In the nearly three decades since, certain aspects of the event have been immortalized through wrestling history, whereas others have been forgotten. Below is a look at Meltzer’s original review of the show.
Dave Meltzer on ECW Barely Legal 1997
Meltzer wrote of Barely Legal:
“The show was a very slightly toned down version of the product, with a high work rate, a few, well not death defying but certainly injury defying spots, some sloppiness and nervousness, several booking swerves, a few technical problems, some excellent matches and undoubtedly the best pre-game show for a PPV in the history of the business.”
“This is the Texas Panhandle, and this is where my father is. I come here a lot whenever I need strength. Sometimes I get a twitch in my eye and a dadgum lump in my throat. I’m going to try and not let that happen today. I loved him. We all loved him. And he loved this part of Texas. I think this is a great place for him to be.
His gravestone says, ‘Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not here. I did not die.’ And he didn’t leave me.My wife and kids are going to be there Sunday night, April 13th at the ECW pay-per-view. The people that I love are going to be there. And I’m sure my father will be there. His spirit.
If I make it through the three-way dance with Stevie Richards and Sandman, if I make it to Raven and beat him for the ECW World Championship, I have to do it one step at a time. One step at a time. Dad, this one’s for you.”
Terry Funk and Gran Hamada at ECW Barely Legal 1997
Meltzer wrote that the show was “stolen by the two oldest performers” in Terry Funk and Gran Hamada.
“Actually the best worker on the show, amazingly enough since he was in a match doing a style that isn’t exactly geared for someone who is past 30, let alone 44, was Gran Hamada, the undersized Japanese star who became a lighter weight major star in Mexico in the late 70s.
Hamada is one of the few survivors who has remained a top worker from the original class that put junior heavyweight wrestling on the map in Japan in the early 1980s original Tiger Mask era (actually the only other survivor as a top star from that era is Bret Hart). Hamada has always been something of an unsung star in the business, his prime coming during a period when people of his size weren’t given breaks,” Meltzer continued.
Hamada teamed with Masato Yakushiji, Shinjiro Otani and The Great Sasuke against Dick Togo, Taka Michinoku and Terry Boy on this show in a match Meltzer rated 4.5 stars, the highest of any bout on the show.
ECW Barely Legal Main Event timing and generator issues
The closing moments of the pay-per-view were not without incident. However, an inadvertent bell ringing and timing issues that led to Raven vs. Funk only going seven minutes did not sour the fans on watching Funk win the title.
Meltzer wrote:
“Dreamer hit the ring, had a short brawl with Raven and DDT’d him. Funk covered Raven, who kicked out, but the bell ringer blew it and rang the bell anyway. Funk then inside cradled Raven and the ref counted the fall and the bell rang again.
Under normal circumstances, this would have been so anti-climactic because of the bell ringer screwing up, but things were at such a frenzy at this point that it was okay. The place went nuts with fans hugging Funk as the show went off the air.”
As was mentioned on The Rise and Fall of ECW documentary produced by WWE, the show was just seconds from disaster, as a generator blew right after it went off the air.
Meltzer wrote:
“Just 24 seconds after the show went off the air, the generator blew and all power for television went off. Had this happened five minutes earlier, it would have destroyed the climax of the show. Heyman along with Funk, Dreamer, Eliminators and a few others got in the ring and thanked the crowd in the ring in a short speech.”
What else was happening in wrestling at the time of ECW Barely Legal 1997?
ECW Barely Legal took place three weeks after Bret Hart and Steve Austin had their famous submission match at WrestleMania 13. Hart reunited with his brother Owen and brother-in-law Davey Boy Smith on the March 25, 1997 Raw, leading to the Hart Foundation/Canada vs. USA angle that would last until Survivor Series that year.
In WCW, the nWo angle was in full effect, with Hollywood Hogan holding the WCW World title, Diamond Dallas Page feuding with Randy Savage, and the company building to a match at Slamboree the following month with Ric Flair and Roddy Piper teaming with football player Kevin Greene against Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, and Syxx.
Wrestling Observer Newsletter Archives
Subscribers to the Wrestling Observer have full access to newsletters dating all the way back to 1991. Additionally, subscribers also have full access to our archives of audio shows, which date back to 2005.
I have a packed DragonKingKarl for you today discussing the final shows of Southeastern Championship Wrestling before it became Continental with Bob Armstrong, Lord Humongous, Ron Fuller, Boomer Lynch, and more.
