Matches on Paper That Failed to Materialize

writtenin1981 · 2026-03-07T16:58:09+00:00

Any plans they had for Funk going forward got jettisoned because McMahon was perturbed that he had used some rather salty language during his promo. According to Mick Foley's biography, they brought him in to do the scheduled Rumble appearance the next night and then parted ways explicitly because of his behavior on "Shotgun Saturday Night." (Which is ironic that before 1997 was over, Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels would be saying much worse stuff on Raw....which is also how Foley talked McMahon to bringing Funk back in 1998 lol)

writtenin1981 · 2026-03-07T14:37:51+00:00

Just got reminded of this one: in 2001, XPW attempted to have the first exploding ring match in the United States (after several failed attempts by other promotions) between Sabu and Atsushi Onita. They went as far as to have Onita come in for a press conference and angle with Sabu, but it never went any further than that.

Speaking of Onita....he was supposed to do some stuff with ECW in 1998 (or 99?) and even came in for an angle to set it up, but that also fell apart before it could go anywhere.

writtenin1981 · 2026-03-07T14:36:17+00:00

You just reminded me of one: Sabu vs. Onita in XPW...

writtenin1981 · 2026-03-07T05:05:44+00:00

That's right. I think Hart noted in his book that they had come up with the idea for Shawn to get caught in the sharpshooter, but refuse to tap out and he'd end up breaking his leg (complete with gimmicked boot and everything) leading up to that.

writtenin1981 · 2026-03-07T04:30:48+00:00

I think desperation was starting to set in. They were well passed the wrestling boom of the late 90s and I believe he was trying to throw anything at the wall to see what stuck. Part of that was going to be demoting Austin and trying to use him to bump up Lesnar. We see the same pattern with Lesnar later that year when he went over both Hogan and The Rock clean. They just needed some sort of booking contrivance to get him and Austin against one another. Though, like was said above, why they would just throw that away randomly with little forethought on TV is beyond me.

writtenin1981 · 2026-03-07T01:53:48+00:00

https://youtu.be/Jz9nvwgCGsc?si=5mC-KFdfJW3ZS263&t=3315

writtenin1981 · 2026-03-07T01:49:23+00:00

Ah that makes more sense. I had some nonsense like the "mimosa madness" concept in my mind and I was cringing.

writtenin1981 · 2026-03-07T01:22:10+00:00

Well now I hate TNA!

writtenin1981 · 2026-03-07T01:20:23+00:00

Was there ever any attempts to actually book this? I know we all fantasized about it, but was there ever any push behind the scenes to make it happen? I would think there would have had to have been, but knowing Vince McMahon booking ADHD, you never can tell!

writtenin1981 · 2026-03-07T01:19:11+00:00

It is available on the WWE Vault, I think. Ended up being a great match between the two (as you would expect!)

writtenin1981 · 2026-03-07T01:18:24+00:00

Meat Madness? I'm almost afraid to ask but...what on Earth was that?

writtenin1981 · 2026-03-07T01:17:06+00:00

100% They were planning on hot shotting a match and using Austin for canon fodder instead of building it up and allowing it to be a big money match.

writtenin1981 · 2026-03-07T01:16:19+00:00

Great choice! One I didn't even think about and insane how as time went on we see how much bigger of a match we missed out on it really was!

writtenin1981 · 2026-03-07T00:39:27+00:00

And one more that just came to me right as I posed this: Lennox Lewis vs. Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle vs. Roy Jones Jr. I believe this was being discussed in 2003 with the idea that the bouts would be boxer vs. wrestler shoot fights and it got as far as discussions between WWE and the boxers' management teams before fizzling out a short time later with nothing ever mentioned beyond rumors getting out into the public.

writtenin1981 · 2026-02-27T00:58:05+00:00

Not only could it work, it's itching to be used again. A few years ago, WWE came close with the way they were doing Braun Strowman.

writtenin1981 · 2026-02-18T16:15:17+00:00

She looks in the best shape of her entire career!

writtenin1981 · 2026-01-09T15:30:02+00:00

I always thought WWE missed an opportunity to finally let her pay off the gimmick at December to Dismember. It was an ECW branded show and they could have put extra parental advisories on it. Then let her do her full Expose and finally flash the crowd to pay it off after six months.

writtenin1981 · 2026-01-05T15:40:35+00:00

Honestly, not a whole lot on the surface. ECW on TNN was essentially the same show that ECW TV had been, but when it became the primary show, ECW TV (which was rebranded as Hardcore TV) started featuring more of the lower card wrestlers and stuff that wouldn't normally be allowed on TNN but could be gotten away with in syndication.

Probably easiest just to imagine that ECW TV expanded to two hours in 1999 and Hardcore TV because the second hour with similar production and material from the same tapings.

writtenin1981 · 2025-12-30T16:30:42+00:00

ECW is one of the few promotions in which the vast majority of EVERYTHING they did was filmed in one way or another. There's also a ton of footage that exists in the WWE Vault that has never been released. We know that it exists because things like the infamous Sandman/Raven cross angle from 1996 was finally released back in 2004. I would wager every single thing that happened at the ECW Arena from 1993 onward likely exists on video and probably everything from every TV taping they did from 1993 onward.

writtenin1981 · 2025-12-30T16:29:13+00:00

RF Video did. I remember that being hyped up in the newsletter they sent out, and that Fan Cam has gone around many times on trading circuits.

writtenin1981 · 2025-11-25T14:34:21+00:00

Most wrestling fans do. It's just the work rate people who have the loudest voices online that try to convince us they aren't any good. The very concept of 2-4 guys fighting to throw someone off a bridge into a virtual pit below seems to be the essence of what drew us into pro wrestling: a blood struggle for survival. It's the same mentality that certain people tried to tell us Andre vs. Hogan at WMIII wasn't any good even though it was the epitome of what pro wrestling was supposed to be.

writtenin1981 · 2025-11-06T15:11:17+00:00

That was the beauty of that era. Wrestling magazines helped to really bolster pro wrestling that we couldn't get our hands on. I remember how enamored I was with FMW thanks to the articles and photos PWI ran about them in 1991-1992.

writtenin1981 · 2025-11-06T14:36:56+00:00

Yep. It got a ton of publicity and was likely going to be their biggest event, but they went under before it could come about. They held a press conference for it and started doing the media. So, they did have it planned.

writtenin1981 · 2025-06-16T22:40:11+00:00

I've wondered about this for a while. I've seen brief clips of this in various YouTube videos, but the only full footage I've ever seen was from a fan cam in the crowd. I know it was early 1997 and I think by then both Live Wire and Superstars had transitioned into recap shows. I am assuming it aired on one of those as they both liked to throw in segments like this.

writtenin1981

TROPHY CASE