#218: Terry Funk vs. Sabu, ECW Born to be Wired (8/9/1997).
This is a No Ropes Barbed Wire Match for Funk’s ECW World Championship.
You might’ve heard of this one. It’s rather infamous, even for a promotion like Extreme Championship Wrestling. It’s one of the most violent matches to ever take place in the United States, and was so graphic in fact, that Paul Heyman vowed never to host one in ECW again.
This will be my third time watching this one in its entirety, and considering what happens here, it may also be the last.
The bell sounds, and Sabu rushes Funk in the corner. Both men look for that ever important first strike. Dropkick to the leg of Funk, and the Funker gets a single leg takedown on in response. Funk looks to whip Sabu into the wire, but the challenger is able to stun his own momentum. Funk gets whipped, and he’s able to avoid the wire, and slide out of the ring for a moment. He returns to the ring, and gets stomped on by Sabu. Sabu with the Camel Clutch submission next.
They lock up, and Funk hits a headbutt and a hangman’s neckbreaker. Funk looks for a piledriver, and connects, and it looks sick. He covers, and Sabu is able to kick out. DDT by Funk. Sabu avoids getting his face sent into the barbed wire, and Funk does the same. Hurricanrana by Sabu, and Funk kicks out of the roll up, sending Sabu face first into the barbed wire. First contact! Funk takes his head and rakes it against the pricks of the wire.
Sabu, unsurprisingly, is busted open. Funk irish whips him into the wire. He then lifts Sabu up and crotches him onto the wire! Sabu’s tights are caught in the pricks, and he has a hard time coming down. Another whip into the wire by the Funker. He explodes with some nice jabs to Sabu, and a left that drops him. Big chop by Funk. Sabu fires back by whipping Funk into the wire, and Bill Alfonso tosses in some chairs from ringside.
Sabu with some wicked chair shots to the back of Funk. The champion rolls towards the barbed wire, and Sabu pushes his face into it! Sabu with a chair set up in the ring, and now he has a spike in his hand. He stabs Funk in the head with it, and the champion is busted open. With Funk stuck in the wire, Sabu hits a heel kick off of the chair to him, and gets a nearfall off of it. Sabu goes for it again in the corner, but Funk avoids it, and Sabu lands on the barbed wire, tearing his arm to shreds literally! It cut him right to his muscle, and Sabu is fucked from it.
Funk hammers Sabu in the face, but the challenger is only focused on his bicep muscle being exposed. He begins to haphazardly tape his gash closed, as Funk places two chairs across from each other. Neckbreaker into the chairs by the Funker. Sabu sells it, while also taping his arm up. Sabu springs to his feet, and Funk quickly drops him with a punch to the jaw. Funk with some windmill punches to the body, as Sabu rolls to the outside.
Funk follows him, and they brawl on the floor. Funk rakes Sabu’s face into the wire once again, then rolls him back into the ring. Funk with the Spinning Toe Hold, but here’s Alfonso for a distraction. Funk pulls him into the ring, and Sabu attacks Funk. Funk with an inverted suplex onto the top rope of the barbed wire. Funk grabs a piece of the wire, and he punches Alfonso right in the head! He rakes it across his back like a cheese grater.
Funk punches Alfonso out of the ring, then uses a wire cutter to snap the ropes. He takes a piece, and whips Sabu with it. On the floor, Funk tosses Alfonso onto a table. He continues his assault, while Sabu is now cutting some wire from the turnbuckle. Funk returns to the ring, and Sabu stabs Funk with the wire cutters. Rob Van Dam runs out, and attacks Funk, while Sabu continues to tear apart the ring. RVD wraps Funk up in the broken pieces of the barbed wire!
Poor Terry Funk looks a mess, as he’s completely tied up in the wire. He’s placed on a table, and Sabu hits a diving leg drop from the ring to send him crashing through the table! Tommy Dreamer is here to attack RVD with a trash can lid and a DDT. He carries RVD away from ringside, as another table is set up by Alfonso. Sabu brings Funk into the ring for a pin, but Funk somehow kicks out. Funk can’t even move due to how tight the barbed wire is around his whole body.
Sabu places Funk on the new table, then returns to the ring. He wraps himself in more barbed wire, and hits another diving legdrop through Funk and the table! Both men are tangled up in barbed wire, trapped together like wounded soldiers in the middle of war. They have a hard time getting to their feet, and I can’t tell if Funk is actually in pain, or if he’s the world’s greatest seller. They somehow get back into the ring, despite being unable to move. Literally, they are tangled in wire.
Sabu covers Funk, and Funk kicks out. Neither man can move on their own. Sabu tries again, and this time, he’s able to hold Funk down for 3. Sabu is the new ECW World Champion. Post match, referees and officials quickly try to free these men from this clusterfuck of a prison.
Admittedly, this wasn’t as horrifying as I remember, aside from two spots. It is still a rough match to get through, as you are always of the mindset that these two are risking life and limb for the sake of professional wrestling. Seeing Terry Funk, deep in his fifties, in this match rolling around in barbed wire is terrifying. Matches like this reinforce the opinion that Terry Funk is the greatest wrestler of all time who excels in both scientific wrestling and hardcore wrestling.
Even Sabu seemed out of his element here, and he’s fucking nuts. The barbed wire was the story here, and every time it came into play, there’s a reaction to be had. Sabu tearing his bicep up in barbed wire is one of the grossest things you’ll ever see, and him wrapping it in tape mid match to continue onward is even nuttier. The ending, with both men tangled in barbed wire and unable to stand up, is both extraordinary to see, and disturbing to all senses.
It’s a visual that’s horrifying to everyone who’s seen it, and it’s why this match has been the labeled “the match that was too hardcore for ECW.” A match worth checking out at least once, because it is pure spectacle, and it’s always something to see two human beings just trying to survive in the face of scary odds – in this case, barbed wire. I wouldn’t say this is one you have to revisit, because outside of those two spots, it’s just a good rough match.