When Pro Wrestling Angles Go Wrong: The ECW Arena Fire

Extreme Championship Wrestling were known for pushing the boundaries of professional wrestling in the 1990s, but sometimes their plans could have disastrous consequences. That was the case one night in 1995 when a particularly crazy stunt in Philadelphia quickly turned into a volatile situation, and could have resulted in an even worse catastrophe.

The People Involved 

Throughout 1995, Tommy Dreamer was locked in a feud with his greatest professional rival in Raven.

Once a stereotypically-cocky, motormouthed bad guy, Scott Levy changed up his entire aesthetic upon arrival in ECW. Inspired in part by Patrick Swayze's portrayal of a charismatic ringleader of thieves in the movie Point Break, Levy added a sullen, decidedly-Generation X twist to Swayze's commanding presence, combining the elements Eric Draven from The Crow to become the brooding and sadistic Raven.

Raven targeted Dreamer with the aid of many unquestioning followers, including the cheerfully-oblivious Stevie Richards and the alluring Beulah McGillicutty. There were also various other mercenaries that attacked The Innovator of Violence under orders from Raven, including the original Dudley Boyz, and The Vampire Warrior (AKA Gangrel).

The big crux of the feud was that Dreamer could never beat Raven. Just when it seemed victory was at hand, something always happened that screwed Dreamer over against his hated rival. No matter what, Raven seemed to eternally have Dreamer's number.

On August 5, 1995, Dreamer and Raven were on opposite sides of an eight man tag at the ECW Arena. Raven partnered with Richards, Dudley Dudley, and Big Dick Dudley to face Dreamer, The Pitbulls, and the ever-popular Cactus Jack. Once more, Dreamer had the finish line in sight, finding himself on the verge of scoring a pinfall victory over Raven, only for Cactus Jack to turn on Dreamer. 

Out of nowhere, Cactus Jack kicked Dreamer and planted his teammate with a double arm DDT. Inexplicably at the time, he allowed Raven to pin Dreamer, not only prolonging the feud, but allowing Jack a wholly-unexpected heel turn.

From there, Mick Foley cut some of the greatest promos of his entire career, disavowing hardcore wrestling and the bloodthirsty lot that thrive on it. He pleaded for Dreamer to not make the same mistakes he once had by trying to please the lowlife fans that didn't care about his wellbeing, while also making salient points about pride, ego, and responsibility.

As Foley was such a gifted speaker, his talking points came across as logical and well-spoken, and yet there seemed to be ulterior motives, a self-serving undercurrent, to his spate of diatribes. With Raven not so subtly pulling Cactus' strings, it was clear that Cactus Jack didn't really care about Dreamer's wellbeing either.

To make his heel turn work, Foley was now resorting to having boring, resthold-filled matches that were the antithesis of his unpredictable wildman persona.

Dreamer sustained further beatings at the hands of Raven and Cactus, leading him to eventually seek out an equaliser in Terry Funk. The Hardcore Legend himself had dipped in and out of ECW over the previous two years, and was now here to not only help Dreamer even the odds against Raven and Cactus but to, in essence, help Dreamer "de-program" his longtime rival in Mick Foley. 

October 28, 1995

Dreamer vowed to "beat the hardcore out" of Cactus, and had a chance to do so at the ECW Arena on October 28 in a singles match main event. Preceding that main event, the October 28 ECW Arena card had been one for the ages. It was yet another eclectic event from a very eclectic group in a year that keenly defined ECW as the best alternative to the doldrums of mainstream wrestling.

On the card, The Eliminators defeated a team that sounds almost too good to be true today in Taz and Scott Steiner, while Konnan and Rey Misterio Jr. outlasted La Parka and Psicosis in a wild bout. In the culmination of a months-long rivalry, Mikey Whipwreck dethroned ECW World Heavyweight Champion The Sandman, ending the six-and-a-half month reign of the promotion's resident anti-hero.

Sandman didn't remain beltless for long, however, as later that same night, ECW World Television Champion 2 Cold Scorpio defeated one half of the tag team champions in Rocco Rock of The Public Enemy. Per the stipulation, both men's belts were at stake, and if Scorpio won, he netted both tag titles and got to choose a partner to hold them with.

When a bloody Sandman prevented Johnny Grunge from making a late-match save for his partner, Scorpio happily bestowed the second belt upon the now-former ECW World Heavyweight Champion. Notably, late in that Scorpio vs. Rocco match, the Public Enemy member tried to put Scorpio through a flaming table, only to miss, diving into the blaze himself.

Following Scorpio and The Sandman's ecstasy of gold, the stage was set for the main event of Tommy Dreamer vs. Cactus Jack, and Rocco Rock's rendezvous with fire wasn't going to be the last open flame the 1,150 ECW Arena fans saw that night.

