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E-C-DUB! E-C-DUB! E-C-DUB! While I've obviously watched a bunch of ECW shows in the past and know the broad strokes when it comes to their history, I've never sat down and tried to watch all of ECW's big supercards and PPVs in chronological order to see how the Philadelphia promotion developed into the phenomenon that is still remembered fondly and milked for cheap nostalgia to this day. So, I decided to sit down and try to watch all of ECW's big supercards and PPVs in chronological order. We're starting this ill-advised project with the first supercard held under the Extreme Championship Wrestling brand. I watched all of the Eastern Championship Wrestling supercards from 1993 and 1994, and while there were some fun matches there and you could see what the promotion would eventually become, most of those cards were frankly pretty dire for the most part and I probably would've burnt out long before Shane Douglas cut his famous promo at the NWA Title Tournament show on August 27, 1994, throwing down the NWA belt and declaring himself the ECW World Heavyweight Champion. You could say that was when ECW as we know it was born as that was around the time Paul Heyman took over the promotion and changed the name to Extreme Championship Wrestling, so that's where we're gonna start. This will go on until we reach the end of the original ECW or (more likely) until I lose interest and just stop bothering with any of this. We'll see how that turns out. So far, I haven't been watching much of Hardcore TV, although I probably should because that's where they build all the matches and storylines and show various important moments. I won't cover the episodes here, but I'll try to watch them a bit more regularly than I've been doing so far. My writeups of the shows are split into two or three parts depending on my mood and the length of the writeup, and I'll try to finish one show per week but I'm not promising anything. If you want to follow along at home and share your own comments, I'm sure you can find these shows somewhere on the internet. Just try not to post about anything beyond the latest writeup, because even though I've seen some of these shows and know the broad strokes I really don't remember the specifics very well. Oh yeah, and this probably goes without saying, but this is the original ECW so there's gonna be a whole bunch of stuff on these shows that hasn't aged well at all (and some that was dodgy even back then). I'm sure everyone here knows what to expect from 90s ECW, but I figured some kind of disclaimer was in order. But that's enough rambling, let's get this thing started! The first show we'll be looking at is November to Remember 1994, held at the ECW Arena in Philadelphia on November 5, 1994! THE SHOWS: November to Remember 1994 (November 5, 1994) November to Remember 1994, Part 1 November to Remember 1994, Part 2 Holiday Hell 1994 (December 17, 1994) N/A (Show has never been released aside from highlights on Hardcore TV) Double Tables (February 4, 1995) Double Tables 1995, Part 1 Double Tables 1995, Part 2 Return of the Funker (February 25, 1995) Return of the Funker, Part 1 Return of the Funker, Part 2 ------ DMorbid fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Sep 2, 2022 |
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Aug 4, 2022 19:22
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ECW November to Remember 1994 (November 5, 1994) Welcome, wrestling fans, to the ECW Arena! This is the second annual November to Remember supercard event, and the first one I’m actually able to watch in full because I don’t think the complete 1993 show has ever been released. Not a huge loss there because that card looks pretty awful and the production was even worse, based on the matches they showed on Hardcore TV the following week. King Kong Bundy was in the main event! Before we start, let’s go over some of the most important ECW-related happenings recently. The biggest event, of course, was the NWA Title Tournament on August 27. On that show, “The Franchise” Shane Douglas won the vacant NWA World Heavyweight Championship, only to throw it down in disgust and declare himself the new ECW World Heavyweight Champion in a promo we’ve all seen a million times in various ECW-related documentaries and highlight packages. Two days later on Hardcore TV, ECW Commissioner Tod Gordon announced that NWA Eastern Championship Wrestling would be disbanded and replaced by Extreme Championship Wrestling, effective immediately. Tonight, ECW World Heavyweight Champion Shane Douglas will be defending his belt against… Ron Simmons? What? Really? Okay then! The audio here, by the way, is absolute garbage and keeps crackling and cutting out as ring announcer Bob Artese tells the fans to make some noise. This is the ECW Arena, so I don’t think they need to be specifically told to make noise. Speaking of noise, here’s the EXTREME version of the US national anthem, played on an electric guitar by a member of the event staff. I’m not sure who this guy is, but Jimi Hendrix he definitely ain’t. Fortunately, this extreme rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner doesn’t last very long, as Paul E. Dangerously shows up with 911 to shut the whole thing down. Our musical prodigy gets chokeslammed for his efforts, and that’ll be that.  Paul picks up the Stratocaster, but sadly we don’t get to hear his guitar talents. He and 911 leave, but not before 911 kills the poor guitarist with another chokeslam. Now Bob Artese and the other announcer whose name I don’t know are being harassed by Paul and 911 and it’s complete chaos at the ECW Arena before we’ve even gotten to Joey Styles’ introduction. The sign guy in the front row has a “Bring Out the 5 Yr. Olds” sign. I’m not even gonna ask. Meanwhile, the announcer who isn’t Bob Artese (or Joel Gertner, who isn't here yet) is getting murdered by 911 in the ring and Paul talks trash to him.  The poor announcer eats a couple more chokeslams and a shot from Paul E’s giant early 90s cell phone, which is one of the most devastating objects in professional wrestling. That thing took down Cactus Jack once! The announcer gets a stretcher job, which I’m sure would be more dramatic if I had any idea who this guy is. But that’s enough of that, let’s get to the matches already! Our opening contest sees Hack Meyers, donning his best Rob Halford cosplay gear, take on J.T. Smith.  Smith has been an ECW mainstay since the start (or at least the first supercard, I haven’t seen anything before that) and has already taken some absolutely gnarly bumps. Joey Styles calls him the hometown favorite as the crowd boos mercilessly. Smith gets some pretty nice offense in, including a sweet fallaway slam, but Meyers comes back with a flurry of punches and clobbers Smith with an ax handle smash to the back of the head, sending him crashing hard into the turnbuckle. Meyers continues the assault with a chair but Smith dropkicks it into his face and takes control on the floor of the ECW Arena. The floor, by the way, looks like you’d catch some horrible disease by simply touching it. More brawling and chair shots on the outside, and the men eventually make their way back into the ring. The two trade pin attempts until Smith hits a northern lights suplex for the three count.  That was a pretty unremarkable opener. Some nice offense from Smith, who managed not to land on his head or almost break his back this time, but nothing to write home about. The two continue brawling to the back as we move on to the next match.  The Bad Breed, aka Axl & Ian Rotten are here, so this definitely isn’t going to be a mat classic. For some reason, the Rottens were billed from Newcastle, England at the time despite being extremely American. My best guess is that they were supposed to have something to do with Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols because the Bad Breed have this sort of punk rock gimmick going on, but Johnny’s from London. I don’t know, maybe the Rottens were just really big fans of Paul Gascoigne (who, as it turns out, is actually from Gateshead on the opposite side of the Tyne and hadn't played for Newcastle United since 1988, so that joke sure worked well). In any case, Thunder Kiss ‘65 starts blaring (for the second time tonight, as it also played at the start of the show) and that means the Pitbulls are about to make their entrance. Yep, not gonna be a mat classic. Pitbulls #1 and #2 immediately attack the Rottens and the brawl gets underway. Many punches and forearms are exchanged, Pitbull #2 gets a two count off a vertical suplex on Axl. Snap suplex and flying shoulder tackle by Pitbull #1 as he takes control. The Pitbulls work over Ian with quick tags, and here comes the SUPER BOMB!  