I also have some more from 1932 wrestling in Madison Square Garden, a review of the great new book The Six Pack and my thoughts on Tito Santana, and the last entrant into the final four of my Greatest Kayfabe Tournament — Terry Funk vs. Mitsuharu Misawa — is decided by you, the listener.
On this week’s DragonKingKarl Classic Wrestling Show, we have a ton of classic pro wrestling discussion on a variety of topics.
The latest match in my Greatest Kayfabe Tournament (GKT) is here and the voters are split on a match between Kenny Omega and Terry Funk…but we have a winner!
I also have more from the 1931 New York wrestling scene and Madison Square Garden.
In the second half of the show, I take a look at the first of three July 1984 issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter including the death of Vince McMahon Sr., Andy Kaufman, and Ric Flair regaining the NWA World title from Kerry Von Erich in Japan.
On the latest entry into my JNPO pro wrestling year in review series, it’s time to wrap up summer with a look at August, joined this time by Rich Kraetsch of Voices of Wrestling.
It truly was a month of triumph and tragedy as the wrestling world mourned the sudden passing of WWE star Bray Wyatt at just 36 years old — just a day after one of the greatest of all time — Terry Funk — passed away at 79 years old.
It was a triumphant month for AEW thanks to the success of All In at London’s Wembley Stadium — a show that grossed $10+ million in revenue and saw more than 70,000 fans come through the turnstiles.
However, as seemed to be the case with a lot of AEW success, there were tribulations as CM Punk got into a backstage skirmish with “Jungle Boy” Jack Perry just minutes before he was set to kick off the PPV. It would be Punk’s final AEW appearance and Rich & I dive into all the other Punk-related drama through the month.
Join us for this hour+ deep dive into everything that happened in WWE, AEW, Impact Wrestling, Japan, and more.
I promise this is unlike any other year-end series you’ll hear or read, so catch up on the rest of the series in the archive.
Matt Riddle, 37, ended up being the biggest name as far as recent push goes among the WWE cuts since the recent merger.
Unlike all of the cuts with the exception of Yulisa Leon, Riddle was not released based on budget cuts or performance, but because of outside the ring incidents.
The most recent incident took place a few weeks ago at JFK Airport in New York when coming back from the show in India. There was no arrest made or even a police write up of an incident where airport security showed up after he was allegedly creating a disturbance, but he then claimed in social media that security allegedly sexually assaulted him, a claim he later took down.
It was said that this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Riddle had raised the ire of some of the veterans from day one, whether it was saying Bill Goldberg wasn’t any good as a wrestler, or claiming in a real fight he’d beat Roman Reigns. Riddle was a trained UFC fighter and former New York State champion in wrestling who beat Jon Jones in wrestling when both were in high school, something that WWE never mentioned when promoting him but almost every other promotion in history would have pushed to death. He had numerous incidents over the years of complaints from women after relationships had fallen apart, had a very public lawsuit by one (a suit filed also against WWE and Evolve where both promotions were thrown out of the suit quickly and the suit ended up being dropped with both sides agreeing not to talk about whatever agreement was made publicly) and failed two WWE drug tests.
Several in the company noted that he probably would have been among the top stars in the company, but because of the constant negative stuff that had come out, they were not going to push him past mid-level at this point.
The first major news by the newly merged TKO Holdings company was the expected major cuts by WWE, with more than 100 employees let go on Black Friday, and on the flip side, later that night Dwayne Johnson returned at Smackdown. Six days later a number of wrestlers that mostly weren’t being used were cut.
It was well known there would be massive cuts as plans were to cut back on $50 million to $100 million in expenses on the WWE side. Most of the cuts were made in regard to duplication of work, more from the Endeavor end than the UFC end.
WWE and UFC will largely operate autonomously from each other. For example, one of the hardest hit departments in the cuts was Analytics, where about 85 percent of the employees were let go. But the reasoning behind that was because Endeavor has a very strong analytics team that will not be covering WWE. So it wasn’t the idea that analytics aren’t important. Former presidents George Barrios and Michelle Wilson were very big on learning from and expanding that department, but it was duplication of jobs more within Endeavor than within UFC.
