WRESTLING 20 YEARS AGO PODCAST

Listen to our April 1997 ECW podcast, review ECW Barely Legal 1997.

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In some ways it was the milestone that showed that ECW had truly arrived. A small promotion based out of Philadelphia, PA had grown itself thanks to some cutting edge booking and smart talent acquisitions to being a promotion that, by 1997, could frequently tour across the North East of America and even do regular stops in Florida. Pay-per-view, however it came about, was a sign that their hard work had been recognised beyond the average penetration of any non-WWF or WCW promotions in the mid-1990s, and an ambitious jump to becoming even somewhat nationally recognised.

While the next step of having a national pay per view was a big move, it wasn’t actually unprecedented on a similar scale that ECW were attempting. The rise of the UFC, and other similar (if somewhat less successful and certainly less memorable) fighting promotions had shown that a product with almost no mainstream attention, if presented correctly could be seriously competitive on pay per view in a relatively short time frame. There was a reason Ken Shamrock earned a $1m salary from the WWF in 1997, and a huge factor in that was him headlining three UFC pay per view in 1995 that all drew in the 175,000 – 260,000 range, which was comparable to most WWF pay per views at the time. Given the notoriety of the WWF at the time (even in a big downswing) compared to UFC that, on the rare occasions it did receive mainstream attention, was almost overwhelmingly negative, was a big indicator of what could be done if the pitch was right and word of mouth took over.

ECW’s standing was somewhat similar and more intertwined than many might think. See, people who worked in the media, television or pay per view providers all had an image of what pro-wrestling looked like, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to say most of those people would have images of the WWF from ten years prior running around in their minds. A wholesome family product with larger than life characters in front of big crowds. ECW was none of those things, so much so that when presented with ECW, most people not only didn’t recognise it, they actually didn’t recognise it as wrestling. ECW’s presentation with scantily clad women, wrestlers who swore, 18+ storylines and even stories that involved children meant that their perception was not grouped with the likes of the WWF or WCW. In a lot of cases, many people who’s opinion mattered thought ECW was real, they thought it was another version of UFC. Although, it should be said, this opinion speaks as much to how legit fighting was misunderstood in the mid-90s than it was inherently anything related to ECW. Although ECW did hold “shootfights” occasionally!

What it all meant for ECW headed into the final part of 1996 was interesting. In the final quarter of 1996 they signed around a dozen wrestlers to short term contracts ensuring that they would stay around for the first show. Without knowing the full list of names, I would take a good guess these would be the following: Raven, Stevie Richards, Tommy Dreamer, Shane Douglas, The Eliminators (Saturn & Kronus), The Sandman, Taz, Sabu, Rob Van Dam and likely one or both of the Pitbulls.
(Based on the eventual card, the only other people missing would be Terry Funk, who I imagine wouldn’t have needed one – he also worked for the WWF a couple of months prior to the show and The Dudley Boys – who didn’t exist as a team up until about two months before).

Which, in itself, was actually a slightly weird position for ECW to be in. Part of the aura and the appeal of ECW was the wide variety of acts that came in on often times no notice. How Paul Heyman would dig into his contacts book and continue to bring in the best that the world had to offer – the best that the WWF and WCW didn't want or (more likely) didn't know they wanted. First came Benoit, then Guerrero and Malenko. When all three were swept up by WCW Heyman bought in Mysterio, Psicosis, Juventud. They followed suit. The point being – when you never had anything big picture to build towards – you didn't need to build at all. You created a match fans wanted to see, waited for the next available live event and you booked the match. When Paul Heyman setup Chris Benoit vs Sabu in 1994 – he just booked it. One of ECW's biggest strengths was being adaptable (both good and sometimes bad) and able to quickly move on their feet.

But once plans were penciled in for a pay per view, and short term contracts were signed, the game completely changed. The whole thing was a strange opposite to what was happening in the WWF and WCW, both of whom in the previous 3-4 years had switched from semi-regular pay per views (where building forward and long term was required) to a monthly format where you didn't need to wait to put on a match. ECW then started heading in the other direction - defrosting the sleeper feud between Sabu and Taz and putting in place other longer term plans for matches including Shane Douglas vs one or both of the Pitbulls.

Sabu and Taz was a strange one – a lot is made about the prolonged build, but little is made of how little sense it made. Sabu was a babyface by circumstance, wrestling a daredevil style that earned him as many scars at it did fans – but the "feud" for a better part of six months consisted of Taz calling Sabu out for a fight and Sabu (who in most cases was in the building) not answering the challenge. The implication, it seemed, was that Sabu was scared of Taz... fortunately, for the sake of ECW documentaries, they can jump forward to November to Remember with the huge pop after the lights went out and Sabu finally stepped into the ring with Taz. Although the lights going back out right after it looked like they were going to start fighting was as frustrating as it was clever.