That didn’t look pleasant. Ian’s head snaps back pretty violently on the landing, which is to be expected when you’re taking a release powerbomb off the middle rope. The Pitbulls win, but Axl hits the Pitbulls with their own chains. Ian decides to stop selling the devastating super bomb and is just walking around like nothing happened. The Pitbulls are busted open and the Bad Breed leave them lying in a heap. Another really short match, but I really didn’t want to see the Rottens go longer than five minutes anyway so this kinda worked out. So, our next match is…  WHYYYYY …Oh goddamn it, it’s Mr. Hughes. Hughes, aka “The Roughneck” and “The Offensive Line” is currently working as Shane Douglas’ bodyguard and has been featured entirely too much on these early shows, often against other stiffs who can’t wrestle for poo poo. The sign guy in the front row is calling him ECW’s Butt Kicker, so I guess someone enjoys his work. That makes one of us. Whoomp! (There It Is), not to be confused with Whoot, There It Is, starts playing and that can only mean one thing - it’s the early to mid-90s. Well, that and the fact 2 Cold Scorpio is about to make his entrance. At least someone in this match can work. Scorpio had a great match with Sabu at Hardcore Heaven in August and also made it to the finals of the infamous NWA Title Tournament, where he was defeated by Shane Douglas. I’m not sure what he did to deserve to be saddled with Mr. Hughes on this card.  Scorpio dances with the fans as he makes his way to the ring. Scorpio was an excellent worker at the time (and apparently can still go) and I’d really like to see him wrestle someone more mobile than Hughes, who is outwrestled by most refrigerators on the market. Hughes is able to use his strength to gain an advantage early on. Obviously, the pace here is glacial despite Scorpio’s best efforts. HOLY poo poo, MR. HUGHES DID A LEAPFROG! Okay, maybe he’s not quite as immobile as I made him out to be. I know a leapfrog is a pretty basic maneuver, but this is a very large man who spends most of his time lumbering around the ring. The crowd chants for 911 as Hughes applies a resthold before throwing Scorpio around some more and hitting the worst elbow drop in the world. Hughes is sent to the outside and sells a baseball slide that misses by a mile. Scorpio continues attacking on the outside but Hughes overpowers him again. Back in the ring, Hughes hits a “modified sidewalk slam” which looks more like a chokeslam, hits the world’s worst elbow drop again and Scorpio kicks out. Scorpio manages to topple the big man after some terrible selling, climbs up to the top and…  SCORPIO SPLASH! Scorpio gets the pin, and Hughes can’t believe it. Hughes beats up Scorpio after the match, actually hitting a dropkick in the process. Hughes cuts a promo on the house mic, talking trash to the fans and saying this is his house. Scorpio cuts a promo of his own, making a Whoomp! (There It Is) reference because it’s 1994 and that’s just what you did in 1994. And, well, it’s his theme and all that. The two brawl to the back, and scene. Meanwhile, the audio is getting worse. Bob Artese plugs some merch and an upcoming show in two weeks before introducing the next match, featuring… oh no, not this loving guy again. We Will Rock You starts playing, and that means “Ironman” Tommy Cairo is about to make an appearance. You know, unless you’re doing a Freddie Mercury gimmick, you shouldn’t be allowed to use We Will Rock You as your entrance theme. Probably not even then, really.  Tommy Cairo, seen here trying to shove a Singapore cane in his own eye socket to mock the Sandman, who was recently blinded by Tommy Dreamer (you know, I probably should watch more Hardcore TV because I’m missing all these important moments), is another mainstay of the Eastern Championship Wrestling days. He’s best known for two things: 1. His feud with the Sandman (whose wife Peaches was Cairo’s valet earlier), which basically created the Sandman as we know him. Seriously, the first time Sandman picked up a Singapore cane was during the feud with Cairo, and it was like a very drunk King Arthur pulling the Excalibur from the stone. 2. Being a roided-up lunk who can’t wrestle or talk. At least he’s a heel now, I guess. That’s already an improvement because he sucked even worse as a face. Yes, Sandman was the heel in the feud. Early ECW was weird. FREEEEZIIING, RESTS HIS HEAD ON A PILLOW MADE OF CONCRETE!  You know, before I started watching these shows, I had no idea Tommy Dreamer ever used a theme other than Alice in Chains’ Man in the Box, let alone Even Flow by Pearl Jam. Apparently, Dreamer is now here to defend Sandman’s honor… despite being the one to blind him in the first place, for which Cairo is now mocking Sandman… okay, I really have to watch Hardcore TV or at least read up on some of this stuff I missed. Hold on just a sec.  Okay, so Dreamer wasn’t TRYING to blind Sandman, or at least so he says. He tried to help Sandman immediately after seeing the injury, so now he’s a good guy. Or so he says. The sign guy doesn’t seem to buy it and demands a fine or suspension for Dreamer. Right, that makes sense. Anyway, as we can see, Dreamer is no longer wearing his ridiculous old gear with the suspenders and just looks like, well, Tommy Dreamer now. Dreamer unloads on Cairo with right hands before Even Flow even stops playing. Cairo hits an awful spinning kick on the outside and the two brawl for a while, with some chair shots sprinkled in for good measure. Dreamer and Cairo get back in the ring and Dreamer piledrives the everliving gently caress out of Cairo.  Dreamer doesn’t go for the cover because he wants to injure Cairo, and now the fans are handing him some weapons. Cairo tries to fight back but Dreamer is relentless, hitting a DDT on the floor. The fight continues in the middle of the crowd, which is a minor problem because the single-camera setup can’t see any of the action. More weapon shots, including a wooden pallet and a frying pan. We finally get back in the ring and Dreamer takes his shirt off to choke Cairo with it, revealing the ridiculous old gear underneath.  I know it was 1994, but this must have been a crime against fashion even back then. Cairo manages to get the upper hand and mocks Sandman again, grabbing the cane from earlier. Dreamer proceeds to whack Cairo in the head with the cane a bunch of times, busting him open. Dreamer clobbers Cairo in the dick with the cane and continues the beatdown. Cairo is a bloody heap on the canvas as Joey Styles wonders if Tommy Dreamer has become hardcore. Yeah, I think that’s a pretty good bet at this point. The bell rings and Dreamer is declared the winner by referee stoppage.  Cairo is left bloodied and battered in the ring, and it’s time for the second stretcher job of the night. Or it would be, but Cairo stands up because he wants to leave under his own power, and so he does. This was basically a squash match as Dreamer completely annihilated Cairo, and having seen Cairo have competitive matches earlier I’m kinda fine with that. ECW doesn’t really need him as a featured talent at this point, so using him to further the Dreamer/Sandman story and show how vicious Dreamer has become is a pretty good idea. I think this is a good stopping point for now, as we're done with the first hour of the show. Next time, we’ll start with Shane Douglas defending his ECW title against Ron Simmons. I seriously had no idea Ron Simmons ever showed up in ECW. I’m sure I’ll be learning a lot of things as I go through these shows. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 07:35 on Aug 5, 2022 |
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Aug 4, 2022 19:24
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DMorbid posted:Paul Heyman took over the promotion and changed the name to Extreme Championship Wrestling With those rings ropes, it's more like Ecuador Championship Wrestling. This is a cool thread idea. I've never delved into the early days of ECDub.
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Aug 4, 2022 22:35
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Please someone censor Dreamer's boobs those things are disgusting.
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Aug 4, 2022 22:41
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I've often wanted to do the same thing but wasn't sure where to watch everything so I'm very excited for this thread.
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Aug 4, 2022 22:41
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yeah, this has been a neat read so far. please stick with it!
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Aug 4, 2022 22:48
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Secretly I really quite like that first year of ECW. it's not good, but it is watchable TV. But only the TV, I can see me watching old TV again but Ultraclash 93? Dear god once was too many times. I'm amazed anyone went back to the Arena after witnessing Super Destroyer #1 vs Super Destroyer #2 and the Dark Patriot vs JT Smith Scaffold match
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Aug 4, 2022 22:49
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Gumball Gumption posted:I've often wanted to do the same thing but wasn't sure where to watch everything But if you ask me, ECW without the original music is hardly ECW at all. To that end, some enterprising fans have been working on an extensive restoration project to add all the original audio and other cut content back in, while also including shows that aren't on the Network. Obviously I'm not gonna post any links here because I don't want Jerry McDevitt to break my legs, but I can tell you those restored shows can be found with some pretty simple googling.
