The True Story Of The WORST Wrestling PPV Ever
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ก.พ. 2025
- Heroes of Wrestling is largely considered the worst wrestling PPV of all time. Featuring wrestlers such as Yokozuna, Jake 'The Snake' Roberts, Tully Blanchard, Jim Neidhard, Jimmy Snuka, and more, we take a look back at the disastrous event in The True Story Of The WORST Wrestling PPV Ever.
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Cultaholic provides video coverage of professional wrestling - including WWE (including WWE Raw, WWE SmackDown, NXT and 205 Live), AEW, IMPACT Wrestling (formerly TNA), NJPW, ROH, and more with daily news updates, reviews, lists, highlights, predictions, reactions, podcasts and much, much more. - กีฬา
There is a sense of morbid irony that of all four people in that main event, Jake is the only one who is still alive as of the writing of this comment.
Back in 99, you would NOT have predicted that.
Jake is the Keith Richards of Pro Wrestling.
Really due to DDP
@@DecadentDeviant13it will be cool to see how far he gets with Lex
Yes, Lex has severe nerve damage back there, but with that said, DDP is the right guy for the task!!
"You got 21, I got 22. You wanna play Blackjack, well, I've got two of those too". That Jake promo alone makes the show worth seeing
It's a good line. Making it "I've got a .22" would have satisfied a generation of grammar psychos
And on the unedited version of his promo he says you got any tequila in a blue you got a women on the trashy side I got three of them too because you know the only thing bigger than yoko is the sheer fact today alone I snorted lines a bit longer than Damian and I've drank more booze than most bars have and theirs second hand crack smoke everywhere I exhale so if you want to talk about being dirty and doing the dirty smelling dirty and you know who it be J.T.S
Welcome to the danger zone!
Missouri is on the gulf coast?!?!?
Jack of Spade and Jack of Clubs 🤷🤣
As the referee in the main event a correction needs to be made. Just before going into the ring I was under the impression that Jim Neidhart would be taking the pin. He told me he would not, and I had better not count to three on him. The only time in my 32 year career I entered a match with no finish. At one point during the match, I asked Bundy whom I was very friendly with, to throw me out of the ring, I would pretend to be injured and would be happy to let another ref deal with it. Bundy said not to worry and although not the legal man in the ring he pushed Jake down and told me to count to three. If Jake agreed to take the pin no one ever informed me of it. I have taken a lot of heat for not knowing that they were not the legal men, but at that point I would have let Bundy pin me or we still might be there today.
My uncle was at this show . He told me it the most awesome / depressing thing he ever saw in all his years of attending wrestling events.
"The final shot of the night was of the snake crawling over poor Mini-Bundy." is one of the greatest sentences I've ever heard.
Side note: The moment it was mentioned that Sid turned this PPV down, I was truly hoping it was because it conflicted with his softball schedule.
Would almost bet
Ha ha I thought exactly the same re softball!
At least he's treated it since with good humor, evident in using the Botchamania line to help hype the first Double or Nothing.
We as a wrestling community owe DDP a debt of gratitude because without his yoga program, Jake Roberts would probably.... Actually, more than likely dead.
right?
its even worse when you realise that it took an ex-wrestler to do it instead of the companies being responsible for their workers and actually taking good care of them
:/
ddp shoulda let him rot in obscurity.
@@joer-tard2821 100% agree with you
just.....its just i have a lot of respect for DDP
He should've just let him expire.
@@joer-tard2821 no.
It amazes me that Jake, on a horrible day and in horrible condition, was still the most mature person in the ring and agreed to do the job.
sXeAndriex - Just goes to show what a class act the guy is compared to the others in the match.
He's a pros pro 🙌🙌🙌
I think it does show that despite his demons at the time, Mr Roberts had a good mind for the business and was able to,out any ego aside.
@@Mattd100 Well said, if it's one thing Jake has never had it's ego, he's a good guy. He even put over Stone Cold in a big way at the King of the Ring.
Oh please none of you know him - I booked that “class guy” for an event. Paid him upfront at his insistence. Paid extra so he would do free autographs. Showed up totally fucked up. Couldn’t do autographs. Did a half ass effort in the match. Took a few pics with fans and then left for the bar.