The other big program going on was Shane Douglas vs The Pitbulls. They'd been feuding ever since former Pitbull manager Francine took here skirt off to reveal a pair of knickers with "FRANCHISE" emblazoned on the back, it escalated further during a barmy tag team match that saw Douglas break Pitbull 1s neck with a double arm DDT and Francine get superbombed through a table. This all culminated with a super match in October (super for the heat it generated and a fantastic finish) between Douglas and Pitbull 2 that ended with Douglas throwing Pitbull 1 to the mat by his neck halo before being escorted away from a ECW fanbase baying for blood in a torrent of ECW undercard wrestlers.

But if plans on screen were moving nicely into place, plans off screen were anything but. At a house show at the tail-end of November in Revere, Massachusetts a 17-year-old named Erick Kulas lied about his age and wrestling ability to blag his way onto ECW's card alongside D'Von Dudley against the Gangstas. Looking to "prove himself" to the boys, Kulas agreed to be cut but didn't want to do it himself – so he entrusted New Jack. Who essentially took a blade and hacked away at his forehead, causing a cut so deep it took numerous towels to clean up the mess. For ECW, at a time when they were trying to get in the good books of the pay per view providers, it wasn't the kind of story that would help their transition to pay per view.

The story caused the already skeptical pay per view providers to recoil a bit more, particularly at how the story got out – with stories about how Paul Heyman was telling people the story and copies of the tape had been sent to PPV providers only for this to turn out to be false. It was something that nearly caused the pay per view not to go ahead, and almost certainly caused delays. But in the end, with a limited clearance, ECW were able to get a date agreed for the show. As for their coverage on PPV, it ended up being a mixed bag – they were at least live, but their lack of availability (particularly in ECW strongholds like Long Island and Boston along with parts of Philadelphia) meant that going in the show was almost a guaranteed money loser.

What the show ended up being for was a proof of concept. Part of what ECW had to go through to get the show onto pay per view was agreeing to a list of demands from the providers (most, it should be said, were very reasonable). Request TV wanted medical people at ringside, they wanted a pre-approved list of talent who would be appearing on the show and an assurance that the show wouldn't be too violent or feature excessive use of weaponry. ECW were now being tasked with threading the needle: go "too far" and piss off the PPV provider, go too soft and present a show that wasn't authentically ECW. 

The lack of availability also meant that ECW didn't really bother to promote the show from a marketing stand-point. There was a base of fans who would absolutely buy the show, but investing serious money trying to market the show was likely to be futile given the issues people would have accessing it. Fortunately for ECW, they had a helping hand, from an unlikely source.

ECW have been no strangers with working with one of the "big two", in 1994 they executed a series of mostly enforced talent trades with WCW as Paul Heyman twice failed to bring in "Stunning" Steve Austin. As the next couple of years rolled on the official deals swapped but plenty of ECW talent, both homegrown and "imports" would end up in WCW. Biggest of all was probably Kevin Sullivan, who by the end of 1995 was the head booker in Atlanta. While Sullivan no longer had anything to do with ECW, there was the lingering feeling that Sullivan was keen to keep his ties with ECW alive in case he needed somewhere to work which, given the political situation in WCW, never felt that farfetched as a possibility.

But colour me a little surprised that, as it turns out, it wasn't WCW ECW ending up forging a close relationship with, it was the WWF. I mean, less from the stand-point of ECW being at loggerheads with WCW, Heyman clearly had a problem with Bischoff amongst others – but more that "re-living" this story, the ties between ECW and the WWF seem far smaller in number. While there is no real correlation between WCW signing ECW guys (in the sense that Bischoff didn't really watch ECW – he found out about Sabu and others after seeing them in Japan) the flow of talent into WCW was pretty big: Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko, Mysterio, Psicosis, Sabu, The Public Enemy and, within the months following the pay-per-view Raven and Stevie Richards.

As for ECW's links with the WWF, those were harder to decipher. The WWF had Chris Benoit in for a try-out match in 1995, and famously covered ECW's sponsorship money when they signed Too Cold Scorpio, but deals between the two sides seemed much more limited. If anything, ECW was starting to become a home for WWF talent spat out of their system – guys like Chris Candido and Louis Spicolli were finding a second wind in Philadelphia.

But talks were clearly happening. At the September 1996 In Your House show, the opening match included Paul Heyman, Sandman and Tommy Dreamer at ringside. With the Bradshaw/Savio Vega match essentially a backdrop for Sandman spitting beer all over Savio – it seemed like ECW and the WWF were building to some sort of angle or invasion that never really came of anything.

Until it did... we'd have to wait nearly six months but when the WWF moved Raw to two hours in February 1997, their taping schedule was firmly out of whack. New taping dates had to be created out of thin air and previous house show bookings were being crowbarred into TV events – something that came across poorly on television when two hour shows clearly not lit for television were being put out. One week at the end of February, however, they faced the prospect of needing a show but having most of their crew in Germany for a tour.

