The Time for Hesitation is Through

The Kickstarter campaign for Undisputed #1&2 has less than 48 hours to go. If you haven’t backed the campaign, the time is now. My goal for the next 42 hours is 6 backers. I want to have at least 1 more backer than the issue 1 campaign, and I need your help to get there.

Support me, and the art team by jumping over to the campaign page.

That’s all I’m going to say about that. So now, story time.

That date should mean something to fans of independent wrestling. On that date, Combat Zone Wrestling and Evolve ran a double shot, and promoted the final professional wrestling event ever at the original ECW Arena.

Now, we had heard a few months prior that the building was going to be shut down. Roger had sold the building to Joanna Pang (who also owned the Trocadero Theater, which hosted some incredible concerts over the years). Her plan was to shut the building down, renovate it, and turn it into a music venue. So, our understanding, and I mean everyone involved in indie wrestling in Philadelphia at the time, was that we would get one last shot to run a pro wrestling show at one of the most historic wrestling venues in the world.

That honor fell at the feet of DJ Hyde of Combat Zone Wrestling and Gabe Sapolski of Evolve Wrestling. The double-shot would feature CZW’s “An Excellent Adventure” matinee, followed by Evolve 10: A Tribute to the Arena.

At this time, I had gotten out of working in MMA. I had been working for a promoter as a matchmaker & marketer. But, because of that job I met Maven Bentley (who appears in Undisputed as 1/2 of the announce team). Maven was Vice President of Combat Zone wrestling at the time. And we would invite each other to our shows. I had also done some marketing consulting for Gabe while he was running Dragon Gate USA. So, thanks to those connections, I had the privilege of being backstage, and in the crow’s nest for this last show.

CZW started the night, and featured some really good matches. I had to go to CageMatch to freshen my memory. It’s been over 13 years. But we saw AR Fox vs Uhaa Nation (Apollo Crews in WWE). Azriel & Bandido Jr. retaining the tag titles against my favorite stable of all times, BLK OUT (Alex Colon & Ruckus with Chrissy Rivera & Robbie Mireno). Sami Callihan defeated Rich Swann for the Jr. Heavyweight belt. Greg Excellent defeated Mia Yim (Michin in WWE, with Adam Cole). This match was early in the Greg versus Mia feud that lead to one of the greatest matches I ever saw (I wrote about it just about a year ago). One of my favorite wrestlers of all time, Eddie Kingston defeated one of the most underrated wrestlers of all time, Joker. Adam Cole challenged Devon Moore for the CZW World Heavyweight Championship, and lost. And current CZW owner DJ Hyde defeated CZW’s founder John Zandig in a death match to wrap up the show.

It wasn’t a great CZW show. I think DJ Hyde couldn’t decide if he wanted to do one last “ultraviolent” show, or a true hybrid show, and ended up with neither. Having Drew Gulak go over Matt Tremont in a singles match I believe proves my point.

Evolve had a stronger show, and unfortunately gets all the glory. I say unfortunately, because John Zandig started CZW in 1999 and when ECW went out of business, he moved into the Arena. Then he, and his crew, rebranded ECW’s “Extreme” style of wrestling as “Ultraviolent”. When he sold the company to DJ Hyde, DJ worked incredibly hard to grow the company behind just being a hardcore promotion. Compared to Evolve, which wasn’t even 3 years old at this point, and had never run the Arena before. I get why it was an Evolve show. Dragon Gate USA was an affiliate of a Japanese organization, and wouldn’t have felt right as the last promotion to run the ECW Arena, and Ring of Honor had been purchased by Sinclair early in 2011. So, it had to be Evolve.

Fortunately, Evolve ran a good show. It started with Low Ki squashing Ahtu. Then Cheech defeated his former tag team partner Cloudy. The Scene (Caleb Konely & Scott Reed) defeated current AEW tag teamers Alex Reynolds & John Silver. Jigsaw beat AR Fox and afterwards cut a promo acknowledging Chikara (which probably got some heat, considering the heat between CZW and Chikara at the time). Uhaa Nation (with Ricochet) defeated Pinkie Sanchez. Ronin (Chuck Taylor & Rich Swann) defeated The Super Smash Brothers (Players Uno & Dos). Bobby Fish (with AR Fox) defeated Sami Callihan, with Fox trying provoke Sami into hitting him with a beer bottle and handcuffing his own hands behind his back. Then in the last sanctioned match in the original building’s history, Johnny Gargano (with Chuck Taylor & Rich Swann) retained the Open the Freedom Gate title against Ricochet (with Uhaa Nation).

Again, a load of future WWE & AEW talent on display. With my one regret being how Sami Callihan’s WWE run went. I really liked Sami in the times we interacted, and I wanted him to get a good WWE run for himself.

Anyway, this is when the schmoz started. Joey Styles, Tod Gordon, JT Smith and “Pitbull #1” Gary Wolfe came out to do the dog & pony show. Then DJ Hyde and Team CZW hit the ring, with Hyde saying that if anyone was going to close the arena, it was going to be them. Que Balls Mahoney came in for Team ECW, but then. And this is the memory that sticks with me. “Gangsta’s Paradise” hit, and now I’m standing at Gorilla when a garbage can wielding New Jack comes running past to hit the ring. To even the odds, Justin Credible runs out in support of CZW (which is weird, because I don’t remember Justin doing any business with CZW).

That’s when it happened, and reading articles about the show, and spending time thinking about it. I’m remembering it, and getting chills. But then, the lights go out, and I feel someone run past me. When the lights come back up, the ring is cleared out save for Justin Credible and the Homicidal, Suicidal, Genocidal…Sabu! Sabu versus Justin Credible was the “true” final match, with Sabu going over.

Then Sami Callihan grabs a mic and cuts a promo talking about how he’s tired of all the ECW reunions and funerals, etc. And yelled to production to turn out the lights, and with Metallica’s “Fade to Black” playing, the lights went out on the Arena.

Most fans were waiting for more run-ins, but it was a literal fade to black.

Being an ECW fan, and spending a ton of time in the building for pro wrestling and MMA (I have the distinct honor of having done play by play for multiple MMA shows in the Arena), it was truly a privilege to be there that night.

The building was closed for a while with nothing going on. And we all thought that wrestling would never happen again at the corner of Swanson & Ritner. CZW moved to the Flyers Skate Zone in Voorhees, NJ, and Chikara would hang around, doing shows around Pennsylvania until Mike Quackenbush got caught in the Speaking Out movement in 2020.

The Arena was eventually renovated and renamed the 2300 Arena. I’ve been there once, with Dr. Carl Martin (who appears in Undisputed as our ring announcer) for a Ring of Honor show. And while the building is great, better for combat sports by every measurable metric. It just doesn’t feel like “home” the way the ECW Arena did. The 2300 feels corporate, professional, sanitized. The ECW Arena felt raw, filthy, and ours.

I will never begrudge a wrestling (or MMA or boxing) fan of going to the 2300 Arena and enjoying it. But for those that never experienced the original building, I feel for them, because they truly missed something incredible.

Wow, this post went on way longer than I expected. Hopefully some of you wrestling buffs, like The Pro Wrestling Exuberant, and Ryan Mac enjoyed this post.

For the rest of you, please don’t forget that there are less than 2 days (42 hours) left to back Undisputed #1 & 2. If you want to support the art team and me, you can do so on the Kickstarter campaign page.