering the nineties, and I'm excited to bring to you all. I'm about to convey and get the boss up on some of the ECW stuff that define the nineties. But before we do that, we do want to give profuse thanks to everybody in the Solar System who contributed to the TLF Christmas Show smashing success. Yes, we've rolled out in bite sized format this year, which is also very successful, and we

were just all around tickled pink by the way it all came out. So thank you for stepping up, because if you don't step up, it kind of doesn't work. And it worked. It was amazing, absolutely amazing. Yeah, wait for the handoff of that VK thunder lighter. I'm it's good. That's I can't wait for you to see that thing up close. Any

other thoughts on there? You're sitting amidst the gifts, the bounty, Uh, I mean, it's yeah, it's it's I've had to like move stuff out because it's it's such my office is I mean, it was a complete disaster, But you know, I do enjoy looking at the U the Vine Air game, just like Oh, I'm gonna figure out how to play that

one. Gotta be kidding me. Just wild, just wild shit. It's these curiosities from a generation before we were even born in terms of wrestling fandom and these sort of like you know, baby steps towards a licensing model for pro wrestling, towards creating licensed products for pro wrestling. Yeah, that wasn't WWF, which we all know the beats of. Just just incredible to now hold that in our hands as a result of what we've built up over ten

years here in the TLF Solar system. So wild. How's that Jeff Hardy cutout looking from Steve? That was the first gift of Christmas this year. It was the very first episode of our series of TLF twenty twenty three Christmas shows, a life size cardboard cutout from the ww off Jeff Hardy looking right in your face. Anyone who follows us on X saw the picture of you standing completely enthralled next to the cutout, and I wonder, you know, if it's won a place on your mantle. It's won a place under my

mantle, that's for sure. So it's won a place in the fireplace. Did you in the hearth. Did you? Oh yes, what did you do? I set that motherfucker ablaze? He sent me a video folks can confirm, and actually went up brilliantly too. It went up really fucking brilliantly. And I did. I did it on the slow motion things so it could be nice and slow and I could relish every moment of it. We're sure there's no carcinogens in there that you're burning. Hey, you know what

if if they are? Then and you know it's it's certainly less hazardous than looking at that fucking picture. Ever again, Wow, Steve bringing the heat man, and you returned the favor. That's right, I did. I brought. I brought the heat. I reversed the heat actually on that one. Amazing stuff. I mean, that's just it's all part of the fun, it's all part of the experience. It still part of the lore. Well, I just probably post that, I guess probably. I think now

people's curiosity is peaked. You know, people put the yule log on on the TV while they're unwrapping presence. That can be our tlf ule Log twenty twenty three burning like the way that it's you know, I was hoping you know, because you only have one shot at this right, you only have one shot at setting this thing ablaze. And so I was hoping that it

would do exactly what it did. So like the way, I had him kind of rested up in my fireplace, and I started the fire from the back, and I was just waiting for it to come just like crawl its way up and and it just when he when he lights up, it's really fucking money. It's a beautiful thing. Wow. So consider it an honor. Maybe that'll be a tradition every year we burn one gift. Yeah. Yeah, people are trying to force our hand, they're trying to tempt us.

Well, we might step up now. I fight back tremendous. What happened to the Jerry Lawler believe print that that he laced us with last year. I mean it's it's buried somewhere in fucking storage somewhere. Weren't and you weren't about to have Jeff Hardy creeping around in your attic somewhere. Not at all, Not at all, not at all. I mean it's bad enough having that fucking Lawlor thing just you know. I mean, it's it's in

a box. I believe me. I wish I could burn that, but I don't think that that uh, I don't think that material is is good for the fire. Yeah, you've given the lapsed fan co chairman a gift they loved for Christmas, But have you given given them one that they were compelled to put in the fireplace. That's a that's a leak company right there. Yes, that's exactly right. That's a one of one as far as we're going here on the unwrapping too, So again shout out just amazing,

just add so. I hope it adds a lift to you. Guys. We've gotten some some tweets indicating, you know that this is now their holiday tradition, you know, listening to us unwrapped, you know, beneficence from the from the fucking solar system. And that is a lovely thought. Indeed, that warms the cockles of the heart. And that's why we do it. Like I've said, if the show was us opening gifts and then returning them immediately to sender, I'd be just as fucking gassed up about it.

This is not about collecting trinkets. This is not about hoarding, This is not about really having stuff. It's about expressing the power of what this show can do. And it's really about the creativity that's right, and and kind of the thought that goes into it is really unbelievable. Yeah, yeah, really been blown away. And actually I can tell you too, by the way, uh the the the hot sauces too, by the way, oh yeah from Arizona. Fucking awesome, able bring in the heat this season.

Beautiful stuff. Had to get my hands on some of those too. The coffee, in particular, my coffee. The coffee's wild. The coffee, it's it's it's it's very interesting. I don't dislike it. I want to put yeah, dislike it, but it is it's very very it's so it's it's I don't know if it's coffe I can have every day, very interesting, very very powerful flavor for to rendering a verdict on that front. And we've got so many bits of local flavor from across the world. Just just

folks, thank you, That's all I can say. It can't even begin to say thank you. Honestly, thank you doesn't even cover, you know, the generosity. And as you know, I mean, our our orienting principle, our motivating factor from the beginning, is being worthy of the faith you place in us. That's really motivates us is because you guys keep upping

the stakes before we have the chance to catch up. So we're always in this position of like, all right, if they're going to give us this signal that you know, with their wallets, with their contributions, with the gifts, that they really really want us to keep doing what we're doing, we have to step up. We have to keep going. And that's why we're coming up on ten years of the Lapsed Fan in twenty twenty fourths.

TLFX all manner of different things that we'd like to do to commemorate the year over the course of twelve months, and not the least of which is as formal a process as our fans can possibly assemble to select your absolute favorite moments from the TLF archive. You've heard us talk about the Lapsed Archive Transcription Service on the year before. This is basically something that TLF superfans have created to allow you to query full text of our episodes in our catalog and find your

favorite moments. Well, this group has now coalesced into an incredible power center, a nucleus, if you will. This is a group of folks that we're going to be calling the Lapsed power Plant. Lapsed power Plant are TLF superfans that stand at the ready to reciprocate your enthusiasm for the cast and help you rediscover and preserve the moments that made you rock solid members of the TLF Solar System. These things deserve to be isolated, agreed, They deserve to

be recorded, and they deserve to be cataloged. And it is the Lapsed power Plant that is indeed working behind the scenes on getting lapsed stuff done. And we're here to let you know by a way of little a teaser, a very long last as part of TLFX celebrations, there's finally a project underway whose goal is to collect and organize time codes of the Solar System's very favorite

spots from ten years of TLF. If you already have time codes for your favorite moments, that's great, because the power Plant is currently working on a form for submitting those timecodes to what basically will be like a formal digest of what are the moments that Solar System members call out as quintessential TLF. We feel like this is a very worthy thing to do. Upon looking back at

a decade of doing this. If you don't already have time codes, folks, the Lapsed power Plant, using an idea from Austin King sOliver, one of the great Solar System members, is organizing a multi platform spot finding event oh to help you pinpoint them. So if you don't have access to LATS, or you don't have the inclination or time to go through the archives to find that moment, the Lapse power Plant is prepared to step up on a

dedicated day to find them for you. Experienced LATS database users will be on hand and ready to assist members of the Solar System on x Patreon, Reddit discord. It's all happening January twentieth for International LATS Day. You heard that right, January twentieth, as part of TLFX celebrations. Easy for me to say, will be International LATS Day. So any recollection you have of your

spots will be helpful for finding them. But keep in mind that direct quotations are by far, of course the easiest thing to search for, so really think through what it is you're trying to find in the catalog and any sort of defining phrases that you recall, not just the episode or even something more generic than that. Really like a phrase that was said, we can search

for that said. Volunteers no lats and they know TLF, so there's a very good chance that they'll be able to help you find whatever lapsed gold you're looking for. That's how you celebrate ten years on the air, if you ask me, I'm fucking right, that's not a Again. We always put our listenership up against any podcast of any stripe. I don't care how many millions of people listen. We are mightier pound for pound, fan for fan, dollar for dollar, and it's the lapsed power plant and all that we

just outline. That's pretty much exhibit A going into twenty twenty four, and go to Patreon for all the financial proof you need, because these folks are like, give me more, give me under the cinemat for my twenty dollars and above pledge. That's right. And what are they getting? Oh, they're getting wonderful things. They're getting wonderful Christmas gifts. This year. They just got Ghostbusters too. Yes, this Christmas movie, Christmas movie, Christmas

movie, New Year's movie, the whole fucking thing qualifies Ghostbusters too. Bringing back our good pal Bill helm On Homburg fall Hamburg. Yes, and is horrifying life. And uh, next up though, get ready Christmas Day. That's all I'm gonna say. Christmas Day. Do we ever stop giving people oh holiday boots? No? No, no, we don't and it only continues. I mean, so you're saying under the tree this year, as just about every year, ye devotee of under the cinemat on the EP and

above Tire and Patreon will have a very special gift. There will be a very special gift. And I were listening to this a whole lot more too, Yep, coming your way in terms of holiday special going above and beyond programming efforts from your co chairs. Again, just trying to be worthy of the faith that you place in us and in that vein. Let's get to the funer. Let's get to Terry riding into Philadelphia looking around and saying,

well, I'm gonna go ahead and make this thing a thing. I want ahead and decide I was going to go ahead and make a thing out of a head. Well we'll work on that, mama. The date February thirteenth, nineteen ninety four, Jim Cornett's Smoky Mountain Wrestling promotion. Oh Boy, here we go show called Sunday, Bloody Sunday at the General James Whitemoral Civic

Auditorium in Noxville, Tennessee. Of course, the true stomping grounds for Jim Cornett's short lived attempt to turn back the territorial era, and it had an affiliation with the WWF. That's why you remember the Heavenly Bodies and others coming through in the mid nineties, and Jim Cornett himself as a matter of fact, but Terry Funk came through SMW And on this date in February of nineteen ninety four, there was a Texas death Match. What was it? What

was the show? It was called Sunday Bloody Sunday. Then I have that one. It's the day before Valentine's Day in nineteen and ninety four, okay, and Terry Funk was in the ring. The masked Bullet Bullet, of course, was legend of the Southeast Bullet bar Armstrong going through the hole.

You know, Barb Armstrong can't wrestle here anymore, so he's coming back under the mask like the night Rider and Dusty Roads and all that, and so he's going up against Terry Funk on this night in Louisville, and it's quintessential Funk going in there with a hard punching, scrappy legendary feed me all day, babyface, much in the vein of a Jerry Lawler was Bob Armstrong. In terms of other Funk opponents, We've looked at Dusty as well a little

bit, and it's going to plan as you'd expect. The Funker now with the national runs in his rear view mirror and big money made in the eighties has hit the floor. During the course of this contest with the bullet at the Colors in Knoxville, they brawl over near the table and Funk DDT's him through it. This is a higher level of violence all of a sudden from the Funker. This is a Terry Funk looking to impress upon us in even more ways than we're used to. He applies the spinning toe hold, but

bullet gets free. Bullet throws some head butts in, the Funker does the knock needs cell job, and then the action hits the floor again. And Terry Funk at this point, as the action re enters the fray and we're about to get there, does something for the first time in his life, because well it's time. Let's pull it up this twenty one, twenty sixteen to twenty one. You're there, I believe yes. So this is handicam footage. Yeah, bar bomb Strong in the center of the ring, Terry

Funk about to re enter three two one play. There goes the Funker, boss taking that big bump to the floor. Yep, Chim Cornett hovering over the Funker. The Funker picks his ankle and takes him down in the concrete, but put there with a spinning too hold on Jim Cornette in nineteen ninety four Smoky Mountain Boss much. I'll say, Oh, so Funk's back up. He's released Jimmy Cornette from his clutches as Bob Armstrong. The bullet recovers on one knee in the ring, and the Funker is what's he what's he

doing? He's tossing shit? Hit himself? What's that? Did he hit him on himself at the head of the table. What happened to the table? He's throwing it around, He's throwing weapons. He's absolutely loading the ring up with any flotsam and jets and he can get his hands on at ringside. He's he's making a mess. And this is nineteen ninety four. Okay, just think about how many of the mildest and craziest moments in ECW had yet to happen in February no less of nineteen ninety four, And here in

Louisville, with no one expecting it, no one knowing it's coming. Terry Funk, just a bunch of fucking weapons in the ring. Chairs and Jesus he's going to town. Has filled this ring with chiefly chairs, and now he's raining down chair shots on Bob Armstrong. What the hell is going to happen? Can't forget how unusual this is right now, this visual in nineteen ninety four, progressing. Imagine somebody doing this on rawat four such as it was in ninety four. No, no, not at all, not at

all. It'd be insane. So the Funker has built a little nest, a little small pile of steel chairs in the ring, takes a wild shot kind of let the chair go. In fact, in mid bringin I did, I'm not mistaken. That's Brian Hildebrands, February ninety four. Yes, sir, wow, so yeah, for sure, because this is even before the fucking ladder match. Yeah, good point too, Yes, because the

ladder match was something that I was blown away by. But this song think about this came before and he slams him on the Oh that was awful, but he dropped him soapd Now for the first time in his life, Terry Funk is climbing. No Terry Funk here at Smoking Mountain in February ninety four. He will moon salt. Why did he do it? Fuck? Why did he do it? And he crashes onto the pile of chairs, mostly entirely missing his opponent lateral press too. Terry Funk picks up the duke for

the first time in his life. He moon salted it. He moon salted. That's the first time ever. Yes, Jesus. The victor on this night was Terry Funk. As he tries to find his way his place in the nineteen ninety four pro wrestling can hit pause. Let's not forget, for example, that he had just walked out on the booking job at Survivor Series ninety three. Oh Yeah, had a chance to kind of settle into a more pedestrian existence in the pro wrestling business, but a better paid one at

the top. Organization at a time when they were desperately looking for new front men with Vince McMahon facing indictment. And you know, he famously, as we talked about last time, or a couple of times ago on the WWF episode, left the letter for Vince and vinced, my horse is sick. And he left in the night. The guy they thought they were bringing into book and be one of Jerry Lawler's knights in the card at the Boston Garden was gone. And where are you ride off to? Well, this is

months later. He's in Lewis, He's in a was it Knoxville? Yep, Knoxville, Tennessee moon salting for the first time in his life. Boss. We celebrate wrestlers reinventing themselves. Yes, and many of the greatest wrestlers never did do that. Yeah. True, But as the high rolling excesses of the eighties turned into the grungy and ornery and extreme obsessed nineties, Terry Funk didn't just go ahead reinvent himself. He was at the landguard of reinventing

the business. I want, I had, and when I hadn't went I had, And no one a hood won a hood, No one could believe what he did that night and the clip we just watched a few months before he turned fifty, including Jesus S. MW Owner at Ringside in that moment, Jim Cornett himself, and that was quite a day. And why did

you do that? Was nobody knew you were going to do that. I don't think that anybody was doing moon salt, so I'd say, like, mudha, that's where you got it from, probably, But remember what you piled all the chairs up and put you to get it? Yeah, you're climbing up. I'm like, what has he done it? You did the moon salt at fifty three? But what was what was so stupid was putting all of those steel chairs on earth. Yeah, I'm trying to go ahead

and make it myself a patty there when they were all steel chairs. That was a dumb thing in a world. I said, Terry, what are you doing? You looked him said, I don't know, Corny, that's exactly looked. It looked vicious, I'll tell you that. But anyway, but Bob Armstrong was under the chairs, yes, and again he felt he was just completely covered up by the chairs. And I flew off of there on top of me that was that would be a classic thing to do.

Now, somebody ought to do that. I don't know, Corney, I don't know why I did it and where are is? That? Not as fun as it gets? That's that's I mean that that's just staple. I can't stress enough. We are accustomed to seeing Terry Funk moonsalt in the nineties. Yes, can you imagine him doing it for the first time at his

age. It's just that's I mean, I guess it. I guess it makes sense in a way, but like, who the fucking thought that that was only in retrospect, only when we know the road he was about to travel. Yep, but this is still a bit precocious in terms of time that those things having happened. That redefined our expectation set for Terry Funk. And it's so hard because of the crazy flips the guys do now to put ourselves in a mind frame where the moon salt was fucking incredible. But boss,

we lived it. Yeah, people, moon salt did. It was

like get out of your seat moment. Yeah exactly. I mean that was totally I mean, in many ways it still is like it should be anyway, But like a moon salt was was something completely completely foreign to I mean, yeah, I remember it being I'm trying to think of the first time I saw Vader and wcwa Is. When Corny said mood I was thinking, well, yeah, Muda did do it before Vader, and I guess, yeah, Muda did it in eighty nine, but I wouldn't have watched that

though at that point the Funk would have been there to see it. In eighty nine, sure, of course. I think when he moon salted there, I think probably as many people American wrestling fans that were in attendance thought of Vader as they did Muda. Yeah, yeah, especially because Funk didn't do that downward trajectory one, that forty five degree angle one that Mooded does.

He did the kind of soaring up right uh kind of angle salt a bit just amazing, And it's amazing how like he misremembers where Armstrong was. Armstrong was not under the chairs. He was on top of them, sliding off the edge of the heap. By the way, he didn't fucking take

anything on that. He totally missed him. Yeah, fucking coward, he is, what kind of thought, But he didn't tell Bob Armstrong, he was going to do it, just like he didn't tell Rick Flairy's going to drag him over to the table and pile drive at Russell wardy nine either, because that would suck it up. He knows, he knows. The first

take is always the best. If you're Terry Funk, Yep, that's the way to get the most genuine, organic, believable reaction out of your opponent is to have people look upon them as they don't quite know what's going to happen next. They just know their job is to be there to take it when the moment comes. And there's Bob Armstrong, undoubtedly for the first time in his life, laying on a bed of chairs watching someone moon salt down on top of him. The fuck is he doing exactly? Son of a

bitch. Hey, hey, Bob, I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and moon salt the ship out of you. Be all right, But all right, do you mind if I moon salt? Huh? Huh? Did you say moonshine? Terry moonshine, moon salt. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, speaking of which, Terry Funk, reflecting on this faithful moment in a shoots interview with our video. Who knows that I think moon salt are a diamond dozen right now, I'm gonna yeah, it's amazing that they

have more people can moon salt that can wrestle. What made you? What made you say to yourself, screw it, I'm gonna do the moon salt anyway. I think it's the matter of pride again, it's wanting to change with times and be with what's present in this day of nature. What that many people doing long moon salt at that time? You know? Yeah, Uh, when Ibride first started doing them, I thinking, oh, I'm sure that I'm not sure that Vader did him first or I did him first.

I think I might have done it before Bader did them first. Yeah, and uh, we else was doing it was, uh, the Japanese boys were doing them. Saboo me Sa was doing moon salt, and I think myself, that's just about it. Yeah, how did you what made you decide to even try the moon salt the night in Smoky Mountain? Well, and I just kind of looked around there and had all of those chairs in the ring there, and uh, Bob that belaves Bob Armstrong. Yeah, he was underneath the chairs, and I thought, well, hell,

this looks like a pretty good idea. Get up there and try to fly. I think I did a better one then than I do now. It was it was that it's something to watch. That's definitely something to watch. And then every time was there any pressure in that at that point, because every time you came to the town, everyone went to Terry Funk through the moon salt. Oh, they weren't going to see that. I just have so many moon salts too. I try to pick. I try to pick

the right time to use him. I don't know boss coming to not Terry Funk as we have and having heard what we just heard, Why do you think he moon salted? I I believe he moonsalted because because he I believe he moon salted because he needed to moon salt. Please expound, expostulate momentarily. I believe that he that in his mind, this was the only thing that he could do to matter. Wow, he's Terry Funk. What do you mean matter? No, he's like a god in these locker rooms,

isn't he. But he's Terry Funk in the nineteen nineties. And what does that mean? And that means he doesn't you know he he he he's out of his league. Wow, he's out of his league at this point because he's older. What he says, fifty? When does the yep? And you know, so there is you know he you know, here's a guy who's whose Hollywood career is not what he thought it was going to be.

Yes, that's now clear. By ninety four. Yep, for sure, the phone is stop bringing yep, or at least it's not ring in nearly as much. Still, the roles aren't getting bigger, they're getting smaller. You know, he's still got a thunder and paradise to come up there, so that but yeah, he he needs to take it to the next level and and and stand out as something that that that is relevant and matters so that he can get money. And how do we matter in the nineties,

Well, your moon salt and you're hurt. Thank you. You prove to us that you're willing to risk disability or death. Yes, you know that you are willing to to that you are willing to go further than the younger guys. Yeah, make me think that you don't care if you live or die. Right, that's how to be relevant in the nineties. Right Ready to Die was Biggie Small's album Yep, and Terry Funk had to convince the people he was ready to die out there, and to hear him tell it,

he was. He climbed those ropes for those moon salts pretty well resolved in his mind that this could be the last thing he ever does in a wrestling ring. And if that's the case, so be it. Because better to have moon salted yes, and ended your career than to bore the people. And that's Terry Funk's gift. That's better to have moon salted and died than to have died irrelevant and think about it. I mean, that's that's the ofoir of the ECW audience. That's what's pulsating in those crazy, you

know, testosterone filled crowds. They want they embrace Terry Funk because not only is he who he was, but he's going out there and saying endorsing the level of demands that those fans placed on the performers before they were quote unquote over you know, the things you had to do, the things you had to prove to them, the risks you had to prove you were willing to take. The table bumps, the real physical pain that you had to show

them before they embraced you. And when they embraced you, you were in the money for a little while. For a lot of guys, especially the ones who never would have gotten a contract in wwfter WCW, it was absolutely a risk worth taking if pro wrestling business was going to have to be the way that you made your money because you were so obsessed with it. There's a litany of folks. I think of Spike Dudley as the ultimate case.

You know, think about this guy, Yes, how little business he had in the business outside of the unique proposition of what ECW was vis It's fan base and meeting those expectations and the opportunity to created for guys like him and Mikey Riprack and these other sort of guys that had no no obvious apparent qualities

that would make them marketable pro wrestlers. Yet Paul, understanding the fans as he did, existing on the wavelength they did, also saw on Terry Funk a little extra bit of an edge, a little extra bit of heart. We played the clip at the end of the last episode in the Rick Flair series, did we not Boss were Paul Hayman talking about working for the NWA when Funk came through in eighty nine, talking about driving him to the hospital

when he cracked his sacrem and could barely fly was sitting down. It still went out in the Great American Bash nineteen eighty nine and had one of the great matches of the era against Ric Flair, And how that inspired Paul Hayman to sort of create a whole ethos who around the locker room he wanted to build once he got the book at ECW, and of course bring in Terry Funk and have him be the living embodiment of the kind of commitment to self

sacrifice that it took to be worthwhile in the fans' eyes in ECW. And that's why he moonsults because he can feel that coming. If he's to survive on the level of the business that he has now committed himself to by turning down the WWF booking job, he's going to have to create a sense in these fans' minds and hearts that the frailty of his age is going to add to the drama of the risks he takes. Yes that because I'm old,

I must moon salt, Yes, and he does. As he says in his book, Sometimes I think a dynamite kid and some of the insane things I've done in my own career, Why don't we do that stuff? Why do we shorten our careers and maybe our lives physically? Why did I drag my fifty year old ass up to the top rope for a moon salt? That is the question. Why do I hurt myself on small shows where there's not a lot of money to be made. I have absolutely no idea what

drives us to do some of those things. Maybe guys like me are just queer, but in a different way. Instead of being queer for guys, maybe I'm queer for wrestling. Okay, Terry Funk, Okay, sure, whatever you say. Terry Funk debut in nineteen six and pro wrestling he was moonsulting in nineteen ninety four. The Funker was on a path he couldn't get off of, for he would be the elder statesman of an extreme wrestling movement

that elongated his career and redefined his role in the business. A short time into his run with ECW, Funk went up for the moon Salt again, this time to the floor, thank you very much. Where more than once in his life he landed on his fucking head. I don't know how he didn't pass away. I mean, there was a match in ninety four with Oneita and Mike Austin and Cactus Jack in Japan where he landed on his fucking head when he came up short on the toss. There was one in ECW

as well. There's one in WCW against the wall on Nitro. He just Moon Salts. Boss, take a moment YouTube Funk Moonsalts WCW Wall and just tell me what you see. I'm not even going to load it on my side. I just want you to to appreciate what it is. I'm trying to tell you here as far as Yeah, the wall, of course was the Jerry tweet the heel hang him, So all right, Terry Funk Moon Salt. You see him on the top rope in that two thousand era Nitro.

You know you've come to the right place. Take up, place up, He'll take it. Please off top cock. Look, he's not gonna fuck to me. Go ahead. What did you see he he just lands on his shoulder. He's old, He's so old. This is six years after the moon Salt. We just watched he moon salts and to the floor, to the floor, from the top rope to the floor, and he lands like on his shoulder, Like, what the fuck? Why nobody needs this except Terry Funk. Right, maybe he was just queer for the wrestling

business, boss, I guess so. And here Tommy Dreamer in a sit down chet interview face off series with the I love that, like he has to be gay for it, Like like that's what came to mind. That's the best analogy you could think of. That's so his memoirs. That's such a weird thing. It got. Yeah, he probably was gay for wrestling. Think about it. I mean, I guess, I guess he's definitely in love with it, and he considered a very masculine thing. I guess.

Okay, I guess it's weird. It's just weird. Like some call wrestling their mistress. Yeah, he just calls it his gay lover. And then we got his partner, his husband is whatever, Holy Terry Funk. Only Terry Funk would phrase it that way, right, and he uh, and you know it's too late. Now he's got a moon salt. He's got to prove to us that he's willing to die. What do you say, He said he only had a few in him. Yeah, he had quite a few in him, had quite a few. That's right, Jesus.