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Aug 5, 2022 10:30
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About a decade ago I got a couple torrents which is just VHS rips of ECW TV. It's poor video quality but has not just the original music but also 1993 adverts for Tod Gordon's pawn shop & other charming local Philly ads. Adds to the ambience of everything imo, would recommend
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Aug 5, 2022 13:17
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ECW November to Remember 1994, Part 2 Our next contest is for the ECW World Heavyweight Championship, as Shane Douglas takes on former WCW World Heavyweight Champion Ron Simmons. The ECW Arena faithful are none too happy about Simmons being introduced as a former WCW champ, as they tend to dislike most WCW-related things (ECW and WCW actually have a bit of a talent exchange program going on at the moment, but Ron Simmons left WCW in September and actually debuted in ECW that same month). Simmons cuts a promo saying he doesn’t like Philadelphia or the people there and is here only to win the championship. The only thing Ron Simmons has said on TV since about 2006 is “drat!” so it’s nice to hear him cut an actual promo here even though he’s not really a promo guy and the house mic is so muffled you can barely make out what he says. Simmons punches Douglas before the bell, but the Franchise comes back and rolls out of the ring to figure out his gameplan. Simmons is bigger and stronger so he has the early advantage, and Douglas takes a powder again. Joey Styles tells us Douglas has recently challenged Ric Flair to a shoot fight, but that can’t happen because Flair is retired from the wrestling business (lol) after losing a retirement match to Hulk Hogan at Halloween Havoc. Hogan and Bret Hart also haven’t answered Shane’s open challenge, and it seems neither has anyone else. Nobody wants to fight Shane Douglas. Cowards, the lot of them. Douglas tries to use a female ringside photographer as a human shield, but Simmons manages to hit Shane and beat him up some more before throwing him back in the ring. Douglas goes for a dive off the top but gets powerslammed in mid-air, which is pretty cool.  Simmons stays on the offense with a series of power moves. I can’t quite tell what the crowd is chanting, but it’s probably nothing nice and Simmons doesn’t seem to like it either. Simmons goes for a diving headbutt but nobody home, Douglas tries to mount a comeback but Simmons chokeslams him. Shane goes for a crucifix pin, Simmons tries to resist but Shane rolls him over for the pin and wins! A pretty short match, I don’t think it even went ten minutes. Some nice power moves from Simmons, and the story wasn’t too bad. Douglas did everything he could to avoid getting overpowered by the much stronger Simmons and tried to use his smarts and technical wrestling skills to pull off the win, which he did. Simmons is furious and keeps beating the poo poo out of Douglas, but Shane eventually clocks him with the ECW belt. 2 Cold Scorpio comes to his friend’s aid (the opportunity to beat up Douglas is also nice, I’m sure), and now Douglas is the one getting whacked with the ECW belt. Scorpio goes up top and…  …holy loving poo poo, that’s some air.  That was beautiful.Simmons and Scorpio leave Douglas lying in the ring with the belt on top of him as some folks in the crowd jeer at them and flip them off. Yes, The Franchise is the biggest rear end in a top hat in the world but as far as the ECW faithful are concerned, he’s their rear end in a top hat and they’re not gonna be happy when some WCW guy like Simmons beats him up. Shane Douglas in general is not the most popular guy in wrestling, but I met him at an indie show many years ago and he was super friendly. We had a nice little chat about Iron Maiden. Anyway, in the current storyline, The Franchise has burnt every bridge in the general vicinity of Philadelphia (and really the whole world of pro wrestling) so nobody’s coming to check on him after the attack by Simmons and Scorpio. Except here’s someone now, and it’s… Cactus Jack?  Well, that’s interesting. Joey Styles can’t quite figure out why Jack is here because he and Douglas are not exactly best friends. But there he was, checking up on the champion who supposedly couldn’t buy himself a friend in the sport. Next up, we have something a bit different as Bob Artese tells us to give a big November to Remember welcome to his good friend, the Sandman!  Sandman is helped to the ring by ECW Commissioner (and the promotion’s founder and former owner) Tod Gordon. Sandman has announced his retirement from wrestling after being blinded in the match with Dreamer, and Joey Styles is getting a bit choked up explaining the whole thing. Apparently, Sandman pretended to be blind in real life for this storyline. That’s some dedication to kayfabe right there. Sandman gives an emotional speech, reminiscing about beating the poo poo out of Tommy Cairo and Tommy Dreamer. Good times. He talks about how his manager Woman, aka Nancy Sullivan, turned on him after luring him into her web and causing him to lose his wife Peaches to Tommy Cairo of all people. Oh, here comes Peaches now.  Peaches grabs the mic and tells Sandman she doesn’t know whether to slap him or kiss him. She goes with the latter and tells him she’s changed. Sandman thinks she means she’s gained a bunch of weight and assures her that he doesn’t mind. Smooth. Sandman says Peaches is the most important thing he’s lost in this whole mess. “EXCUUUUSE ME!” rings out from offscreen. No, Vickie Guerrero isn’t at the ECW Arena. Instead, Woman is here and she’s wielding a Singapore cane. She makes her way to the ring and has her eyes locked on Peaches. Woman says she’s here to introduce the man she’s going to manage from now on.  While I’m trying to keep this commentary pretty lighthearted for the most part, there’s just no way around one unfortunate aspect of these old ECW shows - namely the fact a lot of the people we see here would pass away at an early age. No one reminds me of that fact more harshly than Nancy Sullivan here, because… well, you don't need me to tell you what happened. I'll do my best to appreciate Nancy (who was such a great manager back in the day) and the rest of deceased ECW talent for what they did, rather than dwell on what eventually happened to them, but sometimes it's a bit hard not to think about that stuff. With that depressing tangent out of the way, let’s get back to the show as Woman canes Peaches over the head. Tod Gordon tells her to go away, but Sandman accidentally shoves him down as Woman is about to cane Sandman. Tommy Dreamer shows up to stop her and as he argues with her, something’s happening behind them…  Sandman isn’t blind after all! The crowd goes apeshit and Joey Styles can’t believe what a fraud and phony Sandman is! Sandman and Woman planned the whole thing, and now they’re gloating as they stand over Dreamer and Peaches! What a setup! Joey Styles is almost crying as he screams about Sandman’s lack of moral fiber, but the ECW fans are loving this and chanting Sandman’s name. Sandman whips Dreamer with his belt, and Woman announces the wrestler she’s going to manage from now on is none other than the Sandman, who celebrates the occasion by caning Dreamer some more before leaving with Woman.  Ah, Tommy Dreamer in his natural habitat. We cut to Joey Styles an indeterminate amount of time later, and he’s got an announcement of some sort to make… oh, it’s just Shane Douglas coming out again, I guess.  Douglas goes on a tirade about Hulk Hogan (whom he calls Terry Bollea because this is a shoot!) and Ric Flair, whose name he won’t even mention because he hates Flair so much. He talks about how hard he’s worked. He talks trash to Ron Simmons and 2 Cold Scorpio and mentions a woman who helped him become the champion. In fact, she’s on the phone right now, and it’s Sherri Martel! gently caress yeah, Sherri! Sherri did serve as Douglas’ manager in the Eastern Championship Wrestling days, but she doesn’t work here anymore. Shane wants her to come back at the next show on November 19, and she seems to agree. Shane says his partner at the next show isn’t Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, or “that Social Security recipient” but a man that previously took him to the limit. As Douglas continues his rant, a fan yells “STEVE AUSTIN!" That fan knows what’s what because on November 19, Shane Douglas’ partner, with Sensational Sherri by his side, will be “Stunning” Steve Austin! Ron Simmons and 2 Cold Scorpio are gonna get their asses kicked! Wait a minute. Steve Austin wouldn’t debut in ECW until the following year, so clearly that match never happened. Turns out Austin actually got injured before the match and was replaced by his Hollywood Blonds partner Brian Pillman. With all that out of the way, up next is a match for the ECW Television Championship, and we cut to champion Dean Malenko already in the ring.  Let’s see who’s going to be challenging Dean-O-Machino for the belt. I don’t immediately recognize this music but we’ll see who it is soon enough… ah. This should be fun.   IT’S TAZ!Or Mr. Maniac, if you prefer. Wait, did Bob Artese just say this is a non-title match? Yeah, Joey Styles corrects himself and says the title isn’t on the line. Oh well. Malenko is accompanied by Jason, the self-proclaimed sexiest man on earth, so some shenanigans are probably going to happen. Non-title or not, this match should still be fun as the Tazmaniac (which is what he was still called at the time) lands a flurry of punches and hits a northern lights suplex. Malenko fights back and applies the Boston Crab, but Taz easily powers out. Taz puts Dean in a full nelson but Dean fights out, only to receive Taz’s foot in the yambag region and get suplexed.  