For all the extreme and sometimes ridiculous matches that happened in ECW, there aren't many types of matches that are linked mainly with them, matches that you hear the name of and think of them first. WWE has the Royal Rumble, and it's cells and chambers. TNA has Ultimate X, and if anything, ECW has the Three Way Dance. The most famous of these is possibly the first one, which took place on February 5th 1994. So famous, it happened on the Night the Line was Crossed.
In this video, we’ll look at the first Three Way Dance that ECW promoted. We’ll also look for other similar matches around the time, and what the reaction was back in ‘94.
I should probably start by getting this out of the way, then we can get back to ECW, they were by no means the inventors of the three way match, or “triangular” matches as they were previously known. Throughout 1993, eleven bouts took place in major promotions. Seven happened in Mexico, and four happened in the US. There could well have been more on smaller shows, but this is all I could find for the bigger companies.
To be clear, there are likely many more examples than the ones I’m going to talk about here, but these are some of the most noteworthy ones that caught my eye.
Triangular Matches
While ECW’s match would take place in February ‘94, An earlier Triangular match in the US happened on August 28th, in Los Angeles, at AAA’s La Revancha. Only a year old at the time, this was AAA’s first major event in America, and so a big main event was required. (6) In front of nearly seventeen thousand fans in the LA Sports Arena, more than Wrestlemania Seven drew in the same building a couple of years earlier, Konnan would defeat Cien Caras, and Jake “the Snake” Roberts, sort of. Before I get into the match, while there are several reasons why Wrestlemania Seven's attendance should be considered a bit of an anomaly, its still very impressive for the still young AAA to have drawn so many fans, even higher than Hulk Hogan versus Sgt Slaughter.
Though the match itself would clock in at less than five minutes long, the scene in the LA Sports arena was chaos. Right at the start, Jake Roberts bails out of the ring, and from then on, all three are never in the ring at the same time again. The whole thing falls apart when Cien Caras is attacked by Jake’s cornermen on the outside, Diamond Dallas Page, Art Barr and Eddy Guerrero. Konnan leaves the ring to help him, fighting off Los Gringos Locos. He and his fallen opponent make peace because of this, and Caras is led backstage out of harm's way. After a bit more interference, Jake would low blow Konnan, and the referee would stop the match, calling for a DQ. The whole thing plays out like a serviceable angle to build to future matches, but a pretty inconclusive main event. Konnan and Jake in particular would continue to feud after this, with perhaps their biggest singles clash being a hair versus hair match as Triplemania 2.
While there wasn’t anything on the line as such as La Revancha, in many of the triangular matches held in Mexico there would be high stakes for the loser, as either their mask or hair would be at stake. The rules in these bouts would be quite different from ECW’s version, and even more so than WWE’s attempts later. (1) The loser would be the wrestler who takes two falls and if two different wrestlers took a fall, they would face off one-on-one to decide who would lose, as explained here by Dave Meltzer in September ‘91. This might well have been the inspiration for the elimination style rules that ECW would adopt later on, while one fall to a finish would come along with WWE’s version later.
Some high profile wrestlers have taken part in these bouts, for example in 1993, Bandido, not that one, would lose his mask in a match involving Angel Moral and Rey Misterio Jr.. Looking at the results as published in the Observer, (2) it says that Angel would defeat Bandido, then Rey would also beat him, making it hard to declare an overall winner, but with one clear loser. (3) Cagematch gets around this by treating each fall as a separate match, with Angel Moral winning once against each of his opponents, then Rey defeating Bandido, meaning he must unmask.
Now let's look at the final three matches that occurred in the US. They would happen on the last days of ‘93, with ECW being beaten to the punch by Smokey Mountain Wrestling. On their Christmas Chaos shows which happened on the 25th to 27th of December, Brian Lee defeated Tracy Smothers and the Dirty White Boy for the SMW Heavyweight title. According to results from the Observer, (4) they would do the match three times on consecutive days in Knoxville and Johnson City Tennessee, as well as Barbourville Kentucky. Of the Christmas Night show in Knoxville, the biggest of the three, Dave writes “White Boy was posted by Lee at the bell and laid out so it was Lee vs. Smothers early.”
