The WWE explosives match that never was, and other attempts in 2000

Of all of the crazy match types that exist in wrestling, there aren’t many that WWE hasn’t attempted their own version of. While they have played with fire a few times, they’ve never done anything like an explosions match, the dream of many a hardcore promotion, which I've been reading a lot about lately.


I did find however, that WWE did have plans for such a match in 2000, appropriately including Kane, and the man he’d been embroiled in a feud with for months, X Pac. In this video, we’ll look at the plans to run the match, why it fell through, and the other promotions who were also in the race to be the first to pull it off.


The history of this type of match is massive and there are lots of stories to draw from, so I thought I’d look at all of the instances that I could find from 2000, and there are chapters below if you’d rather skip to the WWE one.


WWF


Having had a steel cage match at Armageddon, and a No Holds Barred match at No Way Out, it seemed that Kane and X Pac were likely to meet again at Wrestlemania 2000. Perhaps the most bizarre of Wrestlemania’s, with a crowd at least. I say that because it only features one singles match, and that was a catfight. The rest of the show was multi-man chaos up and down the card, from the triangle ladder match, to the Hardcore invitational, to the fatal four way for the WWF title. It seems that there could have also been a few explosions that night also. In the March 13th Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer writes that “There was talk about doing an explosive ring match with Kane vs. X-Pac at Wrestlemania.”


If you were going to do this match with anyone on the roster in 2000, Kane and X Pac would have been the two to go with. Their feud had become bitterly personal, with the two starting as unlikely friends, even becoming tag team champions in ‘99. The two would help each other in visible ways to the audience, with Kane beginning to speak, no longer needing a voice box, and X-Pac proving that he could hold his own inside the ring, even against much larger opponents. By the end of the year though, the two would become enemies, with X Pac leaving Kane behind to regain D-Generation X, stealing Tori, Kane’s first love away with him. Kane seemingly rebounded by bringing Paul Bearer back, presumably to be his wingman or something.


The first talk of an exploding ring match came in the March 4th edition of the PW Torch, where Wade Keller wrote that Kane and X Pac were set to meet in an “FMW style exploding landmine cage match.” Interestingly a month out before the show, a lot of the rest of the card he published wouldn’t happen either, with the IC title three match being the only one that stuck. We like to think that wrestling bookers have it all figured out, at least more that we would have, but often this is not the case.


If you were following along with the newsletters at the time, You could be forgiven for thinking that nobody really knew what the company was aiming for, as the name of the match changes with each reporting of it. So far we’ve already had “exploding landmine cage”, and “explosive ring”, and in the March 11th Torch, Wade calls it the “Exploding cage” match. Also in this reporting, Wade notes that apparently Kane and X Pac were all for the match but Vince McMahon didn’t seem to be. A week later though, we would learn that the match had gotten as far as the explosions being given a trial run, and this is where the plan would be abandoned. “The X-Pac vs. Kane explosion match has been vetoed because Vince McMahon didn't like the special effects in the trial run. Some in the WWF were against the concept anyway. Kane & Rikishi vs. X-Pac & Road Dogg is the back-up plan.”


In the March 27th Observer, less than a week away from Wrestlemania, Dave would explain two more very valid reasons why the planned match fell apart. Firstly, “they didn’t feel they had enough time to familiarize themselves with that kind of a match, since it had never been done in the WWF, and that they didn’t want to not get it right at Wrestlemania because when the explosives go wrong, it kills the match no matter what the wrestlers do because the whole match is determined by the impressiveness of the explosion”. Quite rightly, they didn’t want to risk trying to pull this match off for the first time on one of their major shows, perhaps knowing that if it were to fail, it would be all anyone was talking about for a long time to come. ECW may have got it right by having their match on a house show, and not let’s say, in the main event of one of their biggest shows of the year. Nope, not naming anyone. I promise that's the only AEW reference in this video. Perhaps also WWE might well have learned from the ‘Kennel From Hell’ match they attempted just a few months earlier, and the company was once bitten, twice shy.


The second reason Dave adds is that “this is not the time politically to do something like this and have it screw up and someone actually get hurt.” there are a few things that Dave could be referencing here, from the passing of Owen Hart being less than a year ago, to the ongoing issues at the time with the Parent’s Television Council, and their challenging of the content of the attitude era shows. Either of these might not be what he was getting at, but if someone were to get hurt in such a stunt, it would only give the company’s enemies more to come back at them with.


One final potential reason for the match being nixed actually comes from the Torch a few weeks later and is far less dramatic. Wade notes that “Kane will be out about eight weeks due to a hand injury which he suffered a couple of weeks ago. He was hurt before WrestleMania.” Though this wasn’t reported before Mania, it could well have also played a part in the one on one match not taking place, with the tag team match being easier for him to work. To add to this and perhaps make the fans happier, Kane at least got to destroy Pete Rose one last time. The fact that this didn’t become a thing for many more Wrestlemania’s still to this day makes me sad.


So thats the match that WWE was planning, but did you know that around the same time, a few other promotions were competing to be the first to bring a match using explosions to a US audience. One of the first of these was a newer company, CZW.


CZW


On February 14th the Observer says there are plans supposedly for “a 6/25 PPV show” that was set to be headlined by a rematch between Atsushi Onita and Terry Funk under the same rules as the original. Dave would go on to note that this event already felt suspicious, because it fell on the same date as the 2000 King of the Ring pay per view, “so there is no way they are getting any serious clearance or buys for a live show”. The other barrier seemed to be that Terry Funk worked for WCW at the time, and even though he claimed that his contract wasn’t exclusive, I doubt WCW would have wanted their talent going off and working such a match. Dave makes one more interesting note while making the claim that indie shows generally did not do well on pay per view, citing as an example the most recent attempt which had been Heroes of Wrestling, which was reported to have been purchased in just twenty nine thousand homes.


On the subject of CZW, Dave notes that they had recently been featured on ABC Nightline, and were also planning for the card to include “another match with snakes, alligators and a piranha in various corners of the ring.” Barely a year old at the time and likely wanting to make a name for themselves, it seems that CZW had some big ambitions, and an even bigger imagination. If I can just take you off course for a minute, I managed to find an article that was published on IGN, who naturally gets a twelve out of ten for their wrestling coverage, promising a rather bizarre card for what was meant to be CZW’s first ever pay per view. Firstly, the main event was promoted as a trios exploding barbed wire death match, with Funk, Zandig and a mystery partner teaming up against Onita, Araya and Yaguchi. Also on the card was a “glass cage” match, though it isn’t clear what that means. Get it, cos it’s glass, never mind. Finally, a ‘freaks of nature match’, which included “four aquariums, one in each corner, will be filled with who knows what?” In the infamous CZW Follies list, it mentions that they got as far as someone actually trying to source such ‘freaks of nature’ The article also promises three live bands, and despite being in 2000 and clearly a massive fantasy, none of them are Limp Bizkit, WWE’s favourite band.


A week later it would be reported that Terry Funk had verbally agreed to the match, and Onita announced that the match “would be at a 30,000-seat stadium in New Jersey in June.” You might well be aware of this already, but a CZW event in a thirty thousand seat stadium a little over a year into it’s existence wouldn’t happen. However, CZW did hold an event on this day titled “They Said it Couldn’t be Done.” On that card, which took place at the Champs Soccer Arena in Sewell New Jersey, likely not the same place that Onita was referring to, Zangig and Lobo would in fact have a no ropes, barbed wire explosion match. Before the match takes place though, Zandig gives an impassioned and swear-laden speech, beginning by cursing out Onita. He then goes on a tirade about other promoters such as the NWA’s Dennis Corraluzzo, but this seems to be about a larger issue than this match that was affecting the promotion. Zandig and Lobo’s match wouldn’t exactly reach the legendary heights of Funk and Onita, but the explosives did in fact work, which is more than can be said for ECW’s version, which could well have been a rush job to beat CZW to the punch, but it ended up never airing anywhere.


ECW


On March 3rd 2000 in Asbury Park New Jersey, Balls Mahoney would face Vic Grimes of the Baldies in exploding barbed wire boards in play. This match would never air on television, but we can see it thanks to Fan Cam footage which would have been distributed by RF Video. Given that the match was booked in a pretty packed looking indoor venue, there wasn’t much hope for being able to do a lot explosion wise, and not much is what ECW delivered. The match begins like any other, with Balls and Vic trading punches, while outside the ring, were placed barbed wire boards that were rigged to blow.


Once Vic and Balls had both used their trademark weapons, and both were bleeding, Balls has referee Jim Molinaux assist him in getting one of the boards in the ring, as Vic perches uncomfortably on the top rope. Balls tried to superplex him, but Vic punches back, and shoves him into the board. Two blasts of pyro come from either side of the board, admittingly sounding impressive, and the referee sells like he’s been shot. Vic tries to pin Balls who kicks out, so he brings in a second board. Balls manages to counter and powerbombs Vic into the board, but the explosion does not go off, and the crowd boos loudly. Balls pins Vic for the victory, but there is a sullen feeling as the crowd look on and Vic is helped away.


So those are the three main companies that were racing to put on an explosion match in early 2000, but there are many more stories about the match being attempted. In the back end of the year, California based XPW would be the next to try, even bringing Atsushi Onita in. They would attempt to put on Onita vs Sabu in an exploding barbed wire death match. A press conference and follow up angles were filmed, but ultimately this match wouldn’t take place. I partly made this video to sort of test the water a bit, to see if videos about this kind of hardcore wrestling were interesting. If they are, please let me know in the comments. Thank you for watching, and if you enjoyed this video please like, comment and subscribe.