And here in a sit down shoot interview segment with Terry funk Ferrara video, Tommy Dreamer, sitting right next to the Bunker, reflects on a faithful moment that told us just how far the Funker was about to take it in the land of extreme. He was, you know, it's a joke about you know, he was middle aged and crazy, but he changed his style to like the ECW style, even though he was always doing the same stuff.

But then like I'm going to do a moon's halt to the floor, and he does a moon salt to the floor because he sees people doing moon salts. And you know, it wasn't the picture perfect moon salt, but for the fact that he would do it, and he would shake climbing on the ropes and work and everyone and put his hand up like, you know this is going to be couldn't my work? Could be my last rod I may die theoside definitely expected to die, and they every time I got up

there I was not working one of my favorite Tarry Fox mood salts. I gotta tell you that, like your face, I have so many great moments of like I have Kodak moments of your face where you just pop me and your moons. When you climb up, it does take a while, and you scream and yell andever you get everyone to focus on you. And when you first go over, you look like you're going to be the most graceful moon salt, like super crazy like floating in the air. Your legs go

like this. Your legs go like this, and then all of a sudden you go and get ready for the landing there and I remember you do it to the floor with me, Shane Douglas and Brian Lee, and I'm your partner and I'm going to be back here just in Casey overshoots and me and Brian are like this. I remember that on the floor and me and Brian like this, and here he comes and I'm like, oh shit, he's

gonna overshoot us. And then he starts like this and me and Brian and Shane was in the front, Me and Brian like and we dive and we just hear funk and your head hits the floor, and Brian and we all hang on what kind of would like to see somebody? Hey, god, it's so funny that he so Brian so stupid. Brian goes out, my god, dream we just killed her, funk And you come up to me and your hair, your hair was and you go, that was the dumbest

thing I've ever done. That was your hair was like matted on one side and this side was like Carlito hair. And you just kept going and the Florida back and that was just the dumbest thing everything about me. Why did I do that? Tommy Dreamer, That's the dumbest thing I've ever done. I think he had a head boss. Yeah, he went ahead and dropped his head. I mean, like any thoughts, I mean it it actually,

you know, there's a part of me. I don't know what his facial expressions were like, but part of me is like, listen to how sad he is about that, Like he keeps saying it wasn't funny. I don't know how to make what to make of that, honestly, I don't. I mean, is he to me? It just it just makes me

feel sad. And the fact that Tommy Dreamer called it his favorite, one of his favorite moments, and it's like really like this, it's a favorite moment, Like shouldn't have been like a horrifying Oh what did you send me? Just go to nineteen eleven on that video. Please try to skip ahead if you can. Okay, Yeah, it's kind of yeah, it is

kind of it is kind of horrifying in a way. I mean, I think, to be fair, I've seen a lot of these funk shooting interviews and he kind of takes this tone of like he pretends to take umbrage without the other person saying, but like they've gone through the same song and dance so many times before that the other guy kind of knows he's just kind of ribbing him that he's kind of just taking a fake offense to it. Yeah, not even the offense though, it's the idea that I mean he called

he called the fans perverts. They called ye. He called him a pervert for thinking it was funny that he landed on his head. I mean, I just don't like, what, what kind of a of a situation are you in where you know, like you think this is okay, it's queer for the business. Yeah, I guess so all right, I'm nineteen eleven. You ready to hit play? Yeah? Three two one play Scientific Wrestling move. This is from FMW where Nick Foley and Terry Funk Mike Ossomo needed

to knock and win him on a street fight. Here goes Funk. Get ready? Come on? Why look at that fo Jesus Christ hippause you just he just you know, the problem is he can't fully rotate. What what did you just say? You just saw He's on the top rope. He's moon salting to the floor, all right, and he gets to a certain point he just doesn't rotate fast enough, and so you know, he he's still like head facing down when he connects with the guys and he just lands

on his face and his chest. What happened to Sean Michaels in Saudi Arabia?

The Funker taking flight for the business. It's just not okay? Everyone you ever cared about in ecw owes something if not damn near everything to Terry Funk and upon his passing, Paul Hayman when on wwbe's talk show The Bump to share some reflections, and I think in so many ways set it all in terms of setting the table for what we're about to explore in the stage of the Funker's life here, I'm I'm I'm a was hesitant to try to

encapsulate a life like Terry Funks within a sound bite or even even a portion of a program. I didn't say anything publicly. I haven't yet, And one of the reasons why is because I was aware of the decline in Terry Funk's health, and I had the extraordinary opportunity and pleasure of speaking with him in the last few weeks of his life. So I withheld my tributes because I got a chance to tell him while he was alive. I didn't have

to explain my affinity for the man after his passing. I got a chance to let him know. There was no pun intended acknowledgment of the greatness of the performers in EACW without them getting into the ring with Terry Funk. Shane Douglas was recognized as a franchise player because of his interaction with Terry Funk.

The Public Enemy truly got recognized as a pre eminent tag team of their time by being in the ring with Terry Funk and and and the Funk brothers Terrrian and Dorry Jr. Sabou came out of the gates at ECW making a splash, but his splash was infinitely bigger because by the end of Saboo's first weekend in ECW, he he was in the ring and holding his own and and

and and sharing the spotlight with Terry Funk. It's uh. I don't know if there's anything that I can say that will match the brilliance of what Cody said. What Cody said the other night moved me. It was it was profound and and and and and and it's just so eloquent, uh in in that you could be going through an airport and and egg shucking dog and what what am I listening? Who's screaming is at my and and here's Terry Funk coming, you know. It's just it's just it's so Terry Funk for him

to do and at the same time, uh he he. He was the the grandfather of of of a revolution, of an evolution in the industry, of a movement, of an extreme movement. I think what I wish future generations will will take from the legacy of Terry Funk is the passionate pursuit of greatness in all moments of a performance and never losing sight that it's a business. Yes, because so many people today. And this is not a criticism of the young guys, the new generations. This was true twenty years ago,

this was true thirty years ago. This is this is true in every generational turnover in this industry, and it is true today. It's separate. Either you have those who sit there and go business business, business, business, business, or you have those that go creative pursuit of greatness. I want to do this. I envision this with no viewpoint as to how do we exploit this in commerce, because at the end of the day, as a business, we are all commerce facilitators. And you know, and and

and and Terry never lost sight of that. Terry Terry was always balancing the pursuit of greatness within a performance, how do we make this into business? And then would say, okay, how do we make this end? Besnsh and where's the greatness involved? And he always understood that that's the chocolate and the peanut butter that makes the Reese's Peanut butter cup. You know that that's just they can't be separate. They must always journey together, and sometimes it's

it's it's, it's, it's, it's it's not a comfortable marriage. Sometimes you have to scale back on the greatness to pursue the business, and sometimes you have to realize that the business needs to pace itself to allow greatness to shine and then capitalize on it. So it was just it was a remarkable balance that someone who at all times could could truly convince you he was out

of his fricking mind. But that's the line of greatness and insanity joining each other, a genius and insanity always being hand in hand, And I think part of his genius was the fact that he accepted himself as being insane. Extreme Championship Wrestling was first Eastern Championship Wrestling. Terry Funk was there from the

start and boss when he talks about that fine line. There are many in these w locker room who have sort of talked about how they felt like they only occasionally got a glimpse of like the true Terry Funk, that even in the locker room, he still had to keep up some facade of being a little tapped, a little weird, little wacky. There are people who swore that you know he was like a blood brother, and then they ran into him ten years later and he was acting like he was ready to kill them.

But this is Terry Funk, and he's carrying on the cafabe wherever he goes because he believes he's the worker. I think that's correct, Terry the worker, and stand by on that their work. If they're working you and you and you they're working with he's a worker. He's a worker, worker,

that's all. He is a worker. And so is he though, because what I just heard Paul Hayman say is that, well, Terry Funk appreciated when he had to dial back the insanity to do business and and you know, create some moments where he isn't just like all in and just all out there so that some things can can marinate and become business at the end of the day. Paul Hayman seemed to be talking about that as something Terry Funk was keeping at bay, not something not a mask he put on,

but something that was always ready to bubble to the surface. A lot of guys tell themselves and Terry Funk blew up at them backstage because of a messed up spot in a match or some errant fireballs, as we'll talk about down the road here in our ECW installment, that he was just flipping mad at him, and they didn't know what to make of it, and they just chalked it up to Terry Funk just carrying the performance back through the curtain. I don't know, I think he really was fucking nuts. Oh, of

course. And listen, you're not you're not saying if you continually go up to the top rope and do a moon, salt to the floor and land on your head. And he's something that a normal, sane person does, and he's good at making people feel warm about him and in his personal life and his interpersonal relations and sort of friendly in the same way a sociopath kind of learns how to do those things they don't well, of course, you

don't naturally do that. It's it's a learned behavior. I mean, I don't want to go too far, but I think Terry Funk became someone different than his friends and family knew when he entered a wrestling locker room. And I don't think it was all entirely within his control. Went to turn it on and turn it off. I mean, well, I mean I don't think that that's too different than any I listen to the wrestler worth a shit. I don't think it's any different than anybody who goes to work. Ah,

don't you fucking go there? Like that's just it. People have their work personality, people have their home personality. You know, you don't see sometimes people at home don't see the work personality or the worked personality even damn right. The Funker Extreme Championship Wrestling was first Eastern Championship Wrestling, and Terry Funk was there from the start. Todd Gordon, a Philadelphia area jeweler second generation, picked up where the TWA, which we actually got a glimpse of

when we did the Jerry Lawler series, remember that Boss mm hm. And they brought the lular Funk view to the East Coast and Joel Goodheart's Tri State Wrestling Alliance, which in many ways, both in terms of geography and in terms of presentation, was the precursor to Eastern Championship Wrestling. That you know, Todd Gordon picked up or Joel Goodhart and the TWA left off. As Funk says in his book, Goodheart's crowds were loaded Besides me, he brought

in the Sheik, Abdullah and a bunch of others. This particular show he was talking about drew a three thirty thousand dollars house, but he spent a lot to bring in the talent, so it wasn't a profitable situation for him. Yeah, Joel Goodheart was just you know, just spending money to see what would happen if he put Abdullah the Butcher and fucking Terry Funk and others the Sheikh in in the small venues in and around Philadelphia for the hardest core

wrestling fans. And that was kind of the seed. That was the seed of what ECW would become. And Terry Funk was getting booked on on those

circuits from the beginning. It was almost wild. It was like it's like these East Coast promoters were like import howarding hot feuds, programs, angles gimmicks from the territories that they only saw on VHS from areas they didn't grow up in, much like Memphis in particular, but as well as you know, all Japan and Detroit here with the Sheikh and those heavy blood, heavy, brawling, heavy chair shot, heavy, right hand heavy styles, and there

was like this moment in the early nineties, where these promoters seeking to differentiate themselves from WWF and WCW, and with talent available that worked those circuits, put on those performances, drew those houses, but whom, for whatever reason WWF and WCW weren't interested in in the time, just trying to like import those dynamics to an East Coast crowd that had never seen it before, and

it went pretty far. And Funk was able to, you know, sort of exercise the kind of style that he worked against Jerry Lawler with and Dusty Roads with here in the early nineties in the circuit known as the TWA for a crowd that's much differently constituted. You know, a crowd coming out to matches at the scene Pete Armory or whatever down in Florida in the seventies is not looking for the same thing out of a night out at the wrestling matches

as these crowds in Philadelphia in nineteen ninety one. They're just not. But in some ways, these old these old timers are the conduit through which they could express what the new wrestling fan wanted, but the new thirst was for and some stepped up, like Terry Funk, and satisfied that need and sensed it, and others like you know, Jerry Lawler and Abdullah the Butcher just you know, there wasn't another gear there. Yeah, and so they were

sort of relegated to the category of caricature of themselves. Not in a bad way, but in a way. It was like, Okay, you know

you're gonna get Jerry Lawler. You're gonna get the same Jerry Lawler in the e CW arena that you got at the Mid South Colisseum in nineteen eighty two, right, And I thought some wonderful color for this came from our cracker Jack Solar System member Matt, who lives in Philly and who's a longtime fan, a big ECW fan, and does remember the twa and actually wrote a letter in a very timely way in terms of how the lapsed funk was unfolding. The guy just has a way of that. He just has a way

of dropping missives on us. Totally. Absolutely that are just where we need them. Rights, Happy Holidays. You mentioned Tri State Wrestling in the birth of ECW, and it made me want to give you this. There's a thread of the ECW origin story that I almost never hear anyone call attention to maybe this will one day be useful pickings for TLF research. Yeah how about now? Ah yeah right. It isn't huge, huge, but it's a

history and it's missing. During the end of my childhood fandom in nineteen ninety one, I stumbled on a local radio show that broke k fabe for me. It was hosted by a man and a woman, and sometimes they'd have wrestlers on. The guy hated the WWF and shoot mocked them all the time. It basically contributed to my going laps for the first time, along with Hogan pinning Mark McCool at Tuesday in Texas. Brother. I was thirteen.

The zeitgeist was getting real edgy and angsty, and wrestling wasn't working for me. Brother. A few years ago, I became obsessed with this radio show memory and went deep hunting for info. It was the first time I signed up for newspapers dot com. I even went to a convention just ask Cornette about it. In short, Joel Goodheart became involved in wrestling because he was the insurance agent for a local wrestling store called The Squared Circle, owned by

Carmela Panfield and her husband back in nineteen eighty five. The experience apparently a namor jowel to the business. It was Joel and Carmela running that radio show that I found when I was a kid. It was called Wrestling Radio and it ran until the early nineties. Only twenty three minutes of a nineteen eight eighty seven episode survives today so far. I wrote myself a summary of everything I'd learned with the intent of sharing it one day, and then I stashed

it away. I can't think of finer stewards than TLF portions of it. Assumes that the anecdotes both Carmela and Joel have shared or accurate, of course, since based below and most supporting data and found relics are here in chronological order, You're goddamn right they are, Matt, Yes, he writes, ps. Carmela was scared to trim at Tommy Rich's bangs because his forehead was

raw meat. Brother. Just you think about Tommy Rich for a second, boss, Think of his long blonde hair, Think of like his dick getting wet with ring rats, think about him at all, and just him just spilling like the good old boy all over the place. Oh and yeah, wow, oh, God. So now we're going to read No, I'm

not sending you a thing about Tommy Rich. So this is Matt sitting down and I will turn it over to the boss Man for a recitation, recollecting what it was like to be a wrestling fan in Philadelphia in the days before ECW kind of calcified and became what it was. This is the Philadelphia wrestling scene that Terry Funk walks into in nineteen ninety. On July fifth, nineteen eighty five, a retail store dedicated a pro wrestling opened up just outside Philadelphia.

It was called The Squared Circle, occupying a modest stall less than one hundred and fifty square feet in Levittown, Pennsylvania's nine ninety five Marketplace. Bruno San Martino and Dominic Denucci were in attendance for its grand opening. Two thirds of the business was owned by Carmela Panhil, a friend of the pro wrestling business all her life, and her husband Paul Panfil, a super fan with global tape trading connections. The rest was owned by their insurance agent, Joel

Goodhart. Paul Panfel acted as a silent partner working their business connections while Carmela and Joel manned the storefront At some point. Within this first year, Carmela and Joel started a pro wrestling radio show together called Rastlin Review on WTTM, a small station notes out of Trenton, New Jersey. They discussed the latest wrestling news, had guests, took live callers, and ran count contests. By September nineteen eighty six, WTTM had merged with WDTV in Philadelphia, and

Joel and Carmela's show had a new name, Rasslin Radio That's Wrastling. Joel later said that the name was meant to distinguish from the bad wrestling down at the Spectrum. Rastlin Radio aired Sundays from twelve pm to one pm. Carmela wrote the entire show, sometimes staying up until four or five am on Saturday nights finishing it up. The pair amass a dedicated audience. Over the next

two years. They had their own one thousand member club, held local charity benefits, hosted guest wrestlers, and even organized fan trips to pro wrestling events around the country, including Memphis TV, Star KT seven in Chicago, WrestleMania four in Atlantic City, and a third annual Crocket Cup in Greensboro. Brian

the Blue Meani Heffrin attended several of these. Joel and Carmela had also developed a working relationship with Jim Crockett Promotions, occasionally attending NWA shows at the Civic Center for Rastland radio night events in which members of their fan club would get ring signed seats. Carmelo would work as timekeeper and Joel as the ring announcer. So when WDTV signed off as a radio station on the July twenty fifth, ninety eight, Joel was able to arrange for the show to be aired

instead on Philadelphia's premier sports radio station, six' ten. WIP Wrestling Radio debuted there on third, nineteen eighty eight, Airing for an hour every Sunday morning from eight am to nine am. It became the third most popular Saturday morning radio show in Philadelphia, drawing twenty two thousand listeners per quarter hour. According to Joel, that was such a thing, Like you think about John

Arezi and his New York Wrestling spotlight show. Yeah, like these these key markets would have these these folks that would buy time on the key sports radio stations and just talk about wrestling and overperform outperform expectations, you know, and wow, yeah, of course, because like you know, they're they're people who who need it. Absolutely, yeah, they need it. And the

what do they need? Just to be clear, I mean you say they need information, they need like more, you know, wrestling fans always need more. Wow, even when they claim to be completely overwhelmed by the amount of content hours. Yes, because you know, because there's always something there's always something we don't know, yes, Or there's always something we think we know yeah that can be very easily dislodged, Or there's always something that we

want to know more about. There's always something that we want to be true. Yes, And so you know, free sheets, you're right, and you're automatically going to get a fan base of that because people are going to like, well, look at this, they're talking about the thing that I love the most and nobody else is. And how cool is that they're just talking about it exactly, even if they're not saying anything particularly worthwhile about it,

right, And yeah, that's that's just fascinating. This where we got Vince Russo from. He's a creature of that world, right, you know, he's a creature of being on the radio and trying to be like a journalist with the wrestling gimmick vick venom and all that and all started there, and that's where hardcore fans went at the time, was they they sought out these little small pockets where you know, it's just like today, it's just like this podcast. Yes, you know, it's like a way for like

minded people. Of course, it's easier than ever because of the Internet and podcasting in particular to find like minded wrestling fans. But this is what everyone who listened to that show is in search of in the eighties, and it's what we're capitalizing on to great joy and effect today. Yeah, yeah,

jeez fucking nuts. One of the most notable events during their time on WIP occurred on April thirtieth, nineteen eighty nine, in the Philadelphia Civic Center's Plaza Ballroom, when Rick Flair attended their banquet to crown him Wrestler of the Decade as voted by Rastlin radio listeners. There were one hundred and thirty eight people

in attendance, each paying seventy five dollars for the privilege. To commemorate the event, Joel Goodhart commissioned a custom belt from Mike Vartanian for twelve hundred dollars, It said Rasslin Radio's wrestler of the eighties. There's only one known photo that exists of Flair holding it. He knows where the belt is these days, but I've heard that Joel had two made and he has the other.

This was right around the same time when Joel quit the insurance business, opening Ringmaster's Wrestling School and started running his own shows that would become the Tri State Wrestling Alliance. One of the fans of Tri State Wrestling the w of Wrestling Radio, Todd Gordon. Todd Gordon was a minor financier of TWA. They held events all through nineteen ninety one, but by January of nineteenninety two,

Joel had sold his slice to Todd and was backselling insurance. Todd, of course went on to form Eastern Championship Wrestling, sold it to Paul Hayman in nineteen ninety six, and the rest is well documented. Carmela says there would never have been a Squared Circle store or Wrestling radio without her husband Paul, and if you take the obvious implications to the next day, ye there would

have been no TWA, which means, of course no ECW. Depending upon where you started on stand on ECW as an organization, you ultimately have the pan fills to thank or blame. Here's an interview with Joel Goodheart from twenty twelve. It starts about seven minutes and he talks quite a bit about the early days of the Square Circle history melaw talking about Tim Radich's hair as well. Yeah, yeah, amazing. Yeah, so TWA and it does fold and Todd Gordon does pick up the slack. You know, he had a

family jewelry store called oh my God, how is it Escaping Me? In South Philly. They used to advertise all over the wrestling show and we'll we'll see a couple of those advertisements as we watch it back. It is it is Carver read all right. So anybody who ever sees the Carver Red Jewelry store in Philadelphia know that that's a ECW proprietor Todd Gordon's store. Wow.

And Todd Gordon set up Eastern Championship Wrestling is kind of like, you know, more than anything, Like there's the local guys training in the school, trying to make it your local indie guys, and then there were just WWF and ww castoffs, guys with names that happened to be available that were big.

At one point in the Northeast, he booked Jimmy Snooka, he booked on Morocco, he booked Hawk, He booked a handful of other guys that had Tito I think, came through and had made an impact on the circuit, and it was kind of like a one off payday. It wasn't really like a it wasn't a touring centralized group yet, and guys would come through. It was kind of like a super indie in a way. And booking

for him was Eddie Gilbert. Terry Funk, by the way, said that he was offered the initial booking job for RECW, but Eddie Gilbert ended up

getting it and Terry kind of passed on it. Eddie Gilbert was a true Memphis wrestling nut, obsessed with Jerry Lawler, wanted to emulate him in every way, and he wanted to export that brawling style of Memphis everywhere, including some early nineteen nineties matches that Eddie Gilbert himself had with Terry Funk in a series of fledgling independent promotions across the East coast where the appetite was there for that kind of wild and wooly brawling in and out of the ring, into

the crowd, into the parking lot, everything. And so Eastern was going to run its first television taping having received clearance. I believe it was on a sports channel Philadelphia. Really good clearance there. And it was March nineteen ninety three. He was at the Cabrini College, about a half hour outside of Philadelphia. Of course that night there were three feet of snow to hear Todd Gordon tell it, counting for a rather lethargic and sparse crowd. But

it aired on April sixth, nineteen and ninety three. Eastern Championship Wrestling ECW Folks April sixth, nineteen ninety three. And if we can turn, well we will in a moment, let's do it. Disc nineteen. Boss, if you can open that puppy up, We're going to see who comes out to be presented to the television audience on the very very very very first c W taping as a commentator. Hold on here, so Disc nineteen at the

beginning, or is there a time code? Oh, I'm Cotyl right at the beginning, yet Yeah, okay, so three two one play ratings wrestling fans to a packed tas Cabrini College field House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania has the inaugural edition of Eastern Championship Wrestling on Sports Channel. My name is Jay Sully. I'll be bringing you all the play by play action this evening along with my co host, the official color analyst for the ECW, mister Stevie Wonderful,

and in in one of lore here live and in living color. ECW first Week or Sports Channel Philadelphia gotting down the hatches. Here we come. We got a lot of things happening to night, j Sully. But before we get started with any of the action tonight, it's my pleasure to first introduce the President of the e c W, mister Todd Gordon. Oh my god, I'm leading to see here. Jay, It's a pleasure to be here with both of you and Steve Wonderful. How much how much he's a

jeweler. What do you trying to say? Rushing champion, That's what it's all about, and it's starting tonight. We got sports downal We have a tournament right here. E c W style, the way only e c W wrestlers can do it. From what I understand, some of the top stars and professional wrestling are here and in that tournament. That is correction, a special announcement just for you and just for you. That's right, special person is going to be. You're about to introduce a very special person joined us

bring all time living legend himself. That's right, the living legend and Soleddy Gilbert. Thank you, thank you, thank you very much, mister Gardens. That's indeed, you're right. But mister Gilbert, and I know you better than anybody knows you. That's right, and I'm not gonna put up with your Shenanigan. I want you to look at the monitor right now and see who it is that's gonna be our new third. Let's just say this

wasn't clear. Quantumly hespuns into the window and Quantumly the television show God the Funker tearing your head off and shove it up here. God warn me, you tring to kill me? What's happening? Doors off you? Sam? Look at him? God, I want to selling. He's going ahead. Oh, I want to add him sold, Quantum leap Sam. I don't know why I didn't get another act cop after this, imagine taking Quantum Leaf off, Quantum Leaf off television, the real b He comes Gerry Gilbert looking

like fucking Shane Douglas's my thousand Chris. There's a funker and a blazer and my god, she knows look at him. Jerry fuck Jerry fuck? No, No, you taking me where? I call him a legend, Well legend to me, old man. Okay, hey, hey, I want to say something, And what I want to say is this that when you run with my old gang, you gotta be tough. And if you want to get tough, you can get into the wrestling ring with me. But then how would that look if this old man here kicked your butt? Oh

yeah, oh yeah. You know. I want to say to you people here and you people out home there that it's a pleasure being here because each and every one of you in this area have got a place in my heart because it is the HC portion of the United States is where the Eastern Championship Wrestling is originated. And what I mean by HC it's a hardcore fans ICEE. And I want to say one other thing too, that Todd has put together a bunch of wrestlers out here that maybe some of them you haven't seen

before, and some of them you've seen many times on your television. But I promise you hardcore fans, that the lot of these guys will give you their heart and their soul right in that wrestling ring, Terry. It's a pleasure to have a great living legend like mister Terry Funk joining us in the e c W. And I right now would like to start the announcing by saying, we'll be back with e c W Wrestling right after this break. Yeah, yeah, what the fuck? So what do you think of Todd

Gordon? First of all, I mean, I feel like I just got robbed. Why. I mean, he just I feel like together, gentlemen. Yeah, he's put together by other people's money, That's what he's put together. I feel like I feel like I just got swindled out of money. I feel like he just convinced me to give him money. And I'm not even the same room as him. And this happened fucking you know,

thirty years ago. Are you still on pause? Perchance? Yes, there's a further introduction of Terry Funk on these initial Embryonic proto ECW episodes, and again they just shamelessly continue to rip off footage of him acting in major television shows without any permission, presumably to air the clips on the on the screen. Oh, I'm sure, but they're trying to build up the bona fides of how like you know, it's from day one, Terry Funk being associated

with ECW served to elevate its profile. You could see how they kind of treated him there. And he comes out dressed in you know, not in the usual threads. Right, he's he's there to be a sort of like you know, the NFL Sunday desk guys. Almost yeah, right, you know he's right, yeah, he's he's there to fucking you know, call the action and analyze things. Right, He's not there to bring chaos. He's there to class up the joint and that promo face off there we just

heard with Eddie Gilbert. He's all smiles, he's all you know, calm, cool, collected. There's no hint that the insane Funker is being imported here to Philadelphia for this new BCW show. And so let's just keep playing this here on the count of one and see what else ECW did to ingratiate Terry Funk. To their audience from the absolute very beginning. So here we go in three to one play return of the King of the Texas Deathmatch. Terry Funk will be back here with as live on e c W. Let's

take another look at the livy legend and movie star Harry Bomb. Look at him on wild Side. It always looks worse than it is. Miss breaking off. He's gonna be all right. It cuts your superficial and a breaking the right leg is only a simple fracture. Oh fire, all done. You're gonna take it easy now, aren't you? Herman? I thought his time was threw on his ses. Tomorrow, I bring you some strude harmon loves my apple student. I GI means something to look forward to, something

You've never seen this stuff? Right? What are you doing? I'm trying to get the location of the mine out of that man. What do you would think I'm doing? Brodie, That's not how we plan it. I'm supposed to be the bad guy. You're supposed to be the good guy. He spin on my boots? Did he spin on my boots? Or starty? Getting mad? And I am mad? Trying to scare that man?

