Ricky Jackson Posted June 27, 2021 Report Share Posted June 27, 2021 Three way dance was definitely their signature match in the early years Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laz Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 3/4-Way Dance, Stairway to Hell, and Dream Partner matches are the ones I remember the most vividly. They didn't really need big gimmick blowout matches because the whole company was a gimmick, but it's pretty odd that they didn't have one or two definitive "THESE are for the big deal matches" match stips. With that criteria, I guess Stairway to Hell, since we only got a handful of those? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 It's Three Way Dance because that's the one Joey Styles had a set call for. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeg Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 Double Dog Collar, 3 Way Dance, and Stairway to Hell were their most famous gimmick matches. Really every match was a gimmick match in ECW but those were the gimmickiest gimmick matches.  Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 I would think the 3 Way Dance was ECW's signature match since it really wasn't a thing before they did it and then everyone and their mom was doing them. It seems odd since WWF/WWE ran it so far into the ground it popped out the other side, but ECW was the pioneer there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 Three-way matches are probably the only thing ECW did better than any other promotion. As far as I'm concerned, multi-man matches are only acceptable if they're done elimination style. We all know Tony Khan is an ECW mark, so he should really consider bringing back three way dances in AEW. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laz Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 My favorite thing about the 3-Way Dance was when it was used to crown a new champion. Stipulations aside, it felt more "earned" as a fan when a new champion had to actively defeat two other people, including the defending champion, to win. Also, great booking tool to get people hyped if the champ falls first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blehschmidt Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 4 hours ago, NintendoLogic said: Three-way matches are probably the only thing ECW did better than any other promotion. As far as I'm concerned, multi-man matches are only acceptable if they're done elimination style. We all know Tony Khan is an ECW mark, so he should really consider bringing back three way dances in AEW. Amen to this statement. The minute they (I assume WWE, maybe WCW, I don't remember who did it first) took eliminations out of multi-man matches and turned them into a lazy booking tool to get the title off of someone without them having to do a job, they utterly ruined the concept. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 If my old man brain remembers correctly, WWF started doing them their way so as to not completely copy ECW. Of course WWF being WWF, they still did it in a way that made it completely transparent that they were copying them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strobogo Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 WCW did them before WWF did them, as triangle matches, with tags, and first fall wins. They did it at Starrcade 1995 with Sting/Lex/Flair and then did a couple of tag versions on Nitro in 1996. I don't think the WWF did any until mid 1997. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 Hmm...I could have sworn WWF did them before that, but so much of the mid 90s is mashed together in my brain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Thread Killer Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 15 hours ago, sek69 said: I would think the 3 Way Dance was ECW's signature match since it really wasn't a thing before they did it and then everyone and their mom was doing them. It seems odd since WWF/WWE ran it so far into the ground it popped out the other side, but ECW was the pioneer there. Not to disagree with @sek69 but to the best of my understanding, Jim Cornette is the person who brought the concept of a three person match into the 1990's and actually named it the Triple Threat Match in Smoky Mountain Wrestling in December of 1993 when he booked Dirty White Boy vs. Tracy Smothers vs. Brian Lee at Christmas Chaos 1993. Those three men fought each other three times in three days, and that was pretty much meant to be it for that gimmick. Cornette actually thought he had invented the idea but he says later on he found an old program from the 60's which listed a three way match on an NWA show in Texas. According to Cornette, Heyman has since admitted that he "borrowed" the idea from Smoky Mountain and started doing those matches in ECW starting in February 1994, when he ran Shane Douglas vs. Terry Funk vs. Sabu. I haven't gone back and looked this up, and I might be wrong but I think I remember Cornette saying that since Terry Funk was actually working in SMW and ECW around the same time, it might have been Funk who told Heyman about the idea. Cornette says that he didn't care that ECW started doing the matches because he only intended to use the idea of Triple Threat Matches once or twice a year at most, and that the idea of using the concept regularly is "fucking stupid." Cornette claims that Jim Ross called him from the WWF and asked him to explain the concept and how to book the matches. Cornette says that he gave JR and the WWF his blessing to steal the idea, but they ended up bastardizing the concept and using it as a way to protect Shawn Michaels from having to do jobs. Cornette is especially critical of the idea that a champion can lose his title without even being pinned...once again he claims that idea is "fucking stupid." Much like his opinion of other facets of modern Pro Wrestling, Cornette feels the Triple Threat Match has been grossly overdone to the point where you never see a WWE show now where there isn't at least some sort of multi-person match and the whole concept has been "prostituted, done, overdone, redone, rules changed, homogenized, pasteurized and sanitized to the point where it looks fucking stupid and it is stupid. What the fuck." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strobogo Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 HBK wasn't even involved in a televised triple threat until his second run. He was involved in a couple of house show/dark matches with Bret and Sid in January/Feb 1997 and the next triple threat he did was at WM 20. So what it looks like is WWF did experiment with triple threats on house shows or Raw dark matches but the first televised one was June 23, 1997 and it was Owen vs HHH vs Goldust. And it happened two times in a row on that Raw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted June 28, 2021 Report Share Posted June 28, 2021 Stampede did a "Bermuda Triangle match" in 1987, between Great Gama, Ben Bassarab and Viet Cong Express #1 (Hiro Hase), with elimination rules Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flyin' Brian Posted June 29, 2021 Report Share Posted June 29, 2021 Thanks for the comments everyone. Gives me some stuff to go check out instead of Raw. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted June 29, 2021 Report Share Posted June 29, 2021 3 hours ago, Flyin' Brian said: Thanks for the comments everyone. Gives me some stuff to go check out instead of Raw.  No offense intended. I have a question. Are you so used to watching wrestling on Monday nights that you needed some wrestling to watch tonight? I can get that. And I'd recommend going down a weekly 80's Memphis TV rabbit hole. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoS Posted June 29, 2021 Report Share Posted June 29, 2021 Weren't Bret, Diesel and Taker doing triangle matches on house shows between Survivor Series 95 and WM 12, after Bret won the title? From what I remember, it was a big box office hit and elevated the house show business, which remained at a high level after Shawn won the title Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Posted June 29, 2021 Report Share Posted June 29, 2021 7 hours ago, MoS said: Weren't Bret, Diesel and Taker doing triangle matches on house shows between Survivor Series 95 and WM 12, after Bret won the title? From what I remember, it was a big box office hit and elevated the house show business, which remained at a high level after Shawn won the title Checking Cawthon's site the match never happened, though it was advertised (perhaps locally) the day after Wrestlemania XII. Between Survivor Series and Wrestlemania Bret wrestled either Diesel in an inhumane number of cage matches, or the Undertaker. Now in fairness in Landover Bret is listed as defending against both men consecutively, that could've been a triple threat in practice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinit Posted June 29, 2021 Report Share Posted June 29, 2021 17 hours ago, strobogo said: HBK wasn't even involved in a televised triple threat until his second run. He was involved in a couple of house show/dark matches with Bret and Sid in January/Feb 1997 and the next triple threat he did was at WM 20. So what it looks like is WWF did experiment with triple threats on house shows or Raw dark matches but the first televised one was June 23, 1997 and it was Owen vs HHH vs Goldust. And it happened two times in a row on that Raw. I saw Bret/HBK/Sid do the dark main event at the Skydome when they did the "Royal Rumble Raw" taping. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flyin' Brian Posted June 29, 2021 Report Share Posted June 29, 2021 9 hours ago, Johnny Sorrow said:  No offense intended. I have a question. Are you so used to watching wrestling on Monday nights that you needed some wrestling to watch tonight? I can get that. And I'd recommend going down a weekly 80's Memphis TV rabbit hole. No offense taken. That’s part of it. Setting aside time on Monday Night to watch wrestling can be a bit of a habit. If I’m going to have free time to watch wrestling I’d like it to be good wrestling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ragemaster Posted June 29, 2021 Report Share Posted June 29, 2021 (3) WWF Championship Match: HBK vs BRET HART vs SYCHO SID - YouTube Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
strobogo Posted June 29, 2021 Report Share Posted June 29, 2021 The self inflicted misery to feel like you need to watch Raw every week in 2021 is an internal struggle I wouldn't wish upon my most hated enemies. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MoS Posted July 2, 2021 Report Share Posted July 2, 2021 Snarky Meltz makes a brief comeback  Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coffey Posted July 3, 2021 Report Share Posted July 3, 2021 I didn't really know where to put this. A buddy & I were talking pro-wrestling today & it got a bit heated over the discussion of me saying that I think Roman Reigns is already better & has surpassed John Cena as a top guy. I didn't really think that it was that outlandish of a statement but apparently it touched a nerve. I don't even dislike John Cena, nor want to discredit what he did for WWE, especially when he was pretty much the flag bearer for a decade plus. I just think that Roman's run in The Shield, his babyface run & now especially his Head of the Table heel run have as a whole surpassed, in my mind, what Cena did. And The Shield debuted on November 2012, so it's not like Roman hasn't been there long enough at this point. Granted, I might like Roman Reigns more so than most but I don't think it's that far fetched that I favor him over Cena. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Infinit Posted July 3, 2021 Report Share Posted July 3, 2021 In my opinion, Roman has to spend more time as a "tippity top" guy before reaching the Cena stratosphere. He's on his way, but he's not there yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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