Sources:


WON March 13 00 plans revealed https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/march-13-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-beyond-mat-controversy-new/

CZW

WON Feb 14th 2000 Show announced https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/february-14-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-vince-mcmahon-announces/

WON Feb 21st Funk agrees https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/february-21-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-1999-attendence-numbers/

IGN previews CZW show https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/06/20/terry-funk-to-headline-ppv-barbed-wire-match-for-combat-zone-wrestling

PWT March 4th 00 Landmines https://members.pwtorch.com/torchbackissues00/torch592/T592WWFNews.html

PWT March 11th exploding cage https://members.pwtorch.com/torchbackissues00/torch593/T593WWFNews.html

PWT March 19th trial run https://members.pwtorch.com/torchbackissues00/torch594/T594WWFNews.html

WON March 27 00 match nixed https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/march-27-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-more-wwf-leaving-usa/PWT April 8th 00 Hand injury https://members.pwtorch.com/torchbackissues00/torch597/T597WWFNews.html

The Full Story of Will Ospreay vs Vader

                                     

David vs Goliath is one the oldest stories in the world, told over and over again in many different ways. Wrestling is no different, with some being excellent, and others being, eeh. What happens however, when David is twenty three year old Will Ospreay, still years away from his peak, and Goliath is sixty one year old Vader, whose best days in the ring were at this point behind him. In this video, we’ll look at how Will Ospreay vs Vader as a match that really happened came to be, how the match got booked in the first place, and what happened when the bell rang.


I’m going to be using quite a few sources and often first hand accounts, including Revolution Pro Wrestling owner Andy Quildan, as he is the man responsible for booking the match, and he communicated with both Ospreay and Vader. He is vital to this story, and he told his side on his own podcast back in 2019.


The story begins with a match that occurred in New Japan Pro Wrestling on May 27th 2016, on day six of that year's Best of the Super Juniors tournament. Will Ospreay would face Ricochet in a match that would have everybody talking, and would create a storm of mixed opinions. The debate all centered around a sequence early in the match, where the two men would present a highly choreographed routine filled with reversals, misdirections and counters, ending with the two performing stereo backflips into a superhero pose like you would see in a Marvel movie. To call the match polarizing feels like a bit of an understatement. It felt at the time, like everyone had to have a strong opinion one way or the other on the sequence. You had to either love it or despise it, and nothing in between. Even industry veterans were weighing in with their take, with the real winners being Ospreay and Ricochet, who had everybody talking about them. Speaking in an interview with Hishspots in August 2016, Ricochet said of his matches with Ospreay that they had created much debate over what wrestling even is when it happened, which is a nice way of saying that it caused a row or two on Twitter. *CLIP*


One surprising individual who chimed in online, was a man who was no stranger to New Japan. A former IWGP champion, and WCW champion. A man who had his own history of causing controversy in Japan, having caused a riot in Sumo Hall in December 1987 by destroying the beloved Antonio Inoki in the ring. The man they call Vader was none too impressed by the clip he had seen going around social media, and made his opinion known.


From looking at Vader's original tweet, his main criticism was built around the sequence more resembling a gymnastics routine than a contest. We’re not going to get bogged down in the argument here, but it is worth pointing out that in the thirty second clip that originally went viral, Vader is technically right about this. Whether you can apply it wider though is perhaps where the debate comes from. Though Vader said he saw the full match in a tweet, we can’t be sure if he ever actually did. We can’t even be sure that it would change his opinion either. Given how many other known figures in wrestling were also offering their opinions, I doubt Vader had any idea how far things would go, at least I did doubt that, until I heard Vader talk on an episode of Konnan’s podcast later in 2016. For what it’s worth, Vader himself told Konnan that he originally sent out his tweet largely to be a contrarian to all those he was seeing heaping praise on Ospreay and Ricochet. *CLIP K100*


Not one to take criticism quietly, Will Ospreay responded a day later, noting that he respects Vader, but didn’t appreciate what he said. According to Will in his Highspots interview, this tweet in particular offended him, and made him want nothing to do with Vader. Over the next few days he would also respond to positive comments from the likes of Jim Ross and Road Dogg, even at one point noting how he didn’t want to draw any attention to any of the negativity which was definitely out there also. He was however, playfully needling the legend by using the Vaderbomb in his matches in New Japan, and even using the hashtag Vader fears Ospreay.


Will was at the time developing a reputation for making the most out of what his critics said. To show you what I mean, in the following year Rip Rogers, another veteran and well regarded trainer in his own right, tweeted out a notes app rant about what he perceived to be every indie match, with one of the main criticisms being the repeated use of dives. This caught more attention when Randy Orton posted with apparent agreement, only accompanying Roger’s rant with “... Dive.” Ospreay wasn't about to let this go unchallenged, quickly having new merch made simply saying “... Dive” on it. This wouldn't be the last time Will would get into a public spat with a WWE roster member though.


On Vader’s side, he was very much up for debating the many fans who came back at him. While he had made the point that he thought Ospreay and Ricochet were talented, Vader still stood his ground on his point. He even responded to Will using the Vader bomb, accurately pointing out that it hits a bit differently when you're four hundred pounds. After what ended up being a few weeks of back and fourth between fans and each other, the two would begin to think about the prospect of having a match together.


The careers of both men


Before we go any further, let’s take a look at the careers of both Vader and Ospreay in mid 2016, as their paths were very different. Vader’s last match before this had been eleven months earlier at the Tulsa Oklahoma Fairgrounds. His opponents that night, the Steiner Brothers, who I imagine weren’t an easy night at the office even at their ages. The last time WWE audiences would have seen Vader was at the Hall of Fame ceremony earlier that year, where he inducted one of his most famous opponents, Stan Hansen. As far as I can tell, this might have been Vader’s final WWE appearance, only being inducted into the Hall of Fame himself in 2022, four years after his passing.



Weirdly, his last time wrestling on US television would be in June 2015 for Impact Wrestling, where he would face Bram, also known today as NWA’s Thomas Latimer. A few times, Vader would team up with his son Jesse White, who had been in WWE development for a while using the name Jake Carter. A match with someone on the up like Will Ospreay then might well have been what Vader wanted, to get the fans talking about him again, and maybe, the match might have stopped them complaining at him.


While you could say that Vader was on the downturn, certainly from his glory years, Will Ospreay was very much on his way up. He began the year as the champion of London based Progress Wrestling, a title that he won as part of a long built up storyline, and was his biggest up to that point. Well, that and being a two time Lucha Britannia World champion as the masked Dark Britannico. He would lose the Progress title in January to um, nah, not him. In early 2016 Ospreay also wrestled for Impact on their UK tour, and Evolve, making himself known to the US promotions already. On July 12th 2016, Will was present at an event put on by Inside the Ropes, the opening night of a speaking tour with guest Paul Heyman. On this night, in a clip that would make its way around online, Paul would call out Ospreay by name, and bring him onto the stage. Paul would present Ospreay with a contract that would make Evolve Wrestling his US home, that company having been founded by his former ECW employee Gabe Sapolsky. Ospreay was also promised that signing this contract would not affect his New Japan commitments. While this made for a fascinating moment, and it still is considering we’re looking at very much a WWE guy in Heyman, standing next to someone who has still never been there. Will had previously worked for Evolve earlier in the year on Wrestlemania weekend, but would only ever have one more match for them in 2018, electing to join Ring of Honor instead, who had a working agreement with New Japan.


Despite the Evolve offer, Ospreay’s biggest breakthrough had already happened not too long earlier, one that would eventually lead him to global recognition. On October 3rd 2015, Ospreay had wrestled Kazuchika Okada at Revolution Pro Wrestling’s Global Wars event. Rev Pro had a link with New Japan which still exists to this day, and this is how the match would take place. Okada, as well as Hiroshi Tanahashi who was also on the card that night, recommended the young Ospreay for New Japan, and he would make his in ring debut in April. If you’re curious Tanahashi would face Big Damo, the future Killian Dain that night who wouldn't receive such a recommendation. Just a few months later, Ospreay would take part in his first Best of the Super Juniors. Aye, that Best of the Super Juniors. Will would actually go on to win that year's tournament, but this has become a bit of a footnote to the waves that his match with Ricochet made.


How the match came to happen


On May 30th, after a few days of debating, Vader seemed to have had enough. He would tweet “it’s been a great three day holiday, let’s pretend this never happened.” If that's how things actually went down this video might be ending about now, don’t look at the run time. Over the next couple of weeks, Vader would continue to respond to fans. While there were some generally quite polite interactions, there were also a fair few rude ones as well. Admittedly, the discourse around the topic wasn’t exactly helping to calm things down. You also have to consider the personalities of the two people involved. As I noted Will wasn't one to back down, but neither was Vader. *CLIP not knowing when to stop*


According to Will Ospreay speaking in an interview with Highspots, he even says that he eventually had to block Vader, but the fans kept drawing his attention to Vader calling him out so much, that he had to unblock him to see what Vader was saying. He does note though, that he may have partaken in a bit of trolling too, not just using the Vader Bomb in matches, but allowing his opponents to kick out of it at one. Once the back an fourth had run it’s course, Ospreay says that Vader contacted Will himself, asking for an email. It was in a private exchange that Vader clarified that he had no real issue with Will, and he would ask for a match.


It’s hard to know when this actually took place as Will doesn’t specify, but publicly both men raised the possibility of a match on Twitter on June 17th 2016. Will is the first to tweet about it saying, “Just throwing it out there I would absolutely love to face Vader. People think I hate him but I don’t, I genuinely want this match.” Interestingly a lot of the replies seem to be all for it, remember that because it’ll become important. Later that day in Boulder Colorado, Vader offers a similar sentiment, tweeting “at this point I’m curious if you guys would pay to watch this match Ospreay vs Vader.” Coincidently, this happened to be the same day that Rev Pro promoter Andy Quildan sent Vader an initial email, presumably to the address Vader had been tweeting out days earlier. He also says that at this point he had already run it by Will, who was enthusiastic about the idea.


