• On This Day In Pro Wrestling History (July 19, 1997) – ECW Heat Wave 1997
On this day in Pro Wrestling history on July 19, 1997, Paul Heyman’s Extreme Championship Wrestling held ‘Heat Wave 1997’ in the ECW Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The show was main evented by 2 Steel Cage matches, the first one was a Co-Main Event for the ECW World Tag Team Championship, while the last match of the evening featured WWF Superstar Jerry “The King” Lawler in a 6 man Cage match.
This ECW event isn’t remembered by many as it never made it to a VHS or DVD release, but 2 important things still happened that night: The Gangstas captured Tag Team Gold, while Rick Rude turned on his two team partners Tommy Dreamer & The Sandman.
Below are the full results from the show:
– Handicap match: Mikey Whipwreck & Spike Dudley defeated PG-13 & Jason Knight
– Axl Rotten defeated Tracy Smothers
– John Kronus defeated Pablo Marquez
– Bam Bam Bigelow & Chris Candido defeated Balls Mahoney & Chris Chetti
– ECW World Television Championship: Taz (c) defeated Lance Storm
– ECW World Heavyweight Championship: Terry Funk (c) defeated Shane Douglas by DQ
– Steel Cage match – ECW World Tag Team Championship: The Gangstas defeated The Dudley Boyz (c)
– Steel Cage match: Jerry Lawler, Rob Van Dam & Sabu wrestled Rick Rude, The Sandman & Tommy Dreamer to a no contest
• Chris Jericho Says Vince McMahon & WWE Need To Pull Their Heads Out Of Their A$$es Due To A Recent Release
During the budget cuts in April due to the Coronavirus pandemic, WWE released over 50 employees including wrestlers and producers.
One of the producers released at that time was Lance Storm. He returned to WWE in December 2019 and was let go just 4 months later.
Storm took to Twitter to reveal that he is now unemployed as his WWE contract has expired.
“For what it’s worth I am now officially unemployed. First time since I left SMW in Nov. 1994. #FutureEndeavors”
Former AEW World Champion Chris Jericho thinks WWE made a mistake and gave the company the following advice:
“In this biz? That’s a hell of a run! Now @WWE and @VinceMcMahon need to pull their heads out of their collective a$$es and re-hire you! #lanceisagenius”
In this biz? That’s a hell of a run! Now @WWE and @VinceMcMahon need to pull their heads out of their collective asses and re-hire you! #lanceisagenius https://t.co/e7qmPKWPzs
— Chris Jericho (@IAmJericho) July 19, 2020
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