It kills me how fans think they know the wrestlers because they like their gimmick
The initials for the show say it all. HOW? HOW did anybody think this was a good idea? HOW?!
I actually watched this live. Jake is one of my all time favorites and I bought the PPV just for him. You could tell that they were piecing the show together as it happened.
It's so funny how everyone involved in the main event was dead serious about not taking the pin as if they had a big contract waiting for them at the big two or something.
Gotta go out on top!
Workers gonna work lmao
Really shows the immaturity of athletes, doesn't it? Anyone could tell by the middle of this show, there wasn't going to be another one or like you stated, anyone from WWE or WCW was going to offer anyone a big contract to return. 🙄
@@WSK9002 to be fair, there were plans to host more shows like this if it were successful with its 40k buys. I can imagine some Wrestlers incorrectly it would matter in the long run, especially as it was on tv and thus want to be protected.
So this is where the mythical "wanna play 21" line from Botchamania comes from.
Yeah, when I heard that promo, my brain hurt. "Playing 21? Well I've got 22!" Uh, Jake? Getting 22 in a game of 21 means you lost ...
@@foxfireinferno197 but if you then play blackjack (which apparently is a different game to him), hes got two of those too. lol
That's an awful thought, that Jake was both deep in his own problems and troubles around alcohol, and the staff were just allowed to serve him without anyone intervening.
Great job on this video. This event has seemingly been covered to death by every single wrestling channel on TH-cam, but I appreciate how this one gets more into the behind-the-scenes stuff which sets the disaster of the show itself into better context. Most reviews or retrospectives settle to just laugh at "LoL Lookit how old, drunk, and out of shape these guys are, what a mess", but this video has a lot more detail as to Why some of it was so bad, as well as the resultant fallout. Very cool.
I actually used to have this show on VHS, a buddy ordered and taped it for me. I watched it once and taped over it.
Remember watching this one live on an illegal cable box, at least i didn't pay for it, but was something I still wish I could forget.
I ordered this. What I remember most was how much apologizing was done for the age of the wrestlers which was done, I feel, to cover for poor match quality. Like they were saying “This is gonna suck and here’s why”. Definitely not the best PPV ever.
"Definitely not the best PPV ever."
The title of the video would have us believe that to be true as well...
Hahahaha this is gonna suck and here is why…..
That’s pretty rough
"This is gonna suck. Why?" (slaps multiple times in the head) "Here's why!"
(Sorry, I couldn't resist)
I was there, backstage…..19 years old, scared to death of the Samoans but clinging to them because they were the only sane people in the building 😂Strange time to be around wrestling.
The average wrestling fan: ECW December to Dismember 2006 is the worst PPV ever!
Heroes of Wrestling: watch this, brother
lol yeah, possible When Worlds Colide or even Bash at the Beach.. then is saw it was HOW and thought: oh no!
I'm hoping that (Dark Side of the Ring) will do an episode on ''The Heroes of Wrestling PPV''.
I LIVE for shit like this. These little expose and review combinations are a personal fave of mine. Cultaholic almost never disappoints.
Love Jack. But the new emancipated alien should have been left on his home planet.
I watched this PPV and oh my word, I heard it was awful but I didn’t expect just how awful
Right? You hear stories of how absolutely awful it was, but actually seeing it... It was so much worse
Poor production, an announcer who knew little to nothing about wrestling, and a legend who was too intoxicated to perform pretty much means a disastrous wrestling show. Dusty finish aside, the Tully Blanchard vs Stan Lane match was perhaps the only good match on the card.
Opener wasn’t to bad either for what this show is worth, this is also the place for one of tullys best promo . If not top 5
Just a little thing, but Bay St. Louis is in Mississippi, not Missouri
I wondered why he said Missouri was on the gulf coast.
May be because they read MS (Mississippi) and thought it was Misssouri (MO) also, he’s a Brit, so he doesn’t know.
If by little you mean only 400 miles or so. If you go 400 miles away from London in any direction you aren't in England any more.