Which lead to Jerry Lawler laying down the challenge on air to bring his ECW "stars" to Raw at the Manhatten Center for Raw the following week. It was a weird show, crow-barred in alongside the debut of former UFC fighter Ken Shamrock, it was less of an "invasion" and more of an ECW show – with ECW-only matches just randomly thrown out on Raw. While it was bizarre, and there was minor evidence that ECW had helped Raw's ratings, it otherwise never really went anywhere – beyond a verbal spat between Heyman and Lawler at ringside that set the scene for some kind of follow up. In amongst all of this, ECW were given the scope for promoting their pay per view, something that Jerry Lawler quite rightly questioned – what exactly was the WWF getting out of this?

A question of which the answer still isn't immediately clear. Sure, it's since come out that the WWF was developing a financial interest in ECW, but if their aim was to try and give ECW some exposure to help them sell pay per views they didn't even do that good a job... there were many better ideas they could've used to properly put some focus on ECW if that was their primary aim. The idea I had was to give the Eliminators the WWF tag titles to defend on the pay per view – something that would've made genuine waves.

As it was both the February show, and the re-run two weeks later, were more bizarre than they really were productive. The second show involved a debate between Lawler and Heyman that largely flew over the heads of most people watching before Heyman suggested they started shooting (which is never a good sign). Heyman got a shot in about Lawler's past legal troubles, Lawler got a shot in about Heyman living with this parents – and the whole thing was largely a backdrop for Lawler to call out for backup (as about 5-6 ECW guys were flanking Heyman) only for nobody to come out. And if you're disputing whether this was a bad idea for WWF at the time, the second run did nothing for the ratings and the Wrestlemania 13 days later did the lowest buyrate of any pre-Network Wrestlemania ever.

But still, for ECW exposure was exposure, they can have no complaints even if it's hard to see how much they gained from the whole thing. Appearances twice on Monday Night Raw put them and their brand in front of millions of viewers, most of which knew very little if nothing about them. If it compelled even 1,000 people to check out the product and buy the pay per view who otherwise wouldn't have, then it was a massive success.

You might be wondering where the actual "build" to this pay per view is in terms of this piece. The honest answer is there wasn't really that much of note in the lead up to it. One of the concequences of getting things sorted with the pay per view providers was a show happening later than Paul Heyman would've liked (reports suggested that he wanted the show to be on the anninversary of 20 years since Terry Funk won the NWA title, which would've been February). The April date put it slap bang in the middle of a slew of pay-per-views, and one day after a bout between Pernell Whitaker and Oscar De La Hoya.

What it meant for the storyline product was basically a process that just dragged out the feuds – the problem being many of them had been going for so long it was hard not to burn them out. The feud between Douglas and the Pitbulls had been going nearly nine months by this stage and really had nowhere to go. Bizarelly, the match that made most sense (Douglas vs Pitbull 1) was done at a show in March, leaving Douglas vs Pitbull 2 to attempt to regain the heat they created over six months previously.

Sabu and Taz had the biggest build on the card, but given that Sabu never talked and the programme had largely been built on trying to keep the two apart, there was only so many promos Taz could cut. In the end they did a series of Taz and Sabu pull apart brawls at house show events in the month or so prior. Still, unlike Douglas/Pitbull, their match felt "ready" when April rolled around.

As for Raven vs Funk... sorry, Raven vs the winner of Terry Funk, Sandman and Stevie Richards – it was a quartet that probably provided the most intrigue. The big problem ECW had was getting people to believe that anyone other than Funk had a hope in hell of winning the qualifier. Stevie Richards presented an intriguing alternative, but as head of the BWO he'd probably been a comedy character for too long to be seriously taken in such a prominent role. As for the potential of Sandman vs Raven, as over as both characters were, their pairing throughout much of 1996 had frequently proven to be an absolute disaster when it came to match quality.

As for Raven and Funk, it was a potential match that felt fitting of the occasion. Funk had been bought back as this legend, with the story that Funk had one more shot at getting the gold. Could the old man do it? The problem was... people started to believe it. In an attempt to create a story with depth and intrigue ECW presented an angle where Funk essentially lost his marbles during a match (something which, in itself, isn't all that rare), only for Tommy Dreamer to effectively save Funk from himself before Sandman entered the match and ended the fall (because fuck it, why not?). The problem with the "compelling" storyline surrounding Funk's final shot was that people were starting to buy into the idea that Funk, at 52, was past it. Not the impression you want for the likely headliner of your first show.

But after all of that, April 13th rolled around and ECW was ready. By hook or by crook, a small promotion based out of Philadelphia running on a whim and a prayer had made it to pay per view. With a lick of paint, a fresh lighting rig and a new entrance way – they'd given themselves an chance of creating the right first impression. This was a show for the fans who'd been with them for the start, but also the new ones trying for the first time. This was a show for the pay per view providers, both the ones carrying the show and, perhaps more importantly, the ones that weren't. And this was a show for the talent: guys like Sabu, Tommy Dreamer, Terry Funk, Stevie Richards, The Sandman and many others, guys who killed themselves twice a week in front of a few hundred fans in the name of a sport. The time for waiting was over, all anyone could do now was hope it was, in some way shape or form, a success. 