Around the time that it looked very likely that ECW would be promoting a triangle match, Dave Meltzer would point out that looking purely at numbers, both AAA and Smokey Mountain drew good houses with the match in their main events, suggesting that the idea was interesting to the paying fans. (11) “In SMW, two of the three shows drew above average with it on top and with AAA, the show went through the roof. With that being the case, to dismiss the idea on the surface is either ignoring or being ignorant of your business.”
I wonder if like me, you heard about the Smokey Mountain matches and wondered what Jim Cornette, Smokey Mountain’s promoter and booker, would have to say about the concept in more recent years. On a 2019 (5) episode of his podcast Jim says, and brace yourself because a shock is coming here, that he has grown to despise the three way match. He refers to them as “another thing that has come back to bite me”, while also taking credit for them. He goes on to claim quote, “I did it, Heyman stole it from me, and then JR stole it from me, and now you can’t have a show without a three way for no reason.” Jim also takes credit for the name “triple threat” that WWE would later use, which makes sense if you accept Jim’s Story that JR called him one day, and asked about how the match is supposed to work. (9) On the subject, the name “Three Way Dance” wouldn’t actually come into use until the following year, when Paul Heyman would promote a similar match with three tag teams, Sabu and Taz, Dean Malenko and Chris Benoit, and the Public Enemy.
While Jim on his podcast claims responsibility for the modern version of the match, he does also note that a similar one took place decades earlier in Texas. As best I can tell he’s referring to a three way elimination match that took place on September 2nd 1971 in Corpus Christi, where Johnny Valentine would defeat Thunderbolt Patterson and Wahoo McDaniel. The bout took place in a promotion that was then known as Big Time Wrestling, but is perhaps more well known as World Class, the home of the Von Erichs.
While I’m talking about Jim Cornette, he also raised another point talking about how in his opinion, the match should be booked correctly in terms of babyfaces and heels. In Jim’s view, you need a top villain, a strong hero, and a heel who was your top bad guy. For once he and Paul Heyman seem to be in agreement here, as this very well describes the dynamic of Paul’s three competitors on the Night the Line was Crossed. I mean, in a way it did.
Funk, Shane and Sabu
Tensions had been rising between Sabu, Shane Douglas and Terry Funk since October ‘93, as soon as Sabu first arrived in the company in fact. It was technically a feud between three heels, though one was very much more of a babyface than the other two. Sabu was a villain because he did the bidding of Paul E Dangerously, and Shane was the cocky young bad guy. Terry Funk appeared to be one of those modern shades of grey heels. At NWA Bloodfest Night 1 on October 1st, Terry defeated Jimmy Snuka to win the Television title, and later in the night would deliver a sympathetic promo about how he wanted to work for ECW with the goal of ending his career with dignity. If you’re keeping track, Terry Funk said this in 1993, and his in ring career would outlive ECW by sixteen years. On the very next night he would turn on the Sandman, attacking him with a chair. He would later lose the TV title to Sabu at November to Remember, and then go on a rampage, threatening announcer Jay Sulli, and manhandling Joey Styles backstage. Despite these actions, on the night he won the Heavyweight title from Sabu, Funk still came across as the hero fighting from underneath, so I guess it depended on who was across the ring from Terry. In this case, he comes across as less of a villain than the other two.
The story would begin on the second night of Bloodfest shows, where a day after his debut against the Tazmaniac, Sabu under Paul E’s order would actually defeat Shane Douglas for the ECW Heavyweight title. The company had been building to Sabu’s arrival on television using footage of him from FMW in Japan, and clearly had big plans for him when he arrived. On December 26th at Holiday Hell, an event I covered in detail on this channel, he would then lose the title to Terry Funk, but not without interference from the Franchise who would attack Sabu. As Joey Styles explained in January, Shane didn’t go after Sabu to help Funk, more to get revenge on the man who took the title from him. Following Funk’s title win, he would grant Shane the first shot in the ECW arena in January, but Joey would explain this on television as Terry falling for the plan of the Franchise.
Shane would get his match on January 8th against Funk, with the two going to a forty five minute time limit draw. Near the end of the match Shane would actually pin the champion, but his feet were on the ropes, leading Tod Gordon to restart the match. As Joey Styles says on commentary, it’s a case of their being no honour among thieves. Paul E would also try to get involved, but would be chased away by Axl and Ian Rotten, who Terry would refer to as his “Few Good Men.” Funk would pin Douglas just after the time limit expired, and the show would go off the air with nothing really resolved.