Some nice back and forth as Malenko shows off his technical skill and a technical eye poke. Taz isn’t having any of it and suplexes Malenko on his noggin but only gets a two-count. Malenko goes up top and receives more yambag trauma, but manages to stop Taz from killing him with a super Tazplex. Fighting on the outside, Taz uses a chair but Jason interferes. Jason gets thrown into the barricade for his trouble. While Jason distracts Taz, Dean grabs a towel and shoves it in Taz’s face when Taz gets back in the ring.  Dean manages to subdue Taz with the towel that clearly has chloroform or something on it and pins him for the three-count. Well, that was a bit anticlimactic. I wanted to see these guys fight some more. Of course, it looks like they’re building up to a rematch where Taz can kill Dean and win the belt, and I suppose a dirty finish works well enough for that. Taz is out cold in the middle of the ring. The crowd chants BULLSHIT as refs and EMTs attend to Taz, and Joey Styles says he smells chloroform. Obviously, that’s what was on the towel. Taz is revived with some smelling salts and thanks one of the refs that helped him by suplexing the poor guy to next week. Taz is going crazy as people around the ring scramble for cover. We haven’t moved on to the next segment yet so maybe something’s gonna happen? Will Taz get his hands on Jason and Dean? Apparently not (yet), because here’s Bob Artest again to introduce the next match. This one is for the tag team titles and… gently caress, this house mic is bad. Yes, it’s time for the Brawlgame. Didn’t we just have this match a couple of months ago? When one member of a team is down for a ten-count, the opposition can bring a baseball bat to the ring and use it. Then it’s just a standard three-count fall to the finish. “Slam” by Onyx begins playing, and anyone who’s been watching these shows will know what that signifies.  While the Public Enemy - Johnny Grunge and “Flyboy” Rocco Rock - are better known for using “Here Comes the Hotstepper” as their entrance theme, that song didn’t come out until 1995 so they’ll be using the Onyx track for a while longer (CORRECTION: The song "Here Comes the Hotstepper" actually came out in August 1994, January 1995 was when the album of the same name was released, so maybe they'll change their theme sooner than I thought). At this point, the Public Enemy is a heel team, but the fans love them regardless and dance along to their silly white guy dance moves during their entrance. Fun fact: Rocco Rock (the more talented half of Public Enemy, which isn’t necessarily saying much) was in his forties here. I was shocked to discover that.  Their opponents tonight are Cactus Jack and Mikey Whipwreck. Cactus Jack needs no introduction, but Mikey’s had a pretty fun story over the past year or so. His gimmick started out as basically Loser Fuckface Nerd from that dril tweet, this pencil-neck geek who got annihilated by everyone he faced and never got any offense in but somehow managed to win the TV title regardless. He continued to get pummeled by everyone he faced while retaining the belt, but gradually his matches started getting more competitive and by the time he finally lost the title (to Jason of all people), he had become pretty good. He’s still very much the underdog, though. There’s some schtick before the bell rings, as Rocco Rock yells… something on the mic. I have absolutely no clue what he said because the house mic continues to be awful. The only word I could make out was “championship”. We stall for what feels like an eternity, and now the Public Enemy just walk to the back. They come back when threatened with a countout, and the stalling continues. Eventually, the match gets underway, with Whipwreck and Rocco Rock as the legal men. The Public Enemy kill Mikey immediately and the ref starts the ten-count for the baseball bats. The Public Enemy beat Mikey up some more, but Cactus has had enough and proceeds to use Mikey as a battering ram to take out the heels.  Unfortunately, this may have backfired because being used as an improvised weapon wasn’t the best thing for Mikey’s health. Mikey does manage to get to his feet before the ref finishes the ten-count, so no baseball bats just yet. The fight continues and Mikey gets used as a weapon some more. Eventually, things spill out to the floor and Cactus gets crotched on the guardrail, which means the Public Enemy now have Mikey all to themselves.  The Public Enemy hit the Drive-By on Whipwreck, and I don’t think he’ll be getting up from that anytime soon… never mind, he does get up at nine, as Cactus beats down the Public Enemy with a chair. Rocco eats a double arm DDT onto the chair but gets up at 9, only for Jack to DDT both men. They get up again, and Grunge takes Jack out by throwing some sort of white powder in his face. Mikey tries to fight off both members of the Public Enemy, which goes about as well as you’d expect. Mikey runs into Jack, who is still blinded from the powder and accidentally DDTs his own partner. That is enough to keep Mikey down for ten seconds, and now the Public Enemy are allowed to use the bat. Wait, is there one bat per team or do both members get one? The commentary wasn’t very clear on that. Rocco Rock sets Mikey up on some tables in front of the Eagle’s Nest and Joey Styles. Rocco can’t stop himself from doing his white guy dance moves instead of diving onto Mikey, which gives Sabu the opportunity to interfere in the match. Sabu gets in Rocco’s face, and here are Paul E. and 911 (who have been acting as Sabu’s handlers since his debut, initially bringing him out to his matches all chained up to protect the public from the homicidal, suicidal and genocidal maniac) as well.  911 tries to hold Sabu back, but he attacks Rocco Rock and pushes him off the balcony and onto Whipwreck on the tables! The camera focuses on Sabu and completely misses the spot. Sabu seems to be planning to dive onto the pile, but 911 manhandles him to the back. Meanwhile, Rocco and Mikey are slowly getting up and Mikey clobbers Rocco with a chair. Here comes Johnny Grunge, followed by Cactus Jack. Grunge is the only one with a bat, so I guess there was only one of those. Rocco gets suplexed onto a table which somehow doesn’t break, giving Cactus the opportunity to climb up to the broadcast booth. BANG BANG! Wait, he’s not gonna do the loving Cactus Elbow from this height, is he?  JESUS CHRIST! Or, as Joey Styles puts it, OH MY GOD! Mick, what did your body ever do to you? Why do you hate it so much? Cactus and Rocco Rock are dead among table bits as Mikey hits a plancha on Johnny Grunge off-camera. Mikey and Grunge trade sunset flips and nearfalls. Grunge has the bat and dives off the top to hit Mikey with it, and that’ll be all. The Public Enemy are the new ECW tag team champions. That was an entertaining garbage brawl. Cactus Jack is always great and Mikey is also a talented worker who plays the underdog really well, and while the Public Enemy are… not the best wrestlers, to put it politely, this sort of match suits them perfectly. Bob Artese introduces Tod Gordon, who has recovered from Sandman’s attack and looks no worse for wear. Speaking of Sandman, Tod announces that the next show will feature Sandman vs. Tommy Dreamer, with Woman and Peaches in their respective corners, in a match with a special guest referee! Who could that b– oh, it’s Tommy Cairo. Great!  Cactus Jack returns to the ring and grabs the mic from Gordon. Jack says Mikey Whipwreck is the toughest son of a bitch ever to step foot in this ring, but unfortunately Mikey will be missing the next show. But that doesn’t mean Jack will be alone because his tag partner will be none other than Kevin Sullivan, who he used to be WCW tag champs with. Huh, that’s kinda cool. The crowd seems to like it as well. Jack shambles off and Tod runs down the rest of the card for the next show. I’m not gonna bother repeating all of that, especially since that’s just a regular show instead of a supercard and I don’t think I’ll be able to watch it. I’m sure they’ll show the highlights on Hardcore TV. Our main event is… oh dear. Chris Benoit takes on Sabu in an “ECW Deathmatch”. I know what’s about to happen here.  Almost as soon as the match starts, Sabu gets dumped on his neck in a horrendous-looking manner. Sabu has 911 (the wrestler) steps inside the ring and Benoit wants nothing to do with the big guy. I can’t quite see if anyone’s giving Sabu medical attention on the outside, but there are EMTs present at this show so presumably someone is doing something out there. Wait, no, now the paramedics show up. Better late than never, I guess. Benoit grabs a mic and says he signed a contract to fight Sabu, not 911. When 911 turns his back, Benoit attacks him but eats a chokeslam for his efforts and gets pinned by 911. Apparently, that was a match. Now the Public Enemy is here to attack 911, Paul E’s attacking the Public Enemy, Cactus Jack is attacking the Public Enemy, the Bad Breed is here too, everyone is here.  The whole locker room seems to have emptied and we’ve got a massive brawl in our hands. It’s like a Philadelphia Flyers game in the 1970s as everybody’s throwing hands at each other all over the building. The Public Enemy is back in the ring and they’ve got Paul E dead to rights, but here’s Taz in street clothes (so much for the “Tasmanian devil man from the jungle” gimmick, I guess) to make the save and beat up the Public Enemy.  