Today In Wrestling History: 8/17: John Cena - Batista For The 1st Time, Jerry Lawler In ECW, & More

* 18 years ago in 1997, ECW ran their second pay-per-view event, Hardcore Heaven, live from the War Memorial in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was generally considered a weak follow-up to their debut, Barely Legal, both in terms of the in-ring show itself and the production values. This show was infamous for at least a few years by virtue of how bad the lighting was, especially by PPV standards. Even Barely Legal had a lighting grid mounted in the ECW Arena, which was literally a warehouse, so even it looked better than the War Memorial did for Hardcore Heaven.

Watch Hardcore Homecoming (06/10/05) – Sabu vs. Terry Funk vs. Shane Douglas (No Rope Barbed Wire 3-Way Dance) in Entertainment | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

The main event saw Shane Douglas defeating Terry Funk and ECW Champion Sabu to win the title in a three-way match. This was a rematch of their famous 60 minute draw three and a half years earlier and The Night the Line was Crossed, which really ignited interest in ECW and became a legendary part of its history. This match...not so much. It wasn't meant to be, but th first match was such an untouchable moment to ECW's fanbase (even more so when you consider how much of the match was novelty that doesn't hold up well) that a rematch could never live up to it. Another rematch, at the Hardcore Homecoming show in 2005, was made a barbed wire match so they could have more smoke and mirrors.

Realistically, the next biggest match on the show was Tommy Dreamer defeating Jerry Lawler, blowing off their feud but not the "WWF vs. ECW" issue that didn't include anyone else from the WWF at the time. While more than a bit overbooked, with a lot of run-ins, some (like Jak Roberts in a one-off appearance) for no discernable reason, it was an excellent Jerry Lawler style brawl, and we didn't exactly get a lot of those on the national scene in 1997. They did renew their feud a few years ago on the indie scene in a really fun cage match.

The show also featured Rob Van Dam, fresh of his short initial WWF stint, beating the returning Al Snow in his Leif Cassidy/New Rockers gear that he had worn in the WWF. This was the start of the run where Snow "went crazy" and started talking to a mannequin head, which got him back on the main WWF roster. Strangely, it was as if the fanbase collectively forgot he was still signed to the WWF with ECW being used as a developmental group (Droz, Brakkus, and others were in ECW around the sam time), possibly because Justin Credible was sent down for similar reasons but ended up signing with ECW when his WWF contract expired. When Snow went back to the WWF, the ECW fans were not happy. A lot of them wanted to maintain the fantasy that there was no ECW/WWF deal.

* 7 years ago in 2008, WWE held that year's SummerSlam at the Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. The show was built around the two main events: Edge vs. The Undertaker in a Hell in a Cell match, and Batista vs. John Cena for the first time ever. Oddly enough, neither was for a title.

Edge vs. Undertaker was the first Hell in a Cell match after WWE had banned blading. After the famous Brock Lesnar vs. Undertaker bloodbath in 2002, they established that the match was an old-school feud settling bloody cage match. With blading gone, the result was a match very different from past Hell in a Cell matches: To live up to the expectations of doing the gimmick in the main event slot at SummerSlam, it was a total stunt show. It didn't fit, although Edge was certainly the right person for the job. He got to take time off after the match, which was chalked up to him being chokeslammed "to hell" through the ring.

Batista vs. Cena was one of WWE's last real dream matches and both guys did their best to live up to it, having a really excellent bout, one of the best WWE matches of the year. Not long after this, though, there was a problem: Cena's neck was, as he described it to other wrestlers, "f—ed." To explain his neck surgery and absence, WWE chalked the injury up to the move that led t the finish, which was Batista countering the leg slice/top rope famouser with the Batista Bomb (he followed it up with another Batista Bomb for the win). Cena wound up getting minimally invasive surgery, was up and around right away, and returned within weeks thanks to his Wolverine-esque rapid healing powers.