Realistically, this match seemingly could have taken place anywhere, as Will was very well travelled by this point, competing for at least twenty five promotions that year alone, and hardly any of them wouldn’t have booked a match with him vs Vader. Well, PWG maybe might not have booked Vader. The honour would eventually go to Rev Pro, as Ospreay had worked there since 2013, when the now thirteen year old company was just six months old. From Andy’s perspective, he’d booked a run of big events from York Hall, a dream match between Zack Sabre Junior and Kurt Angle in June, one of his biggest annual events Summer Sizzler in July where Zack would face Katsuyori Shibata, and now saw an opportunity to continue his momentum into August. He also saw an opportunity to take advantage of a trend that was going on at the time.


One interesting thing that Andy notes is that Vader had asked for what he called a “package deal”, which essentially means a rematch and potentially more down the road. On the same show where Vader vs Ospreay would happen, Andy also booked Ricochet against another British star on the rise who he wanted to build up as a heel. Enter Pete Dunne, who Ospreay had feuded with over the promotion’s Cruiserweight title. We’ll get into Andy's booking plans a bit more later, but looking to build his current roster off the back of the story, Andy was laying the groundwork for a potential tag team match of Ospreay and Ricochet against Vader and Dunne. Pete would even have a Vader style singlet made, which despite the tag match never happening, he would wear in the ring on indie shows. Dunne would introduce the singlet in the ring during a six man tag that Ospreay was also a part of in January 2017. Will would react by clocking him in the face. While Vader seemed to want a three match series, Andy had other ideas, especially once Vader actually arrived in the UK. In March 2024 on an episode of Talk is Jericho, Will Ospreay had a less polite way of wording it.


After several weeks of back and forth email between Andy and Vader, some of which he reads on his podcast, on XX it seems that Vader would get impatient with Andy. He would tweet this before the match could be officially announced.


On the morning of June 26th UK time, Rev Pro would officially announce the match for Uprising on August 12th, just six weeks away. While the replies to the initial tweet don’t seem all that critical, Andy doesn’t remember it that way at all. There were fans that were not only revolting against Rev Pro, but directing their complaints directly at Andy himself, openly telling him that they hoped the show would fail. There wasn't much hope of that though, with over a thousand one hundred tickets gone a month away from the show, and just ten left a couple of weeks before. By the night of Friday August 12th, every ticket for York Hall was gone.


Not all of the planning for the event was a success though. Andy talks in the podcast about wanting to plan a special event the day before, where Will and Vader would debate in person before the match, and fans would get a photograph in between the two. Shockingly, there wasn’t much demand for fans to stand next to Vader, who famously never washed his gear even in his more active days. While I’m joking, the real reason that the face to face was cancelled likely had something to do with it being announced only a couple of weeks before the show, with not a lot of time for fans to add it to their plans, on a weekday as well.


One more quite interesting thing that Andy talks about before getting to the night of the match are the conversations that he and Vader would have on the phone. Andy said that he and Vader would talk for hours, mainly about his long and varied career. Around this time, Mick Foley had written Vader a foreword for an autobiography that he was working on, and Vader was so proud of this, that he read it on the phone to Andy not once, but twice.


Killing any kayfabe that might have been left, he also says that Vader would compare Will Ospreay favourably to one of his greatest opponents, that being Sting. Vader had plenty of ideas for their match that were reminiscent of their classic matches in WCW. Andy also claims that Vader would in the lead up to the match send Andy photos of him training, with the intent of showing that he was getting into shape for the match. All of this fell through though when Andy received correspondence from the airline to the contrary, requesting a wheelchair for access in the airport. *CLIP chronicles 1:25) This brings me back to that package deal that Vader wanted for at least one return match. Andy Quildan would say that any potential plans for a future rematch would go out of the window once Vader arrived in the UK. It was very clear that Vader wouldn’t be able to do this, and was more physically limited than he let on.


And so we finally get to Uprising on August 12th 2016. The card was very much stacked, with Ricochet vs Dunne, Chris Hero in action against err, no still not him, and a British Heavyweight title match where Zack Sabre Junior defended against Jeff Cobb Mateo. Part of the intrigue of the night was always going to be what Vader looked like walking to York Hall. When Vader had wrestled for Impact a year earlier, he bore very little resemblance to the mastodon he used to be presented as. Andy tells us that not only did he attempt to get Vader to bring that fucking massive helmet he used to wear, but he also attempted to convince Vader to try his best to turn the clock back a bit. *CLIP helmet and gear*


So Andy says that Vader was walking around backstage looking the part, but was mortified when the man himself came through the curtain wearing a ragged t-shirt with holes, and even more so when the first thing he did was remove his famous mask. It didn’t matter to the twelve hundred in York Hall though, who gave Vader a monstrous reaction, and gave their local hero an equally fitting welcome.


The Match


Vader is the first man to enter to his WWE theme. From the moment we hear Vader’s voice at the start of the song shouting “It’s Vader Time,” loud chants of “Fuck you Vader” can also be heard. Ospreay doesn’t do his regular flashy entrance, choosing to pace right down the walkway to stare down his online rival. Vader requests the microphone as he would like to cut a promo, and if you look closely we can see Andy, who is also the ring announcer, turn him down initially. Vader is persistent though, and Andy relents, something that looking back he says he was happy about after hearing Vader. To be honest with you, I don’t blame Andy for his skepticism.


The prevailing opinion of most who saw the match, Andy included, seemed to be “Ospreay got him through it”, but what does that mean exactly? Before the match can even start the two have a tense staredown. The two begin fighting before the bell has rung, and when referee Chris Roberts tried to stop this, Vader shoves him down, meaning the match hasn’t actually started yet. This allows the action to spill out of the ring immediately, possibly even breaking Triple H and Undertaker’s record at Wrestlemania twenty-seven. Security tries to hold Vader back, which buys Ospreay some time to get a running start off the ramp, launching at Vader and what would become a pile of other blokes.


The two battle back up the walkway, and Vader chokeslams Ospreay off the ramp, and onto a platform at Andy Quildan’s feet at commentary. As Vader lurches back to the ring, medics check on Will, even putting him in a neck brace, teasing that the whole thing is over before it has a chance to begin. Despite all advice though, Ospreay throws the brace off and crawls to the ring. He pulls himself under the bottom rope, then to his feet, and the match officially starts.


The chaos before the bell allowed Vader to continue at his own pace while Will recovers from the previous attack. Ospreay takes a rather slow beatdown for a few moments, until he is able to come back with a handspring kick that the crowd roars for. He then hits a springboard off the top rope and nearly floors Vader. Interestingly given how this whole thing came to be, it takes Vader a fair while to go for his first pin attempt, which is Ironic really.


Vader argues with the referee’s count, leading Ospreay to dropkick him into the ref, knocking him down again. As Will climbs to the top rope, Pete Dunne’s music hits, and he attacks from the crowd. Pete levels Ospreay, and shakes Vader's hand as the crowd boo. This allows Ricochet to run in, coming to Will’s aid, and we even see the two double team Vader, which is a rather insane image when you think about it. The match is complete carnage at this point with Dunne and Ricochet brawling outside the ring, but the crowd are very much into it. Vader hits a chokeslam that Ospreay kicks out of at one, but he does not kick out of a second. Vader actually defeats Will Ospreay, but there are plenty of reasons why. To put it more accurately, Will Ospreay doesn’t lose the match, but Pete Dunne wins it for Vader. The show ends with Ricochet and Andy Quildan checking on Ospreay, while Pete Dunne helps his new Dad up the stairs of the entrance way.


It seemed to many curious that Vader would get the victory, but as you might expect, where’s a story to that. Andy claims that until the week of the event, Will Ospreay was supposed to win the match, but eventually Vader had other plans. *CLIP chron 1:27*.


Once Vader has left, and the crowd has finished chanting “that was bullshit”, Will Ospreay takes the microphone. He tells the crowd that he might have failed them, but he was coming for revenge against Dunne. He also makes time to also tell them not to expect a rematch, and given what he said on Jericho’s podcast years later, he clearly meant that. However you feel about the match, the fact that it was booked or the fact that Vader won, At least Rev Pro had the foresight to try and get Vader’s heat onto someone else, and use that to build to a later match down the road. A match that Vader didn’t have to be booked for.


Aftermath


After Uprising 2016, Will Ospreay’s career would continue to rise. Two weeks later Will would have another match with Pete Dunne, where he would retain his British Cruiserweight title. He would end the year with a very brief run as Ring of Honor television champion. A two day run in fact, winning and losing the title during an ROH UK tour. He would start 2017 by competing for the first time in the Tokyo Dome. At Wrestle Kingdom eleven he would along with Jado and Yoshi-Hashi, lose a match for the Never Openweight six man tag team titles. He would avenge the loss, and poor placement on the card by winning the Junior Heavyweight title in the dome the next year. Having won the 2016 Best of the Super Juniors, the next year Will would win his block, but lose in the final to Kushida. Later in the year though he would win a rematch, and his first title in New Japan, his first of three Junior Heavyweight titles.


But what of the rest of Vader’s time in the UK? On Andy’s podcast he goes into quite a bit of detail about some Comic Con appearances that were lined up. These were apparently set up with Steve Lynsky, a British referee who became Vader’s handler of sorts for the next leg of his tour. Vader would end up missing some of the dates he was advertised for, mainly because he and Steve never really got on.


On August 14th, two days after Uprising, Vader would actually wrestle a second match in England for XWA in Essex. On a night that also included many other wrestlers who would go on to work for WWE and some other pretty well known names too, Vader would defeat this bloke, Sid Scala.

.

The side feud between Vader and Sid Scala is an interesting one, in that was clearly and not even attempting to deny that it was latching on to the back of the original story. Scala, in character was attempting to cash in on the story, and would upload to social media a video of him approaching Will Ospreay outside York Hall on the day of Summer Sizzler. Sid tried to convince Will to merchandise some rather naff looking Vader masks, and he would continue this in more videos and on Twitter, which would eventually enrage Vader enough to want a match with him. Sid would continue to push the story in the name of profit, and Vader would reply in kind, threatening to get his hands on Scala, which he eventually would. This is as far as I can tell the only other Wrestling booking Vader had in the UK at this time.