Employees were told that all the major cuts that would be made were related to the merger. As noted before, one of the things in UFC that left employees very bitter after it was bought by Endeavor in 2016 was that they were told after the first round of cuts that there would be no more cuts, and there were. They were also told many times that there would be no sale and the news stories were incorrect, and there was, while the fact WWE was going to be sold was public knowledge.
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Monday Update
Bryan and I will be back tonight talking Raw and the rest of the news with Wrestling Observer Radio. We did a Saturday show talking the firing of C.M. Punk and WWE Payback and last night’s show talking AEW All Out.
This is a television news story on the NBC affiliate in Amarillo talking about how Terry Funk’s funeral was that day. It’s really cool because you can see just how revered he was in that city.
Raw is in Charlotte, NC tonight featuring the Gunther vs. Chad Gable IC title match that really should have been on Saturday’s show. The Viking Raiders face Matt Riddle & Drew McIntyre in a tornado match. Jey Uso returns on tonight’s show as a new member of the Raw roster. There were 7,700 tickets out for the show as of a few hours ago.
We’re looking for reports from tonight’s show with anything not on television such as Main Event matches or dark segments to [email protected]
Also we’re looking for your thoughts on AEW All Out and WWE Payback, thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match for each show to [email protected]
Because today is Labor Day, ratings for the next few days will be delayed. The Rampage and Smackdown ratings will be out tomorrow afternoon. The Collision ratings will be out Wednesday morning. The Raw ratings will be out Wednesday afternoon. The NXT and Dynamite ratings should both be out on Thursday.
Cyril Gane’s home was robbed while he was in Paris fighting Serghei Spivac in Saturday’s main event. Police were called to Gane’s home yesterday morning in Nogent-sur-Marne, France. They discovered a forced entry through the front door and missing items that were estimated at being worth $166,000. Among the items stolen were jewelry, a Rolex watch and more. The police report indicated that a member of Gane’s entourage may have contacted the thieves regarding Gane being away from home to help set everything up. Gane beat Spivac via second round TKO in the main event.
Regarding stories coming out of yesterday’s show about fans having signs confiscated related to C.M. Punk and not being allowed to wear Punk T-shirts, obviously the latter was not correct since many at ringside were wearing the classic white Punk shirt. According to one person there, the security line was very slow because they were checking every sign and took Punk signs. There was one security guard loudly telling people that they had to wear their Punk T-shirts inside out. I was told that nobody paid attention to him, but as people got to the door, nobody told them to remove their shirts and turn them inside out. But that is where the story came from.
Former MMA and TV star Jason “Mayhem” Miller was arrested at 5 a.m. on Wednesday in West Hollywood, CA. TMZ reported Miller was involved with an altercation last Tuesday at the Sunset Marquis in West Hollywood. The police report stated that a fan of Miller’s approached him at the club to say hello, which turned into an argument and Miller tried to put the fan in a choke hold before security broke this up. Miller left the club before sheriffs arrived, but the police were called and he was arrested when he came back to the club the next day. Miller also was a big pro wrestling fan who when he fought in Japan listed his style of fighting as “pro wrestling.”
For Saturday’s UFC show in Sydney, Australia regarding the main event with Israel Adesanya vs. Sean Strickland for the middleweight title, Jared Caonnonier was brought to Sydney and will weigh in as the backup fighter in case Adesanya or Strickland for some reason can’t fight.
Salina de la Renta returned to MLW on last night’s PPV show. The storyline is that she’s going to be the pipeline for bringing Lucha Libre talent into MLW, evidently replacing the role Cesar Duran had. Minoru Suzuki wll be on the 10/14 MLW show in Philadelphia.
OVW’s Jessie Godderz, who first made his fame as Mr. Pectacular on Big Brother before his pro wrestling days, made a cameo on the show last night. The cameo was cross promotion for the debut of the NETFLIX show “Wrestlers,” about OVW which debuts on 9/13. Godderz holds the record for most different years appearing on Big Brother.
Impact on Thursday has Josh Alexander & PCO vs. Bully Ray & Steve Maclin, Mark Andrews & Flash Morgan Webster vs. Rich Swann & Sami Callihan, Deonna Purrazo vs Dani Luna, Lio Rush vs. Kevin Knight and more.
PWInsider reported that Paul Ellering was in Orlando. They had been reporting that the Authors of Pain and Ellering would be starting back on NXT.