Listen to our November 1996 WWF podcast, reviewing Sid's title victory over Shawn Michaels in what surely was one of the best matches of his career.

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It probably wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the WWF in the middle of 1996 were looking for something; anything to help them out of a rut. With Bret Hart on hiatus, and Kevin Nash and Scott Hall not only no longer under contract, but also beginning to tear it up in Atlanta, the WWF were short of star power. More than that, though, they were really short of hope. Shawn Michaels finally had a clear run on top, but no-one to face. Vader, through nobody’s fault but the company’s itself, was falling a little flat, and they were looking to stars from the past like Jake Roberts and The Ultimate Warrior just to fill in gaps of their talent. And then, and this should hardly come as much of a surprise, Warrior got suspended. 

The suspension was contentious, Warrior no-showed some events following a legal dispute and the death of his father. The relationship between him and Vince McMahon had deteriorated (again) and Warrior was on suspension. Even though he was working some brief matches at live events, there was no doubt that he was still a big draw – as was indicated when his return to Raw in April spiked a record rating in a rare week where Nitro wasn’t airing. Warrior’s flame was burning out, quickly, but at least he had one. The timing of the suspension, at the very end of June, also preceded by a few weeks a planned main event that featured him alongside Shawn Michaels and Ahmed Johnson. 

So, in a time of need, who do you call? Well, the first man they called was Bret Hart – as you would. I mean, the July pay per view was in Canada after all, and it was following on the coat-tails of another six-man main event with a mystery third member. Still, Bret was in the middle of a well-earned period of time away – even if the story of him having Shawn’s back actually might have worked well here. One they couldn’t work out a deal with Bret, the cupboard was already looking pretty bare. But Sid. 

It’s possible that no man that has been pushed so much based on look alone has had so little to back it up. Yet, wherever Sid went he was pushed: he went from being a Horseman in WCW, to a Wrestlemania main eventer against Hulk Hogan in 1992, back to being the star in waiting at the end of 1993 before a fight with Arn Anderson saw him fired. In 1995 he returned to the WWF to be a heavy for Shawn Michaels, but quickly went it alone when Shawn’s babyface turn became an inevitability. He and Diesel had a feud that was just dreadful, and he spent the rest of the time being just a really flat heel as a part of the Million Dollar Corporation that just seemed to be stable of losers. He lasted until the very first Raw in 1996, before leaving after suffering a neck injury. At that stage, he wasn’t over, nor was he any good.

But, needs must. Vince McMahon put in the call and rustled up Sid on short notice. With all of the TV taped ahead of the pay per view, the best they could do was a teaser throughout Raw from a studio with Shawn and Ahmed teasing their opponent before revealing him at the end. On the week before the show they managed to film an angle at a live event that saw Michaels and Johnson get lead into a three on two trap only for Sid to steam in from right of screen in a car, wipe out a load of pallets and just get there as the heels had left. In the circumstances of two taped shows, they’d worked miracles to have two weeks works on angles that not only worked but actually probably did a better job at getting Sid over than anything they’d done the year prior. Still, a pay per view in Canada – they’d have to start all over again, right?

The card itself was a five match show with well, not very much on the undercard. The month after Steve Austin won King Of The Ring he was facing Marc Mero as he descended down the card for the next few months. Mankind and Undertaker, who’s feud was now in full swing, took a break from each other in matches against Henry O’Godwin and Goldust respectively and opening up was the never ending black hole of the WWF’s tag division in 1996 with the Smoking Gunn’s facing The Bodydonnas. As was obvious a mile off – where you’re short on talent and you put them all in the six man main event – don’t be surprised if the rest of the card sucks. Still, we were in Canada, and they wanted somebody to cheer…

And then Sid came out. Maybe it was fans just looking for someone fresh to cheer? Maybe it was respect for a guy who was a former Wrestlemania main eventer. Maybe it was just the only guy they liked – as we’d see later in the year Shawn was really struggling to win over the male section of the audience. But somewhere the people of Vancouver got the memo – Sid was the biggest babyface in the building.

The match itself was barmy, given plenty of time to breath and all six guys having their working boots on it went the better part of 25 minutes. In front of a hot crowd everyone had an incentive to make this match work – and it did. Even Vader, who as I’ve written previously was usually booked pretty badly, was on the receiving end of a positive, pinning Michaels after Jim Cornette had cut off his attempt at hitting a sweet chin music. Still, Sid was the guy left standing at the end, hitting both Owen and Bulldog with powerbombs to send the crowd home happy. 

But one night would be a freak, right? The next day they flew from Vancouver to Seattle for Raw tapings – Sid appeared twice and again, with no real explanation, received a heroes welcome. Finding an explanation is not a particularly easy one. This wasn't 2-3 years later, where there were so many over guys it oftentimes translated into everyone being over. This was the pits of 1996 – but maybe that is the point. With Bret away, Diesel and Razor gone, fans just yearned for someone to cheer for – while Shawn was on top he wasn't exactly the first round pick for many adult males who watched the product. 

