Mark your calendars: today is the anniversary of when everything in professional wrestling started to change.
Hosted in Philadelphia, the “hometown” for the promotion, ECW’s Barely Legal made wrestling fans and promotions around the United States sit up and take notice. A far cry from the likes of WWE and WCW, ECW always strived to deliver hardcore matches that didn’t lack in the technical department, and Barely Legal showcased just that.
However, it was a challenge from the start to get Barely Legal greenlit with partners uncertain of the “friendliness” of the brand; ECW always caused concern from parents about the amount of violence on show. After its timeslot was pushed back and concessions made about the amount of blood on show, Barely Legal was aired by Request TV.
Seven matches made up the card with Terry Funk taking on two bouts to come out at the end of it with the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. A mainstay from the days before ECW was extreme and known instead as ‘Eastern Championship Wrestling’, Funk’s capturing of the title was a poetic thank you.
The beginning of a new dawn in professional wrestling, Paul Heyman’s speech backstage sums it up perfectly:
“There are 17 million homes that have availability for this show tonight that will pay twenty dollars, hopefully, for the privilege to see you guys do what you have done for three and a half years.
Thank Terry Funk for all that he has done for this company. For helping to put us on the map. For being unselfish in selfish times. For taking the young guys and showing them a better way.
Tonight we have a chance to say, “Yeah, you’re right – we’re too extreme. We’re too wild. We’re too out of control. We’re too full of our own shit.” Or we have a chance to say “Hey, fuck you – you’re wrong. Fuck you – we’re right.” Because you have all made it to the dance. Because believe me – this is the dance.”
With an attendance of 1170 and over 100,000 in PPV buys, Barely Legal was a success, though it was always an uphill battle for the promotion to balance the books. It lasted until 2001, but was relaunched as a WWE product in the mid-noughties to mixed results before being cancelled in 2010.
You can only imagine what the landscape of professional wrestling would be like today if EC F’N W was still around.
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