@@Momito99 or because St Louis is in Missouri
Glad you caught that too. I was a bit disappointed to hear that gaff as I live on the coast lol
Tully's promo is probably the best thing on this show
When you have four people in a main event and the only one willing to lose is Jake Roberts. Literally drunk and high Jake was more professional than the other 3 who wouldn't "lose" cause of the huge contracts they has waiting
Love these videos! It was a disaster and is something to look back upon. I'm still so glad to see Jake doing better now.
Even if Jake was sober that evening, there was nothing he could have done to save that show overall.
Adding more to Rick Stone's reaction to the bloody Abdullah/ OMG match, Stone aimed to make Heroes of Wrestling a family-aimed PPV based off how things were booked in the WWE's Golden Era of the 1980s. However, his lack of familiarity with pro wrestling led him to be oblivious to the more violent elements of it, namely Abdullah's violent rep within the hardcore wrestling scene.
The fact they didn't expect blood on the PPV and still booked Abdullah the Butcher is hilarious to me
This NEEDS to be a Dark Side of the Ring episode--if only to see how this came about and how badly it flopped and why...
I popped so much when Jake started his heroes of wrestling promo during the AEW PPV, I am glad he can have a sense of humour about it and that he knows a lot of us would get a kick out of him doing the promo again.
Jake Roberts is living proof sobriety is everything. If you're popping pills you could be a different person on Thursday than you were Wednesday. The worst part bout this story is that Jake's drug use was enabled and people failed to pick up on the signs that he was not in the right place mentally. It's so crucial that we pick up on that behavior and call it out.
Bollocks
biden and trump are sober, so is obama and bush and clinton.
putin, blair, and osama as well
It's understandable why he turned to substance abuse. If I had his past I probably would too.
I watched that mess live on PPV. There are no words you can say that would describe how bad it was.
It’s crazy how much older 40 was just 20 years ago.
Amen, brother. Staring down the barrel of 40 makes you realize how young 25-30 is.
Unlike say..."a Bad movie" I think a bad wrestling show, NEVER overclocks it and becomes ironically good.
Agree. I think it’s because “bad” in a lot of entertainment forms might mean funny, but in wrestling “bad” is usually just boring. And, in the case of this show, there’s some moments that are interesting to watch in a trainwreck sense, but sitting through the rest of the thing is hard to do.
To my knowledge St.Louis Missouri is a solid 12 hour drive from the Gulf Coast.
IIRC they promoted that the Ultimate Warrior had been booked to be on this show, but then like a week before the show it was announced he wasn't going to be there. Maybe it was some other independent PPV in that time frame.
I love your content man! Yall are the only channel I have notifications for
Consider checking Wrestling Bios then
WrestlingPremier is really good too
As messed up as Jake was at this event he still cut a better promo than 99% of the WWE roster today
the fact that your right dude.......................
Damn sure won't argue about crappy promo work in wrestling in generally today, but NO he didn't! Jake fucked up as a football bat!
And yet I’d rather re-watch this, than watch a WWE PPV today.
if fyre Festival had Wrestling... it would be Heroes of Wrestling
Jake is one of the greatest minds in the business. Imagine what an asset he would be in NXT
It would of been cool 😎 to see Jake at NXT
Damn! I knew about Roberts' alcohol problems, but I had no idea about the legal problems surrounding his divorce, and that before the day of the PPV, he'd actually been sober and very enthusiastic about it. That just makes it all the more tragic. I'm so glad Roberts was eventually able to put his life in order with DDP's help.
Pulls the heart strings more when you realise WHY he was an addict.
Fuck Grizzly Smith!
I bought this PPV . My wife and was like WTF . It looked to be cool with the legends I grew up with. Boy I was wrong lol
I used to live near the area of Mississippi _(not_ Missouri, for shame) where this show was held. And I assure you that I feel shame for the place.
Even the best match on the night, the Tully Blanchard v Stan Lane one, had a questionable finish. You know you can’t save the show when that happens!! The Tully Blanchard promo was one of the few very good things on the show as well. Thank goodness for Tully!! I would say that the Scorpio and Fantastico bout was the 2nd best match of the night. Mind you the bar wasn’t exactly set that high was it??