Maybe it was just the thing it always was, Sid *looked* like a star. Not when he was in the ring, mind – not that it particularly mattered in this era. But if Sid looked like a star, and he smelt like a star, and his star burned (if feintly) more brightly than everyone elses... then he was a star, right? That was all that mattered. Never mind his matches were often dreadful, nor that his promos often made no sense... it all added to the aura of Sid Eudy, and in the midst of 1996 that's all he really needed.

Fascinating to think, though, is what happens if Warrior doesn't fall out with Vince and the company? Talk about a guy who's star burned brightly, Warrior's shelf life in 1996 was always beginning to feel coming to a close barely weeks after he started. He no-sold Triple H's pedigree at Wrestlemania, popped a monster TV rating a couple of weeks later then "wrestled" (and I use that term loosely) one of the worst matches of the year – all in the space of about four weeks. Come the end of June Warrior's main use was really as a house show "attraction", another term I'd use loosely – less to do with his drawing power and more to do with the scope of matches they were putting on. 

The other player in all of this was Vader. Vader was on a stop/start lift straight to the top, well... if you ignored the fact he was often losing at house shows (usually to Warrior) and the booking of his run to that point had been pretty ropey. If you squinted hard enough you might just be able to make out a mega-push of the WWF's top heel. Still, he was up to facing Shawn Michaels at Summerslam, time to make amends? 

Well Vader won... then he won again... problem was the first was by count out and the second by disqualification. Both times the match was restarted – he then kicked out of a superkick (a rare feat in itself) before overplaying his hand after Jim Cornette convinced him to go for a moonsault rather than a Vader bomb. Michaels moved and pinned Vader. Again – Vader had an "out" (he always did) but much like Lex Luger three years earlier, he'd done everything but win the title. 

Vader and Sid came to a head in October in a "Battle of the Powerbombs" match to decide the number one contender. Plans at the time called for Vader to face Shawn again at Survivor Series, but after JJ Dillon traded a WWF office position for one in WCW, it was allegedly decided to change route because "WCW would know our plans". This, of course, sounds like bullshit – but it wouldn't be the first time they were doing something that made no sense. There was also the title of December's pay per view "In Your House: It's Time", that seemed to point to Vader being in a top spot.

As it was, in the battle of the move that neither man could do on the other, Sid defeated Vader via a chokeslam. The problems for Vader had started a lot sooner, but there's a case that his run was probably still salvageable at this stage – the beauty behind booking someone quite well is you can heat them up and just showcase the times you got it right. But once he lost to Sid it was probably too late. Things were moving forward at a pace with Bret Hart returning and picking out Steve Austin as his opponent for Survivor Series. 

It set Sid, suddenly, on a collision course with Shawn Michaels at Survivor Series. The Michaels story of 1996 is actually a strange one. WWF’s business went up in 1996 as they had their best year since Hulk Hogan departed, Michaels himself had a phenomenal year on top of the company and, in some ways, probably kept them afloat. It’s actually hard to comprehend how bad the WWF would have had it in 1996 had Michaels not been around or got injured. The summer of 1996 was, in some ways, dreadful. Raw’s were frequently irrelevant and often awful, but Michaels was a rare consistent light and again, it should be repeated – business was decent in 1996.

But this was 1996, and traditional metrics like house show sales and pay per view buyrates mattered less given that Raw was being beaten soundly by Nitro on a weekly basis, a problem exacerbated in May when Nitro went to two hours. As it was later described about 8-9 months later when Raw moved to two hours; Raw running 8-9pm while Nitro ran 8-10pm basically meant Raw was just acting as a great lead-in for Nitro’s second hour.

It all added up, Shawn was doing well but one man alone wasn’t capable of combating Nitro on a wave of ex-WWF talent. Michaels, as he would later testify, was also being worn down by WWF’s relentless schedule – one not necessarily unique to him as it would’ve arguably been a lot worse for Hulk Hogan a decade prior, but more that Michaels’ desire to put on a show ever night without any real backup (Hogan did it with an infinitely stronger ensemble cast) meant that things just unravelled.

Which made his match against Sid at Madison Square Garden an interesting one. It always seemed the plan that Shawn would be the man “returning the favour” for Bret at Wrestlemania in 1997, but Shawn holding the title for a year, barring an exceptionally strong run, seemed almost counter-productive. Once the Vader experiment had fallen short then step in Sid? The fact that Survivor Series would be held in New York provided an interesting backdrop for a champion babyface who was starting to wane on the fans and an act in Sid who couldn’t accurately be described as a heel or a face.