Where's Teak again? I want to see more than anything. But well, I'm the one who's supposed to always get mad and scare things house people. I studied this one. It's my turns to see. We both can't get mad at the same time. Just doesn't work that way. It's not the way we plan though. Are you terrorizing me yet? I'd like to get some sleep. Do you imagine pause just like shamelessly plum that on your wrestling show. I mean, it's just it's awful. It's awful. It didn't

even have like the ECW logo watermark on it or anything. You'd just be flipping the channels Sports Channel Philadelphia in nineteen ninety three and you would have just seen Wildside, just footage of Terry Funk acting on the show. Wildside was a country western show, like an Old West thriller or whatever the fuck they were doing, right, I mean, that's a pathetic went back to j

Sally, here's fucking idiots. Here you get this clown in the suit and then the redheaded the love child of fucking Jimmy Garvin and Oliver Humberden care. Oh, you nailed that one. No needs to try to up you on that. But didn't go so well, this first maiden voyage here for Eastern Championship Wrestling. Again, as mentioned, there was a lot of snow. It was spring break on campus or close to it, so it might not have been the best time to bring the show to the Cabrini College fieldhouse.

They got moved around quite a bit. The people who did show go up to make sure, you know, hard cameras were covered and such, and Todd Gordon in his book writes, despite all that, I was pretty elated after the shoots. We'd pulled it off in the face of some steep odds. I was walking away from that weekend in March ninety three with enough footage for three weeks of Pro Wrestling TV featuring names the fans new like Snooka, Morocco, Gilbert and Funk. I was proud of what we'd done. I

joined the broadcast team for the show's sign off. I stood with Sully and Funk and said how proud I was of our exciting show and told the fans they could expect more of that every week. That's when Terry Funk, one of my wrestling idols, picked up his mic and told fans and don't worry, it'll get better. Did he really just say that? I forced a smile, though it took the year out of me like a pricked balloon. The voice of God was pretty audible on the drive home, reminding me that

I should get the hell back to work. Diamonds are where it's at. Or maybe that was my dad's voice. Either way, I'd successfully gotten three weeks worth of TV in the cannon. I felt some momentum, however slight. I'd also meant a very creative guy named Paul Hayman, So Hayman lurking from day one, and Terry Funk did say to the crowd. He said it more on the television broadcast than he did to the live arena event people.

But I don't know why Todd remembers it as him being at ringside when Terry Funk said it, because when you watch the actual broadcast, it's very evident that Todd Gordon was not out there when Terry said it. Yeah, maybe there was another segment where he was next to him, But here is the moment in question. This is Terry Funk realizing that they hadn't knocked him dead in the very first ECW taping that he was hired to be the respected

and esteemed and you know, venerated voice of Jay. I will say that we had a great show. Here does I answer the first show? And I'll say what, I think we got some room for improvement, and we're gonna try real hard for your people out there. Forgive us some time and we'll get better, and so on the crowds when I'll say what, I don't know if the wrest will put down. It was not such a big put down. I mean, geez, the fuck still amazing that he said that, though it is, oh, you know, Hannah, it wasn't

that good, but uh, you know, we'll try again. Give us another chance. That's so like you know, Terry Funk's like, you know, satisfy the consumer mentality, you know, like a wrestler who's thinking of like the audience, not as a bunch of marks, but as customers, you know, right, spoken like a true son of a territory owner, an NWA boss. So in Terry's book, he recalls these early days. Eddie ran our first show held in a gymnasium. The show was the biggest

fiasco that I ever witnessed in my life. Yeah, I imagine, So the dressing rooms were full of wrestlers, non wrestlers, hunchbacks, fat girls, skinny girls, and very few pretty girls. Just the damnedest menagerie of humanity you can imagine. One guy I remember was the Sandman. He was there and he was god awful. He was one of many what's that not just grunting and groaning. He was one of the many who became good workers. But who was just the shits that night? Yeah, the weather was

bad too, so they didn't have that many people there. We just had a few hundred for the first ECW show. That show was so rotten you just wouldn't believe it unless you were there. After after my matchro grabbed the microphone and said, you know, I know the show wasn't the greatest, but you people bear with us, and I promise we'll put you on a

better product. And they did. The fans stuck with ECW. The morning after the show, we were trying to get out, but we were snowed in and ended up stuck at the hotel for two more days, and Eddie, Gilbert and I spent those two days creating stuff for ECW. Some stuff in wrestling today is a byproduct of an idea for Eddie Gilbert, people have

no idea how influential his ideas really were. So among the things they sit down, apparently and booked together are their early era feud against each other, Terry Funk and Ellie Eddie Gilbert is sort of telegraphed by that face off at the very top of the very first ECW broadcast. We're about to go to war, about to engage in an angle and fisticuff. So it isn't all to be just straight laced announcer Terry Funk here in ECWS, as you wouldn't

have expected it to be. And by the way, I do know that Terry Funk said this snow storm seemed to occur after the taping, not before the taping, as a Todd Gordon seemed to want to represent, perhaps to offset light attendants. So I don't know, I don't know when it snowed, but it seems if it afterwards, you couldn't quite blame that for the pieces of shit. So this nineteen is the next stop, nineteen, and we're going over to five thirty four on the time CO. That's five minutes

thirty four seconds on nineteen. We're on nineteen, and we just saw five thirty four. Okay, it must be that and then more. Okay, so we're going to keep it rolling. Now this is going to be more of Terry Funk, including another confrontation with Eddie Gilbert. So where we paused last, we hit play again three two one, so we got the answer

to Prank's side. Hey, Selly and Stevie. Wonderful they have the ECW typeface television they would keep when it came to stream Championship Wrestling for a little while. That's right, and it's wonderful to be here tonight. On's for solo up here, and right now, I would like to introduce my very special we'll call him a guest commentator. Right now, Fus King of the Texas Death Match. I give you the third man, the move hot Soup.

Eddie Gilbert says, I am now the official guest commentator. I am right, my right, I am another commentator for the e c W. Take a quick look at the monitor right down here and you'll see who I'm talking about, the real King of the Texas Death Match. Didn't we just do this like the rest of Oh damn quite, you're yelling, I'm right here. Where's the funker. Ah, nice hat, mister shallow. Well look here, if it ain't the leaping little post reader, good boy,

what are you doing in here? I just congratulating the kid. We were just talking, all right. You got to get that post to talk. You ain't trying to wrestle my wife? Are you a boy? As a matter of fact, we were just about to do it right here, uncle when you walked in. What star quantum Scott vaculate gv Scott bacula. It's exactly right, sorry, funking a full cowboy out the suit like ta boom

pickings? Is I molly this guy in the locker room because he's about to hunt his wife and I have to break in such a kind of ship that I can't that. I always hate that, you know, once again is denting the door of the locker over his head as the funker. You gotta treat wrestling like it's real, you know, it's like carry What do you think about that? So Eddie Gilbert was supposed to watch that footage of me intimidated, didn't didn't see what did the same fucking thing the last thing we

just watched. Thanks for joining us again had me a little bit worried. Bunker's back up. Get that up here, you professor? Or what this TV stare? Even he gets contact? Hit you going and handle the sidrophonesny, because I'm my knee full of my fist. Now, Gilbert is Conker. You want to talk, you go ahead and talk. If I want to talk, I'll go ahead and talk. Yeah, But are you gonna know about it? Huh? What do you gonna do about it? If I want to stay here, I'm gonna stay here. These are my people

here. Oh leave, you're here. They don't let me, they don't let sounds like lawler. You don't use for a long time. And I don't intend on taking any crap from you now or any other time. And you and your perier water that means nothing to me. Oh yeah, see, what are you gonna get about it? Pours the water down his T shirt that sells it like his melting Oh you're something right now? Yeah,

let me tell you something. Him out here insulting me. I don't need him out here, insulting the fans that have came here to e c W. And it's not gonna happen, but they're gonna have a fine wrestling show. Let's go to a break and we'll be back in a minute. Podcast. Yeah, we're gonna have a fun wrestling show, so let's take a

break. A humbred days there he is, right, yeah, and the Dusty booking pause that puppy Okay, so not the best no awful, I mean, not the best stuff here early on in ECW it's important to remember this well, it wasn't extreme yet, right, and this is the initial vision, this before Paul had the book. Paul. It's a long story,

but Todd Gordon lays it out well in his book. Paul was still representing himself as scouting talent for Jim Crockett Junior's latest venture in wrestling, because Jim Crockett signed a deal when they sold to Turner in eighty eight that basically kept him on a consulting fee until about nineteen ninety three or four, I believe, And so Jim Crockett got paid for years after the transaction to Ted Turner. And it was upon his you know, the expiration of that deal,

that he started sniffing around trying to start up another organization. I believe it was the WWN that he was starting to do the world Wrestling Network, which is what he called kind of the collection of syndicated television stations that Crockett and UWF after they bought that company's promotions aired on the World Wrestling Network.

Was you know, you could buy the World Wrestling Network for an advertisement and advertise across all of their wrestling shows and all their syndicated stations, and using that term, he kept Paul Hayman close by his side as an advisor and as a talent scout when he was trying to get a locker room together and start and he did a couple of shit and didn't really, of course,

end up going anywhere. A lot of people forget that. Jim Crockett even tried to do wrestling after selling to Turner in nineteen eighty eight, but he did. And at the time there was kind of like a series of loosely affiliated independent promotions across this country, you know, is WWFWCW and everybody else.

They were kind of independent doing their own thing. They weren't, you know, all answering to the NWA per se, They weren't hostile to the NWA, but the structure wasn't necessarily so much there that everyone was due's paying members of the NWA either. The NWA World Championship didn't mean a whole hell of a lot, which will prove to be very germane to ECW's particular history

here in a moment, as we'll talk about. But Paul Hayman is just kind of hanging around ECW like he is some other indis at the time, you know, befriending Todd Gordon and gratiating himself, but strictly just saying, look, I'm here, I'm willing to help and do whatever you need to put on a successful show, and don't pay me. That was the big thing Todd Gordon pointed out in his book over and over again, as Paul

absolutely refused to be paid by Todd Gordon. And at first, you know, he thought it was just this kind of gregarious gesture, Paul saying, look, I'm only here to help scout talent for Jim Crockett in exchange for you letting me do that and you know, potentially poach the talent that I like on behalf of Jim Crockett. You know, I'm going to help the facilitate the smooth running of your show and help out in any way I can

looking back on it with retrospect. As the book unfolds, Todd Gordon comes to the conclusion that what Paul Hayman was doing was basically preventing any ties that bind between him and Todd Gordon, so that when he made the move to take over the company entirely on his own, there wouldn't be some kind of a breach of contract or anything like that between the two, or breach of implied agreement. Yeah. Yeah, Paul Hayman doesn't want to get paid.

It's because on the other side, he doesn't want you saying, but I paid you, How could you do this to me? That's all the tangled web that is the ECW story, And it doesn't have a whole hell of a lot to do with Terry Funk, but it does explain while Paul Haman's kind of on the scene in the early Todd Gordon run ECW, but doesn't have the power of the book yet or doesn't really have any executive authority,

and when he does get it, then we're off to the racist. But what you're seeing here is like you just detected kind of cheesy pre Paul Hayman vision of what ECW is going to be not the best, and Terry Funk was not afraid to say it, as we just talked about. So he gets into a feud with Eddi Gilbert, the booker, and they go ahead and set up Texas death matches and all the rest. And it's very old

school. And if we migrate over to twenty three fourteen here on this disc boss okay, okay, one second, So now we're going to go ahead and get a glimpse go ahead of Eddie Gilbert and Terry Funk tussling on the initial ECW television. This is back from April of nineteen and ninety three. So hit play three two one play. So Edi Gilbert dressing somebody Gilbert. They just have a posters as SPCW tape to the wall, which you can see by a talker. Well, let me the size of this building and

the Funker blindside edge with a chair at wingside. Here we go. Time to try to do business studio wrestling style. Terry Funk has just come to the rig tossed up together with the chair totally twelve for think Terry chancers like hundred people here maybe howked up at a giver was doing nothing but give it Jay Billy an interview. But there he is, the guy with the straw hat from every ECW show you've ever seen. He's there. Just break it

down again. We're gonna get out of here. We'll be back along the tossing a chair across the auditorium as a head of Gilbert takes us way as the curtain. Now, what do we do? Funk are still kind of conservatively dressed. What's going on here? How about ahead? It pitched your commercial but they're still in the air. Now we've cut the sound so bad. Oh, this is pathetic. It's public access television production areas. Don't tell me. I didn't. I heard you're popping off about him. I

heard you're popping off about him. Oh no, I heard Gilbert out here making a fool of me. I hurt him. I'm not an idiot. I want to tell you one damn thing, as I am an individual, and I am an athlete, and I am something that nobody is gonna tell what to do. And if I want to come out here and kick ass, how damn turk is on you? Or kick anybody else's around now. As far as Gilbert's concerned, he thinks that I'm a fool. He thinks

that I am an idiot. He wants to discredit me. He can call me an old man, and I don't give a damn because I am an old man, and I am I am an endangered species, and I am the one and only I am tired, Bump, and I am the meet us in the towns me. He can rustle me and me wants to damn well, shoot at me? What did they do? Shoot down? Shoving j Cellier on Jesus, you can fight me, screaming to the camera, not even the mic tip, tipping over chairs. It's getting serious. I

think he hit a little child when he threw the chair. There he's back, man, scream Bump. Hold on a minute. I had to pause for a second. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna go back. Don't kick anybody else. Kid trying like he hit him in the leg with a chair. Oh my god. And then when he walks in the aisle, he looks down at the kid ready right about now? Oh hell, I'm sorry, son, I didn't mean to do that. I don't know what got into me. I could have shot someone in the fucking head, but I don't

know what got into me Terry Funk. So he's trying by Todd Gordon, Todd Gordon being played by actor Fisher Stevens. I don't think I know who that is, the guy from the Guy from a Succession that the pr guy. Oh my god? Oh did you ever have a beard like that? Is that what's making me think that? Yeah? Yeah, I mean I'm looking at some some pictures of him, like he's got the kind of balding hair like slick back and beard and and ship five. Hello fish, it's

good. That's a really good one. Oh my god. All right, well, now it's time for a promo that Terry Funk cut that's very well remembered from this time period, uh, in terms of creativity and him just kind of bringing a different dimension to the E c W TV show. This isn't the run up to fighting with Eddie Gilbert, And we're going to go out to the Double Cross Ranch and we're going to pay visit to one of the Funker's own steers. So do you have what time code do you have

there? Boss? I'm twenty six fifteen right now. All right, Gilbert three two one plays? But I want to tell yourself that Todd Gordon's side with j Selle and the other guy talking about Gilbert last week, Gordon, when Eddie Gilbert so Terry Funk had his you know what, let's take a look at that clip right now, what Eddie Gilbert looked like when he walked out of here with his tail between his legs. If we can, I want the director of roll that Gilbert from the Quimack, and I want to

tell everyone watching Sparks Kettle, Randy Living legend, Terry Funk. Let's go that tape right now, start the tape right now. We're not gonna show that tape. We're never gonna show that tape. You did not run Terry Funk out of the e c W. Terry Fuck is filling the ec W. He's back in the ec W. I Terry Funk has up to the states. Ricty to you, mister Eddie Gilbert. Now I know a lot of years Eddie Gilbert, Terry Fucker loves too many. Let's hear what Terry

Funk had to stay right now here we go. I'm not ship, thank you, I'm I'm not you know. I've been riding all morning long out here on a double cross ranch. I rode ten miles in every direction, and I have been looking for Eddie gilber Eddie Gilbert Hot Stuff is supposed to meet me out here on the Double Cross Ranch so I can explain to him the rules of a Texas chain match massacre. Letting me tie up my horse, Clyde here, and then i'll see if I can't find Gilbert anywhere around.

Come on, Clyde, come on, you're looking hind low Freddie Gilbert and I can't find him anywhere. I've looked all over this dad gum Double Cross Ranch. Oh there you are? Are They put the word Tony Gilberts you hot stuff? Now? I would like to explain to you the rules and the regulations of a Texas chain match massacre. Are you ready to listen? Are you? I hope so, hot Stuff, because you realize there's no stopping because of blood in a Texas chain match. Falls do not count.

There's no count outside of the ring, no count on the floor, no time limit. There's only one way to win the match. Do you understand that, Eddie? I certainly hope that you do, because how you win the match as you have to pull your opponent around to four corners in succession both of us will be chained together with his eight foot chain, Eddie, and I'm gonna pull you around to uno those trace and quato corners and the match will be over. Now, you tell me what you think about

time. Oh that farts. Your voice has changed, but your breath is still the same. Oh my goodness, that's wow. Pause thoughts. I don't even know where to begin with that piece of shit. I mean, we saw fucking wide eyed Terry Funk talking to a horse's venus and like they put the words Eddie Gilbert under the horse's ass. Like, of course, because it's humor and god, people remember that really fondly. People think that that's amazing when he makes that was big eyes when the horse rips a fart.

Your thoughts, I think it's awful. I think it's it's it's just it's why wrestling is embarrassing. Wow, you're gonna go that far in the funker? Yeah, wow, Well he's trying to bring some life into the show. We can say that so's the so's the horse's ass. Let's go to a vignette that air during this program. This is fifty four to twenty one, four twenty one. Okay, there wasn't hit. Yeah, I play. You're back on the ranch. Are the funkers behind a back home

or bulldoze or whatever that there is? You know, it's a mighty fine tracker right here out on a Double Cross ranch. When you're out here on a place like this, or you're in a wrestling ring, you gotta have the proper equipment, and you gotta be prepared. Whenever you're ranching and farming, you gotta be a rancher in a farmer, and a darn good one. When you're in a wrestling ring, you gotta be a darn good wrestler.

And when you're out here on this place like this, hey, you might be confronted with vermints, kyles, coons, rattlesnakes, predators, perverts, perverts. Well, it looks like ones headed this way? How that pod? Now do you realize that you are on private property? I know if you were a Texan that you would realize that you can't walk on to our man's property like you're doing right now. Where are you from, Sonny? I'm Eddie Gilbert's brother from Tennessee, and I came to challenge you.

You came to challenge me. You are hot stuffs, brother, what is that to the camera? Real hotstuff? Well, have I got something for you? He's throwing around a fucking dummy like they cut him press slamming. Now he started up the tractor with the dummy in the bed um that's and he's running a dummy over back and forth with the tractor. The fuck the funker walking Gilbert shad a chain match, Massaker. You gotta see it. Pause it. I mean, I hate to keep saying this, but we've

got to do it this way. What did we just see? I don't actually know. I don't know what the fuck we just saw that was? That was bizarre. This is the early vision of what E c W was supposed to be. Can't be. It's awful, Like Stayed wrestling. Here he is, he's on the double Cross and this guy with his back to

the camera presents himself as Eddie Gilbert's brother here to challenge him. And it's clearly supposed to be a deal where you know, Terry Funk set this guy up to pretend to be Eddie's brother so he could kick his ass on the ranch. And then, like you said, they do a jump cut and all of a sudden it isn't a human being standing in front of Terry. It's a dummy with the same clothes that the human being was wearing with his

back to the camera. It's not even I mean, obviously they're not trying to they're trying to be funny with it, because it's just like they cut to like it's a scarecrow. Like it's got white dangly legs, dangly legs and arms, and it's just awful. And he puts it in the bed of the tractor the mouth of the thing there, and picks it up and then drops it and then runs it over several times and then just acts like he, you know, was completely losing his mind and completely disassociated for reality.

I mean, in a weird way. He probably was, probably was, But just what a glimpse at what how lacking the initial ECW was that Terry Funk walked into. Now it wasn't It wasn't a fully formed idea. That's what I'm trying to get across here. Garry Funk had to go ahead and author what ECW was going to be in a large way. You did have to go ahead. I'll tell you that. You have to go ahead.

So let's go ahead ourselves to one O six forty eight, and we're going to see the aforementioned chain match that's been built up in the segments and promos we've watched this far in ECW. It's Terry Funk versus Eddie Gilbert from June nineteenth, nineteen ninety three. All right, one O six forty eight, yep, and if you're ready, we'll hit play. I'm ready a

two to one play. You know. Being from Texas, I delt with about every kind of animal and vornament that there is in this world today, and that goes from rattlesnakes to coyotes to burman to just about anything you want to speak of. But I've never ran into a low life like Eddie Gilbert before. And you people here in Philadeli, you you know how to spot a good wrestler. You know what ability is, and you know who's got that, who's got it whenever they go in the ring, whatever it might

be that makes them the best. Well, Eddie Gilbert doesn't have that, you know. He just keeps on blowing off and talking big and trying to really really be somebody. Well he's trying it, and now he's got the opportunity to be king affiliate. Well I do too, So we're going to find out who's going to get that crown and wear it. But there's only one thing that Eddie Gilbert better give a whole lot of thought. It's a type of match that he's coming into because it's my type of match. It's

a Texas chain match massacre. He's accepted the match, and now he's going to have to deal with me. And I'll tell you, you know, I've told people before, I'm meaner than a rattlesnake, tougher than shoeleather, more dangerous, and a hollow eyed score pine, middle aged, crazy,

crazy like a fox, and all that stuff. And I am truthfully because I wouldn't have lasted as long as I have in the professional wrestling business, and I intend on being in it a lot longer, and I intend on being on top in Philly because you all are something near and dear to my heart, you fans out there, because what you are is you're hardcore fans.

Because wrestling here in Philly is different. You've seen it all, you've seen the best and you've seen the worst of it, and now you're going to have a chance to see the most violent of wrestling matches with myself against Eddie Gilbert in a Texas chain match. Hot stuff. I don't think so you got an IDEO there? Yeah, so Eddie Gilbert, I just been to the rank, let me go and his manager all all regard still in the w W gimmick with the slick back hair in the cell phone starting to

look a little more like ECW. We remember, h. I guess still see the wall on the hard camera side, right, Super Summer Sizzler, spectacular boss here whatever? Okay with welc on Todd Gordon. Welcome Tod Gordon,

Todd Gordon. I believe this one's for the King of Philadelphia. We're told as Todd Gordon joins the wingside announced position announcer Bob Artiz, who was a voice of VCW the entirety of the promotions existence as a trick or for much of the promotions existence was a close a lie of Todd Gordon from day one, and Todd Gordon actually got to start promoting a couple of wrestling shows in bars in Philadelphia. A bar, that guy, They're gonna do something.

I guess. Indeed, the t W a opportunity opened up here, we got this. So this is the match they've been building and this is really, in a lot of ways, Lady Gilbert's first and last hurrah as the book or at CW. These two are cross paths on the booking committee of Jim Hurd in eighty nine. Eddie Gilbert was on that committee as well. Strong idea man student of the game, Bill Watts acolyte, like you know, childhood fanatic of Memphis wrestling and the sheets, you know, as

a manipulator. Sure this beauty star years ago, but you heard in that promo, right Terry Funk talked me about what's unique about the Philly wrestling fan even back in nineteen ninety three. Uh sure, well, sure, well you know what a what the Realdea looks like in that ring and even saying here in ECW, know, you know when you've seen the greatest and when you've seen the not so greatest. It's about to lock up here a chain risk to wrist with Eddie Gilbert as the Funker? Is this what does this

feel like? Watching Funk in this context after watching him tangle with Flair on TBS. I mean, it's it's just it's it's kind of sad we can't agree more on that one. You know, like to see him. I mean it's weird because it's like, you know, we we we already did see him wrestle in venues like this with the Dusty Roads, but that was still like fifteen years after this. Well the venue, yeah, well the venues we saw, like as far as the TV tapings, those were all

done in studio, so yeah, they were necessarily tiny. But when it came time to have those matches on the circle, you're talking ten thousand seat buildings, eight thousands slip buildings, whereas here they're no those last dusty rhads ones. It was in fucking gyms. Oh you're talking about p w F. I'm talking about the very very end there like that, right, No, like no, like uh the twenty fifteen or whatever. Okay, Yeah,

that's that's what it reminds me of. This reminds me of that very similar pathetic you know, buildings and with with like you know, you just don't want to for me as a as a wrestling fan, you don't want to see that. You don't want to see walls like I want to see roads, rows of people, Right, that's very important. Do you wonder if I lived in this market? You know, it's funny this is the the Summer Sizzler Spectacular. The Sizzler also has a Summer Spectacular as well.