Andy notes that after Vader missed some of the Comic Con dates, and trashed the hotel room he’d been staying in throughout, it was time for him to go back to Colorado a bit earlier than planned. Andy’s 2019 account of what happened as well as his brief retelling in 2025 are very entertaining listens, so I recommend you check them out yourselves with the link in the description. I’ve only played you the bits necessary to tell the story, but Andy goes into a lot more detail.


The story doesn’t quite end there for Vader and Rev Pro though, as the big man begins making claims that Andy, the company and Will Ospreay ripped him off. On October 22nd, Vader would take to Twitter to rant about Ospreay and Quildan, claiming that part of the deal they arranged was that he would receive the master taps to be able to sell in the US. In the podcast Andy is very dismissive of this claim. *CLIP Footage* He seems to be implying that he sent the match to Vader on WeTransfer or a similar site, which shows when the recipient has downloaded the file. Judging by many of the tweets I’ve shown in this video, Vader doesn’t seem the most computer literate, and so this may be a case of Andy fulfilling his end, but not in a way that Vader understood the deal to be.


EDITED


Ending


At the very start of the podcast, Andy explains that he has no regrets about the whole situation, but notes later on that he was ready for it to be done by the end. The phone conversations he and Vader had in the weeks leading up to the match really show a different side of the Mastadon than otherwise presented, until a Dark Side of the Ring episode in 2025 at least. In that documentary much was said of Vader’s crippling self confidence issues. He also says that Vader outright told him that he was lonely. It's hard to believe that a man known for being so imposing and monstrous would have such struggles, but Leon White evidently did, and there are stories to back this idea up. In his review of the episode, John Pollock of Post Wrestling shared his one interaction with Vader, around a telephone interview that was being set up. It seemed according to Pollock that Vader wanted absolute certainty that the interview would air, asking several times and demanding to know when it was set to come out.


Looking back many years later, Andy made a very interesting point that got me thinking. The match between Vader and Will Ospreay got people incredibly invested in who was going to win, and who would lose. There are a few more modern examples of this, like Cody trying to finish his story. Times like this where fans passionately care who wins and who loses feel really rare and special, but Ospreay and Vader created one.




Sources:

Ricochet on Ospreay matches, Highspots December 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM3IXwQq5Pw

Ospreay on Vader https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X3sqAGWdfk

https://www.highspots.tv/videos/hh-ospreay-download

Vader comments on Konnan’s podcast September 29th 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7D0zcJjmuY

Heyman event July 12th 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FspL2Gc3eHw

The Chronicles of Podcast, Revolution Pro Wrestling, April 4th 2025 (1:20) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvmGtTtjnlk

Vader XWA appearance https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2176792379274113&id=1426424384310920&set=a.1515687378717953

XWA Summer Supershow results https://wrestleropesuk.wordpress.com/2016/08/14/xwa-wrestling-the-summer-supershow-full-results/

Sid Scala Vader Hype https://www.facebook.com/SidScala/videos/savvy-sid-addresses-the-vader-controversy/547652105424050/

Scala feud https://wrestleropesuk.wordpress.com/2016/07/29/vader-furious-after-will-ospreay-is-offered-business-opportunity/

Ospreay 2024 comments https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/will-ospreay-vader-wanted-three-match-clause Audio Talk is Jericho 13th March 2024





Vader TL https://x.com/search?q=(from%3Aitsvadertime)%20until%3A2016-07-01%20since%3A2016-04-01&src=typed_query&f=live

Vader post match TL https://x.com/search?q=(from%3Aitsvadertime)%20until%3A2016-11-01%20since%3A2016-10-01&src=typed_query&f=live Andy TL https://x.com/search?q=(from%3AAQuildan)%20until%3A2016-08-20%20since%3A2016-06-20&src=typed_query&f=live

The Final Days of Sabu in ECW

 

A few months ago I made a video on this channel about Sabu being fired from ECW, and his entire run in WCW that followed in 1995. What I didn’t know at the time, is that there was nearly a return on the cards years later. While reading an old Wrestling Observer for another video, I fell down yet another wrestling rabbit hole, and I learned a lot about how one of ECW's most memorable legends ended up leaving the company for the last time. I thought I’d make a sequel of sorts, and so this video is about what happened.




The story starts at ECW Guilty as Charged on January 9th 2000, where in one of the key matches of the night, Sabu would lose to Rob Van Dam near the end of his epic Television title reign. Earlier in the broadcast, Sabu’s manager Bill Alfonso claimed on the famously mute Sabu’s behalf, “I guarantee if Sabu doesn’t beat Rob Van Dam, he’ll grab his bags and walk out tonight.” As Sabu lost, many thought we had seen the last of him, but as Joel Gertner and Joey Styles explained on the following week’s TNN episode, it was never specified that he would leave the company, only that he would “walk out”, but walk out on who? Rob Van Dam certainly didn’t think this, telling us in a promo that Sabu shouldn’t have gambled his career against RVD, muddying the waters even more.




A week later on TNN, the lights would go out in the arena, and when they came back on, Sabu would appear in the ring. He was seemingly there to side with RVD against the World champion Mike Awesome. This wouldn’t be the case though, as he would turn on Van Dam, attacking him and even putting their shared manager Bill Alfonso through a table, walking out on their long and complicated friendship, I mean sort of friendship. We would later find out in the January 24th Wrestling Observer that the talk of Sabu walking out was a Paul Heyman suggestion, didn't intend for this to imply that Sabu was retiring, or even leaving ECW. This part smells of bullshit, as Paul was clearly being intentionally vague with the phrase “walk out”, trying to make the fans think that Sabu might be leaving. Unbeknownst to even Heyman at this point, Sabu soon would be leaving.




In the same issue, Dave Meltzer claims that Sabu hadn’t been happy with his role in ECW for quite some time. “Sabu, who is 36, is unhappy because it’s clear he can no longer be the star of the company and his role on PPVs is largely to put people over.” Interestingly, a few weeks before Dave wrote this, Wade Keller in the Pro Wrestling Torch noted that “At age 36, Sabu is the oldest wrestler in ECW. Awesome is near the top of the list at 34.” His record on pay per view wasn't too bad though. Despite Sabu recently losing to RVD, as well as Justin Credible and Taz in ‘99, he also beat Chris Candido, and was undefeated on pay per view in ‘98, apart from a draw with Van Dam. That's three losses and a draw in his last eight pay per views, but he still wasn’t in the main event position that he used to be in.




A few days later, ECW would suffer some bad news as two of it’s top babyfaces would go down with injuries. Jerry Lynn had hurt his ankle, and the TV champion Rob Van Dam would break his fibula, leading both to be away for roughly eight weeks. Surely not a great time to lose another top star, but Paul Heyman was about to. His original main event for the upcoming Living Dangerously pay per view was reported to be Sabu and Mike Awesome versus Van Dam and Masato Tanaka. Not that Paul knew it at the time, but he was soon to lose Awesome to WCW as well.




Sabu’s last appearances on ECW television would be on the January 28th TNN episode and the day after on Hardcore TV. On TNN he would attack RVD from behind, building to the Living Dangerously match Paul was aiming towards, but would never happen, and the night after he would defeat CW Anderson in the main event of the episode. During the match, he attacks Anderson’s manager Lou. E Dangerously, whose gimmick was that he impersonated Paul Heyman, and tried to put him through a table but CW moved him out of the way. I wonder what that could have meant. The last sight of Sabu on ECW television is him pinning Anderson after a ropey looking Triple Jump Moonsault where he appeared to low blow himself on CW’s knee. Much like the Lou E. bit, this too felt quite ironic. The week after these matches were taped, Sabu would wrestle Spike Dudley on a house show in St. Petersburg Florida. By this point Sabu may have had enough, or may have seen an opportunity to improve his position in ECW.




WCW




In a 2022 interview with James Romero, Sabu claims that around this time he was approached by Kevin Sullivan and JJ Dillon from WCW. He calls this a Secret meeting, and says about this, “my thinking was I was going to go to WCW, make a buttload of money, then go back to ECW and pick up where I left off. But when I went there somebody seen me and called Paul.” I’m sure this isn’t what he means, but the idea of him sneaking in a WCW run with Paul not noticing was hilarious to me. He later explains that he was meeting with WCW “underhandidly”, but says “my intention was to come back stronger than I was. I could come back with a bigger name and I could carry the company better.” This isn’t much of a spoiler, but Paul Heyman wouldn’t see it this way. The following week’s Observer has a lot more to say about Sabu potentially leaving ECW. A full story details how he had “agreed to a deal on 2/2 with WCW after talks between the two sides had been going on for at least several days, prompting threats of a lawsuit by Paul Heyman and ECW.” Paul was claiming that he had Sabu signed to a contract that lasted until January 2003, which may have been true, but as the Torch explains, “Sabu told WCW officials that ECW had breached his contract on several occasions, therefore, he considered himself a free agent.” Wade Keller goes on to explain the possible issue with Sabu’s belief of this, saying that if Sabu believed his contract had been breached, he was required to provide this in writing, and allow ECW ninety days to rectify the dispute. If more of Paul’s top talent had a similar rule in their contracts, this might explain in part at least, why so many wrestlers stayed with ECW while being owed growing amounts of money. That 90 day part feels like a way for Paul to buy himself some time in financial disputes, and to be clear that’s just me speculating and not anything I’ve read anywhere. It doesn’t sound from any source I’ve read like Sabu put his grievance in writing, and so Paul had him there.