Fire had already come into play a handful of times in ECW that year alone. In April, Terry Funk (then a heel) went at Cactus Jack (then a babyface) with a flaming branding iron during a match, even jabbing Foley a couple of times in the torso with the iron. On October 7, Stevie Richards was put through a double stack of tables by Public Enemy, with the bottom table set ablaze for good measure.

Given Cactus' character direction, though, fire didn't seem to be on his menu. In his pre-match spiel, a resolute Cactus promised the fans that they were in for the most boring match possible. Meanwhile, Dreamer, flanked by Funk, expressed determination through a solemn glare, looking to make good on his pledge to drag the old Cactus Jack out of Foley's recesses.

Clean breaks and side headlocks were the main weapons in Cactus' arsenal as he refused to take Dreamer's bait. When Cactus passed up a fan's offering of a steel chair to instead give Dreamer a headlock takeover on the floor, the match officially crossed over into a distinct plane of surrealist art. It was a master class on how to intentionally deprive the fans of their stated desire.

If all of the above weren't enough to irk the Philly crowd, Foley hit a bullseye when he passed on dropping the patented Cactus elbow from the apron, instead cheerleading the fans by spelling out the letters W-C-W with his arms. 

Eventually, under Raven's watchful eye, Cactus began throwing closed fists at a staggering Dreamer. Punch after punch rained down on Dreamer's face, until finally, Cactus ended the assault, because he was claiming to have broken his hand. Therefore, he was calling the rest of the match off, and wished all the fans good night.

As referee Jim Molineaux looked to count Cactus out, Funk tried goading his rival back to the ring with fighting words. Funk insulted Foley's wife and kids over the house mic by calling them horrible things, none of which could get Cactus to come back through the curtain.

When Terry Funk dared insult WCW’s Eric Bischoff, however, out came a fired-up Cactus looking to scrap. After the continuation of what was now a heated brawl, a blood-soaked Dreamer eked out the win over Mick Foley.

The Fire

Then came the post-match angle. While the match itself was played in segments on the November 14, 1995 edition of Hardcore TV, it cut off abruptly just as Raven and Cactus began to attack Dreamer after the match. The fans were seen cheering somebody coming out of the entrance way, but the home viewer never saw who it was.

Very little corroborating media supports what happened next. All that exists are eyewitness accounts, memories from those within this tale, and the odd still photograph.

Dreamer was on his own following the win, as Funk had been injured by the heels shortly before the match's ending, and was taken to the locker room. As the Raven and Cactus beatdown of Dreamer ensued, a slightly-recovered Funk came storming out of the locker room, armed with a faithful prop in the flaming branding iron.

Funk took the weapon and struck both Raven and Cactus in the abdomen with it, but very quickly, the heels regained the upper hand. Then another weapon was introduced to the brawl in a steel chair with a piece of cloth wrapped around part of it. Those who knew Mick Foley's deathmatch wrestling knew it was a towel soaked in kerosene that, once Raven touched the branding iron to the towel, went up in flames.

Cactus went after Funk with the chair, but Dreamer sacrificed himself, taking the scalding strike across his body in what was designed to be a heroic act.

Foley later noted that the angle had gone swillingly, but he remembered Funk calling for a slight audible as The Living Legend told Foley to raise the chair again as if to attack the 51-year-old former world champion with it. Funk would then bail just as Cactus closed in on him with the unforgiving flame.

Funk, however, remembered it slightly differently. In his memoirs, Funk said he never told Foley to hit him a second time with the chair, though that doesn't exactly contradict Foley's version of events. Again, Foley said that Funk told him to pick up the chair again and use it, which says nothing of Foley actually intending to make contact with Funk's body.

Foley noted that once armed, he could see Funk bailing for the arena floor, so he opted to "just miss" with his second try, in what would presumably look like a dramatic close call.

Wherever the truth precisely lies, Cactus Jack made like he still had Funk in his crosshairs as he brandished the fire chair once more. With the chair raised, Foley descended upon the exiting Funk with what he considered a slower swing, with the intent of hitting the ropes just as Funk escaped.

Instead, he watched in horror as a ball of fire flew from the chair and onto the back of Funk, who was stooped over at ringside.

What had happened was a portion of the flaming towel had separated from the chair during Foley's swing and that torn-off section of fiery cloth had landed on Funk.

Foley remembered a panicked and pained Funk charging around ringside while fire billowed from his body. Briefly, Foley broke character to try and save his friend and mentor, but couldn't catch up to Funk in his agonising dash around the ring area.

Even more horrifying was that in the midst of all the confusion, part of the flaming towel had somehow wound up in the front row of the audience, where one fan reportedly suffered burns to his hand as a result.

