Category: Wrestling PPV Musings

ECW The Night The Line Was Crossed (February 1994)

Eastern Championship Wrestling held a show on February 5, 1994 – a night that would be dubbed “The Night The Line Was Crossed.” I don’t know what line was crossed that night, but I do know that this show was home to the promotion’s first three-way dance between reigning ECW Champion Shane Douglas, living legend Terry Funk, and the crazy man Sabu.

So, this is the Eastern Championship Wrestling days of ECW, which means a dimly lit bingo hall and a Joey Styles that has yet to be fully formed. Todd Gordon was still the owner and the one to greet us on this show, letting us know that ECW is not for everyone. And then we follow that with Mr. Hughes squashing some dude in quick fashion, which is no different from any other squash match I’ve seen since the dawn of time. Not for everyone, indeed, Mr. Gordon.

More after the break… or the line, if you dare cross it… that’s so lame…

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ECW Barely Legal (April 1997)

Ramblemania has been delayed again… because I still haven’t got around to seeing the entirety of the four-night “buy one, get one free at the buffet line” or whatever Punk called it months ago. However, I did see the first ECW PPV from 1997. Yeah, Barely Legal turns 25 this year and to celebrate the occasion for a show that I have no personal nostalgia for, I’d figure it’d be appropriate to give it a PPV musings of sorts.

Just so we’re clear on where this is coming from: my exposure to ECW was largely relegated to the occasion mentions in wrestling magazines and such until they started airing ECW PPVs in Canada in around 1999. By the point, ECW had a show on TNN, but most of its big stars were jumping ship to greener pastures in the WWF and WCW. Even during the twilight years of the promotion, I was fascinated by the more rough-around-the-edges style of production and wrestling that I made it a point to try and expose myself to as much ECW as possible, whether it’d be on the stray ECW VHS tape I’d find in stores or some of the later DVD compilations that WWE would put out.

So long story short; I wasn’t an ECW fan during its prime years, but I have a weird fascination with this promotion that I got some of their DVDs and stuff. So now I’m watching the first PPV they put out in 1997, which had its own interesting backstory.. that I’m not going to tell here because it’s been told better elsewhere.

Let’s just get this over with before I start rambling about other shit.

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WWF Unforgiven 1999

Haven’t watched Mania yet… after this year’s Rumble, could you blame me for having better things to do than to watch a show I wasn’t really looking

You know, I had a grand ol’ time revisiting that Fully Loaded PPV from last week that I decided to continue down this road of 1999 WWF PPVs. I rewatched Summerslam for the sake of it, but I had already done musings for that show some time ago and it still holds up even with the added context. And that brings us to out September 1999 PPV called WWF Unforgiven, which is now its own thing and not the subtitle for an In Your House event, which ended its run with Backlash back in April.

Anyway, the show is known for three things; it is known for the Six-Pack Challenge for the vacant WWF Championship, which was last held by Vince McMahon… yeah, don’t ask. It is known for being the final WWF PPV in the tenure of head writer Vince Russo, as he would jump ship to World Championship Wrestling some time later… though this would not be the final WWF show that he would influence… and of course, it is known for the most infamous match in WWF history; the Kennel From Hell.

Oh yeah, this is a great way to kick off the show.

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WWF Fully Loaded 1999

It’s 3:16 Day… allegedly. And so to celebrate the occasion, we’re looking at an old WWF PPV from 1999. Today’s offering is Fully Loaded ’99, featuring the main event of reigning WWF Champion Stone Cold Steve Austin defending his title against the Undertaker in a First Blood match, wherein the Austin/McMahon rivalry comes to an end… allegedly.

Okay, I’m excited. Not really, but let’s check this shit out, bro.

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TNA Victory Road 2011

I didn’t watch the AEW PPV yet. Didn’t watch it live because I attended a WWE house show that night; the experience having been recounted on this here program. As for today’s PPV musings, I was going to hold off until a couple weeks later, but with Jeff Hardy having made his AEW debut last night, I might as well get this out of the way. What timing, I guess.

So, for those who don’t know, Jeff Hardy was signed with WWE and his last appearance had him walking out during a live event. He was then released after taking a drug test, although Jeff’s brother Matt had assured people that the release was pre-mature and Jeff passed his drug test, but never got the results. This whole thing sounds like really skeevy and swarmy. And look, if Jeff is fine and dandy, good for him and I hope he does well in AEW… but this whole scenario reminds me of a show that took place a little over a decade ago, in a little promotion called TNA.

Hence, our PPV musings for today will cover TNA Victory Road 2011. This is the infamous TNA PPV show where Jeff Hardy showed up in no condition to perform, was sent out before a live PPV audience to get embarrassed and killed in quick fashion by Sting in the main event. I’ve already vented my thoughts on the matter way back when and suffice it to say, I have no real further thoughts on the matter… or at least, not until I watch the match again.

That having been said, I only vented on the main event because that’s all I’ve really seen; I had not seen the entire show and reviews at the time weren’t exactly beaming, either. Thanks to the cheap tier on Impact’s Youtube page, I can watch the rest of this PPV. All I can say is that TNA should be thankful that something like the Jeff Hardy fiasco happened because otherwise, this would’ve been another shitty TNA PPV in a series of shitty TNA PPVs.

And I’ll get this out of the way; I’m not covering this show to shame anyone. This was a really ugly situation and thankfully, Jeff is fine nowadays, for the most part. Hell, I’m not even using this to remind people of how shitty of a promotion TNA was at the time, because that’s been documented. The timing, if nothing else, was purely coincidental and really, I was curious about how bad this show could have been. Besides, if I can sit through a shitty Fiend match from 2019, then you can sit through my musings on what people have considered to be a vile PPV. And if nothing else, you can use this as a lookback at Jeff’s lowest point and see how far he’s come since.

With that in mind, let’s get this shitshow started.

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WWE TLC 2019

So this is one of those shows I skipped out on during my 2019-2021 moratorium on WWE PPVs, which took place due to the horrific Hell In A Cell PPV that took place a couple months prior. I will admit that there have been times where I might’ve caved in and given this show a sample. Any PPV with Asuka and Kairi Sane in the main event is something worth supporting.

On the other hand, this match featured WWE Blue Belt Champion Bray Wyatt defending the title against the fucking Miz and that’s what made me go “no buy.”

So I’m revisiting this show somewhat because I am genuinely curious as to how bad it is… which might be because of one match… and… well… ellipses mania bro.

Let’s get on with it.

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NWA Starrcade 1985

So Starrcade ’84 was a bust. Starrcade ’85, on the other hand… not so much. And only because it is the show that features perhaps the most famous and single greatest match in the history of Starrcade and certainly one of the all-time greatest wrestling matches ever conceived.

Tully Blanchard. Magnum TA. Steel Cage. I Quit Match. Nuff said.

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