ECW Barely Legal

Infobox Wrestling event
name=Barely Legal


promotion=Extreme Championship Wrestling
date=April 13 1997
venue=ECW Arena
city=Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
attendance=1,170
lastevent="First"
nextevent=Hardcore Heaven 1997

Barely Legal was the first professional wrestling pay-per-view event held by Extreme Championship Wrestling. It took place on April 13 1997 from the ECW Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Results

Trivia

*With this event, Joey Styles became the first (and as of 2008, the only) play-by-play announcer to call an entire pro wrestling pay-per-view event by himself, without a color commentator. (However, Tommy Dreamer was a guest commentator during the three-way dance.) Styles would later reference this in his (kayfabe) walkout on "RAW" before returning to ECW.
*The event was put in jeopardy when Viewer's Choice cancelled the show in response to the "Mass Transit" incident. However, Viewer's Choice eventually changed their minds after much pleading from ECW promoter Paul Heyman.
*"Barely Legal" was released as part of a two-disc set with One Night Stand 2006 on July 11 2006. It had previously been released in 2000 by Pioneer Entertainment as part of its "The Best of ECW" line of DVDs. The Pioneer release trimmed out many of the ring entrances, removed the music on the entrances not edited out (with the exception of songs ECW owned the rights to, including changing "Enter Sandman" from the Metallica version to Motörhead's cover), and edited out the backstage promos and part of Shane Douglas's promo in the ring. The release included with One Night Stand's DVD censored offensive language (used by the performers when they would cut promos, not used for the fans' chants) and changed the majority of the entrance music to music produced by WWE to avoid licensing fees.

Production

Getting the pay-per-view on in the first place was a struggle. Viewer's Choice (now named In Demand) was very hesitant at putting ECW on pay-per-view because they felt that ECW was too vulgar and brutal, and refused to air the show without restrictions on the content. Paul Heyman claimed that this was a double standard because Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was being criticized for its violent content at the time, but it was still getting pay-per-view time. Request TV agreed to give ECW a pay-per-view under the condition that it aired at 9:00 p.m. rather than the 7:00 p.m. time slot that pay-per-views usually held during that time frame.

An electric power transformer blew out moments after the show went off the air due to all the power being used by the building. It is said that had the show gone on even 10 seconds longer, they would have lost the feed.

References

* [http://www.wwe-zone.com/ecw/results/ppv/barley_legal/index.htm Pro-Wrestling Edge - Barely Legal Results]

External links

* [http://www.wwe.com/shows/ecw/ Official ECW website]