As it turned out, in the face of a crowd that probably at best started split when it came to who they favoured ended the match almost unanimously pro-Sid as Shawn’s male stripper act waned on the predominantly male section of the North Eastern fanbase. The evolving reaction added a level of fascination to an astonishingly good match. Sid, for all of his flaws and whirling punches did have an extra gear he could deploy when the time was right. Add that to a rabid crowd, a big match and the best performer in wrestling of 1996 and the match (arguably) was more impressive than the critically lauded Bret Hart vs Steve Austin match that happened earlier in the evening.

As it was, they had decided this was the right time to change the title. Before the month was out the company had formally announced that January’s Royal Rumble would be held in the 70,000 seat Alamodome in San Antonio – something on the surface was a ridiculous idea given the position of the company at the time. Still, San Antonio was Shawn Michaels’ home town, which made him a lock for the main event but also pretty much dictated that for the match to have any anticipation that he would have to go in as challenger, rather than champion.

So he lost. Michaels' manager Jose Lothario climbed on the apron, only for Sid to attack him, before Sid then lamped Shawn with a TV camera and pinned him following a powerbomb. Sid got a huge pop and we had a new champion. The angle was devised with the idea of at least attempting to keep/move Sid to being a heel – which given that his potential opponents as Champion (Bret, Undertaker and Shawn in his home town) did make some sense. It also gave Shawn the opportunity to have another conveniently scheduled period of time off, setting up Sid for a match with Bret at December's PPV.

The thing with motivating Sid for a big match is that well... if he doesn't want it, there's not much you can do. His match against Bret at December's In Your House Pay Per View was by any standards really bad (although, it should be said, Bret was not blameless in that capacity). It was a snoozer, complete with listless Shawn Michaels commentary and a really bad finish (Bret crashing into Shawn who inexplicably found himself on the apron) before Sid hit him with a powerbomb for the three. It was the latest in a string of events that would eventually set up a Bret Hart heel turn but in the short term setup Shawn chasing Sid for the title entering the Royal Rumble in San Antonio.

Trying to fill a 70,000 seat venue was a huge ask – hell it's a huge ask 20 years on and WWE are in a far stronger position now. The WWF threw everything they could at the problem: blacking out the PPV in the Greater-San Antonio area, booking a series of Mexican talent popular in the area and Terry Funk and also selling tickets at (by any standards) incredibly cheaply – lots less than $10 along with a heavily papered building. They ended up getting to 62,000 people – which regardless of how they got there was a phenomenal achievement and one that made things look major league for the first time since Hulk Hogan was with the company.

Despite all the build, despite the fractured response Shawn often received, come time for the match it was heavily pro-Shawn and heavily anti-Sid – in that sense, job done. The match wasn't close to their one two months prior, owing in part to Shawn being ill, but the crowd were into this match far more than anything else on the show, and popped big  when Shawn regained the title from Sid.

But much like Sid's reign was only designed to get the belt back to Shawn, it seems like the medium term coming out of this show was for Shawn to drop the belt back to Sid before Wrestlemania, with plans calling for the Shawn vs Bret rematch not to be for the title, enabling them to give the Undertaker/Sid title match equal billing on the card. That was the plan right up until "Thursday Raw Thursday" in February, where things changed quite quickly!

Quite who or what you believe will be down to your own levels of cynicism – suffice to say that Shawn told the company within 24 hours of the show that he would be forfeiting the title, ostensibly to have surgery on his knee that would see him out of action indefinitely. Shawn cut a promo that the live promo reacted to proportionately (by chanting "We want Sid") before leaving the ring and the title with Gorilla Monsoon. While there are no wider doubts over Shawn's knee problems – he'd been wrestling with knee braces on for a couple of years prior – the severity of the problem and perhaps more pertinently the immeadiacy of them cast doubts. Wrestling was full of talent who worked hurt for the "greater good", couldn't Shawn work through Wrestlemania then take the time off to get healed?

If you want to be a bit more cynical, Shawn – as he often would – was creating or exaggerating to avoid dropping the title that he held. As he did in 1993, as he did in 1994, as he did in 1995 – in fact the only title in the three and a half years that we'd been doing the show Shawn lost in the ring was the defeat to Sid three months prior. Funny that. Whether he was wanting to avoid jobbing to Sid on that Raw, Bret at Wrestlemania or (most likely) both. Shawn's knee surgery story along with his general state of mind at the time (said to be a lot of things, few of them particularly positive) - probably added up the most likely version of events.

So the WWF pivoted quickly, axing the planned title match for that Raw, changing Sunday's number one contender four-way between Bret, Austin, Undertaker and Vader into a title match and then guaranteeing Sid a shot a the victor the Monday after. After one of the best WWF matches in years, Bret won the title by dumping Undertaker over the top rope to start his forth title reign. That lasted 24 hours when Sid defeated Bret thanks to interference from Steve Austin – who slipped into the role of Bret's Wrestlemania opponent quite nicely in Shawn's absence.