A story on a former pro wrestler who has a food truck (thanks to Barry Werner)
The NBC affiliate in New York did a television story on Johnny Rodz, the longtime WWWF prelim wrestler who is in the company Hall of Fame, and also helped train the Dudleys , Tommy Dreamer and others at Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn. It talked about his recovery from a 2021 heart attack.
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Friday Update
Terry Funk’s funeral took place this afternoon in Amarillo. I don’t believe it was taped and wasn’t able to see it. Among those in attendance were Dory Funk Jr., Ted DiBiase, Manny Fernandez, Chris Hero, Tommy Dreamer, C.M. Punk, Dan Spivey, Joe Malenko, Stan Hansen, Tully Blanchard, Don Frye, Barry Blaustein and Mark Youngblood. We hope to have more on it later. It’s still hard to believe he isn’t with us anymore.
We have a big weekend of shows coming up. Garrett and I just finished our first show together without a guest in about a month, talking about the news of the week, All In, C.M. Punk and Jack Perry as well as some stories on Terry Funk and the upcoming WWE and AEW PPV shows. Bryan and I will be back Saturday and Sunday nights covering the PPV shows.
Front Office Sports reported on the PFL/Bellator sale talks. The story said that Bellator is valued at as much as $500 million and that the deal would be primarily cash but that Paramount, the owners of Bellator, would also get a percentage of the new company. They said it’s not clear if the deal goes through if they will merge into one company or continue as two separate entities but have matches between the promotions. Saudi Arabia has just invested $100 million in the PFL, which caused stock market concern for both WWE and Endeavor because of the idea Saudi Arabia funding a new MMA group could challenge UFC’s domination. The stock market freaked out yesterday and WWE stock tumbled, but today it came back and closed at $104.58 once people realized this won’t hurt WWE business at all and UFC’s financial deals are locked in for years.
As noted in the new issue, the announcement of the Sukeban promotion came this morning with the debut show on 9/21 at Capitale, a 750-seat theater in New York City. The show sold out instantly with tickets going on sale today. The show has top Japanese women, many of whom have appeared with Stardom this year, with new characters and put into different factions. The main event of the first show has Ichigo Sayaka (Unagi Sayaka) vs Countess Saoori (Saori Anou) with the winner going into a championship match on the second show. The trailer for the promotion.
Announced as signed to long-term deals to Sukeban are Ram Kaichow (as Atomic Banshee), Kaori Yoneyama (as Otaku-chan), AOI (as Midnight Player, Sayaka, Maya Yukihi (as Maya Mamushi), Saki (as Saki Bimi), Ancham (as Babyface), Yuu (as Crush Yuu), Rikio Iaiju (as Rik Blondie, Anou, Arisa Nakajima (as Commander Nakajima), Risa Sera (as Lady Antoinette) and Miyuki Takase (as Queen of Hearts).
Smackdown tonight features the return of John Cena in Hershey, PA. The show is sold out with 8,848 fans. Also announced is the return of Jimmy Uso, a Miz and LA Knight face-to-face segment to set up their match on Saturday’s PPV show in Pittsburgh, and Rey Mysterio & Santos Escobar vs. Autin Theory & Grayson Waller.
AEW announced Dennis Rodman appearing on tomorrow’s Collision show in Chicago at the United Center. Rodman was already in town for Conrad Thompson’s Starrcast event. AEW had 4,086 tickets out as of today for the show. There will be angles shot on the show for the PPV on Sunday. Ricky Steamboat will be there but the tease of him doing a strap match with Ricky Starks is to set up a match with someone against Starks. Someone other than CM Punk has been asked to do the match but if Punk is to be on the PPV this would in theory be the spot. Punk was still suspended as of today.
For what it’s worth we are told that at the WWE Store in Pittsburgh they have all the matches and segments spread on the walls of the store and have a Cody Rhodes-Grayson Waller segment with John Cena in the picture. (thanks to Tyler Dawson)
Rampage at 10 p.m. tonight on TNT:
Tag Team Battle Royal for a PPV shot at MJF & Adam Cole on Sunday
El Hijo del Vikingo & Nick Wayne vs. Kip Sabian & Gringo Loco
Adam Page vs Bryan Keith
Willow Nightingale & Skye Blue vs Taya Valkyrie & Anna Jay
The Vikingo match got great reviews.