In the same story Keller notes that “WCW wants Sabu to start on the Feb. 14 Nitro because they believe they can showcase him on a show which will be unopposed by Raw.” This edition of Raw was pre-empted by the Westminster Dog Show, and so would have allowed Nitro to air unopposed. Dave Meltzer goes on to note that they even had Sabu pencilled him in for a match at that week’s SuperBrawl pay per view against the Kiss Demon, but Paul Heyman began legal talks on the 7th that halted this. If you’re wondering, the Demon would have to settle for a match against the WALL BROTHER!!! “Heyman on 2/7 said that he was willing to sell his rights to Sabu’s contract to WCW since there is really is no upside to his returning to the company at this point. But he said he wouldn’t simply let him go without something in return, and if no settlement was made, threatened a temporary restraining order against both Brunk and WCW to keep him from appearing on the show as well as threatened a lawsuit and a complaint to the justice department over a contract tampering charge.”




On top of all of this, both newsletters note a part of Sabu’s personal life that may also have prevented him from debuting on Nitro when WCW wanted him to. “Sabu's mother, with whom he is especially close, suffered two heart attacks last week. Sabu has spent nearly every minute of his time by her side ever since and may not be mentally ready to wrestle.” The Torch would report a few weeks later that Sabu’s Mother would leave the hospital feeling better, but still with some health issues. On February 11th 2000 Rob Van Dam, who might have been feuding with Sabu on TV but was close with him in real life, would on a call with Slam Wrestling make some interesting comments about what Sabu’s priorities might actually have been. “I’ve talked to Sabu and honestly, he is going through some personal stuff at home right now with his mother being sick. His mother is not doing well right now. She’s in the hospital. And, when I talked to Sabu it’s really not even about business.” Later on when discussing the idea that Sabu leaving will hurt ECW, RVD says “It’s not going to do us in or anything like that. Right now, I don’t even think it’s the most important thing on his mind.” With these comments, Van Dam is implying that Sabu’s mother might well have been his incentive to make that buttload of money that I mentioned earlier, though in nothing I have read is this ever explicitly said.




A week later, it seems that Paul got his way, and Sabu would not be going to WCW afterall. “at this point it appears he won’t even be coming in and his future in the U.S. is temporarily in question. WCW was forced to drop all plans with him due to his contract with ECW, in particular the clause which calls for a filing both with Paul Heyman and with the court in Westchester County in any claim of a breach. WCW in a letter to Heyman said that they have no interest in buying out his contract.” The interesting part there is Dave claiming that Sabu’s future in the US is in doubt. This is because as he later notes, the whole situation seems to have soured Paul on Sabu, who he had fired once before in 1995. “Heyman had indicated to many that he wasn’t interested in using Brunk any longer, but with his own promotion devastated by injuries, that could change.”




Before I leave the subject of WCW, this whole story got me wondering what a Sabu return in 2000 might have looked like? It’s worth noting that the World Championship Wrestling that Sabu was briefly a part of in ‘95, was a very different place to the way the company was in 2000. The nWo wasn’t even a thing yet, and now it was on it’s fortieth iteration. Vince Russo was in creative now. As far as I can tell, Russo may have worked with Sabu in the TNA Asylum years but never for a prolonged period. Perhaps more importantly, by this time WCW had a Hardcore championship, which I’m willing to bet is where Sabu would have ended up on the card. He would likely have been having classics with the likes of Screaming Norman Smiley and Brian Knobbs, or maybe if we were lucky, the entirety of Three Count. Sabu was part of some of the early episodes of Nitro, and if things had played out differently, he could have been on the last ones as well.




FInal Days with ECW




On February 25th and 26th 2000, Sabu would wrestle what became his final weekend of matches for the company on a house show tour of Ohio. First on the Friday, he would defeat Mikey Whipwreck in Toledo, and on the night after in Cincinnati, he would win against Scott D’Amore, who was still an active wrestler at this point. Both were described in the Observer as bad matches, perhaps an indicator of where Sabu’s head was at. As a side note, this would be one of two matches that Scott D’Amore would have for ECW, as on the night before in Toledo he would lose to Chilly Willy. Aye, I’d forgotten him too.




The Torch claimed after Sabu's first weekend back that everything was not resolved though. “Locker room speculation is that Paul Heyman is waiting for Sabu to breech his contract by either no-showing an event or refusing a match finish. Those who know confirm that is the case and say that if either event occurs, Heyman will immediately file a legal complaint.” Sabu would work the weekend with no issues, made easier by Paul Heyman not being at the Toledo event, and he was next advertised for a show at the ECW arena on March 4th. The Torch also notes that the creative plans for a team with Mike Awesome had been dropped, and we would later find out that Sabu’s next feud was set to be against a man who the Observer claimed was being set up to replace Sabu, Super Crazy.




On March 11th, The Torch would report that Sabu was finally done in ECW. Wade Keller explains that Sabu had been allowed to miss the March 3rd show, a TV taping in Asbury Park New Jersey to look after his Mother, but later found out that he had taken an indie booking in Calgary, and was claiming that he couldn’t get to the next show on time. “After arguing the issue with Paul Heyman, Sabu told Heyman that he would only come to the show if ECW were to pay to have former ECW referee, Pee Wee Moore (real name, John Marx), flown in to act as Sabu's witness.” The company would refuse to do this, so Sabu would bring Pee Wee there himself.




Later in the night, a conversation is said to have taken place where Sabu disagreed with his creative. “Heyman handed Sabu a script for his match which was signed and dated and went over the plans with him. The script called for Sabu to interfere in the Super Crazy vs. C.W. Anderson match, and for the match to become a three-way involving Sabu. Sabu was supposed to pin Anderson, but lose to Crazy after missing a table spot. Sabu shook Heyman's hand, thanked him, and then quietly grabbed his gear and left the building.” At this point, Paul Heyman washed his hands of Sabu, claiming he would never work for ECW again. As Wade notes, he had said that about many other talents, but that people were convinced that he meant it this time. “Heyman feels he made a good faith effort to work things out with Sabu, even after Sabu signed a deal with WCW while under ECW contract. Heyman wants to set a precedent with Sabu, letting other wrestlers know that they will not be able to walk out on their contracts. Sabu would still like to sign with WCW, but Heyman is telling people he will not allow that to happen.” As best I can tell, Sabu remained under contract with ECW, leaving his status to work elsewhere in the US in question.




For what it’s worth, Dave Meltzer published a more cynical take on what happened, noting that nobody else in ECW was ever presented with a script like Sabu was on March 4th, and this was likely done should more legal back and forth take place. He also implies that Heyman expected to get the reaction that he did out of Sabu. “It’s pretty clear that Heyman knew ahead of time that Sabu would never put over Crazy because Sabu is stuck in that Ed Farhat mentality about doing jobs, and he feels he’s done enough of them.” One thing that is unclear in the Observer much like in the Torch was Sabu’s contractual status, whether Sabu was fired or if Heyman kept him under contract. One thing is for sure though, Heyman wasn’t going to let him out of his deal to go to World Championship Wrestling.




So if Sabu didn’t re-join WCW, or even go to WWF, where did he work? In April he would debut for ECW’s west coast rival Xtreme Pro Wrestling. He would make his first appearance at And Then There Was Four on April 15th, failing to win the XPW World title in a three way dance against Shane Douglas and the champion Chris Candido, a match he was a late addition to. Two weeks later on April 29th, with the title being vacated when Candido signed with WCW, Sabu would win a one night tournament to become their new World champion. Sabu would defeat Daniam Steele, Kronus and the Messiah to win the title, and he would hold it for over a year before being stripped of it for no-showing an event. While he would return to FMW and All Japan, and wrestle on some indies, XPW seemed to be his main promotion in the US, at least until the early days of TNA, where he would also appear sporadically.




All of this took place during an already difficult time for ECW, with several top wrestlers readying to leave, a bad relationship with TNN soon to end, and Paul’s new crop of main eventers not quite ready to take the top spots yet. Paul had to be feeling the pressure, and no doubt didn’t need another of his top talents appearing on Nitro. It seems that it took a while for the two to make amends, as Sabu claims in the James Romero interview that Heyman would block Sabu being a part of the Invasion storyline in 2001. Sabu says “I was on bad terms with Paul, and Vince was talking to Paul and he wasn’t talking to me.” He goes on to say that he almost wasn’t on the first One Night Stand event in 2005 where he would wrestle Rhino, perhaps replacing Rob Van Dam who was injured.




While Sabu didn’t have the best of endings in ECW, to this day twenty five years later, he is one of the names that is most associated with the promotion. As I’ve shown in this and my last video about Sabu, he also had one of the most turbulent relationships with the company, and with Paul Heyman, but there’s really no denying his legacy. While others went on to be WWE Superstars, other wrestlers you look at and memories of ECW come flooding back to mind, and Sabu is one of those, maybe the best of those.







Sources:

WON Jan 24th 00 Sabu not happy and Van Dam stip https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/january-24-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-wcw-souled-out-review/

PWTorch January 8th 00 Sabu’s age https://members.pwtorch.com/torchbackissues00/torch583/T583ECWNews.html

WON Feb 7th 00 RVD and Lynn injuries https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/february-7-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-radicalz-debut-wwf-rock/

WSI interview, 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTvLMbxQySA

PWTorch Feb 12 00 Torch Full story https://members.pwtorch.com/torchbackissues00/torch588/T588WCWNews.html

WON Feb 14th 00 Full story https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/february-14-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-vince-mcmahon-announces/

PWTorch Feb 28th Sabu’s Mother follow up https://members.pwtorch.com/torchbackissues00/torch590/T590ECWNews.html

Slam Wrestling Feb 11 00 RVD comments on Sabu’s Mother https://slamwrestling.net/index.php/2000/02/11/sabu-departure-downplayed/

PWTorch Feb 19 00 Sabu not going, Pauls comments https://members.pwtorch.com/torchbackissues00/torch589/T589ECWNews.html ADD THIS IN

WON Feb 21st 00 Sabu not going to WCW https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/february-21-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-1999-attendence-numbers/?