Clearly something had to be done to setting things between the champion and the two ex-title holders, so a three way match was announced. A few weeks go by with the promotion for the bout mainly being done by Joey Styles, until we get an absolute gem of a promo by Paul E on the February 1st episode, just days before that match. Paul promises that Shane Douglas’ night will be more depressing than a Menendez family get together, and says that the night will be more torturous for he and Funk than a night of WCW pay per views, among other more graphic references that I can’t repeat. It’s almost like someone woke Heyman up that morning and reminded him that a promo was needed for the match, and he let out a lot of venom to try and sell some tickets for what would end up being a memorable night.
Before I get to the match itself, one look at the event as a whole and you can tell that ECW had high hopes for it. Take a look at this image from The Night the Line was Crossed, and now compare it with a still of the Funk versus Sabu match in the same building in December. It looks like night and day, almost literally. (8) The reason for this is that ECW really upped the production quality for the show, even bringing in bleachers, “which expanded the seating to just over 1,000”, making for a fuller looking building.
The action would get underway before the bell, and the sixty minute match would even start. While Shane Douglas and his manager Sensational Sherri stood in the ring waiting for their opponents, Paul E would run ahead of Sabu and crack Sherri from behind with his brick-like cell phone, taking her out of the match as a factor, or you’d think but she’s back up a few minutes later. Sherri was a tough one. Douglas would go after Paul, but Sabu would then slide into the ring to get the match started, without Terry Funk yet. With each passing minute, Funk’s absence is more noticeable until Joey Styles explains what is going on. Styles also tells us a few minutes in that the winner would be the man who defeated both of his opponents separately, but as there are no falls in the hour, it’s not clear whether an opponent would be eliminated if they were pinned or submitted.
One thing that this match has in abundance, is reasons for there to be only two wrestlers in the match at once. Funk wouldn’t even enter for the first fifteen minutes, and the reason given was that he had “won the coin toss”, and so was allowed to join later. Much like a three way wrestling match in general, how one wins a three way coin toss is I guess open to how you interpret it.
About two minutes before Funk is set to enter, Sabu attempts a moonsault over the guardrail to Shane Douglas, who is laying on a table. Sabu completely misses his target, crashing through the table alone. As Terry entered, Sabu was taken away from the bout with a leg injury, and would return a bit over the half way mark. Just past the half way point would be when all three were in the ring, or so I thought.
When Sabu returns, limping around the ring with his knee taped up, Terry Funk climbs over the guard rail, up the bleachers, grabs a microphone and begins doing his own commentary. By this I mean he starts cussing out his two opponents. At thirty five minutes, the three men are for the first time all in the ring together. It’s here where we get perhaps the most famous visual from the match, the three person sleeper hold where Shane has hold of Sabu, and Funk has the move on Douglas.
Another thing the match has a lot of is interference from the Few Good Men, 911, Paul E and Sherri. From around forty minutes in Axl and Ian enter the ring with chairs, and soon after a wild brawl is going on all over the place, with Shane and Funk even heading outside the building. At the same time, 911 and Paul E are at ringside beating up one of Funk’s lackeys, and I don’t even know where Sabu went.
As Bob Artese announces fifty minutes, Funk headbutt’s referee Jim Molineux for seemingly no reason, and Joey Styles exclaims “fifty minutes of what?” Back when Axl and Ian ran in, Styles had asked us if this was even the same match. With ten minutes left, all three are in the ring with no referee. Terry gets a visual pinfall, but he is the one who took out the ref. Sabu also gets a visual three count on Funk, but Jim is still down. With five minutes left and the ref now stirring, the last few minutes are a mad dash for someone to get a pin. As we get to the end, Bob Artese counts down every second, really adding to the drama, and then the bell rings with no winner.
At the end of the hour, what we had just seen was chaos. All three men and their seconds gave the fans a wild ride, and if you were in the building not knowing a time limit draw was coming, I can easily see how this would have felt like one of the greatest things you’d ever seen. Clearly from the reaction of the fans, many of them felt this way.