UFC is tomorrow in Paris on ESPN+ starting at Noon Eastern time:
Zarah Fairn (140) vs. Jacqueline Cavalcanti (139)
Farid Basharat (136) vs. Keydson Rodrigues (134.5)
Nora Cornolle (136) vs. Joselyne Edwards (136)
Ange Loosa (171) vs. Rhys McKee (171)
Taylor Lapilus (135) vs. Caolan Loughran (136)
Morgan Charriere (146) vs. Manolo Aeccini (146)
William Gomis (146) vs. Yanis Ghemmouri (146)
Volkan Oezdemir (205) vs. Bogdan Guskov (205)
Benoit Saint Denis (156) vs. Thiago Moises (156)
Manon Fiorot (125) vs. Rose Namajunas (125)
Cyril Gane (250) vs Serghei Spivac (256)
Edge auctioned off his Toronto wrestling gear and gave 100 percent of the proceeds for Sami Zayn’s Syria campaign of having mobile hospitals in war-torn areas.
MLW tapes Sunday at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia with Alex Kane vs. Willie Mack for the MLW title, Jacob Fatu vs. Rickey Shane Page for the National title in a weapons of mass destruction match, Matt Cardona vs. Mance Warner in a kiss my foot match Maki Itoh vs B3CCA for a women’s title shot and Tracy Williams vs. Ichiban on the FITE+ live show. There will also be a Fusion TV taping. The show starts at 6 p.m. Eastern.
Pablo Frage, a Texas referee filed suit against Devon Nicholson and Texas promoter Jerry Bostic due to injuries suffered while working a match with Nicholson. He is asking for more than $250,000 alleging that Nicholson was carrying a beer and stumbling and shouldn’t have been allowed to perform. The lawsuit claimed Frage was supposed to cut himself in doing an angle but Nicholson wasn’t pleased with the amount of blood and put him in a choke and stabbed him in the head multiple times with a spike. Frage said he lost consciousness and with no medical staff on site, was rushed to the hospital where he received seven staples. He said since this incident in December 2021, he has continued so suffer from headaches, memory problems, depression and has scars
GCW and Renegades of Wrestling did a joint show in Sydney, Australia last Friday as part of a three-show tour and drew 350 fans. Maki Itoh was really over. El Hijo del Vikingo beat Gringo Loco in an AAA Mega title match in the main event. Caveman Ugg kept the Renegades of Wrestling title over Joey Janela. The crowd knew all the GCW guys like Allie Katch and Effy. Itoh beat Charli Evans. Steph De Lander also returned to Australia for this tour. People were raving about Vikingo. On Saturday in Melbourne, the ROW champ Aysha beat Itoh and Vikingo kept the title over Emman Azman. On Sunday in Brisbane, Itoh beat Allie Katch, Outback Adam beat Janela, and Vikingo retained his title over Mitch Ryder. (thanks to Dan Lennard and Kirk Beattie)
Paul Felder, a UFC commentator, announced that he has put his name back in the USADA testing pool. He noted that his hips are bad and he is not sure if he will fight again, but that he is back training and hopes to fight guys around his own age if he does fight.
Combate Global is on Paramount and Univision tomorrow night as well as Paramount + with a main event of Jose Ferriera (11-0) vs. Leonardo Morales (12-7).
CPW on 9/9 in Fairplay, WV with Ricky Morton, Tony Atlas and Shane Douglas doing meet and greets.
One of the most tragic two-day periods for the pro wrestling industry took place last week, with the death of Terry Funk on 8/23 and the death of Windham Rotunda aka Bray Wyatt the next day.
Funk, who I would call the greatest instinctive pro wrestler who ever laced up boots, was 79.
Funk had been in declining health. His family kept secret about his condition for the most part and what his ailment was, but some of those closest to him were aware that he went into hospice care a few months ago. He had been in assisted living prior to that. It was known at the time that he didn’t have much time left to live.
He had been battling dementia for some time, and it had gotten worse in recent months.
He had been in poor health ever since surgery for a hernia in 2016. He had been told by the doctor to rest in bed for two weeks after the surgery. But he had promised Tommy Dreamer that he would appear at some shows for Dreamer’s House of Hardcore promotion later that week.
Many wrestlers and wrestling fans consider Terry Funk to be the greatest of all time, including Jon Moxley.
Moxley spoke to Sports Illustrated in the wake of Funk’s passing last week and said Funk’s body of work outshines all others who have ever performed in the ring.