PWTorch Mar 4th Sabu back in ECW https://members.pwtorch.com/torchbackissues00/torch592/T592ECWNews.html

PWTorch Mar 11th Sabu walks out https://members.pwtorch.com/torchbackissues00/torch593/T593ECWNews.html

WON Mar 13th Daves take on Sabu walking out https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/march-13-2000-wrestling-observer-newsletter-beyond-mat-controversy-new/

The Full Story of the Public Enemy's WWE run in 1999

 

I’ve talked on this channel before about wrestlers that were synonymous with one promotion being plugged into another and the results being not what the fans had hoped. For every Rob Van Dam who thrived in his new setting post ECW, there’s a Sandman, who described the experience of working for WWE as Soul Sucking. While Sandman managed to last a little over a year, even getting inexplicably drafted to Raw, another ECW act that didn’t fair too well on Monday Nights lasted just two months. That act is the Public Enemy, one of the highlights of the early days of ECW, who didn’t quite thrive elsewhere.




In this video, We’ll look at the Public Enemy’s run in WWE in 1999. We’ll look at their path to get there, what happened and how it all went wrong.

I’m going to be skipping over the details of their ECW and WCW runs, as this video is far too long as it is. For this video I wanted to focus on their time in WWF, and I found a few matches early on that you might not know about, and there are timestamps downstairs if you want to skip to that.




Making Enemies




Ted Petty made his name as the Flyboy, but he was actually older than you might think. His in-ring career began in 1978 when he was twenty-five, making him forty years old when he started with ECW. Having been trained by Afa of the Wild Samoans, Petty began his career as the masked Cheetah Kid. He would wrestle using the Tiger Mask inspired gimmick for New Japan Pro Wrestling, and Herb Abrhams’ UWF among others. In 1990 he would have a brief run in WCW as Colonel DeKlerk, teaming with Sergeant Krueger, also known as Ray Apollo, one of the men to play Doink the Clown. Krueger and DeKlerk competed on television, and even appeared on a Clash of the Champions special and that year’s Starrcade as part of the Pat O’Connor International tag team tournament, but Petty would be gone from WCW by the end of the year following a disastrous match where the Steiners didn’t exactly get along in the ring with Apollo or Petty.




As the Cheetah Kid, Petty would wrestle a couple of enhancement matches for WWE in early 1993 against Johnny Rotten, soon to be his new tag team partner. One such match occurred on January 11th 1993 at the Manhattan Center in New York, as a dark match before the first ever episode on Monday Night Raw.




Michael Durham, later known as Johnny Rotten, then Johnny Grunge, was twelve years younger than his tag team partner, and would enter wrestling nearly a decade later. He would do a fair bit of enhancement work for WWE in 1990 using his real name, and would also wrestle for the UWF as Equalizer Zap, but as best I can tell, not at the same time as the Cheetah Kid. According to Johnny Grunge’s obituary in the Wrestling Observer, he and Rocco Rock met Paul Heyman in 1993, when Heyman was booking a tour in the Philippines that both wrestled on.




On September 18th 1993, Paul Heyman first took over as booker of ECW. On that same night the Public Enemy would make their debut. The team can be thought of as Paul’s first project, as he put the team together, and the gimmick was his creation. “The idea was to have two white hoodies who were extremely violent. He gave them an interview tag line, “We are the first generation of American children more afraid of living than dying.” This line was apparently inspired by a Newsweek article that Paul had read, “about the cultural changes taking place in America, and about the problems for young men in places like South Central in Los Angeles and Washington Heights in New York.” In the 2006 book called the Rise and Fall of ECW, Paul is quoted as saying that they weren’t named Public Enemy after the rap group, but The Public Enemy, after the 1931 James Cagney film. I believe this is commonly known as a “legal distinction”.




It’s no overstatement to say that the Public Enemy were one of the most important acts in ECW’s early years. When Rocco Rock passed away in 2002, his obituary in the Wrestling Observer said that “they were the face of the promotion during the period it started being put on the map with regular sellouts of the ECW Arena and popularizing the three-way dance concept.” When the company dropped Eastern from it’s name and went Extreme, the catalyst was Shane Douglas’ infamous promo where he threw down the NWA World title, but The Public Enemy were part of an equally iconic visual. On the August 30th 1994 episode of Hardcore TV, the same episode where Douglas’ promo aired, the broadcast would end with Rock and Grunge vandalizing the ECW logo banner, crossing out the word ‘Eastern’ and spray painting ‘Extreme’ on it. This banner would stay on the programme as a visual representation that you weren’t watching the old NWA Eastern Championship Wrestling anymore.




WWE tryout




On November 19th 1995, at Survivor Series no less, The Public Enemy would compete in a dark match against the then tag team champions, the Smoking Guns. This was essentially a tryout match, in front of a pay per view crowd, against a top tag team. “Called Public Enemy (they wouldn’t have used that handle had the match been televised), it was described to us as an unimpressive almost-squash like warm-up match. They got a great reaction by the ECW fans at the show, but most of the fans didn’t react to them nor know who they were.” While some might think that this was a tryout of sorts, Dave Meltzer seems to have thought differently. He says “it was a one-shot deal and not a sign they’d made the decision to go to WWF. From what we’re told, they are strongly leaning toward WCW and that the final decision should be made this week.”




As alluded to earlier, it’s highly unlikely that in New Generation WWF they would have been able to keep their name and gimmick, and they certainly wouldn’t have been putting anyone through tables, so if they were going to keep this in a bigger promotion, WCW might have been the way to go. The two would debut on the January 15th episode of Nitro, defeating the American Males. They would briefly hold the tag team titles once later in the year, and stay around until August ‘98, last losing to the Dancing Fools, Disco Inferno and Alex Wright.




Having not been seen on WCW events in months, The Public Enemy would be quietly released from the company. So quietly that it wouldn’t be reported until November. “Public Enemy and Ultimo Dragon have been dropped from the roster. PE has contacted ECW about returning and it wouldn’t be surprising if they went back for the short-run against the Dudleys, but long run is questionable.” The Pro Wrestling Torch also notes in November that their contracts were due to expire in January. If they hadn’t been used since August and this was reported in November, it very much seems like the writing was on the wall for them. A couple of weeks later it would seem that ECW was teasing an altercation between ECW’s first and current top tag teams. On the November 21st Hardcore TV, the Dudley’s fifth ECW tag title reign which had begun on November 6th had broken the previous record held by Grunge and Rocco. By the time the Public Enemy would return in January, Bubba and D-Von would no longer be champions having lost to Rob Van Dam and Sabu, but the Observer still noted that “Public Enemy themselves are hoping more to be picked up by WWF, and anything is possible, but since WWF already has the Oddities, I can’t see it.” That comparison doesn’t sound the most flattering, and it is probably a sign of what’s to come. Incidentally, the Oddities would break up following a beatdown by the Ministry on February 28th, meaning that they and Public Enemy overlapped by about a week. Mystic Dave might have had a point there.




ECW Return




On January 16th ‘99, Public Enemy would return to ECW at House Party. It took so long for them to arrive because they had disagreed on money as Dave reported in December. Leading up to House Party, Bubba Ray Dudley had laid out a challenge on ECW TV. Them vs Public Enemy feels like a meeting of two era’s of the company in a way. House Party wasn’t supposed to be a one off, “although it isn’t decided which shows or for how long, as nothing is locked.”




With the heavily teased return of the Public Enemy, as well as the ECW arena debut of Sid, who had made his first appearance for the company a week earlier at Guilty as Charged, the ECW arena was said to be fully sold out with seventeen hundred fans there. The show was heavily delayed, as “Sid missed his flight and didn’t arrive at the airport until close to 11 p.m.” Another way they stalled the show was by teasing that Public Enemy weren’t showing up. To begin the show, their music would play, only for Danny Doring and Roadkill to come out instead. Later in the night the Dudleys had a segment in the ring where they told the crowd that Grunge and Rock weren’t coming. As Sid was so late to the building, he ended up having the last match of the night against Skull Von Krush, and after that the Dudleys would return to the ring to goad the fans even more.




Bubba and D-Von returned dressed as Rocco and Grunge to swerve the fans. Eventually, ‘Here Comes the HotStepper” would play, and the Public Enemy would run out. When this aired on the January 30th Hardcore TV, we would see a brief glimpse of them taking on the Dudleys, then the show would end. On the House Party ‘99 home video release, a former rival of Public Enemy who was now feuding with the Dudleys, New Jack would bring a can full of weapons and even the odds. There wasn’t a match as such, more of a wild brawl that Public Enemy came out on top of. To end the night, Johnny Grunge tells the crowd that it’s good to be home, and professes the team's love for ECW. According to the following Observer, “Public Enemy will be doing some dates including Detroit this week and almost surely wrestling Dudleys, but they won’t be regulars at this point.”




As we got into February, it still seemed like Grunge and Rock were sticking around for a while longer. They appeared on the Detroit event on January 23rd, and had another fight with the Dudleys which would air on February 6th, sort of. Only small parts of this fight would air, and the reason for this might have been revealed in the Observer, as the report Dave published claims that the crowd weren’t into the segment, and it all went to pot when Johnny Grunge no-sold the 3D, a highly protected move at the time. Dave also notes that all according to plan, Public Enemy were set to appear at Living Dangerously in March, but that would end up not happening.




A note from the Pro Wrestling Torch might explain a bit why the Public Enemy didn’t stay all too long in their second run, as Wade Keller that they had been disappointed with the reaction they received at House Party. “Although they got a good pop for their Jan 16 return to ECW, when they went into the crowd to dance, only about one-third of the fans waved their arms with them. A lot of fans who attend ECW Arena aren’t the same who were there over two years ago last time TPE headlined. Those who remain from that era may not forgive TPE for becoming a comedy jobber team in WCW.“ Wade also added that Heyman’s main goal for them at this point was to use them to help build the Dudley’s more, and they likely knew this.