Hey, that plaid shirt isn’t orange! What gives? Benoit is tossed into the ring and has a brief standoff with Taz as the brawl continues on the outside. Taz joins in on the fun as well, leaving Benoit as the only one still standing in the ring. Benoit cuts a promo… or attempts to because the mic doesn’t work. Instead, he just yells about Sabu as the Public Enemy enter the ring to raise Benoit’s arms in victory. Okay, now Benoit has a working mic. He asks what happened to Sabu and why he can’t fight his own battles, and now 2 Cold Scorpio has made his way to the ring with a chair. If this recap seems barely coherent at this point, that’s because the show itself is barely coherent at this point (for good reason, of course, as Sabu’s injury really threw a wrench into all the plans they had). Scorpio mumbles something into the mic, and it seems we have an impromptu match to finish the show. Maybe. The Public Enemy attack Scorpio and leave the ring, so I think Scorpio and Benoit are supposed to have a match now. Powerbomb by Benoit, high stack, is this it?  No, it is not. Scorpio is able to kick out, so this show isn’t over just yet. Meanwhile, the Hat Guy in the front row has lost his hat at some point, and now I know why he always wears a hat. Benoit briefly walks off but returns to the ring. The wrestlers are surrounding the ring as Benoit sets Scorpio up for a top rope superplex and lands it. Scorpio kicks out again. Belly to back off the top but Scorpio counters for another nearfall. Double underhook suplex gets a two as Benoit gets a foot on the rope. Scorpio is now in control, victory roll off the top but Benoit kicks out. Both competitors tumble to the floor and the camera isn’t being very helpful. The two fight on the outside for a bit and get counted out. I didn’t know we still had countouts or that this was even an officially sanctioned match. Scorpio drives Benoit off with a chair and cuts a promo on the house mic, putting over Sabu as a tough guy and telling Benoit that he’s not gonna have an easy time here in the land of extreme. Cactus Jack also says a few words about Sabu, and Bob Artese signs off by plugging the November 19 event one more time. Thunder Kiss ‘65 plays once more to end the show. NINETEEN SIXTY FIIIIVE YEAHHH! ------ Well! That was… eventful. Obviously, the big thing everyone remembers from this November is Sabu’s injury, which really looked horrible and could’ve ended much worse. It would’ve been interesting to see how that match would’ve played out without the injury (as much as I still don’t really like watching Benoit matches), but poo poo happens and they at least managed to send the fans home happy with all the crazy nonsense at the end. The rest of the card wasn’t really anything to write home about. Almost all matches were very short, I don’t think anything except the Brawlgame went over ten minutes (apparently, Benoit/Scorpio technically went 12 minutes, but about two minutes of that was actual wrestling). Sure, you don’t really want to see the likes of Mr. Hughes go for any longer than they absolutely have to, but talented guys like Taz and Malenko should’ve gotten more time to shine. The Brawlgame was a fun plunder match and Taz/Malenko was enjoyable while it lasted, and of course the Dreamer/Sandman feud kicking into high gear should be a good time. Overall, while the matches were short and often not very good, this show had a chaotic energy I really enjoyed. Original ECW tended to be pretty good at putting on shows where it seemed like anything could happen, and that was already the case here. The next supercard is Holiday Hell on December 17, and we'll be taking a look at that next week if all goes to plan. I think I have some Hardcore TV to watch before that, because I actually want to know what’s going on in all the feuds and storylines. (edit: well, as it turns out, we're doing Double Tables from February 1995 instead because Holiday Hell was never released officially) DMorbid fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Aug 11, 2022 |
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Aug 5, 2022 18:58
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The trading card of Tommy Dreamer that came with ECW toys advises you not to be fooled by his "Matinee-idol good looks"
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Aug 5, 2022 19:10
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more like Manatee-idol
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Aug 6, 2022 03:37
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Watching the post-November to Remember episode of Hardcore TV. Like I said, I'm not gonna cover HCTV in detail, but I'll probably post some occasional highlights such as this: I was hoping he'd keep putting more and more cigarettes in his mouth for the entire promo, but I guess he thought four was enough because you don't want to overdo it. edit: hell yeah these rips have the local commercials, this rules 
DMorbid fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Aug 6, 2022 |
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Aug 6, 2022 15:52
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Tato posted:The trading card of Tommy Dreamer that came with ECW toys advises you not to be fooled by his "Matinee-idol good looks" That was his gimmick in his suspender days and why the ECW faithful initially hated him so much. ECW fans wanted nothing to do with a dude with a chippendale's gimmick. The wiki glazes over this part and I can't remember the details. I think he went under the name 'TD Madison'.
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Aug 7, 2022 00:46
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thanks for doing this thread, i've never really watched any ECW but it's certainly an important bit of the wrestling landscape
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Aug 7, 2022 02:49
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Upon further inspection, it turns out the full Holiday Hell '94 show has never been released officially. Some matches were shown on Hardcore TV, but that's it. There is a fancam bootleg that might still be floating around somewhere, but instead of trying to hunt that down I think we'll just move on to the next supercard. That would be Double Tables in February 1995 (which I did manage to source), so I have a couple more months of Hardcore TV to binge through than I thought I did. Or I could just ignore Hardcore TV and just focus entirely on the supercards (and PPVs once I get there sometime around the year 2183), but I kinda want to know what's going on in the feuds and storylines. Maybe I'll just watch an episode or two right before a big show to get up to speed, because the last thing I want to do is make this feel like work. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Aug 11, 2022 |
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Aug 11, 2022 17:43
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Well, I was only planning to watch the episode of Hardcore TV immediately before Double Tables, but changed my mind and had to watch the earlier January episodes when I saw who had made his debut. WELL YOU CAN TELL BY THE WAY I USE MY WALK, I'M A WOMAN'S MAN, NO TIME TO TALK (sadly they didn't actually use Stayin' Alive for this vignette because it might've killed the gimmick a bit, but what do you expect when you use shots like this)
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Aug 12, 2022 15:41
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ECW Double Tables 1995 (February 4, 1995 - ECW Arena, Philadelphia, PA) ~Graphic design is my passion~ It has been a wild couple of months in Extreme Championship Wrestling. Shane Douglas is still the world champion, having defended the belt against the likes of Ron Simmons and… Tully Blanchard? Yes, Douglas and Blanchard fought to a time limit draw back in January, and since then Douglas has been talking trash about Tully and the Horsemen (more than usual) and formed his own stable called Triple Threat with “The Crippler” Chris Benoit and “Shooter” Dean Malenko. Since nearly breaking Sabu’s neck at November to Remember, Benoit has been trying to injure everyone he’s gotten his hands on. Hack Meyers (whose name is consistently misspelled as Myers on ECW programming, but it's supposed to be Meyers) got suplexed hard and ended up with a neck brace, and later Benoit and Malenko attacked Ron Simmons and injured the world title challenger’s shoulder. This past week on Hardcore TV, the Sandman and Cactus Jack had a brutal (in more ways than one) falls count anywhere match. Cactus managed to pull off the win despite Sandman mangling his right hand during the match, but Sandman attacked him after the bell and caned the poo poo out of him. Sandman also tried to blind Jack with a lit cigarette, but Mikey Whipwreck made the save just in time. In an impassioned and slightly deranged promo at the end of the episode, Cactus challenged Sandman to a Texas Deathmatch, saying that if he loses, he’ll go home and be a family man. Elsewhere, the Public Enemy are still the tag champions and have been cutting absolutely loving terrible promos on Hardcore TV every week, putting on these stupid voices and generally looking like jackasses while apparently trying to act like tough gangsters. I guess them being annoying morons is okay because they’re heels? Maybe?  If the Sega CD port of Final Fight had featured live action FMV cutscenes, they’d probably have looked and sounded a lot like these Public Enemy promos. And finally, a long-forgotten enemy from Tommy Dreamer’s past has re-emerged and now looks to torment him… But that’s enough about the last couple of months of Hardcore TV, there will be plenty of time to talk about the storylines during the Double Tables event itself!  Joey Styles welcomes us to Extreme Championship Wrestling and extremely terrible VHS rip quality. While he’s not very enthusiastic about doing so, he’s gonna have to introduce the self-proclaimed Sexiest Man on Earth, Jason. Cue “Whatta Man” by Salt-n-Pepa.  