Does it really? Oh my god? Gilbert immediately slips out of the ring, trying to keep his distance from a funk that he has chained to. Gilbert, Yeah, dangerously. It has to do. What is this openly speculating and commentary. Why Paul Hayman is at ringside like it's a surprise that nobody's up to. I want to say, why would he be ringside for a chain match right right? True? At all four corners to win this

one? I wonder if I lived in this market at that age, you know, if I was like a teenage wrestling fan in nineteen eighty three, if I would have been compelled to go to these or not? I mean, you know, I think you'd be compelled as much as you'd be like that, I was to go to a fucking you know that that that that awful wrestling show that I was going to watch at the fucking Lions Club in nash One, New Hampshire. You know, sometimes you just want to go,

that's for sure. This was a company trying to actually build like repeat guys that came back all the time and not try to build by kind of come see honky talk man. You know, yeah, you know man, you know cannot get a vision in the market. Oh Jesus, So Funk thrown over the top and then use the chaine of Yank Getdy right out after him and Eddie Gilbert taking a hard bump back up on the apron. Now the Funk are going to work with the left hands. Now he missed.

Eddy Gilbert dropped off the apron to dodge the blow. This is the raw material here. This is like, you know, they're figuring out what ACW is going to be with every match. It seems like Gilbert, come on, John finnigin, he's going through the head of referees in the ring. Well, I gotta say a moon salt in this match. Now he hadn't moon salt to get this is still ninety three. Oh wow, that's important to glad you said that. You have to point out that well Funk was

you know, a day one ECW guy. This is still early enough that he's not like ECW threw and through He's done the company hasn't made enough progress in terms of vision yet that there was anything to really wed yourself to. It was just one other shot in the circuit that happened to have TV. You have to be to be Terry Funk and of someone with Terry Bunks, Terry Funk, Terry Funk's caliber. You really have to get rid of your ego in order to fucking yes, just take a paycheck and do this.

Fucking you know a great high school gym match, a body slam by Eddie Gilbert puts down the Funker, he rolls out of the ring. Yeah, you have to be, honestly to me, you have to be so wedded to the idea of what the wrestling business was before Vincent Junior consolidated that you have to still see charm and hope and possibility in a show of the scale

or an idea of a circuit like this. It's the Funker trying to keep alive that vagabond wrestling existence that had served him so well for twenty five years, ever really staying in an area for too long beyond his owner Marilla, and even that he eventually bought out of, sold out of, and he just wants to have places he can go and you know, tuck his head in and do impactful matches, but not have to, you know, subject himself to WWF air travel or Yeah, And that's what I think it was.

That's why I think Funk kept trafficking in these areas that seemed below him at this point, is because he's trying to keep alive a circuit that makes him enjoy working in pro wrestling instead of slowly begin to despise it. He's kind of miserable in w F and w W anymore, taking plump some of his comments. Sure, I couldn't wait to get outs here. You don't have to get out, you just go home for a little while. So the Funker has been dropped. Eddie Gible to slap one corner. But again

we've talked with referees about this and everything. When does the count restart? I guess it just did well. He said he's going to be in succession or whatever, but I guess I don't know. So what it exactly interrupted the succession, I don't know. You know, that's it's great action,

is what we're watching. Whipping him with the chain and made Gilbert so you can refuge on the floor again to kind of a refrain in this one on top of him that steel chain wrapped around it's so steel chain wrapped around it, dragging Eddie back up to his speed. Here Eddie's trying to get a couple of fingers in. I mean, I guess it was amazing too,

is that people seem invested in this. The people who are here in the audience yet tanging Eddie by the throat over his back with the chain wrapped around his throatting hungry for something. I don't know what it is, but I think they're hungry for action. That's like close up, the guys are hitting each other hard enough that you can believe in it, and they might swear. You know. It's like it just feels a little more, a little more gritty for people who think the Big Two are too cartoonish. I can

see the appeal in a way starting to form. It's not there yet, but it's started. So now Terry has tapped two corners. He's going for the third. Needdie Gilbert yanking on the chain, but still the Funker makes number three. Let's see if you can get four. I must have now more. Referee started waving his hands when Eddie Gilbert dropped him with the right hand, so that must be how to break it. Bunk comes up and does one of those knock need cell jobs, like he just stumbled out of

a car that just would got involved in head on collision. I see a sign on the hard camera says kill him. Yeah, fans are like telling them where to go. That was something Terry Funk always said. And I'm sure we'll get the bite as we go. It's like, why did wrestling become what it is because the fans took it there. Yeah, the fans would want you know again, this is this is where I get very especially when it comes to this kind of the hardcore, and you know, it's

like they want they want that. I do think that there are probably fans in the ring who kind of, maybe not even consciously, would like to see somebody die in one of these matches. And they don't have baby faces and heels really in the same way in terms of rooting interest that what they are rooting for, though, is for someone to get fucked up, Like right right, they're in it for Holy ship, you know, before they

go funking all sorts of troubles. Heady Gilbert rams's head into the ringside announced table. And that's why it's hard. It's it's very hard for me to give support like and and maybe it's it's too just in my middle aged years that I'm just like, I just it's it's hard for me to tell you something I can think about spending money in giving these guys money to hurt themselves for enjoyment like as as ah you know, research or as a kind of

studying thing for this the laps Fan. It's it's different. I don't I don't you know, because I'm you know, I feel like one of the things, one of the kind of the the sub when I don't know what do you want to call it? Like sub themes of the laps Fan is kind of is exploring the question of why, oh very much so that's the

only question that matters. And and so like for that, I I feel okay, but like to be like these guys, and you know, I know, I know we have fans and listeners who who who who love this kind of stuff. I just for me, it just there's something that that maybe back then I would have been fine with it. I don't know, but there's something about me now who I just I can't spend money, or

I don't. I feel uncomfortable spending money to have guys just mall themselves for my entertainment because I just don't find that entertaining to know that they're really getting

hurt. Right, And you know, I know what people have said about the fucking the hooks on that guy's back and whatever, and how like it's like not what it right, It's not as bad as it looks or whatever, but it's still you know, you still had a guy with hooks that went through his flesh and out the other side, still playing, You're still playing to people who want to believe that that actually happened to the play, right, you know, Like it's like it to be clear, we're not

there yet. This is a pretty standard issue chain match. This is totally we're not even rule in the Flare matches. Totally, no no question, no question, We're ahead of there. Like I'm like, in a in a way, I'm also more okay with it because you know, at least Terry Funk is taking in a hefty sum working with Flair and a big audience like that. Here, It's like, you know, what are these people pay for tickets like fifteen bucks if that, and he hit the corner three

times. Funk making the comeback dropped him with the left with a chain wrapped around his fist. But this is pretty much been punches and yanking each other by the chain. Take him at tomorrow things are polly you know, doing his ringside thing right hand, left hand, rather than completely decleats hot stuff

at Gilbert, who had a long time relationship with miss Hyatt. I don't know if I knew that, boss, Oh yes, I didn't know that, and absolutely saying honor, no question, just fucking you know, let's be clear, let's you know, let's just put it mildly. Just fucking went to town on that pussy, just drilling her and she's just asking for more you say it like, you know, and and that's just the way it went, I know, And this is it. That's just that's life,

you know. To the floor they go, the fight spilling into the people. That would be a dc W trademark. To the back of the building. Yeah. When Eddie Gilbert and Terry Funk worked together this year, they very much like to do the tour through the audience and then fight to the back wall of course, Funk is doing that with the chain wrapped around Gilbert's throat, throwing lefts among the people here, refere admonishing them trying to get it back in the squared circle. I'm not sure if this is pretty.

I don't know if there was no count outs in this version of ECW, like they would be in a more popular way. Up against this white wall with the flashing cameras, looks pretty fucking while to see the shadows there. Yeah, Spunker whipping the chain down on a felled Eddie, Gilbert Jesus raining down chain shots. We have one camera, by the way, so I don't imagine one hard camera. They can't get up on the action at all, zooming in. He that looks like there's a fucking second video camera

right there. I think that's a videographer from Oh that is a video camera. Yeah, yeah, there's not cutting to his angle. That's great, good stuff, guys, even though he's right on top of the action with a light and everything. Maybe he didn't have a maybe he didn't have a tape in there that I found that out in the post. Did you see that happening? Yes, I can. I can tell you see that happening a press record. It'd almost be better if you didn't. Is that what

I told you? There's a fucking tape in there, Jim pressure recording. I just you know, I saw the images. I don't know what you want. I pressed record and I saw the images. I don't know what you want. Anything else you'd like to say in your defense? I surprised about him. A complete fucking moron. I want to add that to I didn't even have a drink. I want Eddie Goldman right there, box inscribe with the big glasses. It's gonna say this. This this stuff was on

the Philadelphia Wrestling went from in the spectrum to on the spectrum. So Terry Funk lifted a bunch of chairs and he was going to rain them down on Gilbert, but it looks like Gilbert got to kick to the gut in before Funk could damage him. Funk rolling back into the squared circle. Now he looks like, right, both both principles back in the ring. It's time

to bring this one home. And apparently both guys have got blade jobs, not that you really notice that, considering they only have the hard camera ship to his knees falls. Gilbert Funk going nuts on the cut or raking the chain across the blooded forehead of Eddie Gilbert. A lot of wrestling photographers like George and Paulaitano at ringside. That was probably part of the mission too here.

You know, when you think about it, think about reading PWI in the nineties, you know, and seeing pictures of this that would that would have got your attention. A chain match with blood everywhere, Yeah, yeah, for sure. The photographers could shoot at such an angle that you couldn't tell there was no one there. As far as you knew, everybody was there. Funk Dodge is a chain shot by Gilbert and referee uh John Finnegan takes it right in the nape of the neck. I can't believe John was

a knocked out exuplex by the Funker actually atomic drop. I don't know why they did the ref bump thing. If the ref is gonna look at the action the whole time and not act like he's knits also, who cares like? Right? So after the atomic drop, the Funker throws the chain over his shoulder smacks two turn buck was in succession. You're at the Summer Sissler nineteen ninety three. Philadelphia, PA. A new referee. Now, yeah,

just to watch him slap the fourth uh buckle padding and again. Lady Gilbert pulling back on the chain, sitting on the canvas and kicks Terry Funk and the balls to prevent that fourth corner from getting slapped. The Texas Massacre chain match buss, that's what it is. But I'm sure yes he was a recently recent edition of and chain Wrestling. Ironically, there's Polly bearing witness to the guy that inspired him to go all the way with his ECW concept.

Eddy Gilbert chokes the ship out of the Funk or the bloodied Funker on the canvas. Now it's hot stuff slapped in the first corner and the ring announcers counting along for the benefit of the live Audience's second it's number two brother Funk rolling around on the canvas, clutching the chain, trying to pull Eddie

Gilbert away. You don't have to expend any energy into the fourth corner anyway, I know, right, I mean, what's gonna Oh, he's almost there, fun pulling on the chain, Eddie Gilbert leaning against the ropes, trying to make it Paul Hayman probably dangerously there waving on Eddie Gilbert trying to get his attention, trying to get him to walk in. And at the last leg of the journey, Funk's standing Now I know what's going to happen here, not pulling on the chain, cucko. Funk's flicking, little nut

lit, little tapped, looking a little touched. Oh, here we go. Series the rights down the pipe, jabs by the Funker, and a left hook drops Gilbert clean, both men bloodied. Funk throws the chain over his shoulder like Santa's sack. One corner slap, two corner slaps, three corner slaps. Funk moving. There we go out number four on the way, dragging Gilbert's arcas then again it ref's distracted by Paul Hayman. He slapped it, but the ref didn't see it. Announce it's reacting like it's over.

The referee didn't see it. Ref puts the hand down at least all three. Well, just didn't tap it right there, you're right there, tap it? I know exactly exactly. Why do you stop? Why does it reset? Also, what is the referee wearing for a shirt striped in so odd way? Striped? Gilbert got a chair hit Funk in the back with it. Now he's got a pile driving on the steel. That's right, Eddie Gilbert crops Funk head first, and Gilbert touches once and twice three

Now Funk grabbing the chair, but still Gilbert makes it. Funk crosses the chair in the direction of Gilbert. But too little, too late, because that's what we need. Eddie Gilbert charious with the with the crown king because he said to Jerry Lawler Mark, look at him, what a fucking idiot, I'll hamen the mine. That's awful. A crown placed on the head of Eddie Gilbert. What's he saying? Seeing the praises of Eddie Gilbert. But other than that, it's hard to tell. I can tell it's Paul

Hayman, but you can't tell what he's saying. So now Todd Gordon is in the ring, grab the mic, protesting to the wrath, and right in the ref's face is Gordon. You're fired. Okay, Todd Gordon has fired the official. It shoved for it. Gordon shoves and drops the ref. Oh oh, look at that. Polly dangerously clips Todd Gordon behind the head with the brick phone. What an ass, thus beginning ears of onscreen tensions between the two that would lead to reel behind the scenes attentions predate the

behind the scenes attentions. Awhile the Funker is recovered, he's back on his feet and he's mad dog and Eddie Gilbert still tied to him via the chain and there was no plan to get off that thing. Huh No, he's free, he doesn't have the change anymore. Billin's on the run has raised up the aisle away here in Philly. Eddie Gilbert Victoria just what we need. The Funker's here to do business. I think that's one thing that that establishes. Yeah, Terry Funk tending to Todd Gordon in his unique way.

Bunker's got the crown and the crowd of Eddie Gilbert some standing applause, puts it on Todd Gordon's head. That masked Todd Gordon sitting there, Bunker with the mic. I went ahead and didn't win. He said something about King of the Ring, say something complimentary about Todd Gordon. The crowds are plotting, okay, and an embrace between Terry Funk and Todd Gordon. C W

experiment in year one Oh my good lord, didn't pause that. Yeah, the blue, plain bluey CW logo before it was that white barbed wire one. You think Boss Terry Funk mixing it up with Eddie Gilbert in his first ECW program, I mean, you think you got it and everyone needs everyone needs a payday. I guess it would be the only one. It would

be the only program for Terry Funk and Eddie Gilbert in ECW. By nineteen ninety four, e Gilbert was out of a position of power as booker in ECW, replaced by Paul Hayman. He was kind of in and out as a booker on an on and off basis with Todd Gordon as he battled a substance abuse demons and big time drug problem. Did Eddie Gilbert have? Yes? He died of a drug overdose February of nineteen ninety five, just two years after the those early ECW tapings that we just took a look at.

Funk wrote in his book, I get mad at Eddie Gilbert too. I tried many times to help him, to tell him he needed to be careful. But it's hard. You see someone with a problem, but you also see that person as a friend, and you never can tell which guys you need to be watching out for. It's not like there's a glow around their heads to where you could say, Wow, i'd better talk to him. He's going to be the next one to go. Eddie knew he had a

problem, and it was something he fought hard and hard against. Eddie was extremely proud of himself. In the summer of nineteen ninety four, he was clean and sober and was actually trying to go into politics in Lexington, Tennessee, where he was from. He saw an escape in a totally different way of living. About six months later, he overdosed on cocaine and died in

a Puerto Rican hotel room while on a wrestling tour. If he had won that constable's election, I think he'd still be alive today and still be drug free. Even though I knew he'd had a problem, the news of his death came as a terrible shock. He was only thirty four and had such a great mind for the wrestling business. He was another second generation guy. I also knew both his father, Tommy and his brother Doug Well. Tommy spent a couple of years wrestling Forrest and was a good man. Eddie.

We had a very strong, tight knit family and I can't imagine what they're going through even to this day. The toughest thing in the world must be as a parent to lose one of your own and Vicki and I hope that God blesses us with death prior to either of our daughters. Eddie Gilbert was a friend. But I'm at the point where when I get news about one of them passing away and drugs are involved, I'm pissed off at them. I'm mad, and I don't know if that's right or not, but it's

how I feel. I don't think it's callousness, but I want to yell at them. God, damn it, you're cheating me. You're cheating your friends, and you're cheating your mm family. Yes, by God, learnt to count how many pills have you had? Keep track? Hew? I even get mad at Eddie Graham sometimes for killing himself and taking himself away from all the people who loved him. The sad thing is a lot of times I just feel numb to the news when someone call to tell me about another

young guy in the business dying. There have been so many I've almost just thrown numb to it. I know that anger and numbness is a horrible combination of feelings to have in reaction to news like that, but I feel like I've gotten that phone call one hundred times. That's right. There are many things Eddie Gilbert brought over to e c W in addition to his affinity for a Memphis style presentation in angles and match style table crashes, brawls that got

so intense that tables would get broken. We talked last time about how Randy Savage Pile driving Ricky Morton through a table in Memphis in nineteen eighty four the Mid South Coliseum was kind of seen as the first table crash of its type, and even Terry Funk was sure to reference it and writing in his book about the Rick Flair nineteen eighty nine table spot, tables and running over them and falling on top of them and using them and breaking them was part of

the Memphis scene, and Terry acknowledges as much and said, you know, he didn't know about that necessarily in nineteen eighty nine when he had his spot with Brick Flair, and uh and we go from there, though, because that's the spiritual sort of a vision of wrestling, the spiritual bass that Eddie Gilbert had for wrestling that he brought to E c W. And if you're talking about tables, right, you're talking about brawling, You're talking about insanity,

the revolution, the revolutionary of all that stuff was indeed Sabu, nephew of Terry's oldest nemesis and friend, the Sheikh. By the way, Sabo's real name boss, Yes, Terry Brounk. Of course, why didn't they fucking form a tag team Bronken Funk The great question w W versus the World? You can select Terry Brounk. I guess they couldn't use the Sabo name, but they had him in the game. They couldn't use the sa name, but they could not. So bizarre that Sabo is in that video game.

That's bizarre. Sabo met Terry Funk in the FMW promotion, which we'll get to in Japan. That's where Sabu started using the tables and moon salting onto them, even with no one on the table. Okay. One of Sabu's early career signatures was after the match was over, win or lose, he'd put a table in the ring with his opponent nowhere in sight. Get up on the top rope and moon salt through the table for the industry, for the people's desire to see furniture explode. No opponent there, He'd just

do it to himself. That's where the business is heading. Thanks sadly writes in his book, my gimmick was super over with the fans, so much so that Paul felt he had to put the belt on me. That idea, of course, was one I didn't have a problem with. Part of my first world title reign was probably due to the fact that he appreciated what I brought to the table. Paul recognized the whole Japan influence that the promotion had under my charge, and the table spot thing that I brought to the

promotion. I think this is his way of thanking me for helping with the company's success. Other than my uncle, Terry Funk was a huge part. Mary Funk was a huge part of my development that helped to make my first heavyweight run happen. He helped me with finishes, psychology, and the little nuances that really polished me. The most significant matches during the early part of

my ECW career were with him. These would eventually lead me on Toto dropping the ECW World title to Terry after beating Shane Douglas then defeating Terry Funk in a crazy barbed wire match which I will discuss years later to win it back. Terry was also in a three way dance for the CW World Heavyweight Championship at ECW's the Night the Line was crossed against Shane Douglass and me. Now, three ways often can be a cluster fuck, but Terry was an excellent

leader and a teacher. He showed me how to go to a one hour time limit draw and still beat Public Enemy for the ECW World Tag Team Championships with my partner Taz in a double tables match on the same show. That was a busy night for sure, Boss. He said, yeah, you're familiar with the night the Line was crossed. No, I wasn't sure that seemed to strike a chord with you. I think I was just responding to just the garbage that he's saying. He's saying, so again, another guy

that was central to the whole picture in the nineties. In the next decade, the next generation saying yep, Terry Funk, Terry Funk was the guy that came along at the exact moment I needed that extra polish, that extra advice, that extra encouragement, And indeed, is he's about to say here

in a shoot interview that Sabu recently did with Title Match. It took a long time, I'm talking like fifteen years for Saboo to finally start talking in public, to start thinking he had to benefit Hi more than it could hurt him in terms of his gimmick, even insisting on not speaking when he went to work for Vince McMahon in two thousand and six with the ECW reunion and revitalization, and that didn't play very well. They eventually got him to crack

and talk a bit, but that sort of nobody anyway. Here he is reflecting back on the role that Terry Funk played as he was becoming in a lot of ways, especially in nineteen ninety four, the hottest, most talked about Starr in the business. Now, he told me a lot. He was the first guy of his caliber that would do my moves, let me do what I wanted with him. He's the first guy anybody else was his caliber or his physicition in wrestling would say they said no to everything, and

out of respect, I wouldn't do it him. I asked him, and he goes, go ahead, try it. I said, really and I and then he goes, just tell me what it is. And I couldn't explain to him what the moon saut was. I said, his standary here and catch me, and he goes, what do you that something? He called me and then I'll say, stay here and move or stay here and catch me. And that's what we did. He the first one of his caliber that would allow me to do that, and that gave him ten more

years or more of his career after I wrestled him the first time. He says, I gave him ten years of life because before he wrestled me, he was considered you see, now, old guy, he his allience, like in his fifties. He's younger than I am. He's younger than than I am now. But yeah, I gave him ten more years because people thought he was a new wrestler. He changed and he made all the guys coming up legitimacy. It's been said too that he wasn't selfish at all.

He really wanted to make people. He cared about what he was doing and He always wanted to make the guy he wrestled better. Have you talked to Terry Funk recently before the pandemic started. I talked to him and he was had a little bit of dementia. I couldn't kept saying where's his bag? I goes under the table and about every five minutes. It was worth my back. At first I thought it was funny, but then after you know, ten or twenty times, got to be old that he really didn't know

where his bag was ready to drive. I'm sorry to hear that. Yeah, my uncle helped break Terry Funk in. My uncle's first territory was Texas m Moro, the area for Doriy Funk Senior. And and uh so, the first project my uncle had on the road was to take Terry Funk on the road and break him in. So that's what he did that. Terry Funk was my uncle's first student. Oh no kidding. Yeah, Dory was a little older than Terry. So Dorry had already broken the business as he

was on the road. And then so but Miucale wrestles for Dorry Senior, and his first first thing he had, the first he learned, was to break him in. You know, great and Terry and but then turned the full circle by him helping me out. When Terry Bunk helped me out, he didn't break me in, but he let me allow. He allowed me to do the moves with nobody's seen me before. Think that got me over

at his full circle for absolute sure. And I'm sure Terry Funk had the Sheikh somewhat in mind as he canceled Sabo and worked his style and brought him along. But it's that same dimension we were talking about as to why Terry Funk moon salted in nineteen ninety four. Yeah, that would lead to him engaging Saboo and leaning into the style that Sabu was bringing. Sabu was like

Wrestler of the Year in nineteen ninety four. He was the most buzzed about wrestler in the whole country, despite the fact that he wasn't with the major promotions. He actually made a WW nineteen ninety five on the back of that for a short live run he was involved, didn't image, Yeah, I remember, did we actually was on a pay per view? Did we see it? He did wrestle on a pay per view, and then he didn't

make another pay per view over a pay dispute. He did a I'm matching the second edition of Money Nitro. I think it was against Alex's right and he broke a table and there was disagreement about allowing him to break tables and

all of that. I remember when we did Slamburree ninety four and there's that handicam that Rob Feinstein shot is part of Legends Reunion Bank, where he's like walking around the hotel lobby and get some time with Eric Bischoff, and Bischoff is chatting them up about Saboo and give him my number, and I want to bring him in, and yeah, he was almost talked about start of

the business. The problem is anyone who wanted to bring Saboo in would not allow him to be Saboo through and through in terms of just like the all

mad cap wide open style. And that's what Sabou saying there in that interview because in Terry Funk, he had a guy with you know, more respect than any wrestler could possibly have in terms of tenure and things he'd done, saying yes, I will catch you on moon salts, Yes we can go through tables, Yes you can show me you know five or six things that you do in the ring that nobody else has ever done, and I'll I'll do it for you. That's something a lot of veterans that Sabu dealt with

early in his run would absolutely not. I'm not going to stand on the floor while you triple jump, front flip and land on my shoulder. You're fucking kidding me. Why would I do that? Like? Well, because we want to make an impact, But that's not how a lot of the people that Saba went into in his early days looked at the business. But Terry Funk was an exception, and Sabu has a lot of Terry Funk to

thank for that. I mean, Sabu went out there and did it, but at the same time that he was able to do it against some of the caliber. If Terry Funk made all the difference in the world, Funk writes in his book Something else that became popular at ECW shows was something I had popularized, going through tables. Randy Savage was the first of my knowledge to send someone through a ringside table. When you powdrow of Ricky Morton threw

on in nineteen eighty four. But I truly think me doing it to Flare nineteen eighty nine was what put tables on the map. And when I did it, it wasn't even aware that Savage and Morton had done it in Memphis five years earlier. But a kid named Terry Brunk was the one who really made the tables into a staple of his arsenal. Terry was the nephew of my old friend Ed far Hot, the chic he wrestled with Saboo. The stuff Saboo did from the top rope and his moves through tables were practically unheard

of in wrestling in the early nineteen nineties. When I first encountered Saboo in an independent show, now one, I'd never seen moves like the back dive off the second rope into the body press. He was a real creator and a real innovator in that ring. Every time you see someone doing a high flying move using the ropes as a springboard, you were watching someone imitating a Saboo invention. That's not true of the springboards. I mean, Jimmy Snookt

is a springboard at wrestling. His seven against Undertaker, right, he would also sell that stuff. He wouldn't do some crazy move and then pop right back up. Actually, Terry, he did that often. When he hit it, he would sell it, but when he would miss it, you just go and repeat it in a way that was like time standing still. But that's fine worked for him. He made sure the fans understood the physical

price he was paying by selling every movie he made. The generation of guys who borrowed things from sabboo overdid it and killed a lot of those moves by doing too much, too fast. But Sabo's in ring performance was great. I'm not going to say his work was faultless, but it was damn good. First time I saw him, I immediately realized what a huge inflame once he would be. How could he not how eighty percent of his matches were things that had never been seen before. Anytime I went to an ECW show,

I tried to do more than was necessary. Sabu did the same, and so did Shane Douglas. We all had a common desire to make the company we were going to extremes, so it was appropriate when they renamed it Extreme Championship Wrestling. But ECW is also a place where a lot of innovations took place. One of those was the triangle match, which a WW calls the Triple Threat match today, and we'll get to that in just a moment.