It was a hell of a lot of work to get there – Sid would have to fend off Bret once again in a title match six days prior to Wrestlemania, in what has to go down as one of the most bizarre builds to a Wrestlemania ever, thanks in large part to a shift to Raw being two hours that threw existing taping schedules completely out of whack. While previously taping three or four Raw's at once, the doubling of the length meant they needed to add in extra dates at short notice – which would've been fine except the venues didn't really exist, and tours of Europe did. It all leant itself to a really odd build that focussed on, of all things, ECW and less on the matches themselves. The fact that Sid faced Bret in a title match a week prior to the show tells you a lot of what you need to know – the fact the buyrate for the show was the lowest for Wrestlemania by some distance says much more.

Not that it would likely have changed the result, but one thing that didn't work in Sid's favour was the TV rating of a match on March 3rd – taped in Berlin – against Mankind. The show, a dingy affair that drew the lowest non-holiday Raw rating in history, was complete by the title match in the middle of the show that drew a 1.5 segment rating, losing by 3 whole ratings points to a segment on Nitro that was so bad the previously impenetrable Roddy Piper ended up being booed. Sid was on a losing path headed into Wrestlemania as it was, but it really didn't help.

Still, Sid vs Undertaker was given the main event billing, something that in the shadow of a phenomenal match between Bret Hart and Steve Austin it was never likely to fit. Thanks to a warm crowd, multiple Bret Hart interferences and a ludicrous (for the time) spot where Sid countered the Tombstone into one of his own the match never got to the point where it was flat, but not for the first time Sid was the fall guy – dropping the title to Undertaker after one interference from Bret too many.

It's hard to put a final point on the Sid run. In some ways he was the beneficiary of circumstances right up until the time he wasn't. Plucked out of a softball league into a main event spot in the middle of one of the company's flattest runs ever, Sid was for a while the character the WWF had been lacking. But once he got swallowed up by politics and the necessities of cowering to more important acts, the one dimension that Sid had going for him fell apart. Ultimately, though, Sid was Sid – an incredibly limited character pushed because of his look and size – he was never going to be a wrestler a company could build themselves around (although, more the shame we never got to see WCW try three years earlier) - but he was still and important act at a very transitional time for the WWF. 

But that was always the way with Sid - he got pushed because of how he looked and, to an extent, his presence both in and out of the ring. Sid came on the tail end of the final era where size really mattered, and it's no real coincidence that people kept putting him in big spots, because the audiences by and large were always willing to accept him there. For a brief time in 1996 the WWF audience were willing to accept him as exactly that. And while he will be, by the defintion of the term, viewed as a two-time transitional champion in that term, he was more generally a "transitional" champion in the sense that between July 1996 and April 1997 a lot changed in the WWF. 

Listen to our March 1997 WWF podcast, reviewing Bret's heel turn.

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The Last Straw – As we touched upon last month, one of the concequences of Raw's somewhat abrupt move to two hours was that their short term taping schedule had been thrown out of whack. Having orginally planned, it seems, to tape three one hour shows the night after In Your House: Final Four before a tour of Europe, they instead had to crowbar in a taping at the Manhatten Center while much of the crew had already left. It also left them needing another two hour show – which was shot in Germany.  

The show itself wasn't bad, if a little flat. They crowd a new European Champion off of a rather good main event between The British Bulldog and Owen Hart – while there was also a perplexing interview with Steve Austin that was perpetuated to being aired live, despite the fact the show was being presented sort of as live despite being in another country... all a bit odd. Things we're about to change, mind.  


Piper In Control – So Roddy Piper has creative control... it's probably a good explanation as to why Piper was so well protected in his two matches against Hulk Hogan. Unfortunately, Piper's reign on his own creative control meant that when WCW had plans for a bizarre three team, four wrestlers per team main event meant that Piper was in control of his own team. 

The segment, which took up about 20 minutes on March 3rd, saw Piper lay down an open challenge to "six guys in the back", and he even backed his own ticket far enough to give the fans the opportunity to say yay or nay to the acts involved. Five nameless new acts come out one after another and for the first time since Piper arrived in WCW the act felt exposed, and it felt exposed FAST. Piper wrestled and boxed 15 minutes against a bunch of no-name guys (his friends) and the crowd just gave up quickly – really quickly. Eventually Piper settled on a couple of no-namers and, of all people, John fucking Tenta. The whole thing was a disaster and was quickly reversed the next week when Piper accepted the offer to team alongside the fit members of the Horsemen (Benoit, Jarrett and Steve McMichael). When Steve McMichael is preferred to your guys, your guys aint very good.  
 

Raw Is War – With the formal move to two hours cemented at the end of February, the Raw after the European tour was a big step. With a sweep of a new entrance video, a giant video screen and an elevated entrance ramp Raw had switched almost jarringly from the past to the future in the course of two weeks. At the end of February they did a show from the Manhatten Center, this jump forward bought Raw into a format that looked very very similar to the setup that is still running 20 years later.  