The sexiest mullet on earth Well, at least this show seems to have a multi-camera setup. They did have multiple cameras at November to Remember too, but the non-hardcam footage was only shown on Hardcore TV. Jason talks about how sexy he is and says he’ll soon have the next ECW tag champions under his management. That can only mean the Pitbulls.  I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m starting to get ever so slightly tired of hearing Thunder Kiss ‘65. I’ve heard this song about 9,658 times in the last couple of weeks. The Pitbulls were last seen defeating the Bad Breed, aka Axl and Ian Rotten, in a “losing team has to break up” match in January, and Jason can’t get over how beautiful and handsome he and the Pitbulls are. Jason also promises to bring new talent to the States TONIGHT! Straight from “Wings”(sic) in Japan, it’s JASON!  W*ING went out of business almost a year before this show, so good job with those contacts, Mr. Sexiest Man on Earth. Apparently, Tracy Smothers donned the hockey mask in W*ING as “New Jason the Terrible”, but this Jason the Terrible clearly isn’t him, no matter what Wikipedia says. I’m assuming it’s Rafael Moreno Jr. who played Jason the Terrible in W*ING’s successor promotion, IWA Japan. Cagematch and profightdb seem to agree. For some reason, we go to a recap of what’s been happening with the Pitbulls and the Bad Breed. The Bad Breed broke up after losing that match to the Pitbulls, of course, and Ian Rotten immediately turned on his kayfabe brother Axl and clobbered him with a chair. We’re back and… what in the everliving gently caress is this match? Hold on. Jason the Terrible & The Pitbulls vs. Hack Meyers & The Young Dragons  Jason’s crew of the other Jason and the Pitbulls are taking on “the Shah of ECW” Hack Meyers and Young Dragons #1 and #2, who are supposed to be from Japan but are apparently Mikey Whipwreck and his former tag partner (and current rival, who also happens to be associated with Jason) Paul Lauria in karate gis, masks and wigs. At least that’s what Cagematch is telling me. The Pitbulls have the size and strength advantage here, and Pitbull #2 drops one of the Dragons with a sloppy release vertical suplex. Just dumps him like a sack of poo poo. The Dragon gets unmasked, I think that could be Mikey but the video quality here is so bad I can barely make out any facial features from any kind of distance.  The Dragons tried to make themselves a bit harder to identify with fake beards/goatees that may or may not have been painted on, but the video quality is really doing most of the work here. Meyers is tagged in and ends up fighting both Pitbulls as well as Jason. This match is not very good. Jason does a spinning kick, which I don’t think I ever saw in the Friday the 13th films. Admittedly, I haven’t seen all of them, so maybe he learns martial arts in one of those movies. The heels beat up Meyers some more, and Jason scores the pin with an assisted body splash. That really wasn’t very good, but at least we’ll see more of Mikey and Paul in an actual match later tonight. Jason (the manager) cuts a post-match promo with Joey Styles at ringside and tells Jason (the Terrible) that he did well and that he should now go back. Jason (the Terrible) duly lumbers off to the bottom of Crystal Lake or wherever he spends his free time. As Jason (the manager) and the Pitbulls rant and rave in the general direction of the mic, we see Meyers beat up the Young Dragons in the ring. Meyers attacks the Pitbulls and Jason, who is running for his life. Both men get in the ring and Jason gets his rear end handed to him. Oh, what’s this? Here’s… Angel? She gets in the ring and slaps Meyers.  Angel has been managing various wrestlers and (very) occasionally wrestling on ECW shows since 1993. I believe she was last seen as part of Shane Douglas' crew a few months ago. Her character is… err… well, I’m sure the ECW Arena crowd could give you a whole bunch of colorful descriptions. At this point, Angel is calling herself the “Virgin Princess” because get it, she’s actually the exact opposite of that! Very clever! Meyers punches Angel in the face twice and knocks her down, then puts her over his knee and spanks her. The crowd is so appalled by Hack’s actions they immediately start a loud “SLUT!” chant. You know, I’m beginning to think ECW might have had some slight issues with their treatment of women. But hey, everything’s cool because Angel actually likes to play rough and proceeds to give the big lug a big kiss!  All’s… well… that ends… well? Uh… maybe not, because Hack ends the segment by hitting a piledriver on Angel. I don’t think she liked that. Maybe she did. I don’t really care one way or the other. Well, that was certainly an astonishing waste of twenty minutes. More like an hour really, because I had to look up who the gently caress half the people in this match were and kept getting conflicting information. Let’s see what’s up next. Steve Richards (w/ Raven) vs. Tommy Dreamer  Steve Richards went through a short winning streak a while ago, during which he was imitating Scotty Flamingo (as Stevie Flamingo), Scotty the Body (Stevie the Body), and Johnny Polo (Stevie Polo). Eventually, he lost to Tommy Dreamer. On the first episode of Hardcore TV in 1995, Stevie said he would bring Johnny Polo himself to ECW the following week. I’m just gonna call him Stevie even though he’s still officially Steve at this point. In an interview with a skeptical Joey Styles on the January 10 episode, Stevie said that Johnny Polo, Scotty Flamingo or Scotty the Body would not be there after all. No, there was someone who had to skip a double date with Eddie Vedder (that’s literally what Stevie said) to make it to the ECW Arena. That someone was Raven, who chewed Stevie out for failing to beat Dreamer and then helped Stevie pick up a win that night by using a loaded boot.  Since then, Raven’s been brooding in various dark corners and cutting high school edgelord promos that would inspire countless backyard wrestlers and e-fed characters. The very first thing he said in the first promo was “The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams,” which any early 80s dad rock connoisseur can tell you is a line written by Ronnie James Dio for the Black Sabbath song “Heaven and Hell” (which, come to think of it, would probably have been a more suitable entrance theme for Raven's character than "Come Out and Play" by The Offspring). Raven has spent weeks talking about his history with his former schoolmate Tommy Dreamer, and while we don’t know what happened just yet, it’s clear Raven never got over something Dreamer did in their school days. Now, if a guy in WWF or WCW went through a character change as dramatic as Johnny Polo to Raven, they would probably have pretended Raven was a completely new wrestler. That’s not what ECW is doing, as they fully acknowledge his previous gimmicks. Joey Styles once speculated that Raven must’ve gone through something very traumatic, adding that such things are common when you’re working for the WWF.  The sign guy agrees! (If you can’t read that from the screenshot, it says “WWF Kills Brain Cells! Ask Raven!) Dreamer comes out and… TOMMY, WHAT THE gently caress ARE YOU WEARING?!  Dreamer has been in Japan for the last month, so he hasn’t been able to respond to any of Raven’s promos. The fans give Dreamer a hero’s welcome as Styles talks about Dreamer’s shirt being a gift from - and this is an exact quote - “the 100 or so fans who follow Extreme Championship Wrestling on the Internet computer system.” These fans flew in from all over the country, and apparently one of them even came from Australia! Man, this “Internet” thing seems great. (Mods please change the thread title to "DM Follows Extreme Championship Wrestling on the Internet Computer System") Stevie and Dreamer wrestle in the ring for a while, but things soon spill out to the floor where Stevie whacks Dreamer in the head with a chair and steals his shirt. Tommy doesn’t like that and takes it back after using it to deliver a neckbreaker. More brawling on the outside as Dreamer shoves Stevie face-first into chairs held up by fans. Tommy clonks Stevie with a frying pan (stop complaining, Google Docs, “clonks” is totally a word), first in the head and then in the groin. Stevie fights back but Dreamer retains the advantage until getting crotched on the turnbuckle. This prompts a “DREAMER” chant in falsetto, which is honestly pretty funny. Raven doesn’t seem amused, nor does he really seem to have any reaction to anything that’s going on…  …until he suddenly steps in the ring and holds Dreamer from behind as Stevie delivers a superkick. Stevie is too arrogant to go for the cover and tries another superkick, but Dreamer avoids it and hits Stevie in the balls, sunset flip for the three count. After the bell, Raven enters the ring again for a big staredown with Dreamer as the ref and Stevie try to hold Raven back. Dreamer doesn’t seem to know what Raven’s problem is, which is understandable because here’s this grown-rear end man still holding a grudge from high school or middle school or some bullshit like that. Speaking of which, the fans break into a BULLSHIT chant as Raven and Stevie decide to walk to the back. Dreamer grabs a mic and tells Raven to go back to the WWF and send everyone there a message from everyone in ECW: “KISS OUR rear end!” This gets a big ECW chant as Joey Styles suggests that the WWF killing brain cells must be true, otherwise they wouldn’t think Todd Pettengill is a good color commentator or decide to put Stephanie Wiand on live TV. Boom! Got ‘em!  