Videos on this page go on a lot about WCW’s aging roster. You just know that most of WWE’s current roster are over 40. Which makes them such hypocrites.
Anyone who wants to complain about how bad modern WWE is needs to watch this show
Sure then because ATM i fear i might still prefer it, gor being at least entertainingly bad
3:36 - minor nitpick: Bay St. Louis is in *Mississippi,* not Missouri.
The only way this production could've been made any better was to have Art Donovan in an ill-fitting tuxedo asking, "How much does this guy weigh?" every 45 seconds.
So the commercial right before we talk about Jake the Snake falling to his demons is for Bushmills whiskey is TH-cam trolling me.
I bought that PPV in '99. What a disappointment that was seeing all the wrestlers from my childhood just phoning it in. I thought it would be a cool, nostalgic show, but it was just sad.
A pay-per-view so bad that it's worth the watch. Definitely the worst wrestling show ever.
While you got the name of the city correct, this PPV actually took place near the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Not Missouri.
My son and I watched this trainwreck live on PPV. I had to pick my jaw up off the floor often during the dreadful matches & 'storylines'. 🤢
I vaguely remember watching it but I didn’t remember it being that bad. Can’t be much worse than a lot of the other crappy ppv’s of that time. There was a ppv nearly every damn weekend at that point
if you go back and watch bundy's entrance i'm pretty sure him mouthing "fucking asshole" and what looked like "[sick of] your bullshit" was not kayfabe lol
Scorpio and Fantastico's match ended with an awful botch, which was shown in better detail on replay.
As much i was was buying ppv's in that era, i never heard about it, glad i didn't, saved some bucks.
Are we just gonna pretend the Missouri is "right on the gulf coast"? Have you Ever even saw a map of the states???
That "Bob's a f----t" chant is so cringey.
great work lads. wonderful content
11:06 Never thought I'd see Umi Sonoda's poker face meme in a wrestling video, but here we are
I paid for this too. I had forgotten about Jake or blocked it out. I felt bad for Yoko. He must have been at least 600lbs. I remember him in the AWA as Kokina Maximus when he was more like 350lbs. Oh and Gordon Solie would tell you it's a Suplee not a suplex. Thanks for helping me to retrieve this PVP from the deep recesses of my subconscious.
As bad as things were then, it's great to see the many who redeemed themselves after this.
If All Of These Great Superstars Were In Their Prime, This Would've Been A GREAT PPV..........In WWE, WCW, And ECW.
This was hard to watch. I’m so happy for Jake. Great to see him nowdays in interviews sober and having a great time!
I had no idea Missouri reached all the way down to the Gulf.
Jack The Jobber is still the cutest man in online wrestling commentary to this day.
Still better then anything they are doing today that's forsure.
OSW Review episode 100 😎
So Jake Roberts would pretty much pull a Hardy 2 decades before Hardy did..
Yep, Jake paved the way for Jeff Hardy to show up to Victory Road 2011 while drunk and under the influence of narcotics.
I guess Eric Bischoff and/or Sting watched this, given that Bischoff was able to step in and have Sting end the match quickly, preventing Jeff from reaching the level of Jake's 1999 antics.
Ironic how Jake is the only alive from the main event.
The promo by Tully is one of my favourite of all time its just so real
6:26 judging by Sinji from Evangelion is in the background of that I can assume this was the 3rd impact to wrestling fans?
This PPV happened the day of my third birthday; holy cow !!!
Now I see a lot of people online and in wrestling communities trying to tear down the old Snake with what they consider the "Worst promo of all time" but in reality we the masses have been too dumb to understand the level of kino that Jake was throwing down.
Everyone over the years have attributed the "You wanna play 21? I've got 22" line as being a sign that Jake doesn't know the rules of Blackjack In actuality what Mr. Roberts means is that he has a .22 Caliber gun, and that even if his opponent truly has the perfect hand he will not walk away the victor because Jake is vicious and will do anything to win. The line "Do you wanna play blackjack? I got two of those too" is then him saying that he has two actual blackjacks, a type of crude club used to bash people Finally the line "You wanna play Aces and Eights? I got too many of those" is probably the most kino of them all Aces and Eights goes by another name. They are called "Dead Man's Hand" because it is said to be the cards that Wild Bill Hickok, a famous outlaw, was holding when he was shot dead Jake is then implying that he has led a trail of men who thought they could best the snake only to wind up dead at his hand over the years.
