This was a Falls Count Anywhere match.
This is one of the early, American indie feud darlings. We’re immediately post-territory era. The AWA is on life support and would be dead within 60 days. The NWA is limping along in a lopsided partnership with WCW. And the WWF is the WWF. Just 4-5 years earlier, a promotion like Joel Goodhart’s Tri-State Wrestling Alliance would’ve been considered an outlaw promotion due to its lack of affiliation with the NWA. Now? More companies than ever before were popping up, finally free to run mostly wherever they liked (or could) without having to worry about the devastating grasp of the NWA.
EXCEPT…wrestling was in its first true down period, in history, really. Territorially speaking, wrestling could always draw regardless of the economy. Some places drew better than others, and this is why a governing body like the NWA was beneficial. But with the WWF’s squeeze on the wrestling world continuing beyond just national status, it created a bottlenecking effect where anything below them were scraping for crumbs for the most part. And that’s obviously what Vince had wanted. But it (along with a litany of other WWF induced injuries) ended up sending the entire industry, including itself eventually, into its darkest period yet. One that would last until the creation of Monday Nitro on TNT.
But the City of Philadelphia was one of those cities that was simply industry proof. If you were a big enough company, or put on a good enough crowd with good enough promotion, you were going to get a crowd. The TWA did just that here, filling out Penn Hall in a scene that honestly is jarring considering what its superior predecessor would draw in 1992-94.
The card had it all. One half of the Midnight Express Sweet Stan Lane with manager James E Cornette, fresh off receiving their WCW releases, were here for Lane to take on former Black Scorpion and holder of the Manila folder that would’ve ended Dusty’s career, Al Perez. Ivan Koloff and Manny Fernandez would rekindle their old Crockett tag title feud in a Russian chain match. Abdullah the Butcher and the Original Shiek were guaranteed for a bloody, bloody, brawl. Popular local acts like JT Smith, DC Drake, Tony Stetson, Rockin Rebel, Johnny Hotbody, Jimmy Jannetty, Larry Winters and Glen Osbourne all filled out the card. Future extreme legends like Sabu and a young surf dude with attitude (kinda groovy?) named Mr. Sandman made appearances. And to top it all off, USWA Champion Jerry Lawler would scrap with his arch nemesis Terry Funk in a “Fan Participation Lumberjack Match” in the main event.
And somewhere in the middle, in between two blood baths, the soon to be self proclaimed King of Philadelphia Eddie Gilbert took part in a royal clash with the yet to be crowned King of Hardcore, Cactus Jack.
Their feud had been going on in the TWA and its sister promotions for roughly a year, each encounter becoming more brutal than the last. Finally, after needing a way to “lean into the pitch” with the madness these two brought, the promoters allowed these two to brawl all around the arena with Falls Counting Anywhere!
As a self-professed ECW mutant since I was 8 years old, and as someone who’s been watching wrestling for over 30 years (I’ll pay you money to kill me), I can understand if watching this match from 1991 in the year of our lord 2024 feels underwhelming. There’s not a ton of substance here. There’s far better matches that will take place in this town over the next ten years, there’s far wilder brawls in the crowd that will take place in this town over the next ten years, and you can bet your sweet, sweet ass that there will be way more blood spilled in these streets over the next ten years.
But if you can try your best to remove those blinders, this was really fun for 1991.
There’s not a lot to break down in the match itself. It’s formulaic by today’s standards. I kept expecting to hear Joey Styles voice to pop up, calling the action during spots where the combatants fought out of sight. Or even “Natural Born Killaz” to play during the entire fight. This definitely lays out a blueprint that ECW would follow numerous times to much greater success.
The fans in attendance got a much better match than the fans watching on VHS release or PRISM (old Philadelphia premium superstation, it ruled, was eventually turned into the network you all know now as STARZ.) There’s not a lot of lighting here as we get deeper into the crowd, so you miss a lot. But luckily, somebody has some high powered flash lights or spot lights that they point upwards to try and illuminate the violence.
There was one scary moment at ringside, as Cactus set Eddie up for a piledriver on a table. But as Eddie countered out of it, disaster almost struck:
Jesus. A close one, for sure.
Back in the ring, both men continue the brawl, working cuts on one another. Nothing that would register on the Muta/Eddie scale, but fine for what this was. Medusa, who’s at ringside and I believe even married to Eddie at this point, eventually gets involved, tossing one of her shoes in for Eddie to use. But Cactus intercepts it and nails Eddie with it to score the win.
Their feud would rage on for the rest of the year, culminating in a one night series of three stipulation matches in August (another falls count anywhere match, a stretcher match and a steel cage match). A bloody, single night encounter that would go on to become a popular hit among tape traders and early internet scavengers. And while it wasn’t enough to keep the TWA afloat, as the company would be out of business by December, the promotion and this series of matches laid the ground work for what came next, not only in the city of Philadelphia, but in the slowly redeveloping wrestling world, becoming a much needed catalyst of change for an industry dying (literally) for a makeover.
The TWA? That promotion helped develop the blue print. The Cactus/Eddie matches? That feud sparked an idea. And together, they gave way to what was next.
And that…was Extreme.
That was really corny. Sorry.
That was really corny. Sorry.
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