But while we're acquainting ourselves with Terry Funk being acquainted with Sabu for the first time in nineteen ninety four, we're going to dial it back to February twenty eighth of that year. And this is not in ECW. This is during a time period where are much like Terry Funk, Sabou's taking independent bookings at ECW in just about any other territory that would have him before ECW became a place that you could really set down a base of operations in and work

for full time. And so Terry Funk and Sabu are wrestling not only in ECW in this point in time, but all over the circuit, including this Febu twenty eighth, nineteenninety four WWN match, which I think really well in capsule Late's the kind of indie spirit and hardcore style that was just beginning to come into focus as Sabou was allowed to basically be unleashed and have unhinged matches across the circuit against the likes at Terry Funk. So we're gonna go to

disc twenty two. Bost is twenty two two. It's twenty two twenty two. Okay, I've made this clear before him, very much in favor of you singing while we pill up at ether so started zero zero zero and we're gon hit play in three two one play. Here's the Funker stepping out, no shirt, towel in his hand, starting to get a little uh chubby around the waist again. Yeah, starting to lose that sveltness from eighty nine which we also saw in ninety three and the Eddie Gilbert match which just saw

true. There's Paul E dangerously walking right behind him. So this is WWN. This is the Jim Crockett attempt. They did a couple of tapings. This is one of them, and apparently what circulated was a fan cam from the balcony. You see this weird angle we're at Punk grabs the mic and

Paul's face. We can't see what's happening, but we'll jump cut the latches underway, so nol we've got Terry Fumeke versus Terry Broome came very much so, and the bright yellow pants reverse on the whip Funk drops down for a backdrop. Saboo rolls off the back of Funk, which you didn't see much back then, and running Larry It puts down Saboo. They keep a very quick pace. And again keep in mind Terry Funk is willing to do a lot in there with Saboo that someone of his age, No on, they

wouldn't be willing to do for the most part. They probably couldn't physically do it for the most part either. Funk off the rope's clothesline, ducked in from the other end. Saboo drops in with a forearm shiver. That ring is tiny, it is. Funk spills out of the ring on the floor. It's kind of like a ballroom setting here. Yeah, it kind of lends me of the Manhattan Center. Yep. Oh, Sabu the slingshot flip

dive to the red carpeted floor, taking out the Funker and hard. Just remember, just think about wrestling in early nineteen ninety four where it was at, and then think about this match happening somewhere in Philadelphia. Oh, it's crazy. They have those ballroom style chairs, not the steel folding chairs, one of those casino boxing matches on the wove. That was he was throwing the ring. What is it step ladder? I think, yeah, remember

those are the ring stays for this fucking place I have been referre. He threw them out of the ring, regardless of what they were. This is all kind of pre ECW. This is like the existed and they were wrestling, but they're resting just as hard outside of his c W right side headlock in the center of the ring song before the fifty four or sixty Studio fifty four, Paul Hayman had very good connections at Studio fifty four. All right, I would do publicity for like Bam Bam Bigelo there, which you who

would unto the business. Well, whatever that was, that was Funk grabbed the ropes, put his stomach on the top and just front flipped out of sight, probably on a saboo. Look at nobody there, I know, nobody there, nobody. Oh my god, he just fucking ran him through a table. There's a table at ring side. But it wasn't on all

four legs. It was just on two one leg. Look at the carpeting like that to me is like that's that's where we're at carpeting, And I think you're right that a ring of armors show that we went to and that at the that Rhode Island Convention Center or whatever. Exactly what it was, Yes, table just on one leg leaning, Funk ran up behind Saboo who was facing the table, grabbed him by the back of the head, and just jumped onto the table with just like they rolled across it like it was

a boogiey board. Yeh. And then Funk ddt Saboo onto the table on the floor. Jesus. Crowds reacting like this is out of control. Yeah, I know at that running throw them at the table. I'm surprised we don't see that more often. That looks really cool. Yeah, it did look greats like a barroom thing you'd do, you know, in a barroom fight, running them across the whole bar, sliding him back into the ring as the funker again in real time, developing the bond, the respect for

each other and figuring out like what this crowd responds to? What they can pour it over At ECW more often than not, you're a nice neck breaker there hangman's noose by the funker. It's almost like he knows how to lassow him. Huh. Sabu gets his fun. The rope on the cover rocks first. On the top rope goes Saboo, Funker up after him. I mean, this is Terry with no cameras, you know what I mean. I think they did take this for TV, but just what he was doing,

that's what he chose to do in nineteen eighty four. Oh Jesus, ellacious middle rope superplexed by the Funker red, white, and blue ropes for the wwn YEP. That's definitely the Studio fifty four logo. So there's the Paul Hyman connection. It's crazy that the man has got a fucking Studio fifty four logo. I didn't know that. I don't know, it's crazy.

That was the thing, you know, Terry Funk spent years on shoot interviews saying, you know, why, why couldn't you run cheaper markets like a you know, like Greater Dallas or something, or Greater Houston in the nineties and build another Texas wrestling territory where he actually could could get to the towns in an affordable way. Why did all the indies in the nineties insist on being East coast? And the thing about Paul is he was well connected in

New York City. He knew those streets very well, grew up in Scarsdale, but really knew how Madison Avenue worked, really knew how the nightclub promotion business worked. It's a both men reach of stalemate. Funk dropped with a clothesline when he was almost out on his feet anyway, and that was the terrain he knew best, as expensive as it was. All Hayman really was

of the city, and Todd Gordon was mister Philly. You know. It wasn't like some It wasn't some like decision to locate there to feel like a big deal. It was the hometown and backyard of these folks. Drop kicking Funk back into the corner now by Saboo, who's out? Oh my god. He's gonna use one of those ballroom chairs. Oh as a launch point of poetry in motion. Oh, just like a splash, kind of crossbody splash. That was a huge thing. Sabo's triple jumps off chair seats.

Like no one thought to use a chair as a launch point. The only thought to use it as something a bludging you in. Yeah, right, I on the floor. Funker's got the chair position. He's gonna atomic drop Saboo on the onto that chair with no give. Oh he dropped them hard too. And that point you made before about like watching people abuse themselves,

you know, like Saboo, that was his thing. I know, as kind of fake as something contrived, as a lot of the spots were in his matches, he absolutely would take the full brunt of a blows like you're still watching the guy getting launched out of a cannon. Oh, the funker blindside Hayman and grabs his telephone. Should make a phone call so I can charge up those minutes called collect upside the head of Terry Brounk Paul his jeans. He's got a pile drive Hayman on the carpet, called him out of

the carpet, and now he's gonna pile drive him on it. For Christ's sakes, I remember Paul taking a lot of bumps like that. That's awesome. Yeah, Sadly, after Funk throws him over the railing out after him up against the wall of the building, boom, the trash can on Terry's head. This You didn't see this ship in nine ninety four, not at all, not at all. Maybe in Memphis, but yeah, in Memphis,

you would, because you know, I remember again ninety two. I remember the fucking concession stands Lawler and Jarrett versus the moondogs getting fucking blooded up back over the rail and into the ring they go. There's definitely not a northeast thing, not at all. This isn't exactly, This isn't Bruno throwing

punches, backlarting, doing the bridges from the apron to the inside. Saboo, the oh my god, what the fuck fucking Christ tried to rotate on the slingshot from the ring apron to a moon salt and landed right on the back of his neck on the funk stomach the club. That's exactly correct. These guys today are amazing athletes. I saw the Sabo and he was just yeah, the Saboo. You know that's good funk with that delayed vertical fuck,

he's bringing the tradition. Jesus, you're gonna drop him someplace hard. No, that's hard enough, bunker. Going back to fundamentals, there delayed vertical souplex rock Saboo. Both men doubled down. I don't know. This match just struck me. It's like particularly chaotic for nineteen ninety four, like he is honest to God, Like this is actually more entertaining than I'm saying most the Saboo matches I've ever seen. The Funk has one of the ring

the things used for the ring rope, the retaining ropes. About what those things are called, like a fucking it looks like a cocktail table. Yeah, maybe it was that. I don't know whatever it is. Sabo drops Funker on the floor and I was unfolding a table, going to work with the wood. Here clothesline lays Funk Souphine across the table. Yeah, Saboo jumps in the ring. Here we go, time to sacrifice, sling shots, front clipping. Saboo Wow explodes through the table as Terry Funk moves out

of the way at the last second. Yeah, that's kind of like that kind of popped, Like he's coming back for that every time. I going to show this small like if you can get the people up that much, Saboo is now like sentenced to table crashes for the rest of his life.

Yeah, listen to the people, Saboo. Saboo Bird was traveling fast and the sheets and stuff in ninety four about Saboo and what the crazy shit he would do because there was still mystique to it, you know, because you couldn't get your hands on the tapes too easily unless you happen to be in the markets where he was on TV, like Philly. And with a broken piece of the table, Saboo crowns Terry Funk, who's now walking around like

a like all wind up doll at ringside. He grabs it and a piece of the table and smashes Saboo in the head with us so glad you noticed that Studio fifty fourth thing. That's a clutch detail. Yeah, and take my eyes off it now, I know, seriously, I was wondering, I like, what is that weird thing in there? And he's like baiting a minute that looks like studio fifty four learner back in with a broken piece of the table. Is the funker leaning against the bottom rope? What's it

going to do with it? Snatches up Saboo up to the broken table piece and Bile drives his head onto it. Ah, big nasty sound on that one. And this is before Saboo had suffered some of his more difficult injuries. So he is he is unleashed. He has no physical limitations. Really hasn't learned his lessons yet about some of the bigger risks unhinged And now what time is it, Terry? Would he ever? Do you ever learn those lessons? Absolutely not. This is just a couple of weeks after he moon

salted the first time in for SMW You're Smoking Mountain. But he only had a few in them. Right, Well, here goes another one in the bump card funk. They had never seen him do this. Oh my god, Jesus Christo's so pressed by the funker. And there's the terry chance that's why he did it. That's why he did it. A funker up to his feet, stumbling closes on the cover one nope, foot on the rope. Imagine just like buying a ticket to an indie wrestling show in nineteen eighty

four. U show up and this ship's going down. No idea who this haboo is? Yep, to the floor. They go, mh funk, leading him into the people again, into the crowd and the rail. He goes funk, actually parting a curtain. I don't know where he's going. It really doesn't work. The manhattanser that where that fucking gold curtain? That does. What's he got? He got one of those TV boxes and the

slammed. No, it's like a Jesus, it's like a laundry thing, like a laundry push cart and he slams Taboo into it and he's rolling him into the bring instead of flying into the post. Chance they love that ship. Raw footage, raw footage. Yeah, that's shooting it for brother who shooting who? And now pile driver on the floor. No, it's blocked. It's blocked. Funk bronc backdrop on the carpet, runk on the floor. Sado just jumps on his ass. Holy shit, Jesus, he rotated

admit air in a way that he is not human. A clean landing and possible. All I know is he landed on the funker and again, wow that he missed back to terry Funk after all the brilliance we saw on the national stage in the eighties, goes ahead and one hives into this world. Funk to the apron. Now, no, he's he's going to climb the ropes in the center of the ring. How's he doing? He's had his back to sab what's he doing? Oh? Why is he being stupid?

Kerry, Please, I don't know where I'm at. I hurt my ribs. I can do it. I want ahead and try, but I want ahead and couldn't do it. That's what he was trying to signal there, I think so looked like my fucking hurt his ribs. Sabo takes over Funk to the apron goes. Sabo climbs the ropes and fast finish four fifty one

homes christ a Sabo could four fifty necessary. It's just like people are accustomed, weren't even accustomed to one of the crazy things Sabo's done in the match, and then you go and see him and he does like ten of them. He's missing, oh yeah, funk, hair up, swinging, didn't know where he was sitting. Duck for the right hand of Sabo, and then the leg drop across the back of the head by Sabou. Funk is down and out, Arabian press moon salt by Sabo. Wow, No,

Terry's undone incredible heart on display by the Funker. Here, Sabu shifts to the candle clutch, afraid, eye level, funk, fading, reaching, grabbing, grunting, climbing, and Saboo starts stomping the ship out of the ref Funk gets back up in atomic drop. Saboo, fucking referee, no selling that fucking bump there. Oh now he is. No, you gotta fucking get out of here. Your fat ass probably like, hell, we'll get the ref out of there. Saboo. He threw in those ballroom chairs.

There's piece of the table attacking Saboo with the fucking hollowed out steel frame of the table. It's fucking crazy. It's got such a sense of like people like just calling for blogging up, like everyone's like fuck, yeah, you know, fucking cum exactly kill the fucker. It's like kill. The fans were like smart enough to know they wanted like real violence and contact, but not smart enough yet to like have this like connoisseur thing about them,

you know where they were like trying to appreciate it. They were just looking for fucking impact. They brawled the floor. The bell sounds appears this one. It's either a double count out or the referee having been assaulted by Saboo. Yeah, I did this qualification. Terry Funk makes his way back through the curtain. I can't go through the curtains up against the wall, there's falling down and selling and his nuts and boss. One thing that didn't happen

and this match is Sabo didn't break a table. What the hell is Terry Funk having his hand a beer bottle? He did break a table? What you're talking about? I know he didn't, that's true. Oh, trying to set something up here? Back, I forgot that Terry in the empty seats. He's got a beer bottle in his hand, right, haven't went and got I think so? Then it's okay. Yeah, I mean heard the clank just now. They're trying to clank it against the steel railing as

much as you can so everyone can realize what he's up to. Sabo baseball slide drop kicks Funk on the floor. Here's whort have dropped the bottle? Sabo has it now? Oh Sabu cranks it on the post and breaks it. Oh no, come on, he's got a broken beer bottle and he's chasing Terry Funk around with it. This is the kind of thing I do for wrestling, Mammy, Yeah, yeah, totally come on. Oh wait,

oh come on, I wasn't there anything to stop that? That's this is not right, Funk carries the cocktail table over his shoulder to the back. I want I hadn't got on our door, Dorves, Yeah, he did funk parts the curtain. Saboo left in the ring with a broken off beer bottle in his hand. Watch him fucking plunge the ref Oh he's out of the ring now. All of a sudden, he starts just fucking letting, just like destroying the referee with the fucking mess the broken beer bottle,

like blood just starts flowing from the guy's chest and he dies. And this guy's got it on fucking fan footage. It's fancam delight. Yeah, So Sabu is throwing a broken piece of the table in the ring. I don't know what he's doing. He's looking for something, I f I know Sabo in nineteen ninety four, he still doesn't quite feel like he's given the fans their money's worth. He now hops out of the ring over the rail end of the crowd. He is he gonna fucking put himself to a table.

He's got one. Looks like he grabbed the merch gimmick table, throws it over the rail. But I don't seen who's he going to put through the table, owning the table without much grace into the ring, over the top rope, Sabo climbing in terry funk, gone backstage, you know where to be found. I think I'm not going to be a part of this one. I invite you to offer your thoughts. A Sabo sets the table up in the corner. He's going to do it to himself and in this fucking

idiot, I want ahead and went backstage. You do whatever you want to do. Shamoo, he's gonna do it. He's a fucking idiot. Oh look at the damage. What a fool? What is wrong with him? Ah? You know he just ruined it all. As he lays there in a heap of busted table, Sabu mo insalted himself through the table. What an idiot? No respect for that. And the sad thing is all these people do, all these people can get entertained. What a goddamn fuck had he is? He pokes his head out. What a son of a bench.

I saw one match he did where the table would not break, and he moonsalted himself like four times until the table broke with nobody there after the match. He's got blood on his knee because he that table exploded in away, but there were a lot of shards. Yeah, imagine like getting the worst injury of the match when you moon salt yourself through the table. Efforts already over, so bizarre, such a strange ritual. Looking at people,

they're going nuts. They're standing for the for him, so unnecessary. Something is changing about the business. And while Terry Funk is changing with it, to your point, it's not all upside. He's also changing his tights. They pause now, so we've now become acquainted with the Funk Saboo dynamic.

That's for damn sure. And while Terry Funk is touring the country doing these matches in front of you know, different crowds, he's doing interviews about what it is he thinks he's representing on the American independen scene, doing these kinds of matches, working these kinds of venues and promotions, wrestling these kinds of wrestlers, and doing these kinds of spots. And here's one he did when working for an independent I think in the Midwest. Here kind of explaining his

thought process. It's, you know, it's half work, half shoot, of course, but I think there's a lot in what Terry Funk says here that helps us understand his frame of mind as he enters this new disorder early, strange, wacky, almost low rent part of his life and times it's territorial wrestling. I'm talking for an NWA World Heavyweight Champion and bona fide superstar, Terry Flood. Terry's both of a shock and a pleasure to see you

competing here in the best territorial wrestling in Taylor. They spoke a little bit earlier. You you discussed competing in front of the smaller crowds compared to the large arenas. How does it lend to the flavor of the competition? Hotly, I really like it here. I'm not a real app because of the WWNLC WCW, which is keed Turner and Vintentman shows. It's a different type of wrestling that they do AP And I'm tired of the nunders giving the whole

lot, giving the silly one liners from your joke book. And I'm tired of Artcare of the hot anounchers making their own stars so to speak, and talking about who they like, Anderson of the television, And I'm really into the independent the World Professional Rest. I think that that's where you see the greatest rest of the day. I've always been a lover of poor fans. I've always felt that I've tried to give a hundred percent or if I don't, und I sure want to do that, and I don't want to I

want to continue doing that. I want to continue. I don't want to overstay, you know, on my mean I stay. I'm getting up there an age right now, and I want to retire at the right time. And I don't want to ever embarrass myself and my family in the New York. I love my profession, and I think at the professional that I grew up with in the profession, I know all my life, the majority part

of my life is not with those two major groups. It's out here in an independence and it's performance like staff who with the Shane Douglas's and the like all tonight. And this group here in has got right individuals within it, and I think it's a wonderful chance and an opportunity for some of these guys

to develop that this operation or this wrestling promotion will continue. And I really believe it he will, because I think it's because it's just going to be growing and growing grow because I think people enjoy themselves and I know they do it, and I don't think. I don't think there's a womman that can come out here and say, damn, I saw that on WW. Damn I saw that on w C. I mean, I'm physically and I'm not trying to be smart to say that I'm wonderful thing. Yeah, I'm physically

hurt right now, and I'm sure that's sad who he is too. And but I did it for the people, did it for the dams, for my profession's part of my life, and that's what I want to really. So I guess An E. C. W and some of these hard orcore indies he sees something more again of the business he grew up in. Does that make sense to you? Not at all? Yeah? I don't. Maybe maybe maybe I'll tell you what. There's only one thing maybe he could

be talking about heart, Yes, that speak to it. Only thing I can think about is that he looks at you know, It's like it's like how some people look at the NFL versus college football, and that they you see one, you see the pros and they're playing for money, whereas the the the college kids are playing for pride and they're playing with heart. And maybe that's what he sees, which is incredible, honestly on a level that

I don't know that I can get to. But if he sees that the the ECW guy, I mean, in a way, it's true because you're not getting paid. I mean, if you're an ECW, you're not gonna pay anything because you know, Hyman is just going to defer your payment anyway. But right you know, you're trying your hard is to just like do what you do to the best of your ability. And Funk we've heard talked about it one hundred times. Big on the camaraderie at the locker room.

Yes, big on like an atmosphere where guys can get ahead by you know, blending in well with the other guys they work with and forming a sense of you know, fraternity and common mission. And when you go to work for the big two companies, and he's already got the sense of this, he'd worked for both at the highest levels. It's every man for himself. There's no three musketeers, there's no all for one, there's none of that.

There's no sense of like everyone pulling together. Because if you didn't, there wouldn't be a promotion to collect a paycheck from the next time you came to the town, earning the people's return business every time you went in the ring, as opposed to knowing that no matter how hard you did or didn't work, it was pretty much the promotional machine behind you that was going to decide if anybody was in the building the next time you came or not.

You know, there's nothing Terry Funk could do in WWF in nineteen eighty five that would ensure a big house that he felt like he could take credit for the next time if he worked really hard this night. And he did work hard, but it just wasn't the same effort and rewards system that he grew up with. And I think that's what he's pointing to. It's the closest thing he can remember or sense in the business in the nineties to where you

really feel like you earn your keep. And it makes sense for everyone to push in the same direction because everyone's kind of on the brink of not having money coming in. No one's that comfortable. It's certainly nothing approximating guaranteed money. No one's covered when they're hurt all of that stuff, and it just forms a different mentality about the business that he he strongly preferred, clearly because he's at this level doing these matches when he could be working for the Big

two, he could be booking for WWF and he's just not. And there's a lot to be said about that and him clinging to a vision of the business that we lose when we lose Terry Funk, and he keeps it alive as long as he can, and he tries to foster the kind of talent that can only thrive in that atmosphere because if they go to the Big two, we saw it with Saboo's disastrous WCW run short lived ww fronts, it just doesn't gel. What he had to do to get noticed and stay relevant

just does not work in those systems. Just can't do it. You can't throw the window open to the degree you have to to let him just totally sort of define what's going to be most memorable on the night. It's like we all could go out there and do the things nobody will ever forget in ten you know, rapid fire succession, But only e CW was set up in such a way where they could actually do that. I mean, Hayman

was very judicious about it. He wouldn't he wouldn't allow every single match to be forty table crashes, though it felt that way sometimes, But for the most part, everyone out there felt like they could do what made them stand out every match they had. They didn't feel like they had to battle to get their stuff in or that they had to mold what got them to the dance in the first place, to fit, you know, a formula that didn't necessarily suit them, and ECW was a place where you could play that

way, and that's what Terry Funk prefers to operate in. So there was reference there to the Triangle Match, the Triple Threat, the three Way Dance, and this was Terry Funk versus Shane Douglas versus Sabu in nineteen ninety four.

The show would be called the Night the Line was crossed for reasons that will become clear in just a moment, but it was for the ECW World Championship, and it was widely considered the match that created the buzz that made ECW more than just one of ten fifteen indies going under the surface of the

Big Two in the nineties. It was this match where people realized, wait a minute, if you went to the CCW thing, you could see sixty minute knock down, drag out world title affairs on top of all of the high flying, extreme violence and spectacle stunt moves that guys like Sabou brought to the table. And so we're going to close out this section of the lapsed Funk focused on this, focused on this match and all that it Saeid in

motion. First, we're gonna hear from the Funker talking about what this match means to him, because it's not just ECW fans that remember this one really really fondly. Yeah, what do you rememory that that three way match with you and Shane and Taboo one of the better matches that I've been in. Yeah, it just it just went, you know, we just went and just kept on getting better. Yeah, It's just one of those things that just take place in that And he said that was well, that was great.

You didn't know's gonna be great? God, that was good. Yeah. Yeah, And we'll hear a promo spot that Funk did after the conclusion of the match with Shane Douglas where we really get at least for our purposes. Here in the Lapsed Funk, our first glimpse at what the franchise character that Shane was embraced to great heights in ECW would look like feel like it

was Terry Funk. Of course, in so many ways, that short gives shape to what the franchise was provided the foil that Douglas needed to cut that promo style and get across the character. And here is Shane Douglas, another participant in the Fames triple Threat match, the three Way Dance, as ECW coined it, talking to Shun Oliver on KFAB Commentaries about all Terry Funk meant to him in this pivotal part of his career, his defining run in so

many ways in the industry. For here Shane Douglas at that point, I've been in the business for about eleven years, I think maybe going twelve at that point, So I've been around the business a long enough to know that being put into that position work or no work, is a slap on the back from the company that they trust you in that position to draw the money to help take that company on the ride that they expected to draw the crowd

in. So from that standpoint, you know, it was intimidating to me to some degree, but also rewarding to know that to this you know, it snos kid that grew up watching wrestling, you know, get in trouble for jumping off the couch on my brother and sisters. That you know, here I am standing at the you know, the peak of his company. The fact that it's with Funk that a he was as gracious as he was, as professional as he was to take the time to teach me how to

be the heel that I would become. You know, when I first went to play that He'll rule, my mentality was, well, just do the opposite of what a babyface does, and that is so not what a great heel does. Uh. You know, but again I learned that from Funk night in and night out, and by making a whole lot of mistakes. You know, it was Funk was never one to come back and say, God, damn it, Shaaney fucked up tonight because of this or that. He would come back and say, well, damn you fuck that one up.

And you know, it was just like a comment to let you know that he knew you fucked it up, and then you went on from there. It was not a lecture. There was not a brow beating that came

associated to it, you know. And again, like I said earlier, there's no doubt in my mind that had anybody you could think, in any other veteran, in any steamboat or whomever put him in that role, the franchise character, I think, with the tools that I brought to the table, but built on the foundation that Funk had taught me in the Ring, that that franchise character became the character that everybody would talk about in ninety six

and really what I think changed the way the heels are are introduced and built today. That's something I'm proud of the fact that, you know, like I said prior to that, you know, you had to be a three hundred pound ward faced ogre to be a heel. And you know, suddenly here's a guy that looks like he could be the babyface champion and instead is so full of rage and contempt and himself that this character works, you know. And those were things again that Funk taught and again not in the camp.