The Situation Goes From Bad To Worse

If that weren't bad enough of a calamity, bad timing was about to make things much worse. Shortly after that fiery shred went over the railing, three ECW staffers rushed to its location with extinguishers to put it out. Just as they arrived and began spraying the containers, the lights in the arena suddenly went out.

So to recap, there's a fire, staffers are filling the air with high levels of extinguishing agent, and now the building has plunged into darkness. The reason for the lights going out was a planned angle to set up the November to Remember show three weeks later. 

Raven had taken a battered Tommy Dreamer and strung him up into a mock crucifixion pose in the arena's Eagles Nest area, and the lights went out to set up the surprise, as a solitary spotlight was to be pointed at Raven's heinous act. That spotlighted image of Raven posing beside a decimated Dreamer is the only video from the entire post-match scene that has ever been shown publicly.

Whoever killed the lights clearly didn't know what was transpiring down at ringside, and didn't get them back on quickly enough. When panic from both the fire and the lights going out set in, fans began hastily filing toward the available exits, and managed to do so without too much escalating chaos. 

The worst injuries were some minor ones sustained exiting through the metal chairs in the darkness, while the Wrestling Observer noted that only one or two fans were hospitalised. Given the circumstances, it was fortunate that no stampede-type situation occurred.

The Aftermath

As for Funk, amid the panic, he finally managed to get the flaming piece of towel off of him, but the damage had been done. He suffered second degree burns on his back and his right arm, but his pain was secondary to his rage.

Back behind the curtain, a furious Funk was throwing chairs and other objects, while, as Foley noted, a number of tough guy wrestlers were keeping a safe distance. Funk's wife Vicki was there, and Foley remembered her being distraught at the sight of her husband in this uncontrollable state.

Foley wasn't sure what he could do to quell his friend's rage. When he asked Funk if he was okay, Funk threw a chair right at Foley, and proceeded to curse at him for the mishap. Foley remembered that when he tried to apologise, Funk hollered at him: "You damn well ought to be sorry, you son of a b*tch!"

Funk went to the hospital while Foley made the long drive home from Philadelphia to New York, feeling utterly guilty about what had transpired. He even admitted that during the drive, he had at one point made up his mind about quitting the business as a result of what happened. Eventually, he calmed down enough to at least chase that thought away, but the guilt remained.

Unbeknownst to Foley, however, Funk had actually checked out of the hospital that night and returned to the ECW Arena, where he filmed promos for the return clash at the November to Remember.

The following morning, Foley left Funk a conciliatory message on his answering machine. Later that day, Funk left Foley a message in return. This time, the tone was completely different, as Funk apologised to Foley for the traumatic outburst the previous night, and stressed that the accident was nobody's fault. The friends put the incident behind them. Funk healed up, and the two got ready to be on opposite sides of a tag team match at November to Remember, with Dreamer and Raven as their respective partners.

While Foley and Funk quickly patched things up, the fallout continued in other areas, however. A hearing was held on November 9, 1995 with the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission. A report from the November 20 edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter stated that event promoter Ed Zohn was fined for not having a doctor present that night. Nothing else could apparently be done to others in ECW, since pro wrestling was deregulated in the state a few years prior.

A lawsuit was eventually filed against ECW by a fan named Raymond Schweitzer, claiming he was burned that night at the ECW Arena, and that he eventually suffered from PTSD as a result of the incident. The case went to trial in May of 2000, and was dismissed.

Shortly after the incident, Heyman vowed that fire would never come into play in an ECW angle again. Whether or not he actually said it, it was certainly not ECW's last time using an open flame during a match or angle.

As a way of making things up to the Philly fans, many of whom were understandably furious about what transpired on October 28, Heyman brought in one of their favourites. At November to Remember three weeks following the incident, he personally brought back a wrestler that had been exiled from the company seven months earlier following a notable rift in Sabu.

Preceding Sabu's re-introduction, there were a few knowing murmurs in the crowd when Heyman, over the mic, politely asked his staff to "dim the lights." Following Sabu's acclaimed return, the rest of the night was just as memorable. Steve Austin challenged Mikey Whipwreck for the ECW World Heavyweight Title, Misterio Jr. won a scintillating Mexican Death Match over Psicosis, Taz shockingly turned heel by attacking commissioner Tod Gordon, before giving a bitter soliloquy. In the main event, Terry Funk and Tommy Dreamer vanquished Raven and Cactus Jack.

To this day, the ECW Arena fire remains a cautionary tale, a prime example of what can happen when major risks are taken for the sake of entertainment, and what could happen when those risks go awry. The end result could have been far worse for so many people present that night in Philadelphia.

H/T TooFastForBlood for most of the images you see in this article.