That was a pretty short match, which is understandable because Richards is basically a comedy jobber despite his association with Raven and his recent win streak. It did what it had to do to build up the storyline, at least, and I’m sure Raven is not going to be pleased about Stevie throwing away the win the way he did. We’ll surely find out soon enough what Raven’s problem with Dreamer is as well. (I mean, everyone reading this knows exactly what his problem is, but let’s just ignore that fact in the interest of kayfabe) ”The Giant” Paul Lauria (w/ Jason) vs. Mikey Whipwreck  Time for Salt-N-Pepa again as Jason and “The Giant” Paul Lauria (who is apparently a legit 5’5”) make their entrance. A couple of months back, Lauria was in the crowd and had an encounter with Mikey Whipwreck, his former tag partner and best friend. Lauria was apparently jealous of Mikey’s success (well, I mean, he has won titles and all that, but he also spent the entirety of 1994 being killed by everyone on the ECW roster and a few guest stars as well) and attacked him, busting him open. This led to a match in January, which Lauria won after Mikey suffered a Jason-related accident, and now we’re about to have the rematch.  I thought the unmasked Young Dragon in the opener had longer hair than either of these two. The brawling starts before Mikey even gets in the ring, and Lauria gets thrown over the barricade into the front row. The fans throw him right back to Mikey, and the spot gets repeated with the next barricade. We finally get in the ring as Jason looks a bit worried. Some fast-paced action, lots of counters and flippydoo-type things reminding us that these two are pretty good wrestlers. Mikey hits a couple of low-ish blows, more fast-paced action as Mikey gets a two-count off a crossbody. Jason is really looking concerned now, BIIIG BACK BODY DROP for another two-count as Lauria kicks out. Jason is now on the apron but Mikey knocks Lauria into him, Lauria gets partially pantsed at some point and is now literally showing rear end, Mikey gets thrown to the apron but hangs on to headscissor Lauria out of the ring. Mikey goes for a plancha and completely eats poo poo as Lauria gets out of the way. That looked nasty as all hell.  Sure, I’ll just splatter myself on the concrete floor Mikey somehow isn’t dead and almost manages to get back to his feet, but Lauria tosses him down again and now Jason’s kicking Mikey in the face, followed by a suplex through the timekeeper’s table. Lauria is now in control, but Mikey keeps fighting. Lauria eventually gets crotched on the top rope, BULLDOG FROM THE TOP!  Mikey goes for the cover but is pulled out of the ring by Jason, the big old jerkass. Mikey knocks Jason’s block off with a left hand and gets back in the ring, Lauria covers, backslide reversal, Mikey gets the pin as the fans show their appreciation! That was pretty good. Both guys really held their own with some nice fast-paced action and reversals, not to mention a couple of huge spots, and Jason getting clobbered is always a great time. Axl Rotten vs. Ian Rotten Right. Probably not gonna be seeing many headscissors or arm drags in this one.  I liked how goofy this shot of Axl Rotten looked so I didn’t try to get a better one. It’s the most entertainment I got out of this match. Err, spoilers. Axl Rotten is now using “Fight For Your Right (To Party)” as his entrance music. I thought he was more of an old school punk guy, but whatever. Axl starts off hot with brawling and weapon shots. This goes on for a while and the fight eventually spills into the crowd as - speaking of spillage - Ian is busted open. Axl pummels Ian some more and throws him down the steps on the bleachers, but Ian comes back with heavy shots of his own… then struggles to clear the barricade.  That sign would say “Bad The Rottens continue lumbering around and waving their fists in each other’s general direction. Axl tries to open Ian’s wound some more because THIS IS EXTREME! Now Axl’s digging the timekeeper’s hammer into Ian’s arm. Very pleasant, I’m sure. Ian hits a running dropkick and his face is just a bloody mess. Ian is begging for mercy and crying out for his brother to stop, but Axl isn’t having any of that and pushes Ian to the corner, but oh no! Ian was just pretending all along! Ian pins Axl with his feet on the bottom rope and steals the win. Good. Not because I’m a fan of Ian Rotten (pretty sure nobody is), but because this match was horrible and I didn’t want it to go any longer than this. Axl isn’t pleased and attacks Ian after the match, dragging him to the back. This mercifully short match was a perfect example of ECW hardcore matches at their very worst, with a couple of lumbering stiffs whacking each other in the head with chairs and bleeding all over each other as nobody sells anything. I think this is a good place to stop for now. I need to clear my mind after that last match. Let’s just see who we’ve got in the next match…  Oh, great. ------ DMorbid fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Aug 14, 2022 |
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Aug 13, 2022 20:25
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God bless Tracy Smothers, despite carrying the rebel flag I remember him working with New Jack and knowing how to work the crowd, New Jack would burn the rebel flag and talk trash white people and the south and Tracy would sell the flag at the merch table and he'd split all the costs with New Jack because they were both making money. One of the only saints in the US scene who nobody has anything bad to say about
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Aug 13, 2022 20:40
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An update 
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Aug 14, 2022 05:43
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thank you for soldiering on despite the poor video quality the cop in those screenshots looks like a horrible animatronic given life
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Aug 14, 2022 08:43
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The main reason it's taking me a while to get through this show is the fact I've had a fuckton of work to do all week and I'm still not done with all of it. 
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Aug 14, 2022 16:53
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HE'S HARDCORE! HE'S HARDCORE!
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Aug 14, 2022 18:48
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ECW Double Tables 1995, Part 2 Welcome back to the land of ninth-generation VHS quality! Without further ado, let’s get to our next contest of the evening. Chris Benoit vs. Al Snow  Oh, it’s young boy Al Snow, before he went to WWF and became Avatar and Leif Cassidy. These days, Al Snow is mostly remembered as a punchline and for saying awful poo poo to female trainees, but back in the early to mid-90s he was an up-and-coming talent whose skills on the independent circuit earned him the nickname of “the best-kept secret in wrestling.” He showed up on ECW a while ago to wrestle the Tazmaniac in a losing effort, and now he’s facing none other than the Crippler himself. In theory, this should be a very good match. We start off with a dive out of the ring through three flaming tables. Or a bunch of very sound technical wrestling. You can probably guess which. The ECW Arena crowd shows their appreciation for these two’s wrestling skills as things heat up a little bit. Things heat up a lot when Snow gets clotheslined off the apron and eats a baseball slide from Benoit but comes back with an awesome springboard dropkick with a ton of air.  This gets a standing ovation from the crowd. Spinning kick from Snow hits Benoit in the back of the neck and sends him out of the ring. Benoit walks around for a bit, just has a nice stroll around the ring as the fans get behind Snow. The action continues in the ring as Benoit dodges a dropkick and suplexes Snow on his neck. Benoit takes control now as Snow desperately tries to fight back. High angle backdrop suplex from Benoit gets a two-count as Joey Styles describes Al Snow as a future superstar in the wrestling business. Snow is able to counter another backdrop with a crossbody, but Benoit continues his attack and nails the flying headbutt, this should be over but no, Snow kicks out. Powerbomb from Benoit for yet another kickout. A USA chant breaks out in the crowd as Benoit hits a snap suplex. A German suplex gets another two-count and another USA chant. Snow reverses a dragon suplex and hits the Snowplex, which is a wheelbarrow suplex.  Snow lands a big German suplex and dumps Benoit on the back of his head. Snow is starting to take control of the match and Benoit is now in trouble as Snow stomps him in the corner and hits a superkick for a two-count. Fisherman suplex with a bridge gets a two and a half. Benoit dumps Snow on his head with another German but is too tired to cover, both men get up, dragon suplex from Benoit and that’s the match. After the bell, Benoit hits another powerbomb on Snow, injuring his neck. Snow gets stretchered out and that’ll be all. That was an excellent match and probably looked even better than it was when you consider the previous match was the absolute shitshow with the Rottens. We all know what Benoit in his prime could do, and Al Snow looked like a million bucks here. ECW World Heavyweight Championship: Shane Douglas(c) vs. Tully Blanchard  GRRRRRRR After Shane’s entrance, Tully just walks out without any music or anything and immediately gets in Shane’s face. Shane Douglas isn’t a bad wrestler and Tully is of course a legend, so this should be fun enough. Let’s actually see how old Tully was at this time… FORTY-ONE?! WHAT THE gently caress? I mean, yeah, he’s 68 now and I have a general idea how numbers work so that shouldn’t be a surprise, but still!  