Page one to have the attitude, and page two you gotta be a prick, and on page three, you've gotta be a tough guy. It was that kind of learning experience with Terry. But I think part of the reason I could get what Terry was explaining or trying to explain with his with his entering work, was I had been a mark for Terry for years and years and years. I mean from you know, back at the time that he made the movie with Stillone. You know that, you know, I

was watching the Funks. I dorient Terry both and that whole style of wrestling. I was never growing up. I was never the guy that was nothing against all Coogan, but that wasn't my style. I loved, you know, the wrestler like Flair, steamboat funks, and there was something about the Funks that, especially Terry, that even as a kid, used to enamor me because you'd look at this guy and say, man, he looks like he's half insane, but what a great wrestler. You could never really classify

Terry. You could say, well, he's crazy, but he knows every move. He's he's nuts, but he can counter anything. He could talk with that out screaming and convince you that he meant it. Uh. You know, there were so many facets to the Funk character. Terry Funk's character that for me to pull from and to learn from. And I think for anybody that's as big a fan of Terry Funk as I was all those years, if they look at the franchise character, they can they can pull it

out. They'll say, Okay, that he got that from Funk or this from Flair or whatever. But he's uh, I asked Terry one time. You know he's because his business can't really get to you. As you know, sometimes you get ready to strangle somebody. And one night there I forget even what it was over, but I was so pissed off at everything right around this time when I was working, right when I was at the outset of working with Terry, and I went to him. I was so pissed.

I was ready to strangle somebody. And I said, God damn, Terry, how do you keep your sanity in the middle of all this bullshit? I mean, how do you keep yourself from not wanting to strangle somebody? And he said, you know, god damn saying. You know what I'm saying. I'll tell you, Shanel, it's you know, he's got to be crazy. That's a Shane. You gotta be crazy. You know what I'm talking about, be crazy, crazy like a fox. And they

went right back into character. And it was the only time and even till today, that I've ever seen him drop in the facade of Terry Funk that crazy old cowboy routine just last plus second. And that was another way for him to teach me, you know, don't lose your temper like this and don't get all pissed off and or to strangle somebody. You know, that was his way of teaching me, just one more business side of the of it. You know, it was always learning experience with Terry. That glimpse

of the noun, well, you know, cowboy bullshit. He said, like a fox. And if you see the video, Shaneuglas makes like wide eyes to imitate with Terry. How Terry's countenance changed when he said that, like crazy like a fox, like b nuts, b nuts beneath the surface, b nuts And look, I mean that was like a full, a full dissertation there from Shane Douglass on how Terry Funk underpinned everything he did to

reinvent himself in ECW. It's all there, It's all Terry Funk. Basically at the very east we can say without Terry Funk, a lot of these ECW breakout stars wouldn't have been because they would have missed those little nudges along the way, those little pieces of connective tissue to how to really connect on a higher level to where they were all employable by the big leagues at you

know, a few years in it. It's funny to hear Shane Douglas talk about reinventing the heel and all that and talking about, you know, getting the endorsement to be the guy to draw the houses for the company, and then you watch these shows and there's not a hell of a lot of people in the building, although they did go to larger arenas, including a I forget what the name of the place is. It's like a dome of some type in Pittsburgh that you know, being a Pittsburgh boy himself, that Shane

Douglass convinced DCW to run and they did a pretty good house there. And when they had some bigger houses and like ninety nine and stuff for their pay per views, like in Chicago, the Anarchy Rules show did like forty five hundred people. But Paul Haman wasn't about trying big buildings he was kind of gun shy about overdoing how big they could draw and how big of a venue they could try to run, So there was a lot of you know,

on unexplored upside. I feel like in terms of crowd size that they could have done. But at the same time, it's it's funny that these guys are learning these real fundamentals and feeling like they're draws and top guys. And there's like a thousand people in building every single week, and it's like eight hundred of them are the same people you know every single time, right right,

the same fucking clouds there. But they're learning, you know, these lessons and feeling like big time draws because Terry Funk was telling them that they were doing everything right. That's good enough for them even if they're not working, you know, the biggest arenas in the cities for the biggest promotions in

the world. So before we get into the match here, to close this one out, we're going to listen to two pieces of sound from a sit down interview that Terry Funk and Shane Douglas both did with Gabes of Pulse Get the time booking for Ring of Honor, and he did a shoot interview series and they talk about the February fifth, nineteen ninety four, three way dance for the ECW Championship. I don't think I never dreamed that it was gonna be as creative as it was at time. I never thought it would be

that creative. And I thought it was a very creative match. Who been just close to that or laid it out cause it was so there went on and a lot of that one Yeah, well any points to me. I point to him, He said, I hope you know. I we considered it was about that. It was again, it was just one of those nights where it just started bowing, you know, and it just wait, it wouldn't wanted to flee. Well, all, I'll say this a very little we really we only spoke for about a half an hour before that.

We didn't we didn't plant out a ton of spots on who was out. We were in there and and pretty much about just from one move to the match. Yeah, we we just dancing inside each other and aga a again as one as uh, you know, un selvish things where especially on a lot of the creative stuff, it was too Yeah, it just flowed.

Yeah, it just kind of flowed. Yeah when you and and I think part of the you know, a big part of the reasons the success of that match was it was original, but also because you had three dinner most people say, the conventional wisdom would be, let's put three guys that can fly and you have a great match. You had three very different styles. I mean you you know, you had so set I do with all his homicide and suicidal and anything else. You had this guy that had the legendary

hardcore subject' gonna have a strong wrestling heritage too in there. And then you had this this trash talking heel that had a matt wrestling uh, you know, a building. And so you had three different styles that we played off each other. Each went really well, and we knew how to feed off each other. So you know, And I gotta say one other thing about that though, the most important thing about it was only because somebody was very smart anyone and said Shane and I and I said, hum and sap,

We'll go ahead start. They say, I'll come wait in about fifteen minutes. And I went, sure, collab, I'm telling you, but I'll tell you what because I and I'm serious about this. It's Uh, they set to they set the match before I ever got in there. What really did the temp? Oh? Which set? And uh the fans were hot whenever I came it was just honter. So I had a I had a reach that night. So they keep on, you keep on saying about the

sixteen minutes. The funker was pretty smart. I acted Kate the first spit tea. If I recall, we started off we they would do something who jumped to earlier in the night and then he was sat to hurt and uh so he wasn't supposed to make the match, but then Saboo got hurt. Well, it just an insane dive. He had a table at about a guy. It was I'm almost straight up and down, leaning against the railing and he did a flipping a dive and he hit and slid down and landed

on his head on the concrete floor. I I thought he was then for for legits here and uh, you know, we carded him out, and of course came me the opportunity to you know, start my heir. I know, funks not coming. His knees hurt and Sabba he was done. I'm in the I'm in the runner of this match. And he come to Spirit at seventy six, and it just it just fed the fans the right amount of food in the right side of bites at the right times. You

know, it just kept building and building. And to be honest with you, I've said this pump player before. I you know, it was such a different match to me. At the end of it, I was disappointed. I rolled over on the apron. I was blown out first of all. And I was lying on the apron closest to the hod camera right and and and I I was still there, going Jesus, this was it. It just cause it didn't feel like a way gear wrestling, I said.

We talked earlier about the dance and being in the groove, and it never felt to me like we got in that groove and we wanna dance. But again, looking back, it was because he and I would do a spa or wrestle some you know, a couple of minutes, and then I would sell away and he and Sab we would go. So you never really got

a chance to get it that one group and keep ran on. You know, you wanna were in and out, in and out, and uh, I was lying on the apron and just trying to catch my window and just just think of myself, God, we would really miss that one, you know. And and I, you know, I heard the applause, but I, you know, I was more worried about getting my wind back. And and I heard Sherry Martell at the time of my valet going holy shit,

holy shit, look at this. And I pulled my head up, and I look around, and I said, the fans getting as a standing ovation. I thought, well, it was being polite. And even after the match, I still didn't get it. I mean, I was still disappointed afterwards in the dressing room. But when I went back, I watch the tape of it as if I was I'm a big mark for I said,

I love watching professional wrestling. And I was sitting at home watching the match him and I'm and I remember sitting down and thinking myself, you know, I really kicked yourself in the aswers cause it sucked. And as I'm watching it, I'm thinking, man, getting more interesting than that. I'm you know, cause I was over here selling. I would see, you

know, I was paying a thing and thinking about that. I was seeing from the fans perspective that in one man funk and Sabo were busting the mass over there and then you know, and then you know, me and Saber were busting ns over here and then and it just seemed like it just fit together right. And after I'd watched on TV, then I started seeing you know, what the fans brought into him, you know, and and even I'm I'm still amazed now that it seemed like it is and that it's you

know, that it's it's seen as that first historic match in ECW. Uh, you b but I you know, again after I having watched it, man, I thought it was a very good match, but you know, I'm proud of the fact that it's that the legacy is what it is from that match, and and uh then it became the match that I really set ECW on that course, that became the the first of many great matches in

ECW UP. So a lot there from both, but totally, as with any great legendary match, the guys involved feel like it sucked during the match. Shane Douglas ling on the apron feeling like this isn't working. It was a fort I mean sixty minute matches in nineteen ninety four, I mean, not really something the audience was equipped to handle the kind of thing you heard about happening back in the day, but you'd never had really seen it.

Yeah, and you certainly didn't see it coming here because it wasn't forecast as some kind of you know, a sixty minute iron man battle. And indeed, as Saboo mentioned, he'd even wrestled earlier in the night in a tag match and then came back for the title match. There was a mention there of how Terry funk enters the match late. That is, in fact, as Shane Douglass made reference to, due to an injury angle they did to

explain funk Er entering late in the contest. So a lot of it'll just be Douglas and Saboo in the beginning, but in the final math, I mean, Terry Funk stands by this being one of his proudest achievements. Oh. I loved it. Love something very special. Yeah, something very that's well. Uh, I saw your your comments on Forever Hardcover. You said about, uh, you know, in thirty years, you know you only have you have you know, a lot of matches, but a handful that

really stand out in your mind. Oh and and and you you you look back at it and you're really proud of and and that that was one last very h mine on that But back ten years ago, sure, and I'm still thinking of that match, and you know, and and a lot of the fans look back ECW fans especially, and they're still proud of what they saw that night. I mean really seriously, you know, and uh uh

got here's there's just a hand. Really I looked further back in that, you know, and there are certain times that I I can remember, like getting in the ring with LU fans, you know, I tell you it

must have been awesome. Huh yeah, scared Tess, I bet yeah, I did, you know, and uh uh you know Shay and us being a very wrestling for Sam mashm you know, and uh uh some of the Briscoe matches and Florida Bengs, so the Japanese matches and they after the matches and then the sheet matches, you know, and and uhlen ECW match. You know. I mean it just stands right up there. You're ready to

make your own decision. I suppose twenty one forty two Eastern Championship Wrestling Presents the night the line was crossed, CW Champion Terry Funk, who had already uh won the title. Again, we're looking at forty thirty two. Okay, so Funk had won the ECW title. Uh, let's see, Uh when did you win it for the first time on July sixteenth. No, that's not it. Okay, we'll get it as we go. Let's prepare all all systems YEP three two one play. So this is off ECW home

video and they still have a lot of development to do. See Douglas's manager boss is a Sherry. Imagine it's her. Well, they were in W together. That's a good point. So before there was Francine the second to Douglas, it was you know who the first DCW champion was. It was Jimmy Snooker. Yeah, Funk one at December twenty sixth ninteen ninety three,

the Holiday Show, uh defeating Saboo and then Shane Douglas. A look at that Saboo coming out and Paul Hayman's in the ring getting head butted by Douglas and it's automatically chaos. Sherry's down, Saboo blindsides Douglas and we are underway with a three way dance tabo and loves the rights corner of the corner of the whip. They're going fast. Oh yeah, I don't think I've seen Shane Douglas fast a long time. Yeah, this before. He really packed

on a lot of that bricked up muscle in NCW. By the end there he was all like, hghd out. The big head in there is so fucking slow. Here he's very He's like the ninety one rumble guy. Yeah, right, like the Hasbro you have. That's right, big boot on the charging Saboo puts him down. Shane Douglas just thoughts overall boss. I don't know. He's so kind of middle of the road. I've never been

away, Yeah, kind of. I don't know. Iffy, his big thing in e c W was he'd say fuck and you'd get in the ring and call Rick Flair Dick Flair and right like I feel like he get over on on on to get over on belt had it's like cheap tricks. Yeah. He was an excellent promo. I mean they he came out and he was cutting like hour long promos right into the camera at a time when ECW didn't have a whole hell of a lot of guys coming through that could do

that. Joey Styles on the call. This is one of his first assignments. We've now transitioned off of Jay Sully and his idiots, the Ragdag Crew Outside in Soup play by Douglas, Vertical Prescott's two on Saboo. And you know, Joey Styles went on to be pretty much the only guy of his type, I mean, the single man announcer. Sure, And I guess you could say at Whalen and you could say Lance Russell flew solo Gordon Soli to some degree, although we often had color. Other guys did it,

but Styles like exclusively did all the work anybody cares about. Not to denigrate his WW run, but as a solo guy made his whole bones. It's just the only the defining voice of ECWN was key because he played like almost like a straight laced broadcaster who would take exception to the immorality of certain things. And and he had like a good straight man counteraction to the ECW spirit. Still no Terry Funcus. He's still selling the injury as the snap mare.

And now Jane Douglas digging into the face of Saboo, slowing down the aerial attack spitting at people. Yeah, big name guys coming through. I mean you had Snooka, then you had Don Morocco, uh, Sandman beating Morocco o Moronco beat Sandman Titos Indiana also winning the UCW World titles. It's bizarre. It was bizarre. It's fucking weird. It's halfway between like you

know, one of those fallback indies and like this startup group. You know what happened is they started getting guys like Shane Douglass from WWWCW who had you know, kind of mid card status and found men of venter in him and pushed him that way, and so all of a sudden, his W became this place where the underappreciated could shine. So here's a right hands and a spinning heel kick by Sabou Douglas hits the floor. That's Paul him and next to him is nine to one one. Do you ever hear about nine to

one one before? Boss? I've heard that name. It's a big guy that they basically hired to just come in and choke slam people at random points in the show. They'd play his music and Jesus people would go nuts as he would like choke slam. It like they'd set up like these big elaborate moments where it was like it would die down and then his music would hit like when you would least expect it, but they'd set it up in really creative ways. And the Sky had like the most unbelievable run because he was

just like he barely knew anything about wrestling. They just taught him the choke slam and he was over like the fucking mate Hayman and a lot of those man only Paul Hayman could make certain guys over from Paul Hamon guys right, That's exactly it. Sabo back in on Douglas slam's and middle rope springboard, and Saboo takes a hafunk. Jesus, it's like a lion salt. But he did the rotating front flip, almost laying it on his fucking head that

the Saboo was and almost landing on his head. He's afraid that you might not have gotten your money's worth. Here's the straw hat guy still there in the front row. Now this looks more like ECW. What a difference it makes when you can't see the wall on the hard camera. It makes a huge difference. Building isn't that much bigger than the ones we were seeing for the funk Eddie Gilbert stuff. But man, what a difference of the People's

a huge difference. Sabo with the dragon sleeper applied now to Shane Douglas. This Douglas bridge is up. Yeah, I'm about to take a dragon sleeper myself. Yeah, I know. Yeah, this is a tough one. This is a tough one. Asked the boss to go through. These are the moments Jesus Hanging's noose neck Breaker by Douglas puts down Sabo in the middle of the ring. Douglas limping about, drops the elbow. Nobody home. I mean, I will say it's better than watching seth rawlins, so I'll

take okay, all right. I wouldn't necessarily expect you to say that walking on an arm bar now cross arm breaker of Saboo. He would do matt stuff. He would He would almost insist on, like some chain sequences in some of his matches, just so that I couldn't say he didn't know how to do it. I don't know something. I just you know, he's not. No. That's the thing that bothers me is that I don't understand the reputation of him being so great when he is so sloppy. It's just

the stuff he was doing was so like second third degree passed. When anybody else had been doing it, it was you had to see it. It was like a buzz, the way the buzz would build for the stuff he would do. And I suppose that's kind of it. Like I saw so much stuff that was kind of on that level and probably a little bit less, not not as dangerous right before I ever saw him do anything that.

I just he just doesn't He's not interesting to me. Yeah, you know, yeah, It's definitely a you had to be there kind of thing, right. I mean, it always goes back to that, like you know, imagine like hearing about some crazy spot he did on a show. I thought this was a triple threat match. Yeah, and they had entered Funk earlier in the card, so it was like we'd have to go out there

and wrestle. They were kind of explaining in those soundbites that it was kind of by design that that that was a way they thought they could break up the hour long match a bit is to have someone come in late just seemed like a no, basically a world rumble, a most god work in that arm Cherry in ECW that doesn't get talked about enough. Oh not at all. I went off Shawn Michaels right at this point. She would have been yeah, this is ninety what now, ninety four ninety four? Yeah,

so she would have just been out. I mean she she left Summer in ninety three. Wow, actu she was a Summer Slam ninety three right with him. I don't know if she no, no, no, no, she wasn't there. It was so rumble. Ninety three is when they broke up, and so she was basically managing anybody who you know, went against Sewn Michaels, and then Luna Vashan came into play and at WrestleMania. Yeah, I just seemed to associate Sherry with Summer Slam nineteen ninety three for some

reason. Yeah, she's like eight. Oh that that's Joey Styles for you. The franchise, the franchise of what well, he's the franchise of ECW is what he is, but it's barely even alive, right, and he's sort of cockily assuming it's going to be him. Oh well, the character is kind of like like a high school quarterback that everybody hates because he's you know, he's got he's swag, he's got swagger, he's he's clean cut.

You know, he's all the things that you know, we say make you all American, but also make you a heel in reality, you know, right? Uh? Do you want to know something fun? Actually? Yes I do. Oh, Saboo actually helps qualify a number of movies for Under the Cinema. Is that because Sabo based his name off of his uncle's favorite actor, whose name is Sabo. Oh my goodness, is that right? Yeah? So Sabo's the actor. Saboo's movies qualified because of that.

That's really remarkable. Oh it's funny because I was actually I sat there wondering, like, you know, is it is it? Uh, like, is it a coincidence or whatever? And then you know, I happened to look it up one time and I was like, Nope, no, it's not a coincidence at all. It's remarkable. Yeah, I didn't. I certainly read his book, but I don't remember that part of it. Yeah,

I'm looking forward to that. I mean, it's not like he said a lot in his lifetime, especially in his prime, so we can contribute on sco he just standing switch and a lot of you know, essentially chain grappling here between Saba and Chane Douglas, significant amount of the chain grappling and not the chain grappling we saw between Terry Funk Andy Gilbert earlier. I think

that's called Texas chain grappling. That's right, exactly, Texas death chain grappling with right, taking reference to the fact that Terry Funk still doesn't come under the ring yet. So that's it's so stupid. It's like the least interesting thing about this. Yeah, it's a curious choice. I think the idea of a three way was so exotic to these guys, right that they sort of felt like, you know, two guys have to get shined to start.

I mean, of course, we still see it today with's triple threat matches in every company, where the whole formula is one guy gets knocked out on the outside of the rings so two can take center stage. Here. That wasn't you know, the pattern that hadn't been canonized yet, and w CW didn't do that either. WW actually had you know, they had some actual three ways like that. You know, if I remember correctly earlier one

were in play. Yeah, except for when they had there was I think there was a difference between a triangle match and in a triple threat match. It was because a triangle match had one guy in the apron right right, tag right, Oh my god, look at is that? It's nine one one picking up a table. So action hit the floor, reversed, whip Shane Douglas whip by Sabo over the guardrail, sharing and nine to eleven causing

terrorism. I'll say, Cherry lunches over the guardrail checking the franchise, and Sabo is now positioning the table not just on the floor but passed the guardrail. As fans, i'd be concerned about the franchise as well. Absolutely, yeah, also concerned about the franchise. Bob Kraft laid across the table past the rail, Sabo to the apron. He's bring boards. He moon salts

for the industry. That's it. And again a one camera shoot, big time problem, oh for sure, because Saboo on the far side of the ring just moon salted out of the ring over the rail, through a table on the concrete and all we could see is him disappear behind the apron. Is nine to eleven supposed to be like dieseler or something. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, that's a good analogy, because he's wearing that stupid biker

fringe. Shit hops the guard rail to check on Saboo on behalf of poly Dangerously of course, with Saboo's manager at this point in time, is that guy actually security is you're just trying to fucking help out. I don't know the other the Polo Paulo shirt. Yeah, he's dressed a little too country clubby for this crowd. Up guys, Back up, guys, huh, Jerry, Jerry Stoules, We're not in Atlanta. That's a big thing called ww F New York. You know, he was being sarcastic. We're not

in New York here, huh. Back to center ring. Douglas has Saboo right where he wants him. If the look on his face is any indication, the shitting breaker goes to franchise the size of Shane Douglas's head, like it's just not appropriate. It's it's prominent. Yeah, it's a it's a dome. It really is, like it's it's it's really you know, he should have taken care of that early Carnegie Mellon. Yeah, I'm from Pittsburgh. Uh Carnegie Mellon met at the Carnegie Deli that right, what a minute?

Uh? There he is their feet is Terry Funk forehead wrapped, emerges from the locker room, walks down the rail and tosses he's got something in his hand. He went ahead and dropped it. I want to hadn't dropped it. I want to ahead and put a thing on my head. That's where he started doing the bandana, and that's what it was. Kinda well, yeah, I guess I want to head and ban Dan in my head. I said, you know what, I think, I'm gonna go ahead

and enter the match. He entered the match like a guy's entered rumbles and wrestle fest right exactly ahead and tax Shane dounb this and threw him out of the ring. I want ahead and join the three way dance. I want ahead and decided this dance has gone long enough two way. It's time for three way. And even though for anajut right in the ring, a manaja extreme because I'm gay for fake sport. He's so Queery's standing in the guardrail, thrown punches behind a big ass pole. I got a big ass pole

in my pants. I need Vicky to take care of it. Who Ivan Putski? What Douglas gets the upper Hell, yeah it is. Douglas gets the upper hand of the Funker in the crowd. They brought back into the ring and Douglas with forearm shivers and the battered Funk. Terry Funk was actually introduced by ring announcer Bob Artees despite it entering their match twenty minutes late. He still announces him. I guess now you're gonna enter, and it's legal.

You can introduce somebody whatever you want. Shanon Douglas looks like you know, he does look like a fucking quarterback. Oh, totally yeah. He look like a little fucking high school bitch. He does. He looks like a high school bitch. Yeah, he looks like that quarterback and Ken Hardly Wade who comes back to the high school party. Yes, I mean he's a little better shape. That guy was kind of like fat for a reason, you know. But Pnell wasn't it. I think it was Jerry.

Watch it with that. I can't. I'm not always ready for you to name him. Little of the Ring franchise with the bear Hug and the Funker Pep bring him with tight punches, Funk having suffered a beatdown earlier in the card, entering worse for wear. And you see that front row sign Terry Funk. The true legend, true true legend. Is that what it says legend legend says twice or something? Does it say twice? It's also signed that said Shane Dufis, which is prepared with that. I'll take that one

ahead and again on the fire side. Can't see a damn thing as Funk or Pile drives Shane and the concrete. You know, it was my way of telling the easter w folk that they got to have cameras on other places. So I said, fuck it, I'm just going to do it in places where they can't see. I'm gonna show you what I mean. I'm going to show you how to do business, and that that that that problem will be fixed real quick. I like the fans, the front row fans

high five each other. Would Funker Pile drove Shane Douglas on the concrete because they did something like it's like football fans or Fock's egg, you know, like they fucking scored a touchdown Oh, Terry's chasing Sherry, and she knows how to run away. Look at her, Terry and Sherry got that right, Cherry, Oh Terry Ann. She obviously went to WO. She always

went to WW manae Haarlane heat and everything after this. But you, yeah, I'm really interested in like a Sherry during ECW's peak, you know, like her unhinged, you know, allowed to be extreme, tussling with Beulah and frank Out and all that, and maybe them in people's faces. I could the ring the Funker d DT Shane Douglas, I want ahead and dropped

him on his head. Sure did another DDT by the Funker. Bunker always complimentary towards Douglas, gave him like a forty minute classic for the ECW title at this rough stage of the company's evolution. And true living Legend is what it says, True living legend and uh covered by funk gets too. No foot on the rope, no one's sitting down in the front row. That's a good song. Yep, where's Shamou? I don't know, Saboo and Moon salted into the into a black hole because where his body should be everyone

standing, everyone. I'd love it if he's like eating a hot dog or snorting coke or something awesome. Well, that's actually a valid reason to hit the floor and not do anything, unlike other triple threat matches, because there isn't a camera to observe what you're doing. So yeah, right, it's a good time to do it. Why I bother doing anything if no one's going to see Cherry Shery grabs a franchise. Funk throws a hay maker Cherry. Let's not forget if the guy's gonna give him a chair. They're feeding

chairs from the fans. I said, what's this for? Oh? Are these the things you're throw into the ring. It's like it's like there's a magnet that draws the chairs in. There's like four chairs. Cherry's in the ring. She leaves the ring again. Funker's whipping. I think Terry Funk's trying to hit Sherry with these projectaile steel chairs. Oh, and she likes other projectiles. Actually, indeed, that's what I've heard. After look at Funker. He's waving on the ECW arena. He's calling for more chairs and

they're giving it to him. Heirs, come on, I want ahead, and called for the chairs. I'm gonna go ahead and say, give me a fucking chair. I need to sit down. These fans are like you. Sure I wouldn't be that way for long as we go through the ECW Journey of Terror, Funk, there would come a point where it became highly inadvisable to tempt the rabbit ECW craft to throw steel chairs in the seriously, you know once, because you know, you know, these are the kind

of people that once you give them permission, that's exactly it. It's it's it's gonna be anarchy. You open that door. Forget it. It's a wild Texas looking to Joey Styles. Starry Funk has that wild Texas look in his eyes. So dd Douglas on the floor. Douglas back in though there's still no sign of saboo here we go, went ahead and dropped him on his head. Jesus Christ made another steel chair bonfire in the middle of the ring. Look at Sherry. The thing is I did ted him on all

those chairs. But you notice I sold as well because I hurt my back. Well, it wasn't really selling. Actually did myself. I went ahead him, broke my fucking back, broke last sick room again. You know it was ECW. We did what we had what but I'll still gut up? Oh did you? I'm still waiting. He's crawling at all fours like like he's in a smoke filled room. Oh wow. Jane comes off the middle with a big splash across the back of the bunker, and Terry's selling

like he's having a seizure. He's grabbing off this funk, rolling around on the mat, grabbing chairs like you can do anything with him and throwing them around, just moving them. Basically you can't Mars over there. Well, uh, you got the last name right? I think I said a groucho. His first name is Buncha. Led it back by Shane Douglas gets two

in the latter goal. Press still fight in the funker. C W World Championship on the line here at the Arena on South Swanson by Terrence Fumek as Fumek punning up a spirited effort, but Douglas proving a bit more spry. Let's see we've never got a match between Terrence Fumeke and Norbert Group. That'd be a good idea, right, when is it? Big Red? What is his name? Red Red? Groupa to the floor, they go funk whipped into the steel guard rail and everyone's standing they are counting down the time.