“If Terry Funk’s not the greatest of all time, then who the f— is?” Moxley asked. “Terry Funk wasn’t playing a pro wrestler. He was the real thing.”
“You could put him anywhere in the world against any opponent,” Moxley continued. “He’d cut an intense promo dripping with authenticity and then go work a killer match.”
Moxley was able to work with Funk briefly in March 2016 when the two filmed a backstage skit in WWE. At the time, Moxley was building to a no-holds-barred match against Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 32.
Moxley says the WWE writers were worried that Funk wouldn’t be able to remember his lines. The script was changed so that Funk would only say a few words but then when the camera was on, Funk cut a promo that Moxley described as “classic.”
“What we filmed wasn’t from the script, so the writer in charge wanted to do it again,” said Moxley. “I was like, ‘F— this. We just got a Terry Funk classic. We’re not doing it again. If Vince is upset about it, I’ll talk to him myself.’ So the writers agreed, and I was pumped. We got a classic piece of Terry Funk in the flesh.”
In terms of being the best of all time, Moxley conceded it depends on the criteria being used. However, he believes when you look at Funk’s total body of work, it’s pretty clear he’s “the f—— greatest of them all.”
“There are so many different criteria that it’s impossible to pick the greatest ever,” said Moxley. “Look at Bret Hart and Ric Flair. They worked two completely different styles, and they were two completely different artists. It was like one guy played the trumpet and the other guy played a pair of bongos. They made different music. Terry Funk always gets passed over in that discussion. He was often the heel coming into a territory, putting over the babyface, and leaving to do something else.”
“But look at the body of work. It’s pretty clear. You can’t tell me Terry Funk isn’t the f—— greatest of them all.”
During an appearance on The Bump on Wednesday, Paul Heyman paid tribute to the life and career of Terry Funk.
This week’s edition of the show featured comments from members of the WWE roster talking about the passing of Funk and Bray Wyatt. Heyman appeared in studio and was asked what he feels Funk’s legacy in wrestling will be.
Heyman said:
I’m always hesitant to try to encapsulate a life like Terry Funk’s within a sound bite or even a portion of a program. I didn’t say anything publicly. I haven’t yet and one of the reasons why is because I was aware of the decline in Terry Funk’s health and I had the extraordinary opportunity and pleasure of speaking with him in the last few weeks of his life.
I withheld my tributes because I got a chance to tell him while he was alive. I didn’t have to explain my affinity for the man after his passing, I got a chance to let him know.
There was no, pun intended, acknowledgement of the greatness of the performers of ECW without them getting into the ring with Terry Funk. Shane Douglas was recognized as a franchise player because of his interaction with Terry Funk. The Public Enemy truly got recognized as a preeminent tag team of their time by being in the ring with Terry Funk and the Funk brothers, Terry and Dory Jr.
Sabu came out of the gates in ECW making a splash but his splash was infinitely bigger because by the end of Sabu’s first weekend in ECW, he was in the ring and holding his own and sharing the spotlight with Terry Funk.
I don’t know if there is anything that I can say that will match the brilliance of what Cody said. What Cody said the other night moved me. It was profound and just so eloquent in that you could be going through an airport and (hear), “You egg-sucking dog” and go, “What am I listening to? Who is screaming is that?” And here’s Terry Funk coming. It’s so Terry Funk for him to do and at the same time, he was the grandfather of a revolution, of an evolution in the industry, of a movement, of an extreme movement.
What I wish future generations will take from the legacy of Terry Funk is the passionate pursuit of greatness in all moments of a performance and never losing sight that it’s a business.
Funk joined what was then known as Eastern Championship Wrestling in 1993 as a 49-year-old. Some of his early matches for the promotion include an I Quit match against Eddie Gilbert at ECW Battle of the Belts 93 as well as teaming with Dory Funk Jr. in a no-ropes barbed wire match against The Public Enemy at Heatwave 94.
Funk won the ECW World Championship in the main event of the company’s first pay-per-view, Barely Legal in 1997. He was later inducted into the Hardcore Hall of Fame Class of 2005 in the former ECW Arena, now more commonly known as the 2300 Arena.
On a special edition of Figure Four Daily, former WWE, WCW & ECW star Lance Storm hosts a solo edition of the show with a singular focus: his memories of the late Terry Funk who passed away last week.