It's time to face the facts, that even while ballooned off his ass on enough drugs to kill a bull, Jake Roberts could still cut a more cerebral promo than anyone else in the history of the business.
Point of order, Wild Bill Hickok was a law man, not an outlaw.
Just in case anyone isn't sure how crowded the PPV calendar was at the time. If a fan was thinking about buying this PPV and they had any concern about money, they knew WWF No Mercy (Main Event Triple H vs Steve Austin No Holds Barred for the WWF title) was the following week and WCW Halloween Havoc (Sting vs Hulk Hogan for the WCW title was two weeks later.) I think most of us can understand someone saying to themselves, "I'll skip this legends show and watch the other two or maybe just No Mercy.
It couldn’t have been any worse than the AWA/World Class Supershow. They darkened the lights and moved the fans down closer to make it appear like a larger crowd, to the point where it was hard to see, They also copied the ending of a recent WCW pay per view in their main event(matched stopped by “State Sports Commissioner”
for too much blood.
Ive seen the reviews, watched the ppv 3 times!, I didn't enjoy it, BUT if it would have been the family friendly exhibition that Stone was trying to put on, I think it would have been alright. Without Abdullah & drunk Jake the show woulda been fine.
Weird that Abdullah was there at all, if the intent was to be family oriented. The promoter I guess didn't do much consulting with the booker.
The worst pay per view of all time was....wait....I've never bought any. I have a brain.
At this time as always!
STORYTIME!!!!!!!!!!
Resident of the MISSISSIPPI (not Missouri) Gulf Coast here. Lived here my whole life. And as big of a wrestling fan as I was in 1999, I never even knew this happened until a few years ago. 14 year old me would have begged his parents to take him to see this, so I guess it worked out in the end I didn't know about it.
I came here to say that Missouri is nowhere near the Gulf Coast. At least they have the same first four letters. Hahaha
I bet Jake Roberts probably got extremely embarrassed when he sobered up and watched his performance on Heroes Of Wrestling.
I wouldn't be surprised if showing HOW to him was used as motivation for him to get cleaned up. "See, Jake? THIS is what you're like when you're drunk."
I'm "guessing" that I would be the first sub, who was actually in attendance that evening...
(No, i was absolutely NOT at that damn thing...but, i bet that's the rarest ticket stub in existence...)
I am in shock and awe that somehow an indie show turned out looking like an indie show...who would have thunk it???
I actually saw that show. It was nice to see the old guys out there again. I was not expecting a string of classic matches. Over all, I didn't hate it...
I had forgotten all about this. Ugh, why did I watch this? I need therapy again, thanks!
Heroes of Wrestling the worst of all time with botch commentary some legends lack of wrestling skills Too Cool Scorpio with a replica WCW belt and Jake The Snake Roberts intoxicated.
And i had a few good moments watching this garbage
Next: The True Story of the BEST Wrestling PPV Ever, book it Jack
Yeah! I would also love to see a retrospective on Anarchy Rulz '99.
The Tully promo was basically the lone highlight...
Heroes of Wrestling was Manos Hands of Fate bad!
It’s been over 20 years, it’s time for another one
"...well, you can picture what happened... it's probably on screen now..." 😂
You know it's one hell of a bad show when the guy who put it on admits to wondering when his plane leaves halfway thought it lol.
Also sad, that main event was Yokozuna's final match
Good job as always guys
I almost.....ALMOST....want to go find that Lane-Blanchard match.
How does that vcr register the name of the tape before it's put in?
I’ll never understand how grown men can be so childish about loosing a pretend fight haha. Ego is real.
Paging Bret Hart…
the worst is what's been put on the last 20+ years imo. that one has actual names i'd be interested in seeing.
I don’t know how something can abruptly fade out. Those seem pretty diametrically opposed lol