Spring Break – Speaking of a change in scenery – WCW went on Spring break for their second TV of the month to Panama City Beach – and they put the ring above a swimming pool, of course they did! To be fair, they showed great restraint – the only person to be thrown in the pool was Hardbody Harrison by Kevin Sullivan and Jacquelyn and it was well into the second hour. These shows were big money losers for WCW (well, in the sense they could've made a lot more playing an actual arena) but their willingness to do TV from unusual locations was one of the things making Nitro stand out so much.  
 

How You Doin' At The See-Saws in Louisville, huh? - We had part one of the ECW "invasion" of Monday Night Raw in February, and on March 10th, they were back. After Sabu randomly charged through the ring, vaulting over the top rope and through a table convieniently placed on the outside, we got an in-ring "debate" between Paul Heyman and Jerry Lawler. The segment was listless, both men going back and forth and achieving very little before the decibelmetre went up a few bars as Heyman said "Oh, you wanna start shooting, do ya?" Before asking "How are you doing at the see-saws in Louisville?" In reference to Lawler's past legal troubles. Judging by the lack of crowd reaction, the reference flew over most people's heads, as did Lawler's jibe that Heyman was still living with his parents. The whole thing was a bit of a waste of time, save some nice build for Lawler vs Dreamer – like the pay per view they were promoting, both were happening with ECW.  


Uncensored, Right? - The reversal of the Piper segment at Spring break wasn't even the most noteworthy thing of the segment. Piper got the mic and started throwing shots at Howard Stern, before then namedropping the WWF by name "they keep saying 'we've got no one-hip wrestlers' and they're right, you've got 'no-one; hip' wrestling for you". Piper namedropped Goldust and a few other things, all rather strange.  


Rage In The Cage – WWF's bizarelly listless build to Wrestlemania culminated in a title match six days prior to the show that threatened to change the direction of the pay per view itself. Two years prior, if you'd have asked Vince McMahon what he thought of doing a WWF title match six days before Wrestlemania then he'd have probably laughed you out of the room – as it was two years and the start of the Monday Night Wars had changed a lot of things.  

The cage match between Bret and Sid was pretty predictable, like every match on the newly formed "Raw is War" it had multiple interferences, that created a great visual of Bret, Sid, Undertaker and Austin all fighting atop the cage. In the end Undertaker slammed the door in Bret's face allowing Sid to escape.  

What followed was much more memorable, Bret Hart snapping: "Frustrated isn't the God-damn word for it, this is BULLSHIT" as he shoved Vince McMahon to the mat. Bret went off on a tirade that would end up cementing his heel turn six days later.  
 

Dissention In The Ranks – March was an odd month for the NWOW. They spent the pay per view at Uncensored fawning over Dennis Rodman, yet cracks were otherwise beginning to appear – and some of it was art imitating life. Towards the back end of the month, with Hogan off of television filming a movie, Eric Bischoff away and Scott Hall checking himself into drug rehab, the previously bullet-proof façade of the group was coming apart – exacerbated by issues backstage.  

As for how it manifested itself on television, on the final Nitro in March there was a meeting backstage between Nash and the NWOW C-team (Wallstreet, Norton and Vincent), with clearly something awry. Wallstreet later walked out before a closing segment with a clearly pissed off Kevin Nash. Nash and Syxx interrupted the announcers before Nash claimed that Hogan and Bischoff were away with other things and that Hall was "dealing with things bigger than wrestling". But no matter what, Nash was here and he'd take on the world by himself. 
 

Hitman Reloads - Bret's promo the week before Mania was the catalyst, but in many ways the promo he cut the day after Wrestlemania was more important. For the millions who didn't see the show (and judging by the buyrate, millions didn't) then it was important to ram home the point and put into context Bret's change in attitude. Bret got twenty minutes to do just that.  

The promo in some ways was very good. Bret slowly stitched all of the puzzle pieces together, illustrating how time and time again he was either looked over, or screwed by other wrestlers or people in power, and how even in that time the audience had started to turn against him. How, in the match against Austin the previous night he'd won the match but still been booed. Bret had finally had enough, he was turning his back on the fans – but not all of them.  

Instead, Bret's grievance had specifically to do with American fans. It was at this point the promos coherence started to fall down a little. The anti-American part was almost entirely necessary - as Dave Meltzer said, the difference between Bret's turn here and Hulk Hogan's turn in WCW the year prior, was that people still wanted to cheer Bret. So it was perhaps necessary, but felt incredibly crowbarred – Bret's stance that the fans booed him when he won at Mania wasn't even true – there was a big pop when he won the match. Fans booed when Bret walked away from a fight with ref Ken Shamrock afterwards.  His anti-American stance, while somewhat credible, didn't feel all that strong either.

This lead to Shawn Michaels coming out. Michaels was back to his old self and kick starting a trend of increasingly real promos. Michaels' role, amonst everything else, was to ram home the anti-USA point: "You can either take it, or leave it" - although Shawn's line about the indifferent crowd reactions not bothering him was the most heel thing of the entire segment. Still, that was all a setup for Bret attacking Shawn's injured knee and doing the figure four around the ringpost spot he was already getting a ton of value out of. A memorable if flaky segment.