Reception to the match
The February 8th episode of Hardcore TV would start by showing the ECW arena fans giving a standing ovation, while Joey Styles proclaimed that professional wrestling was back in the United States. We hear ring announcer Bob Artese tell the fans that there was no winner, but for the rest, you would have to buy the event on home video a few weeks later.
From reading what was reported in the newsletters at the time, it seems like the fans didn’t quite know what to make of the three way dance. Wade Keller’s write up in the Pro Wrestling Torch based on reports he had been sent indicates that the live crowd was very unhappy with not getting a winner, but came around to appreciating the hour of wrestling that they had just seen. Upon watching the match, there is audible booing when the match ends initially, but then applause as Wade describes. (7) Two different Torch correspondents rated the match in the five star region, with Chris Forbes calling it “probably one of the greatest matches he’d ever seen, on a card that was one of the best ECW shows he had been to.
Wade adds that according to ECW founder Tod Gordon, their fan hotline was “flooded with dozens of messages from fans who called just to thank ECW for the show.“ This was of course written a full decade before social media became a thing, and it’s possible that the fans did this in a similar way that you see die hards raving about their favourites on Twitter, but quotes like this served to build the mythos of the rabid, cult like ECW fan, and Tod definitely knew he was doing that.
In the Observer similar bold statements were made that again served to make the event seem like a must-see. In the February 14th issue, Dave writes that (10) “The Philadelphia group put on what numerous readers called the best house show from any promotion in years in Philadelphia, and what seems to have been the most highly regarded house show in North America so far this year.” That by the way covers about five weeks. Reporting like this in the newsletters would have served ECW well, as it created a sort of mystique for the match before a wider audience had a chance to see it. (8) The show was intended for a home video release with none of it airing on TV, and so building up intrigue for the match was essential to telling more video tapes.
As well as word of mouth marketing through the newsletters, ECW sold the match as a classic on their TV show. To put that claim in some context, a month later Wrestlemania Ten would take place, including two highly regarded matches in Bret vs Owen Hart, and Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon in the ladder match. (12) In the Observer awards for 1994, which aren;t gospel by any means but do give us an idea of what fans thought at the time, the ECW three way match was ranked the fifth best of the year. In front of it was a Los Gringos Locos match from AAA’s When Worlds Collide event, a match including Wild Pegasus in New Japan, and the winner being the ladder match from ‘Mania. This still makes the three way perhaps the highest regarded bout in the still young ECW’s history to that point.
Ending
Even though as I talked about at the start of this video, ECW’s Three Way match wasn’t the first of it’s kind, it can definitely be seen as paving the way for future matches in the US. These days where multi-person matches are common, it’s interesting to think about a time where seeing three wrestlers in the ring at the same time was a novelty still. Because of shows like La Revancha, Christmas Chaos and the Night the Line was Crossed, matches like it could be done in the main events of major shows.
Naturally over time things would expand even more, from four way matches, to six way matches, to six way matches in horrific looking cages, eventually getting to six wrestlers in a slightly less horrific looking cage. That's what we call progress. While I’m being flippant, to my mind ECW’s match stands out because the stakes had been raised so well by the forty-five minute draw, and the feeling that any one of the three could win. ECW took the fans on a chaotic ride, providing the template for matches to come.
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/sept-16-1991-observer-newsletter-flair-signs-wcw-folly-strike/ hair match rules
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/nov-29-1993-observer-newsletter-mcmahon-titan-face-steroid-indictments/ ⅔ Triangle
https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=42990 separate matches
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/jan-3-1994-observer-newsletter-flair-beats-vader-starrcade-93-huge/ SMW triangles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnEKAvWAq-4 Cornette on triple threats
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/sept-6-1993-observer-newsletter-aaa-huge-business-luger-vs-yokozuna/ La Revancha gate and report
https://members.pwtorch.com/artman/publish/1994pwtorchnewsletters/article_78384.shtml Feb 12th 94 Torch article
https://members.pwtorch.com/artman/publish/1994pwtorchnewsletters/article_78384.shtml video release
Hardcore History book (p72,
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/feb-14-1994-observer-newsletter-first-ever-ecw-cover-story-new-wcw/ Recap of show
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/jan-17-1994-observer-newsletter-1993-wrestling-observer-reader-awards/ intriguing to fans
https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/jan-16-1995-observer-newsletter-1994-observer-awards-issues-best-and/ 1994 awards
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