So the idea that this one could go sixty was kept alive through the whole match. There has been several call outs by Bob Arties of how much time has elapsed. Again in nineteen ninety three, that wasn't the giveaway that it would be today. Yeah, yeah, what are you making the Funker so far in this one? Ah? Yeah, he's funking. Yeah, yeah, it's a very very good way to put it. Yeah, funking doesn't necessarily mean great, It just means only Terry Funk could create this mood

of the match. Yeah, Like he's he's doing what he does all the way to the back of the arena towards the wall itself, and the ladder's there and Funk, you better believe gets driven into that head first. Is he going to moon salt off the fucking ladder? Yeah? Would I? When I hadn't moon salted landing out my head, I said, this is the one drop sault up my hand? Yes, well, like this is

this is one of the drawbacks of not doing this strictly chronologically. This match actually took place before the first moon salt Oh really, yeah, it was a year before that. Just think about, like, you know, Royal rumbled ninety three, having just wrapped, and this is going on in Philly. That's this Douglas slam's fun hard on the floor near some chairs as well. No, uh no, real proper guardrails. After this is when will

it take place again? February fifth, nineteen ninety four. Oh four, Okay, yeah, I'm sorry, I said nine ninety three and four looking there, right, yeah, exactly, Yeah, we just first talking about what she was doing in ninety three. She should not be there. It's like two weeks before the moon salted, I think, or a week all right, I think Funk just threw a punch at the at the post with no one anywhere nearby. But oh my, pull my head and hit me

on my head. But already a little more lively than those very early ECW shows we saw from the year prior. Yes, it's not like this thing looks like Madison Square Garden, but it actually looks like a happening, you know what I mean, on the ground happening right right, not just the thing people like found themselves in with no intention of actually like walking down the Jersey boardwalk and ah, I heard there's wrestling going on. See what that's

about. Huh, that's Douglas turning the tide on the Funker DDT and him in the center of the ring. Looks like Terry Funk's been opened up as well. Oh yeah, he's lifeless. Well, I guess today strictly speaking, that's true. Terry Funk taking an issue with the cadence of the count that allows Funker to do a perfect O'Connor roll. What is he doing? He's great, he looked awesome doing that. Yit he did. It's like,

just you know, unacceptable. At the same time, absolutely Funk exploding into the spinning toe hold on on Douglas, who counters with the inside cradle well scattered by the franchise that gets to move the spin told so stupid. Yeah, back up, and Douglas quick to the draw, dropping Terry Funk with a swift lariat before Funk could begin building momentum. Doesn't he doesn't even

like spin the toe. You spin the ankle, well, the toe is like lodged in your crotch, so like when you spin around you're supposed to like you know, use the tip of the toe to push the ankle. Yeah. I mean it's not strictly a move that grabs you by the toe and tries to bend the toe. But the point of leverage, the fulk croom of the whole thing is the toe. Like the heel hook is it something that actually attacks the knee, But the heel is what you grab,

what you latch onto. Long bloodied, having trouble standing as Shane Douglas continues to pepper him with shots. Shane Douglas coullins, like Glenn Jacob's a little bit there. Interesting, I guess you could say that, Oh so I want had and killed the referee. He did. He just funk through a wild haymaker, no idea where he was, and took out the referee right in the metal buckle. That's it, that says, removed that buckling pad. That's it. And the funker eats steal. Still no sign of the

uh homicidal, suicidal, genocidal maniac. I think he's eating falafel actually, and that's what I heard. And champions in trouble. I'm in trouble. Oh, actually, I take that back. Paul Haman is right, there the funker here he is just all up in the ropes. Oh you gotta know it. Oh my god, is that up for a wrestling crucifixion version? There the way he's hanging like that, and oh oh oh oh he

gets a shot in. So funk got one arm and one leg wrapped up in the bottom rope like hanging halfway to the floor and in perfect equipoise as Cherry gets some shots in on the prone funker. But all Shane Douglass here off the apron and a kick to the head Terry's he tries to regain his uh, his balance, his footing or Shane Douglas and ECW and you have

to consider, oh is that his music? And you remember, that's one thing I did back when I got my first PC Home PC in eighteen eighty six, the packard bell I downloaded the ECW theme songs off a website and then only years later, not years later, but months later, did I realize that what I'd actually downloaded was a bunch of actual songs, not things ZCW created Jesus songs that people would recognize that knew nothing about wrestling, like

war Machine by Kiss was Taz his entrance and I had no idea it was a kiss song. And this time back in the ring, the Funker beats Shane Douglas to the punch show to speak, sending him face first into the exposed buckling Funk slapping the shit out of shape. It's like we get we get a we get a half hour with no Terry Funk, a half hour with no Saboo. Right, That's how they were. We're gonna close with a with a half hour of no Shane Douglas. I don't know is that

is that? Is that a wish? Or is that a question? I mean oath Maybe so Funk's going off with the hands a big left hay maker drops the franchise, Funk working them over now in the corner with those all japan punches. Baby this Shane. I'm gonna go ahead and punch in the head like Japan style, and then I'm gonna eat a sandwich. I'm gonna I'm gonna go ahead and punching here in e c W until well curfew in ec W, I'm gonna punch in the head. I'm gonna punch an ec

W like I do in Japan. Japan Wump extreme Championship Went Ahead. Extreme Championship Japan e c J series of chops whipping a back elbow puts down Douglas. Terry Funk standing tall despite being more than on the ropes literally and figuratively. At several junctures in this three way dance, the floor goes Douglas courtesy the Funker. Who's gonna mix it up? All right, Chino, I'm

gonna go ahead and put you on the head in the front row. I'm gonna come out after you and uh, you know, just walk some spots and it'll I'm gonna I'm gonna float, I'm gonna touch you where you stink, and I want you to just accept it, understand it. I'm celebrating, and I wondered they thought he'd be a good replacement for Patterson. Deep into the crowd now on the hard camera side, Funk was throwing punches the mob encircling them, flyers jerseys in case you forgot what city you're in.

All right, I am pretty fascinated by the ECW crowd before they realized they were a thing. Yes, yeah, this is a crowd that's like really dialed into what's happening. And of course bloodthirsty and extra rowity and all the things we would come to associate with nineties Philly wrestling crowds. But they're still not aware. They're just a time call there by Bob artiz I missed what they said. How many minutes? Somebody said fifteen minutes. Things have been

way more than fifteen minutes. But they're not like performing yet. The crowd, you know, they're not like if we say this, chan, it'll end up on home video. They're like, well, they're they're yeah, it's kind of in a very very neat spot where they're actually truly invested in what they're thinking. Here's the comptro home alone one there keeping order that doesn't

want to hear. The house looks like cure. Yeah, the house looks secure, right, Officer, there's about eight hundred and fifty through the turnstiles. Tell them to count their tickets again, exactly just a little sojourney to the crowd and back, and now Douglas is on the floor, Terry Funk's on the apron, and Sherry's trying to grab the Funker and prevent him from attacking fans still handing chares. Hey you want this, Terry, you want

to smack her in the head of this fucking chair. Who's that guy running? I don't know who's that idiot somebody else. Funk has decided to run after he's got the wrist tape. What if he What if all of a sudden, Terry Funk just started, you know, fucking Sherry from behind, grabs her like he's trying to like and to give her the spanking spot, and then he enters her and she just tock her hands on the apron and he's just going to fucking town. I was such a Sherry fan. She

was wonderful. But we know, we know that she ripped through the locker room like nobody else. Absolutely, so there was a midring collision. Funk did his drunk man stumble cell out of the ring, and now Saboo with a taped right knee, drawing an explosive chance of Saboo has re entered the three way dance and they want you know, you know what's so funny about these things is that, you know when is that they really can't. They

don't know how to fucking book a triple threat match for real. Yet in video games, video games, you really know how to fucking book a triple threat match, right, Well, the games don't have this thing of like we can't shine, we can't control who has the shine if it's not one on one. I don't understand why they need to just has the mic. The match is what shines like, just you dirty, rotten gossard. You please a shitt talking to both of you talking now, damn it? You

know he tosses the mic down all right there it is. Yeah, So on the on the cam side, if you go all the way to the back of the arena, that's where I guess a house mic was set up and Funk took the opportunity to start screaming at both Shane Douglas and Saboo on them idiots and fools and anything. He called them a geek also at one point that's hilarious idiots, that's a big If you let Terry go long enough,

he'll eventually say something like pervert or something. Whoa what? Yes, So the Funker has re entered half drunk, collar and elbow with the franchise and they're throwing fisticuffs. Douglas really piling up the shots. Oh, Funk almost spilled to his death through the ropes there now there it is thirty five minutes of a lapse already. That's that's interesting. I don't know if that was on purpose, but and Funker takes the opportunity to hook the spinning toe

hold on the bad right wheel of Saboo. Saboo ailing right now, What do you think did Shane Douglas mean to throw himself under the ropes and clothesline himself like that? Who the fuck dons? Here comes nine to one one, nine eleven in the ring. Somebody called nine one one and here he is. Oh, did he waffled him in the head with what? Now? When was that? Polly got him with the phone and hit Funker in the head that stupid phone. I was in Funk to relinquish the spinning toe

hold on Polly's charge. Saboo almost convulsing on the canvas. It Funk's kicking out. Look at him, his ticking out of a phantom cover. There's nobody on top of them, but it's just instinct jy D style. All fours headbutts now by the Funker to both Shane Douglas and Saboo. And this is where they start doing the three way innovations. At this point in the match. This is where it's like we start seeing combinations of moves we haven't

seen before because of the unique you know, dynamic here. It is weird to think, you know that that this had never been done before pretty much. I'm sure you could find an example, but yeah, it hadn't been done in a way where anybody bothered to repeat it or talked about it as a success. Eric Hengman's noose neck breakers on both Shane Douglas and Sabo Funk covers Saboo gets one, gets two, and Paul puts Saboo's foot on the rope for the break. Wow for a no DQ company. It was kind

of funny that they adhere to the rope break. Verry Funk thinking as well, shove Jim Molino, the referee to the canvas for that. Gotta blame somebody, that's true. Right hand and Funk laid across the middle rope and Sherry's choking the Funker across the middle strand Funk can't catch a break. He's getting Polly and nine one one in one direction on behalf of Saboo and he's

getting Sherry on the other on behalf of the franchise. Douglas is going to town now on that knee with a leg grapevine, dropping an elbow, trying to really force the Uh you sure brought mc foley in. Oh look at this. Wow, that's something Shane hadn't acounted for while he's got the legs admission on. Funk just rolls over and covers Terry Fun up, covers Saboo and gets two. I don't think Shane Douglass realized it. He didn't even try to stop the cover. When ahead, Oh, when ahead ahead,

Cherry? Uh got Sherry niplock. Yeah, oh no head butt to Sherry by the funker. Douglas has a sleeper on Saboo, and this is a famous one, the triple sleeper. Look at this ship ever been done. And Douglas would say that he had no idea what was coming, and they didn't work out the triple sleeper moment. He expected Funk to actually hit him and try to break up the sleeper hole. A Funk called it on the fly, and this is this is fucking clever for that. That's great.

So you got Shane Douglas with a sleeper on Saboo, and he got Terry Funk with a sleeper on Shane Douglas. All at the same time, referee Jimmalino has his hands full here. I mean, who's gonna yeah, who's gonna win? If I guess if Sabu concedes, Douglas wins, I guess, I guess. Eventually the Saboo collapses to the canvas, out cold, Shane Douglas releases his sleeper, Funk still has his on elbow. There it

is. Douglas gets free, hits the ropes flows Lyne three sixty over the top to the floor, goes Terry Funk, Chunk right back to the bat knee. If Sabou goes Shane Douglas, Sabu wasn't uh, you know, it wasn't really out too. I guess. Yeah. That's the thing for ECW's reputation as being, you know, emphasis on the ultra violence. You know, Shane Douglas was their first poster boy, and he couldn't have been

less of a table crasher, you know. And the problem too, you know, the ultra violence means that violence, you know, you lose the impact of it. It's no different than than seth rollins oh, in terms of like, yeah, believing it actually hurts mattering. You know, the more you do, the the the violence and the less impact it has. Yeah, Big Get four applied now by Shane Douglas on the Bad Wheel of Saboo. Sabo's shoulders dropped me a couple of times here for the cover,

but not enough. Yeah, it was weird. Like at the time when ECW would stack up violent, crazy stunt spots, you know, the thought was like, oh my god, this is like just like a blatant stunt show just to like. And then now we look back and it looks like these guys were actually doing it to win matches, compared to the the the hyper pointlessness of some of the violence we see and some of the garbage promotions and stuff. Long tries to re enter the fray, Sabo keeps him at

bay. Saboo, despite the bad Wheel, is now taking the fight to Shane Douglas scooping a slam down, goes the franchise we go, Sabo's gonna position him, takes off of the Arabian press. He totally blows it. But it's a bad knee, all right, I'll take that, all right, not bad, that's good. That's actually good, good storytelling. There they tried it again? Will we get it the second time? That time he got it right across Douglas's chest. Cover two the Sherry's in the rings

screaming, did she just kick him? Maybe some of the script called for we had those ropes shat shake, they were I'm not ready for Sabo. No, well they're not ready for a match. Sabu climbing to take off the top rope again. At this time, Cherry goes right up to him and stops him. Cherry, look at her, what a what a fucking you know, we were spoiled. Oh what a pro so spoiled pro A pleasure every time she was on TV, A pleasure to watch, Yeah,

screaming her everything. She was just an absolute. She was brilliant And then out of the ring in all fours of Saboo tries to give chase, but he's get the bad wheel and that allows Douglas to hit the floor. It looks like Funk is attacking over the chair. Funks few good men. I don't understand. I think it's an Axel Rotten and Ian Rotten, right, yeah, yeah, he kind of formed like an alliance with them at this point in time. So Joey styles sells us. We can't see it.

The funks on the ground not moving. Meanwhile, back in the ring, Shane Douglas hooking up the Fisherman's buster on Saboo. He turns into a bridge. Combination gets too not enough, it's to get there. I think he was touching himself. Maybe. Oh, Sabu tries to explode up with a hurricane ron and lands on his head. On his fucking head, no problem. The problem with Saboo is that you'd never know if it's if he meant to do it or not. Well is that a problem? Though? Is

that a good thing said, something that sets him apart? It depends because it's one thing to make it. But sometimes he just looks like an idiot, right, you know? Yeah? Yeah, And you if you're convinced he was actually trying in that moment, but I think the fact that he would he would claim and others claim that he purposely would mess up spots sometimes to keep alive. The mistique that there's just something about him that that I

don't like. It really bugs me the way he does it, because like I don't I don't feel like it's a it's a it's just because he's just so sloppy. I find him to be so sloppy overall, and so that's where I guess it it. I don't like it because he just, yeah, he just comes across sloppy. Whereas you get someone who's normally crisp and clean and then they screw up, it's like, Okay, that's actually good

story. You know that that works for me. But when you're generally sloppy and just fucking doing shit for the sake of doing shit, which you know, I don't know if that's what he is at all, but that's just how I see him, because yeah, you're making you're making I think, very understandable observations about the guy, and I don't disagree with anything you're saying. I think he came along at a time before there was a way, a way to do it right, So everything he did was like creating a

new category of wrestling. So it's kind of hard to see him as messing up because he was doing things no one else had done cleanly. Yeah, it's like, what do we know? What are you expecting? You know? Meanwhile, Axe Lean rotten Ha hit the ring and completely double team swung chairs on both Douglas and Saboo and cleaned house on behalf. I guess if

Terry funk they are rotten fucking Brian Knobs stunt doubles here. Ah, I know forty five minutes of elapsed according to Bob Artes Rice speaking of Bob Artistes in the ring here. Oh uh, Sherry's up on the apron now is the Rotten brothers continue to assault that. She rakes the back of Ian Rotten breaks the back, Sherry, have you seen how much fat they're there? He can't feel bad. I had to take more than that. Douglas low

bridges Ian Rotten on a clothes line. Rotten hits the floor. Axel Rotten sends a Saboo hard over the ropes with the clothesline, hits his face on the mat too. That was pretty That was actually pretty cool. He just looks like Knobs, especially from this far away. It really does. Like just a fucking idiot Axel tossing Sabo over the railing. Never I like, just they so grotesque. Weeks after uh Luger and Brett tie and the rumble here deal with that. It's wild, Like you said pre Ladder match,

that's a key insight. Yeah, up the aisle Go, Axel Rotten and Saboo. Saboo send him to the wall. I'm gotta be carefully keeps running like that, he's gonna fucking collapse, definitely. Paul Hayman ECW trademark. You know world title matches that like have sixteen people involved, seventeen people involved, it still comes down, will finish. It's not like I think the match is over when twenty five people get involved. And it really explained it.

You know, they didn't bother to do ref bumps. Really, they just did it. They didn't give a shit. He didn't They didn't like explain that their worn't count outs. Really, they just never counted anybody out right. I'm gonna say, if there's no DQ, there's no point in even having rough bumps. Yeah. Yeah. Jane Douglas finally catches up to Sabos who's fighting Axel Rotten in the back of the building, runs him down the island back into the squat circle. Douglas with the Irish whip and Funk

collapses a pardon me, Sabo collapses on the bad wheel. Sabo is like a Kamakazi and he's like a fucking right throwing his body at you, and so yeah, sometimes it sometimes the rocket misfires, you know. And again I said before I do, I do wonder if my opinion would be differently if I had seen him. Yeah, think about you as a wrestling fan in nineteen ninety four. Yeah about if you saw Saboo tape, Like a

very very good possibility that I would have been a bigger fan. We're just interested, like in what this guy's up to, you know, like, what is this pressed by it? Yeah, for sure. So now Terry Funk has re entered the fray and he's battling with Shane Douglas on the floor. You know, it's they got all this credit for doing three way innovations, but it's actually a twelve way match. There's Yeah, it really is.

It's actually just a battle royal, That's what it is. A million things to look at, not just Funk, Douglas and Sabou as a axe of rotten is held wide open by nine one one and Paul Hayman keeps wrapping him over the head with a cell Punk rotten Human beings here, and we've actually reached the point in the match where none of the principles are on the screen. Yeah, just see Paul Haman attacking. We don't see Terry Funk.

We don't Oh, by god, they've left the building. We panned to the right and we realize the reason we can't see the three wrestlers in the match is because they've exited the door. They've gone home. Not just still going everyone's going home. They're leaving. Like fuck, this this shit sucks. It's an absolute fucking maniac streaming out into the parking lot. Imagine it's like, you know, this fucking match sucks. It's been going on

too damn law I'm going home February and Philly. Imagine how cold it is out there and how the fuck reemerges and like it just like came up out of a hole in the ground. Is that? What the fuck is that barrier thing? It's I don't know, it's it's weird. I think it's a screen to prevent people from seeing inside through the front window front doors, but it's like it's like weirdly detachable. It's bizarre substance. Yeah, the and Todd Gordon has great stories about this in his book. The UCW Arena

was very much a work in progress. They every time they came to the building. There was some new leak or some new issue and and also some little improvement they'd made to where by the time they got to their first pay per view and I actually addressed the building up and lit it up pretty nicely. But they had to learn show in and show out, not actually uh.

Fifteen minutes into the match and Terry Funk, the Bloody Terry Funk is back in the middle of the ring with Shane Douglas, and the Funker dropped another referee by the by the way, and then he kicked Shane Douglas in the nuts. Douglas cells Saboo re enters the Fray kind of go home, boss, like you said. Yep, another low blow from the Funker, at this time towards Saboo and the Funker standing tall, hug it a hole. I gotta give these people credit, man, They've been in their feet

for sixty minutes. They have no one has sat this whole match, and I'm talking like five six rows back rzi. I can see, oh, a series of headbuts by Terry Funk to Saboo and then he stumbles around like that wasn't the best idea. Look at him, he's such a fucking meat. He's such a fucking lunaticus collapse from his own head. But I did by one I had and hit my head and I said, fuck it,

I'm out, Absolutely I quit. Sabo runs over Douglas and Funk with a pair of clothes lines, and Sabo scoops and slams Terry in the center of the ring. Hair Saboo in coming middle rope top rope alight, loses the footing as a springboard and loses his footing again. Yeah, he's definitely fucking these up. I think top rope Saboo. Now I'm gonna set a springboard. A Funk rolls in a position moon Salt press by Saboo, fucking crotch.

Yeah, Funk comes up and falls. Got God damn, he's a He's such a he is so wild like the move lands and the fun is just begun because now you get to watch to Terry Funk react like you just got took a bullet in the back, you know, yep. Sabo now turning his attention to Shane Douglas, scooping a slam towards the corner of the ring and going up top again. Boon Salt Pruss across the knees of Douglas.

Terry Funk meanwhile, climbs over to try to take advantage. No referee to count, poly dangerously is trying to wake up an official that Funk dropped about ten minutes, five minutes ago, we had got no referee. Well there that there's one reason to attack a referee, right, I guess it's not there to count if you're in a bad position. Bunker over to the reft trying to wake him. U maybe should have knocked him out. Terry what Douglas capitalizes, pounces on the Funker, lifts him in the middle of

the ring and spike pile driver. Yeah, tough landing for Terry. Saboo next in the cross heirs of the franchise. He's thinking, soup Lex, what's fun? What's Douglas gonna do here? It's gonna dunk. Yeah, that's it. Supplex is Saboo cross Funk. But Taboo is pinning Terry Funk ges no referee to worry about. Yeah a referee, Well, Sabo is covering. They might want to address that first. When in a triple threat environment, just use your opponent as a weapon and hit the other guy with

him two As Douglas covers Funk and gets too we continue. All right, guys, it's time. It's time. It's December ninety six in your house, he said, Sabo with a splash and a prone Funk, a pair of splashes. There's no reft account well, Molino's showing some sentience cover one not enough. Funk kicks out Saboo's cover take back up. Douglas with a snapmare on the Funker and drops a leg across Funker's blooded face. Here comes

Terry. He's past No, Douglas cuts him right off. Huh eave vertical suplex by Douglas walks Fun his foot Raf is right in the way, and then Sabo splashes both prone opponents. Crowd's going nuts at the prospect of this being in two count. Both men kick out. I hadn't seen that before. That was actually pretty cool, a near fall. That was pretty cool. Sabu grabs a camel clutch. Look at this on Terry Funk, and then Douglas basically does want a Sabo Another three way submission here in the three

way dance. Maybe not a submission? Now? Is that a peer? Shane Douglas, He's just straight up sticking his fingers in Saboo's nose and yanking backwards. Yes, that's a submission. At DCW single leg pick up by the Funker takes down Douglas. He but Sabo to keep him at bay while he twists the toe hold. Fifty five minutes have elapsed, according to Bob Artiz. Sherry enters the freight, jumps on Terry Funk's back. Fucking chaos. Here Uncer peels her off his back. She takes the bump. How

is this one going to end? Terry Fox got a suplex Sherry. Oh, he's touching, totally fucking grab that puss. I want a taste. That was a key thing about ECW man when the guys would attack the valets and the people loved every second of it. Of course, it was nothing like because you get a lot of angry men out there. Yeah, watching this ship all the way back to Terry Funks, soup Plex and Sherry. He's not gonna put Sherry in the spinning toe hold. That creates the opening

for Douglas to run him over with the clothes line. Funk down across the bottom rope. Saboo backed his feet Douglas steps to him, Ducks underneath Douglas with the back soup a. Four minutes remaining as Douglas drops Saboo with the back suplex. Somebody's got to go for a pinfall. Have we seen fifty eight year falls in moment, Joey, We have not seen fifty minute. That would be a near fall. Every minute right hand down goes a falling dangerously. What does Funk got? He's got a boot, Sherry's boot,

Cherry's boot from Lord and Taylor. Douglas tries to pile drive Saboo. He's back dropped out. Hit him, hit him. This must be the moment she remembers laying on the apron thing in this match sucks. Oh it's the funker. Oh nice, nice, that's brilliant. It's Sherry's leather, high heeled boot on his hand like a glove. Low blow Saboo. He's gonna tell you what was he gonna do to Sherry? She's dead. Shove that heel up er pussy do it. Thirty minutes remaining as Terry Funk He's got

Sherry's heel. Sherry is a heel. It's all it's all working, and he's scraping and gouging at Shane Douglas his eye and head his ear with the with the boot. Douglas gets free of the clutches. Sabbo attacks Terry Funk from behind, knocks him to the apron time running out here in the E CW arena, brother went black for a second? Okay, two minutes remaining. Joey Styles tells us Terry Funk attacking Sabo on the floor giving chase to

Paul Hayman. They called him Paul back then oh, big tom Y drop on the floor to Paul by the Funker Joy and while Funk gives chase and theanders around. No, he's back in the ring, as is Saboo, both going over to Sherry rolling her. Covering Sherry. Terry Funk is covering Sherry while Shane Douglass goes to the top rope. He soars body. Funk took out Saboo and hit Funk with his leg. Funk scrambles to cover Saboo with one minute remaining. Funk then scrambles to cover Douglas. He's going back

and forth between the two. H Terry, I don't think either one's really ineligible. Uh oh, there's no referee either, absolute chaos and the closing moments his panic sets in, Douglas and Saboo exchanging chops. Sabu dropped with one by Douglas, who covers. Saboo makes his own count no ref Douglas thirty seconds as Paul loads Jimmalino back in the ring, Douglas up behind Funk, Collin Spots holds him open for what. I don't know. It's Sherry.