A week later, it would be reported in the Observer that Public Enemy might be WWE bound after all. “The WWF has offered them a contract to start at television imminently. They had originally looked for work from the WWF when their WCW deal expired, but were turned down, but Terry Taylor came up with an idea for them and they were then offered a contract last week.” Remember that last part for later about an idea being had for them when we get to what they actually did in WWE. The Torch offered more information on them going to WWE, saying “They were backstage at Raw on Monday and on Tuesday were in Stamford, Conn. to sign the actual contract – a downside guarantee said to be in the $125,000 to $175,000 range.” The next week it was reported that they had in fact signed, with a quite interesting tidbit about their name. “Paul Heyman actually owns the rights to the name Public Enemy for pro wrestling purposes (I know that nobody believed that one, but the WWF checked it out and it turned out to be true) but allowed WCW to use the name.”




Wade Keller notes that they left ECW on bad terms, as Paul Heyman had hoped they would stay at least until Living Dangerously for a match with the Dudleys where you would guess that the Dudley’s would win. “Heyman had a heated conversation with Johnny Grunge the day before the show when Grunge informed him they didn’t plan to show up. Heyman supposedly said he wouldn’t forget them “walking out on him”” For weeks afterwards, the Dudleys would continue to bury the Public Enemy, which obviously was going to lead nowhere.




Attitude Adjustment




The Public Enemy would make their televised WWE debut at a Raw Taping on February 16th ‘99. During their time as Superstars, they would wrestle just seven matches on television, and we’re going through all of them here. In match number one which aired on February 22nd ‘99, Rocco and Grunge would make their unannounced entrances, and wrestle Edge and Gangrel of the Brood. Before the bell even rings the Brood go on the attack. Not a single tag happens in the entire bout, with referee Mike Choida at one point reaching a five count and just deciding not to DQ anyone. Public Enemy hit some good looking double team moves until Christian runs in, giving Public Enemy the DQ win. Before the segment can end, Grunge and Rocco are the victims of a Brood bloodbath, and the crowd are barely alive for any of it. Dave Meltzer was a little less kind to this than I’m being. “Didn’t take long for PE to look bad. They don’t take bumps, Grunge has put on even more weight, and both looked real slow. They got no reaction.” In the Torch, despite an equally negative review, Wade speculated if a match between the Public Enemy and the Brood was being planned for Wrestlemania fifthteen, and honestly there was probably less chance of that than the Dudleys match happening.




In their next match which would air on February 28th, Public Enemy would defeat a team on the rise in the Hardy Boyz. While Matt and Jeff weren’t much of anything at the start of ‘99, they would be well on their way to becoming huge stars by the end of the year. Very early in the match the Brood would stand on the stage watching. Mid match, Public Enemy would put Matt through a table with a move I don’t think anybody would want to have to take, as the weight of both Rocco and Grunge crashed onto him, then they would pin Matt, and the Brood would attack afterwards. The whole match would again last two minutes, quite long for the attitude era, and at least this one ended with by pinfall.




The next night on the March 1st Raw, Public Enemy didn’t wrestle but it was becoming clear where they stood against the Brood. The team came out to the Broods music dressed up as them, which seemed to be a pretty common trope in the 90’s. Public Enemy would take the microphone, and tell us that they aren’t afraid, and as if that were their cue, the lights would go out in the arena. When they came back on, Rocco Rock had disappeared. Later in the night we find out what happened to Rocco. While the cameraman was running back into the building following a wild brawl outside, we very briefly see Rocco strung up, covered in blood, while Johnny Grunge yells into the void for help. After taking two beatdowns already and having just told us they weren’t scared this didn’t help their image much. Their Public image, never mind.




Next, Public Enemy would have their most infamous match in WWE. On the March 7th Sunday Night Heat episode, they would face the Acolytes. To make things worse, this match would actually take place in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, right in ECW country, on the same night that Kurt Angle would make an appearance while he was still in training. The brief match resembles an absolute mauling, with Bradshaw and Farooq not letting Public Enemy get anything in. Bradshaw even breaks a chair outside the ring on Johnny Grunge’s back, as Farooq drops the stairs on Rocco. After Bradshaw puts Gunge through a table and swings the now broken chair a few more times, the referee finally calls for the bell. Kevin Kelly and Tom Prichard on commentary try to explain that the Undertaker had ordered the Acolytes to do this on the behalf of the Brood, and they question if we’ll ever see the Public Enemy again.




On a 2019 episode of Something to Wrestle, Bruce Prichard explains that right before the four men were due to walk through the curtain, the Public Enemy refused to go through a table, which was the planned finish of the match. Given how tied to putting others through tables the Public Enemy were, I found this explanation a little odd, but Bruce doubles down by claiming that they could dish it out but couldn’t take it. When challenged by Conrad, Bruce even condones what the Acolytes did, saying that Rocco and Grunge weren’t cooperating, and implying that a mauling is what they deserved for it.




For what it’s worth, the PWTorch gave a similar version of events at the time. “Public Enemy disputed the planned finish of them doing a job against The Acolytes at the Mar. 2 Raw taping. To send PE, who are new to the WWF, a message about such protests, Bradshaw and Faarooq wrestled an overly stiff match and didn’t give PE any offense at all (Bradshaw was especially upset, and he’s the wrong guy to be on the wrong side of). When PE returned to the back after the match, Rocco tried to save face by saying the match was easy.” In March 2024, JBL would note on Twitter that he never actually found out why Public Enemy refused to do the finish, or what their idea was. By the looks of it when you watch this match, he didn’t take all that much time to ask.




In August 2021, Bradshaw on his podcast with Gerald Brisco discussed the match with it’s referee, Jim Korderas. JBL’s side of things, and remember this is Bradshaw talking, is that Public Enemy refused the finish right as their music was playing and they went through the curtain, so when he and Farooq followed, they weren’t sure what was to follow, but assumed it would be a fight. One final note from this match comes from an issue of the Torch weeks later, as it is noted that a former ECW colleague of the Public Enemy objected to what the Acolytes had done. “Mick Foley spoke out in the locker room against the Acolytes retaliation. He considered it unprofessional.” It’s very bold of Mick to speak against such behaviour and have no receipt come back to him, ah. To be clear I have no idea if this is related, and Mankind defeats the Acolytes quite a lot in that year.




On the following week's episode of Heat on March 14th, Michael Cole attempted to interview the Public Enemy. He tells them that it seems like none of the other wrestlers want them in WWE, and just as Rocco begins to address this, the Brood attack again, leading to a pull-apart brawl. Here begins the new story for the team, where wrestlers, and later officials would openly show disgust towards them. The problem is, it doesn't feel like just a storyline. “People are already talking of the hiring of Public Enemy as being a mistake. Johnny Grunge, in particular, just looks totally out of his league in the WWF. If you watch the Heat match against the Acolytes, both guys, Bradshaw in particular, was stiffing them left and right on spots. Some of the stuff Bradshaw was throwing was really brutal. Apparently this was meant as a message and was condoned by those in charge” Remember earlier when I told you that Terry Taylor had got them hired with an idea in mind, I imagine this wasn’t it.




Fourth on the list is the team’s second and last match on Raw, and they would lose a tag team championship match against Owen Hart and Jeff Jarrett in a couple of minutes. This match is notable for two things, firstly the reveal before it of hell Jim Ross’ own personal announce table in front of Michael Cole and Jerry Lawler. This is a subject for a whole other time, but a quite funny idea, executed far better than the Cole Mine years later. Secondly, the end of the match comes when Jeff Jarrett right in front of referee Mike Chioda decks Johnny Grunge with a guitar. Mike turns around, literally looking the other way, and turns back to count the pin. Michael Cole even makes the point that it should have been a DQ, and Lawler responds that it looks like the referees don’t want Public Enemy in the company any more than the wrestlers do. It seems that art may have been imitating life here as Dave elaborates, “The angle that nobody wants them in WWF stems from the idea that many believe signing them was a bad idea to begin with, and it has nothing to do with where they came from and everything to do with the fact they stand out like a sore thumb in their matches.”




If you were under any illusion as to where the Public Enemy stood in WWE, on March 28th on the Sunday Night Heat that took place before Wrestlemania fifthteen they were entered into a battle royal to determine who would challenge for the tag team titles on the main show. As soon as the match begins, everyone else in the ring teams up to throw Public Enemy out first, with the makeshift team of D’Lo Brown and Test getting the match later on. This would be the closest the Public Enemy would ever get to a match on Wrestlemania, and again they were buried in Philadelphia where they first got popular in ECW.




Rock and Grunge’s final two matches for WWE would take place on Shotgun Saturday Night, a clear sign that things aren’t going too well. On April 3rd, they would lose a four team bout along with DOA members Skull and 8-Ball, more famously known as the Harris Brothers, and the Hardys, to the winners Brian Christopher and Scott Taylor, known at this time as Too Much. At over six minutes, this would be the longest match they would ever have for the company, but only technically. Throughout the match no other team would let them tag in, with Too Much openly mocking them in the ring. The end comes when Public Enemy finally do get in the ring, and are piled on by all the other wrestlers. Because Scott Taylor is the one at the bottom of the pile, which is to say he pinned them first, Too Much are declared the winners.




FInally, Public Enemy would have their last match for the company on April 10th ‘99, losing to the Hardys. This is very much the closest thing Public Enemy have in WWE to a regular tag team match that is given some time. I say almost, because the end comes when the Public Enemy decide to put Jeff through a table, leading to a DQ win for the Hardys. Johnny Grunge seems almost annoyed at this, perhaps thinking that they might not get DQ’d, which seemed strange at first, but in their first match they had put Matt through a table and weren't disqualified then. The rules, it seems, applied to them more than they had before. Kevin Kelly and Terry Taylor on commentary note that the Public Enemy seem to be taking a stand against being singled out by the locker room. I wonder how that would go?




