Awesome Night of the Legends
October 15, 2011
By Adam Zimmerman
I'm a collector of many things, but wrestling programs are not one of those things. Don't get me wrong, wrestling programs are cool and all. It's just the wrestling events I always attended when I was a kid were small-time, local shows with just one or two wrestlers on the card, in the main event, that you'd actually seen and watched on TV. This is, in fact, the only wrestling program that I own.
My friend attended the show live, which is how I got this program. He gave it to me, complete with the autographs he collected that night. I had to work on this particular day so, even though I really wanted to be there live, I just went home and ordered the PPV to watch it live that way. I want to share both my friend's and I's perspective on attending the show live/watching it on PPV. Also, former WCW commentator Chris Cruise was a part of this show. I contacted him, and he was also willing to share his thoughts on this particular event.
Let's dive in... This particular event occurred on my 31st birthday, October 15, 2011. It was promoted by Marvin Ward. Going back to the local wrestling shows that I used to attend, Marvin Ward was usually the promoter. He would have a couple of legends on his show (Ivan Koloff, Wahoo McDaniel, etc), but he'd always push his son, Doug Ward, to the top of the card to participate somehow in the main event. It was sort of a Nick Gulas/George Gulas situation. Even though this show is said to be promoted by Marvin Ward, Doug Ward is wrestling on the card under the name "Marvin Ward". Perhaps he took on his father's name at this time and promoted the show himself. Hell, I don't know. He's even featured on the cover of this program alongside Ricky Morton and Kevin Nash for no apparent reason other than to be pushed down people's throats.
The cover of this program that my friend was kind enough to give me is autographed by Kevin Nash. This program has more than a few autographs, which is one of the things that makes it special to me. Nowadays, you have to catch wrestlers on the convention circuit and pay good money to get an autograph, but this was back in the day, before all of that. My friend said Kevin Nash was quiet and reserved, but not an asshole. It just kinda seemed like he was signing autographs because it was part of his job, not like he actually enjoyed it.
The other autographs my program features are Tommy Dreamer, who apparently seemed like a nice guy to my friend. "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan, who my friend said was a really nice guy. When my friend was getting the autograph, he asked Hacksaw if he'd do a "HO!" and Duggan said he would, as long as my friend did it along with him, so they did. This program that I'm in possession of also features autographs by Lita (appearing under her real name, Amy Dumas), and DDP. My friend Jeremy said that Diamond Dallas Page was the nicest of the bunch. He took a minute to chat with him. I can see that happening. DDP seems like a real chill, laid-back sort of guy.
This card was stacked; I'll give it that much, but the matches didn't quite live up to the hype. As I mentioned, I watched this event live on PPV, and it used to be posted on YouTube, but that video has long since been taken down, so I'm going off of memory here. It's been years since I've actually watched the event.
Jim Duggan vs Mohammad Akbar (whoever TF that is) was okay. Pretty much your standard "Hacksaw is a patriot defending America" kind of match. Perry Saturn made his return after nine long years away from the ring on this night, in a match against C.W. Anderson. That sounds like an interesting matchup, but I don't really remember the match at all, so I assume it was nothing special. I remember the match that stole the show was Sonjay Dutt vs Jamin Olivencia. They really went at it and put on a hell of a match. High-flying moves. Near falls. They really pulled out all the stops.
The match I was looking forward to the most, but I was also disappointed by the most, was Tommy Dreamer vs Terry Funk. This was billed as a "dream match", and I was hoping they'd tear the house down, but it ended up only going for about 3 minutes, and I think it ended in some sort of double DQ. First, if these two guys are wrestling each other, NO DQ should be the standard type of match for them to have. I don't know if one of them was having an off night, so they cut it short, or if the Virginia State Athletic Commission made them tone down what Funk and Dreamer wanted to do (because the athletic commission here does kinda suck like that), but this match was a complete dud. It went worse than you can even imagine.
Finally, the main event featured Kevin Nash vs Ricky Morton, which seems like another interesting match-up up but I don't remember it being very good. At the time, Morton and Nash had some real online heat due to comments they both made about each other. This match was trying to spin that real-life heat into a storyline match.
Finally, as I mentioned, I happen to be lucky enough to be friends with Chris Cruise on social media. On this night, he teamed back up with his old WCW commentary partner, Larry Zbyszko, to handle the play-by-play. I asked him his thoughts on this show. He told me, "I think it was a financial bust. It never went anywhere or did anything. I think there was a money mark behind it. We got rented tuxedos. I remember that. And I got paid. It was pretty disorganized, and I don't think there were many PPV orders".
Hey, at least he got paid! Some people who have been booked by Marvin Ward over the years haven't even gotten the benefit of that. To summarize, this was a lackluster show, for sure. It probably ranks up there with Heroes of Wrestling, as far as being one of the worst wrestling PPVs of all time. I do really love this program, though. A highlight in my wrestling memorabilia collection, for sure.