Yeah, Sherry's recovered, She's back to her feet. She swings and hits Douglas by mistake. Here's the countdown. Saboo splashes Douglas ten nine. Funk falls on top of them, one to no. Douglas foot of the rope God Savo covers kick out. Oh not the reaction for a classic. You expect that from the crash. It's stupid. Ah. There it is refree's decision. There is no winner, boss. Yeah, yeah, I agree, definitely not me. That's one of the matches I'm most proud of.

Yeah, I mean, you know, he didn't go an hour. Saboo didn't go an hour. Shane Douglas went the hour. He's the only one planet. Joey Styles talking about uh, nobody else can do this on his planet the wrestling promotion. Okay, I mean and I the line was crossed. So that's how it finished. Harry Funk remains ECW World Champion. And now we're going to take a look. We're here immediately at the post match festivities. Joey styles with the champion. Let's listen to Terry Funk fantastic

athletically contested n w WA Eastern Championship Wrestling. Noticed that off not one but two challengers in Shaboo and Shane Douglass and Terry. If we can just get a few words from your oh he was crying. You know, I'm want to tell you people something that I love wrestling. I've loved it all my life, and I'm going to tell you that I'm not real proud of the way that it's evolved in a lot of places in the country. I don't

believe that the WCW is worth the damn wow. I think it ridicules my profession, and I think that we have a bunch of people that don't have any respect for a profession running those organizations and a WWF. I'm not talking about the the guys individually, but I'm talking about the way that they have belittled my profession because I think that I'm an athlete, and I think that I was out here tonight with a hell of a lot of competitors in that

ring that, uh, we're not even only wrestling. They were they were wrestling with their heart. And I don't particularly like the opponents that I was against, but they damn sure gave the fans their money's worth, and I think that the I did too. I think ECW has come a long way. I think that you got guys like that that have come from from nowhere. I'm talking about the Sandman's, I'm talking about the other guys. I'm

talking about the old timers. I'm talking about Jimmy Snooker, and we've all seen this organization grow and I am really proud of it, and I am very proud to be wearing this belt around my waist. And I told you people before, I I'm an old man, but I'm making my stand and I'm making it here with the ECW. And those other people can go to hell, because we're here and we're here to stay, and we're going to become a it's not producing straight to help for kids. I mean, we're

not We're athletic, and I think that we're a sport. And I know that we've got a lot of guys here that are wrestling their heart off. And I'm not trying to take anything from anybody else, but I have respect for Shane Douglas, and I have respect for Saboo, and I have respect

for all of the guys that are with ECW. And I want to thank you people out there for being hardcore fans, and that's what we're playing too, is a hardcore fans, and I want you to know that I love you and thank you very much for supporting me, and I really appreciate it. Terry fun Well, they have from a very emotional Terry Funk, who, as I said before, it's not one but not just getting a promo post match, he's giving a franchise and he would do that just about every

time I touched the microphone. It was the most amazing match I have ever seen. The press conference tonight, of course, and will be coming to the microphone and said that again, I'm sorry he's talking about hardcore fans. You know, pretty soon it's going to be a whole different meaning with that phrase. Right, that's kind of where it came from. It didn't so much come from describing the style of wrestling in the spots. That came from

anyone who's waiting for that. You know the nature of the fan that would want to see this kind of wrestling. Boy, it's a press conference format in the ballroom. So now Sabo is being led in restraints. You know, Todd, you can do this nine one one and Paul Hayman, I don't know what that is in the Zubaz. I don't say. John Cromnis, let's not to say about this match to trap Justice. Shane Douglass is

absolutely the most disgraceful human being I've ever met in my life. As for Terry Funk coming out of like a cry baby, this is not impressed. Sabboo. Sab Boo should still be the ec WA A champion. There was a conspiracy between Terry Funk and Shane Douglas and I'm not so emotional about any innty sixty minute draw, the referee was unconscious for too long. Terry Funk was eliminated. We all saw Terry Funk get eliminated and at the referee.

Now, she's not showing the table find The fact of the matter is that is that when Terry Funk went down with the injured knee, Shane Douglas could have pounced on top of him. The referee, the reft the referee played favorite chose to protect Terry Funk was disgusting. Cars Oft concerned that would have Terry Funk should have been eliminated right there, and then Saboo would have Shane Douglass all himself. When Shane Douglas cannot fight man to man, a shatboo.

And that's all I have to say. And that's all I gotta say to you. We want our money, and that's all I gotta say to you. And I don't think you're very good. Announce her the hell with the book. Thank you very much. Members of the media. I hope you all go to hell. There's no one there. By the way. The objective opinion from Paulie andels a touchgoing man. And here Tom Shane Douglas

words for you tonight. I took the living legend, so called self proclaimed Terry Funk, and I beat his ass right in the center of the ring. I took Saboo, the crazy man of wrestling, and I beat his ass in the center of the ring. I sent him both back to the dressing room, mister Gordon, as a result of that, I want you to declare me right now in front of this TV camera, in front of the entire world, as the ECW Heavyweight Champion, to prove that I am

the franchise Cherry Solid. The whole world sow it, Philadelphia. You witnessed it live professional wrestling as it was meant to be. Ass kicking, take no names. Beat the hell out of whoever's in front of you. Terry Funk, I smashed your knee to a bliatrey when I took you in a chair outside the ring. Even the crazy man saboo, and if people looked at they said, oh my god, it's the end of an era. Finally put to rest. Fuck family, I don't give it. Come on,

media, keep your mouth shut. You can fire me if you want, You can take me out of this territory if you want to, but you can't stop the franchise someplace sometime I will be heavyweight champion now as it goes. For you, mister Stoules, and anybody else and all you other sons sitting out here today, I've had it up to here. I've come to Philadelphia. I've watched Peter and the audience hold up signs and call me every name in the book. I've seen people outside the arena call me names,

say things about my family, say things about Sherry. I've seen people And what do you want? And what do you want? It comes the Funker? Wow, what's wrong with you? Are you some kind of a fool? Or what am I some kind of a fool? What are you out here? All? I've got to ask you, mister Funk. What you were ten years ago was a legend. What you are today is an old man, a shell of yourself. The legs after tonight certainly aren't what they used to be. Muhammed Ali knows what it's like when the legs go.

Look at your face. Take a look in the mirror around you. Ask the media, how's this face? Look? You've been beat to a pulp. Now I've been beat up tonight. Take a look Philadelphia. Look at his face, Look at my face. Look who's standing tall? Terry Funk, you were a beaten man tonight. I'm just scaring to listen to you. Call me an old man. I've listened to you ridicule me, and yeah, maybe I've had better days, damn, But I don't think that you have any right to go ahead and say that I came in here,

I paid compliments to you, I paid compliments to Sabou. I paid compliments to everybody because I think you're a good athlete and the heck of a guy. But you didn't walk out of there with this thing around your waist, and you know you didn't. Terry Funk, let me tell you something, and you ought to know this after twenty five years, and this man, don't call me old man. I gave you your time. You let me talk. As the franchise of VCW, have got every right to come

out here and say what I want to say. Paying compliments to Shane Douglas, paying compliments to Saboo, don't pay the bills. The Gold pays the bills. Now, I want Todd Gordon right here and now to declare me the champion because you were dragged out. You were carried out of the arena tonight by your own men. That's not a champion to me. Shaboo was carried out by his own men, both of you at the hands of the franchise to me. That means that I'm the heavyweight champion. No fens or.

But's about it, mister Funk. You want this belt so bad. I said earlier that I've drawn a line. I'll tell you something. You made a mistake. I'm put by calling me an old man. I won't put my finger in your face. I have no intention of doing that. But your biggest mistake was whenever you called me an old man, because first of all, what is it gonna look like whenever this old man whips your butt? And as far as this belt is concerned, you can have this

belt. I'm giving it to you. I'm giving it. I'm giving it to you. Give me the belt. That is so silly. No, No, i'd be quiet because that's that's silly. And I know that. I'm I'm sorry that wasn't very respectful to you. But I'm telling you you

take that belt. And you know why you can take that belt, because it's gonna be the biggest thrill to me on the fifth whenever I whenever I take the thing back from you, that's what's gonna give me the biggest elation because I'm gonna show you that this old man is not as easy to push him around as you think he is, as you should have found out tonight, Terry Funk, don't put my finger on your chest. I understand that I don't have to give me any belt. Terry Funk, I won't touch

you with my You don't have to give me a belt. You will piece the gentlemen. You don't have to give me belt because I'm taking the belt. How's that standing there before the brated No, the less slap from funking. Here we go, you guys, back to the studio. They're brawling on the carpet. Oh my god, he bump has no police. He's got socks on the locker rooms here breaking this fight up. Johnny Grunge in there, call for the police. Let's go Kevin Solomon to look at Yep,

yep, mister Hughes. All right, we can pause there. So there it is the big first three way dance, a match that's pointed to is a pivotal moment for ECW and the post match festivities. We see their boss at Terry Funk. That's gone with a different character in ECW. He's you know what I mean, he's straight laced, he's he's sincere, he's calm, and you know he takes exception to personal insults. It's it's a different Funk than we just saw in NWA, that's for sure. Oh for

sure. I'm I I can appreciate that. I never knew he did that.

Yeah, And it's kind of a further illustrative of just the role they saw Terry Funk playing for this the cc W. I think what's remarkable is when you go back and watch ECW before it really sunk in as a phenomenon, all these guys were talking on their promos like it was inevitable that they It really was like a called Babe Ruth shot from a lot of these guys, and Terry Funk in particular, I mean he, as you just heard there at the top of that post match segment, gave voice to the whole

idea of the whole company and explaining why it is that he chose to, as he put it, take his stand in ECW, and it had just as much to do with the shortcomings of the Big Two in his mind, and in particular how the Big Two just didn't illustrate what it was that he loved about pro wrestling and what he sacrificed for to be a part of the business, and that was that was the exact rallying cry of the whole promotion. They would build the identity of VCW around the kinds of things we just

heard Terry Funk say on that promo. After the night the line was crossed the triple threat match with Sabou and Shape, Douglas thoughts on Shane Douglas's might work there as he berates Terry Funk, He's fine, He's fine. I just, you know, he's just not someone that I've ever really, I've ever really said, you know, yes too, right right? Yeah,

Now, I just I just can't get you know. I mean, maybe someday something will click and I'll be like, ah, fuck it, look at this, But I don't, you know, again, he's fine, He's totally fine, He's totally adequate. I don't see I don't see main event. Yeah, and you noticed nw Way Eastern Championship Wrestling on the on screen graphics. Yep. Do you know the story of what ended up happening with Shane Douglass in the NWA World Heavyweight Title. I feel like I've heard

it. I don't remember the same ten pounds of gold that Terry Funk wore when he was champion in seventy five and seventy six, And in fact, I feel like what we just saw there was kind of a glimpse of, you know, NWA World Champion nineteen seventy six Terry Funk, the way he was, you know, a little nuts, a little wild, but choosing

to sound sane on the promo. It's like that interview he did with Gordon Soley after they played him defeating Jack Briscoe to become world champion on Florida television, and they're discussing the rematch afterwards, and Funk is all smiles and he's all clean cut, and he couldn't be happy or U doosh Garnet to be a world's heavyweight champion. But as soon as Gordon solely says that the rematch won't be in his backyard, suddenly that facade there's a little crack in it,

and you can see him start to bubble and boil again. Yep, And that's the Terry Funk that ushered in ECW. That character. I think it's a I think he went back a couple of decades in terms of his presentation here because we didn't see the Terry Funk we just saw. We didn't see him against Flair, we didn't see him against Hogan, we didn't see him against Dusty Rhodes or Jerry Lawlard. That's for sure. He had to dust that character off. You had to go back to, you know,

the Terry Funk that would beat you with Holtz yep, yep. And what happened with the championship and why it's sort of smirk worthy that the graphics on this show showed NWA Eastern Championship Wrestling was of course, as Todd Gordon's ECW grew, it did form an alliance with the NWA, which still was a

going concern with that. Dennis Corluzzo in particular being the promoter most associated with the NWA at the time, and they and they had a belt, but they were trying to figure out what to do with it because of course Jim Hurd dropped the NWA affiliation and in nineteen ninety three, Bill Watch brought it back in nineteen ninety two and they put the strap on a massa chono,

remember that, and yep, I do crude. And then when they finally dropped association with the NWA, in nineteen ninety three, shortly before Rick Flair's returned from the WWF, they created the International Championship. The Big Gold Belt became the International Heavyweight Championship in the secondary world title that, of course Hulk Cogan would go on to merge, right, he would go on to put the WCW title together with Flair's belt, or did Flair wrestle Sting on a

clash before he wrestled Hogan. Flair wrestled Sting on the Clash and they merged the Big Gold Belt with the Luger the Luger title, and then Flair lost to the merged belt to Hogan. Right, it was yeah, right, right? Sting lost the match and Flair held the Big Gold Belt as the championship. And then yeah, so in WA, you stop referring to the Big Gold Belt as the NWA World Championship and stopped any association within the NWA

had had a problem on their hands. They had an organization, an infrastructure, a championship that meant a lot in wrestling, and they didn't have a champion, and they didn't have, you know, a company to fix their name to and say this is where the world champion is parked you know this world. Of course, long gone were the days that the World Champion would take dates for promoters other than WCW. But still the NWA saw themselves as

sort of like acceding to this reality. They convinced themselves that they somehow had a say in how WCW was presenting the NWA World Champion. They found out that, you know, they were just that wasn't the case that they could give a fuck less about the affiliation and dropped that, especially where like Bischoff takes over, forget it, I mean, oh, forget it, No

no association with that belt in his mind at all. It means in a WA guy to begin with, and so and so the promotion, the NWA starts to try to loosely, you know, cobble together another circuit based on the state of the American independent wrestling scene in the early nineteen nineties, and of course ECW what we've been watching was one of the more vibrant scenes out

there. And they thought, you know, if we're going to stage a tournament to crown a new NWA World Heavyweight Champion who's going to carry the ten pounds of gold, let's do it in ECW. Let's do the whole tournament there. Let's call talent in from the best talent we can from all over the world, including guys like Chris Benwah who is looking to get a break in the US at the time, and of course ECW was it for him.

Guys like Too Cold Scorpio who'd just been cut loose by WCW when we're looking for some moorings in the industry, and a lot of the other important early stage ECW guys that were given a new code of pain or brand new exposure under that promotional auspice. And in fact, Terry Funk, if I remember correctly, was supposed to be in the NBA World Title tournament and didn't

end up making it. Thus they would make hay about that in ECW after the tournament was overclaiming that Terry Funk ducked the opportunity or tried to leave ECW high and dry. Nonetheless, what happened was that Todd Gordon and Paul Hayman got together with Dennis corleye Uzzo in the NWA and put on this tournament at the ECW arena, and the decision was that Shane Douglas was to win the tournament, beating too Cold Scorpio. Ultimately I believe it was and to become

a NWA World Heavyweight Champion. It went down like that. Shane Douglass was handed that traditional NWA championship. He took the microphone and what did he do? He threw the belt down on the canvas. That's what I remember that. Yep, to hell with that belt, to hell with the NWA, to hell with whatever you think that belt represents. This is the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. As he holds up the belt, we just saw these guys

fighting over and this is now the premier championship. This is the belt that signals what it was that this tournament represented and where this whole thing is going. And the key to it is that Dennis Corluzzo on the NWA side did not know that was going to happen. It was a double cross Dennis cor looser yea as it turns out, and Funk had a pretty good relationship with Dennis Corluzzo and you know, kind of on shoot interviews and stuff, shies

away from this subject. I think he probably was strategically missing from this tournament, sensing subterfuge in the air and wanting to keep up appearances and relations. He wasn't negatively disposed towards Cordluso as Todd Gordon was. Todd Gordon tells a ton of stories in his book about Dennis Corluso trying to cut him off at the knees and playing all kinds of games and you know, trying to keep under his thumb. Essentially, Jim Cornett was aligned to Dennis Cordaluso and sort

of set up and an opposing viewpoint. You got remember Cornett's trying to make Smokey Mountain work at this exact same time, a different vision, but a similar attempt to get a circuit like this running where you know, it's back to a territorial sort of geographically limited, a different older style presentation, or a presentation at least designed to appeal to an older style fan that had been disillusioned for whatever reason by the Big Two, be it it being too cartoonish

and not violent enough in Philadelphia's case, or it just being so far removed from the rastland traditions of the South. Hayman and Cornett rafted the same thing, and Funks got his toe in both waters because he's deeply respect them on both sides, and so it puts him in a tough spot. So he kind of conveniently is missing from this night where Shane Douglas makes the move, and Douglas has talked about it. They had to convince him. He wasn't

sure about doing it. It was kind of like a last minute, gut checked moment, and when he threw that belt down, it was war in the eyes of the NWA guys. Basically, they just said, you know what, this is now Extreme Championship Wrestling. This is now ECW, and it's not this NWA affiliate. It's not this thing trying to fit into this superstructure of a bygone era. This is its own revolution. And Shane Douglass just did the ballsiest thing you could do at that stage, at that level

to launch its formation. But here on the three way Dance that had yet to happen, So there's still keeping up appearances that Eastern Championship Wrestling is an NWA affiliate. It's pretty rich considering where it's heading. That's wild. Yeah, it was a wild night, it was, and not a lot of

people appreciated what was actually happening in the building. It's one of those things that as people came out and told the story over the years, the lore of it grew so much it was clear and if he heard the sheets and

stuff that Shane Douglass went into business for himself. But the fact that there was actually like this thing being engineered to break off ECW in its entirety and go in its own sort of self controlled direction with its own world championship was so he just, you know, Shane Douglass just stole all the cloud of what it meant to be n WA World Champion and just put that cloud on the ECW belt and said, this is actually the belt that matters. And

so that's the breaking off point that everybody was looking for. But on this night in February nineteen ninety four, after an hour in the ECW arena, Terry Funk still the champion, but as we just heard, dissatisfied with the level of respect or lack thereof that Shane Douglas is showing him, and they will continue to battle over the championship in the weeks to come. Sabou continues

to be unhinged and off off the chain. So closing thoughts here, as we take our first bite out of the ECW pie on the lapsed Funk Boss, It's I'm not sure it holds up looking back on it, I'm not sure that the mystique of this match is evident and a parent just watching it without hearing all the the you know, the color of people talking about what it meant in its time. But we're in the CW land, We're in Terry Funk trying to make ECW a thing, trying his hardest. What do

you think? What do you make of it so far? I mean it's I definitely appreciate the effort. I think it was fine. I think it was you know, uh, I don't know. There. You know, when you can feel that people don't know what they're doing, people as in as in the wrestlers in a triple threat match and then also kind of the company and how to book a fucking triple threat match, you can feel that.

You can feel that in this in this match, or at least I could, but you can feel it knowing how it looks, how it came to evolve. Yeah, yeah, And I don't know, like I mean, I didn't, I didn't hate it. I just and I and I definitely you know, I mean I'm I'm kind of at this point, I'm kind of biased towards Terry Funk stuff, you know, And so I go go in on it. If you think it wasn't good, I mean, I'm not not to put words in your mouth, but absolutely, I mean

no, this is Terry Funk tribute. But eyes wide open, like always, it's a weird thing, like I didn't I didn't hate it, but I didn't like it, right, And that's probably the first time you've felt that way during the laps Funk. Yeah, yeah, you know, And and I know that the ECW stuff is probably gonne the hardest stuff for me to to try to enjoy, just because I just I just don't get it.

And but like watching Funk in this there is there there there are elements of him just bringing great ship to this, right, you know, the way that he sells kinda like like you know when he when he got right up and and fucking walked around and stumbled and fell down to his feet, like that's that's something that makes it special, because that's that's a Funk thing. But it's like, you know, he just kind of he makes it

special. But at the same time, they're not. They do. I don't know, they don't seem they didn't seem to be really maybe adjusting themselves to maybe fit the moment around him and the moment and stuff. It just kind of felt like, you know, at times they're just going through the motions for sixty minutes. He's pulling them up. He's trying to pull them up. Whether they get on board, yeah the question. But he's there,

Like he said, he's taking his stand. He realizes that by doing this and saying these things and presenting himself this way, that he's really marking his territory and saying that if ECW fails, I mean, that's the end of me in terms of like taking anything I say seriously about being able to what's around the corner in the wrestling industry and being able to be at the vanguard of the next evolution and be connected to the fans and the hardest core

fans, the most passionate fans and what they look for at of pro wrestling, and being obsessed with studying that and delivering that to them. So he's he's taking his bet now, of course, is we'll get through. As the ECW portion of our program unfolds, the ultimate irony is that while he's out there preaching the gospel of ECW at every moment and you know, defining what ECW is in direct contrast to WWWWF, during the entirety of that run, he goes to work for wcw Right, goes to work for the WWF.

But somehow he's Terry Funk and he knows how to twist the interpretation of those decisions in such a way where he's still keeping it real. You know, even though he sold out, he didn't sell out in the way that guys do when they leave a group like that and go to one of the Big two, because he predated the Big two in so many ways, And so how can you say that he's, you know, giving himself over like an ECW original would to a system that you know would seek to control him.

When he's going to be Terry Funk no matter where he goes, and he's gonna be more than happy to bring executives in those two companies to the brink in terms of doing whatever the fuck he wants and almost daring them to do something about it, because he's more than happy to be told to or you know, he's more than happy to feel like he should leave now that it's time to go. Yep. And that's the thing throughout the nineteen nineties for Terry Funk. As many places as he journeyed after it was time to

go, and he put the cowboy hat on. The horse always pulled into a stall at the ECW Arena. Watching that night as Douglas Saboo and Terry Funk had the three way dance for the ECW World Championship was Todd Gordon, of course, and he wrote the following in his book. The reality was we were still losing money every month, but we were improving in other ways.

We were putting on good shows and our fans were amazing. We closed out nineteen tenty three with a big card called Holiday Hell at the Arena the day after Christmas. You could feel something coming just around the corner for us. That around the corner what happened on February fifth, nineteen ninety four. Our February card was a regular monthly house show. We didn't bring in any big outside names other than Terry Funk. He'd been working with us pretty regularly

and was involved in our heavyweight title angles. Our lineup looked pretty much as it had for the previous few months, but there was an energy and the packed building that night I hadn't felt prior. We also managed to create a new match for that show. Our main event was something we dubbed a three way dance for the heavyweight title between Funk, Shane Douglas, and Saboo.

All three wrestlers would compete against each other at the same time. It proposed a unique challenge for the three participants and that they had to tell a story from three simultaneous perspectives. Now, I don't know about telling stories, man, it's just fucking chaos. Yeah, I don't know, you know what I mean. I mean, I'm sure Shane Douglas is in there trying to keep like a logistical glue to it all, and it wasn't a mess. But it's just so funny that that is telling stories what we just saw.

Of course, of course they all stop with telling stories. It's ridiculous. Ah, they have to delete that from wrestling vocabulary because it always makes a mockery out of the person that says. It's just not what they're doing. They're telling stories. They're out there trying to keep the crowd interested. That's what they're trying to do and get to the destination, and so there it was those it led to creative spots, Todd Gordon wrote, like the now

famous double headlock. Those three guys put together what was the prototypical match of that sort. Three way matches called by various other names, have since appeared in all federations, but that one between Funk, Douglas and Saboo was the first history was made. Our amazing audience was right there for the ebbs and flows of the entire sixty minute match. I hadn't seen the crowd reactions like

that from any federation. Wrestling redder Dave Scherer told me a spectator's wife seated beside him passed out from the heat and fell through the bleachers down to the floor. When Chery told the guy he couldn't even take his eyes off the match, fuck her, he said, I'm sure that happened. By the way, though I would have liked a happier ending to that story, it's

undeniable that the fans' passion helped make that match. More telling was what I saw upon arriving at the nearby Marriott after the show, wherein Paul and I were greeted by a couple hundred fans. They began chanting for us, chanting ECW, E CW. We had no wrestlers with us, and they weren't chanting our names. They were mentioning the company. This was next level stuff. They were cheering us like we were the stars. Maybe we were.

We stepped into the packed bar and thanked everyone for a great show. The place exploded and Paul and I couldn't help but exchange glances. We were both speechless. Something was happening. We went upstairs to smoke adobe and process the scene downstairs in that night show, which felt perfect. Smoking pot was another commonality I shared with Paul. It relaxed us. We finally sat down and put our feet up. No one gets a reaction like that, I said.

I knew something had changed, and Paul agreed. WWE and WCW might get some fans waiting at the bars to see the wrestlers. Ring rats, a crude term for wrestling groupies were cut customary in the bars and hotels, but not fans waiting to thank the owner and booker. This was special tonight, Paul said, we crossed the line. You know, good for nothing eggs second, dumb. We did it our way because we love it that way. We love it that way, and I have this wonderful gut feeling

that I've had all my life. When it's time, Joe, now, time