A couple of days later on April 12th at a TV taping in Grand Rapids Michigan, Grunge and Rocco were informed that they had been released from WWE. They wouldn’t be alone though as several others would be too, though the full list wasn’t known yet. In the April 26th Observer far more information was published, including a full list of names who were let go. Among those let go were Gillberg who was the light heavyweight champion at the time, and was still recognised as such when he was brought back a few months later, the Blue Meanie, George Steele and Golga who had nothing to do since the Oddities had been split up, Steve Williams, Skull and 8-Ball of the DOA, Bart Gunn who had last been seen at Wrestlemania, the Legion of Doom, Sniper of the Truth Commission, and Fatu, who would be brought back later in the year and become Rikishi. Of those names, only two had appeared on Wrestlemania a couple of weeks earlier, that being Bart who lost the Brawl for All match, and the Blue Meanie who accompanied Goldust to the ring. A few more competed in the battle royal on Heat, but as Dave notes, “many of the names on the list are not a surprise.” While in recent years we see a post-Wrestlemania culling of wrestlers regularly, this can’t have been as common back then judging from the reactions of Meltzer and Keller, who note how well the company was doing in the late 90’s. Dave claims that WWE was in “its strongest financial condition in history” to that point, giving the idea that these cuts were made because of creative decisions and not financial ones.




In his write up at the time of the Public Enemy’s release, Dave calls the team “basically a failure from day one,” but points to the Acolytes match as the straw that broke the camel’s back. “At that point, when it became pretty clear they weren’t getting over and their work wasn’t up to par and the word got out they had no future, they were actually given a short-term gimmick of being the wrestlers that nobody in the company even wanted around.” Having watched their entire WWE run, I’d be willing to argue that this assessment is a bit harsh. They weren’t ever introduced to the audience properly, walking out onto Raw and into a feud with the Brood. The Public Enemy would get beaten down and made to look less than by the Brood on a weekly basis who were also part of a much bigger storyline at the same time in the Ministry of Darkness versus Vince McMahon’s corporation. Their matches weren’t very long and had no real structure to them, with their debut especially just being a series of double team moves until the DQ finish. I think it’s more fair to say, that they weren’t ever really given a fair shot to begin with, or a chance to connect with the fans. They were here today, broke a few tables and chairs, and gone not long after.




In June 1999, WWF Magazine would actually profile the Public Enemy in their ‘Rookies to Legends’ page. The piece is very thorough in covering the teams time in ECW as well as even WCW. What it doesn’t mention though, is that Grunge and Rocco were already in talks to rejoin WCW by the time the issue came out. Granted the magazine was likely written a fair bit ahead of time, but that’s still something that probably should have been proofread. By August, the Public Enemy would be back in WCW, but they were gone again within a few weeks. The team would remain active on the indies, working international tours in Puerto Rico and Australia in 2000, and more in the US until a couple of weeks before Rocco Rock’s death in September 2002 at age forty-nine.




You might be wondering what Rocco Rock or Johnny Grunge had to say about their time in WWE, well it was a real struggle to find any comments from either of them, as shoot interviews nor talking about what was going on inside wrestling weren't as commonplace as they are today. I did find this odd bloke though, who attempts to interview people beyond the grave. Just don’t look at his sub count. I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine watching an English fella on YouTube who looks to be sitting in his bedroom. I’m not even talking about him by the way, thank you.




In June 2005, on the weekend of Hardcore Homecoming and One Night Stand, tributes were made to Rocco along with other fallen ECW alumni. On the Shane Douglas promoted show on June 10th 2005 Johnny Grunge, Pitbull Gary Wolfe and Tammy Lynn Sytch would take part in an in-ring segment to pay tribute to Rocco, Wolf’s partner Anthony Durante, and the recently passed Chris Candido. Meanwhile on the WWE produced event on June 12th, he was shown as part of an ‘in memoriam’ video package. That’s not the only tribute to him though, as since 2002, a tournament first promoted by Ian Rotten in 2000 began bearing his name. The Ted Petty Invitational tournament has to date run thirteen times, and in the early years had a reputation for highlighting some of the best young indie talent before they got signed to bigger things. Many, many future world champions appeared in a Ted Petty Tournament, with the 2004 iteration being commonly thought of as the standout year.




In 2006, Johnny Grunge would also pass away at the age of forty, the same age Rocco was when the two debuted in ECW. To this day, banners hang from the ceiling of the building formerly known as the ECW arena, paying tribute to The Public Enemy. These banners hang permanently, and are representative of the Hardcore Hall of Fame, which was first established after Rocco’s death.




Ending




At the start of this video, I mentioned that the Public Enemy thrived in ECW, but didn’t seem to anywhere else. A lot of people give the credit for this to Paul Heyman, for his booking philosophy of accentuating people’s positives and hiding their negatives. Dave Meltzer writing in 2000 puts it this way, “Public Enemy was the most important act for probably a year in a building company and the subject of a bidding war from WWF and WCW when they wanted to move on. This is all living proof that a good booker and some team players can make not just fans, but nearly everyone in the industry, think people with little inherent ability are big stars.” He means this negatively, making it clear in their years post ECW that he wasn’t a fan, but you can also see the positive side there, that for a few years they came across as stars to an entire audience, even if they couldn’t achieve that elsewhere as I hope I’ve shown in this video, not necessarily by their own fault.




There are several things that people sometimes point to as the mistake that the Public Enemy made. Choosing WCW over WWF in ‘95, burning their bridge with ECW in ‘99, or the situation with the Acolytes. Either way it’s hard not to feel like the two were hard done by. Rocco passed away in 2002 from a genetic heart condition and Grunge in 2006. It would have felt special to have seen them get some kind of vindication at One Night Stand, or Hardcore Homecoming, or even in TNA or Ring Of Honor in the years that followed. Anything but Hardcore Justice though, we could all do without as Johnathan Nu-Metal and Rocco Stone appearing in the Impact Zone, although maybe we could have gotten that Team 3D match.




Sources:




WON Sept 30 02 Rocco Rock Obituary https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/september-30-2002-observer-newsletter-death-ted-petty-97547/

Rise and Fall fo ECW, 2006, Thom Loverro, P28 https://archive.org/details/risefallofecw00thom/page/29/mode/2up

WON Jan 6th 96 Team name when they went to WCW https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/jan-2-1996-observer-newsletter-wwe-bringing-surprises-royal-rumble/

WON Feb 27th 2006 Johnny Grunge Obituary https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/february-27-2006-observer-newsletter-wwe-no-way-out-johnny-grunge-passes-away/




WON Nov 27th 95 WWE Dark Match https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/nov-27-1995-wrestling-observer-newsletter-laura-brevetti-investigation/

WON Nov 16th 98 WCW release https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/november-16-1998-wrestling-observer-newsletter-more-ventura-winning/

WON Nov 30th 98 ECW return not likely https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/november-30-1998-wrestling-observer-newsletter-3-top-stars-potentially/

PWTorch Nov 14th 98 WCW contracts expiring https://vip.pwtorch.com/2018/11/10/vip-1998-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-520-november-14-1998-cover-story-on-first-major-signs-of-wcw-spiralling-downward-mitchell-coverage-of-jesse-ventura-election-keller-updates-on/

WON Dec 28th 98 Money disagreement https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/december-28-1998-wrestling-observer-newsletter-bischoff-gets-historic/




WON Jan 18th 99 ECW return 1 https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/january-18-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-giant-baba-retires-ecw/

WON Jan 25th 99 ECW return 2 https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/january-25-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-shawn-michaels-has/

WON Feb 1st Detroit show and Living Dangerously https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/february-1-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-royal-rumble-recap-1998s/

PWTorch Jan 30 99 PE not happy with return https://vip.pwtorch.com/2019/01/26/vip-1999-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-531-january-30-1999-detailed-coverage-of-wwfs-royal-rumble-99-ppv-pwtorchs-annual-most-influential-list-news-of-chris-jericho-and-big/

WON Feb 15th offer from WWE https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/february-15-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-reaction-death-giant/

PWTorch Feb 20th 99 More on ECW exit https://vip.pwtorch.com/2019/02/24/vip-1999-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-536-february-20-1999-cover-story-looking-at-vince-mcmahons-first-official-match-ever-in-main-event-of-st-valentines-day-massacre-ppv-dateli/




WON Mar 1st Raw debut https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/march-1-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-wcw-ratings-cause-panic/

PWTorch Feb 27th Wrestlemania XV speculation https://vip.pwtorch.com/2019/03/02/vip-1999-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-537-february-27-1999-cover-story-titled-wrestling-is-booming-wrestlers-pay-is-not-coverage-of-wcw-superbrawl-99-ppv-headlined-by-flair/

PWTorch March 5th Acolytes match https://vip.pwtorch.com/2019/03/03/vip-1999-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-538-march-6-1999-cover-story-on-inside-editions-feature-on-wwf-marketing-raunch-to-kids-cover-sidebar-on-bischoff-attempting-to-distance-himse/

Stories with Brisco and Bradshaw August 27th 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H214aCH6tRc

Something to Wrestle #153 May 3rd 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJKKS_U80vA

PWTorch April 17th Mick Foley speaks up https://vip.pwtorch.com/2019/04/13/vip-1999-back-issue-pro-wrestling-torch-544-april-17-1999-cover-story-on-firing-of-davey-boy-smith-while-he-was-hospitalized-coverage-of-wcws-spring-stampede-ppv-including-dallas-pag/

WON Mar 15 PE a mistake https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/march-15-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-wwf-wins-monday-night/

WON Mar 22 Review of Owen and Jeff match and nobody wanting PE around https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/march-22-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-wcw-uncensored-review/

WON April 19th Given notice of release https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/april-19-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-davey-boy-smith/



WON April 26th 99 more info on releases https://members.f4wonline.com/wrestling-observer-newsletter/april-26-1999-wrestling-observer-newsletter-davy-boy-smith-recovering/