Tully appears to go for a handshake to start things off but instead starts kicking the poo poo out of Douglas. Vertical suplex and shots to the forehead as Joey Styles talks about this being the real Tully Blanchard, the feared Horseman of old. Or at least a few years ago. I guess time kinda worked differently back then, with wrestlers leading very different lifestyles than they do these days. SLINGSHOT SUPLEX!  This move still rules Douglas manages to kick out, but Tully continues the assault. Picture-perfect piledriver seems to get a three-count, but Douglas gets his foot on the rope at the last moment. Tully slows things down with a chinlock as someone in the crowd seems to shout “BORING!” The match spills to the outside, Douglas suplexes Tully on the timekeeper’s table and follows up with an elbow drop off the apron. Another suplex is blocked, and now Douglas crashes onto the table and breaks it. The match continues in the ring with some back and forth brawling. Shane clotheslines Tully in the ropes and both men fall back out of the ring to the highly unpleasant floor of the ECW Arena. I don’t even want to know what you’d see if you shone a blacklight on that. Shane counters a suplex attempt into what was probably supposed to be a crossbody but was kinda just Shane falling on Tully. That gets a two-count, and now we’re back outside again. Tully throws Shane over the barricade and smashes Shane’s throat onto the metal. Shane goes shoulder-first into the ringpost, and Tully continues the attack on the outside with a… backbreaker onto his knee? I’m not sure that’s the most effective move to use outside the ring. Back in the ring now. Tully goes for another suplex but Shane counters into an actual crossbody this time (albeit one that looks like he nearly lands on his head) and gets the three count, retaining his belt. Obviously, Tully was never going to win this and the match was pretty short, only about nine minutes or so. But hey, we got to see the slingshot suplex and that’s always a treat, and the rest of the match was a perfectly serviceable brawl. That being said, I’m starting to get a bit tired of The Franchise as the world champion because he’s just not all that interesting and the matches are nothing to write home about either. Texas Deathmatch: The Sandman (w/ Woman) vs. Cactus Jack  Sandman’s entrance gets cut short as Cactus Jack ambushes him from behind and goes to town. Chairshot to the head, then a crutch to the head, another chairshot to the head. Third chairshot to the head. Fourth. Sandman finally falls down and eats a leg drop from Jack. Cover, one, two and three but obviously this match isn’t over as Sandman has ten seconds to get back up, as per Texas Deathmatch rules. Which he does, only to go down again from the fifth chairshot to the head. Jack drops the leg again, this time with the chair on top of Sandman’s face, gets the cover again and Sandman gets up again at the count of six. Cactus stays on the offensive, and I don’t even know what this is supposed to be.  Jack “kicks him to the floor,” meaning that Sandman falls on his own as Jack’s baseball slide barely makes contact. Cactus has a frying pan and hits Sandman in the head with a big metallic THWACK. Hold on, is this that match where he accidentally uses the cast iron frying pan? I thought that one was supposed to be heftier than the pan Jack used here, but this one does look like it might be a proper cast iron pan and certainly didn’t fall apart like the usual cheap and flimsy ones. Jack hits the barricade as Sandman somehow dodges his attack. Jack then hits the barricade even harder as Sandman just throws him into it head first. Sandman is in pretty bad shape but manages to throw Jack back in the ring and… hit a slingshot dropkick?  Sandman whips Jack into the corner pretty hard but Jack is back on the offense, hitting a snapmare on the concrete. Jack misses a leg drop on the floor and hobbles around, but Sandman can’t capitalize because he’s taken too much punishment. Sandman manages to avoid another attack and Jack crashes into the barricade hard. We return to the ring and Sandman now tries to mount a comeback with a surprisingly good-looking vertical suplex and some slightly less nice punches and kicks. Sandman now works on Jack’s knee, which hit the barricade earlier. Woman gives Jack’s knee a whack with the cane as well. Sandman thinks of hitting the ref with a chair, but Jack attacks from behind and goes for a piledriver on the chair, but Sandman reverses into a back body drop and the back of Jack’s head hits the chair upon landing. Jack comes back with some headbutts but misses an elbow, although that just looked like Sandman accidentally sat up instead of actually trying to avoid the move. DDT on the chair by Jack, cover and a kickout by the Sandman. Sandman piledrives Jack on the chair but takes too long to cover, so Jack kicks out. Now Cactus gets DDT’d on the chair. I think Joey Styles calling Sandman an athlete is stretching things a bit, but nonetheless he manages to get the three-count and now it’s time for Jack to get up before ten. Which he does, and the fight continues. Cactus now has the cane and stalks Sandman before whacking him over the head three times. Sandman keeps fighting, but here’s chairshot to the head #6. Sandman looks like he doesn’t know where he is, and I don’t think he’s just selling. Out of the ring goes Sandman as Cactus has the chair, and I think I know what’s coming next.  BANG BANG! Sandman somehow kicks out at two, so Jack throws the chair right at his head and lands another Cactus Elbow, this time getting the three-count. The ref starts the ten-count… and Sandman gets up, still looking like he doesn’t know what day it is. I think he actually is concussed at this point. Jack covers again, Sandman kicks out again. Jack goes for a piledriver on the outside but Sandman blocks it, DDT on the concrete! Another three-count… and Sandman pops right back up like an AI opponent in WWF No Mercy. Yeah, this match has absolutely gone off the rails and Sandman is totally hosed. Jack goes for the DDT again and OH MY GOD  Another three-count, the ref starts the ten-count again and Sandman gets up AGAIN. Third DDT on the concrete, three-count, ref starts the ten-count and I think Sandman might finally be down. He is in fact down, and Jack takes the victory. Mercifully, this is over. That was… something. With the Sandman, it’s often kinda hard to tell when he’s actually concussed and when he’s just being the Sandman, but this was indeed the match where he got his brain scrambled by the frying pan and forgot the finish. It became clear at a certain point that Sandman was not all there, and these days the match would be stopped immediately (or at least should be - I haven’t forgotten All Out 2020 and that disastrous Matt Hardy/Sammy Guevara match that somehow didn’t end with either man getting killed), and from there the whole thing just became uncomfortable to watch, especially with the additional hits to the head in the latter half of the match. Really not pleasant to watch at all. Of course, the inadvertent effect of Sandman forgetting the finish was that he seemed like a loving Terminator that just would not go down, and I’m sure Paul E. will be promoting the hell out of that. After November to Remember, we got slow motion replays of Sabu loving up his neck to put Benoit over as the Crippler, so I’m sure the “highlights” from this match will be put to use on Hardcore TV to sell Sandman as a huge badass. It was a different time, I guess. Double Tables Match for the ECW World Tag Team Championship: The Public Enemy(c) vs. Sabu and The Tazmaniac (w/ Paul E. Dangerously & 911)  Naaaaa nanananaaaa nananana nanana nanana nanananaaaaa As I’ve said earlier in this writeup, I’m not the biggest fan of the Public Enemy in the world, but these fuckers are definitely over and the crowd loves them. Especially now that they’ve switched from the Onyx song to the stupidly catchy “Here Comes the Hotstepper” by Ini Kamoze. This song is just made for crowd singalongs and silly dances where you wave your hands in the air like a dumbass. Rocco Rock grabs a mic and tells the “computer internet mutants'' in the crowd that now they’re about to see some “real wrestling.” I never took the Public Enemy for classic Greco-Roman grapplers or anything, but maybe they have all this hidden wrestling talent. Must be extraordinarily well-hidden. Okay, okay, maybe I shouldn’t be too harsh on these guys. They can do fun plunder matches with the right opponents, their stupid dance moves are pretty endearing, and Rocco Rock is at least capable of a bit of high-flying. Did you know Tully Blanchard (born 1954) is younger than Rocco Rock (born 1951 or 1953 according to various sources, I assume 1951 is correct because that's what it says on his grave)? Now you do.  Pictured: The right opponents, probably Sabu and Taz make their entrance as Joey Styles explains the rules of the Double Tables match. Not that much to explain there, really, as it’s just a basic table elimination match. Put both members of the opposing team through tables and you win. Taz starts the match as you might expect - by dumping Rocco Rock on the back of his neck with a German suplex. Taz and Rocco fight in the ring while Sabu and Grunge go at it on the outside. Tilt a whirl attempt is countered into an ARM DRAG by Rocco Rock! There’s that real wrestling he was talking about! Meanwhile, Sabu’s clobbering Grunge with a chair, gives him a seat and…  That was a big crash and Sabu almost landed on his head on the concrete floor. Elsewhere in the arena, Taz has a broom handle and tries to clean Rocco’s clock. Sabu and Grunge brawl in the crowd as Grunge is busted open. They go up to the bleachers and trade a few punches until Sabu throws Grunge down the stairs. Grunge sells none of this, grabs a frying pan (still in the packaging, but I don’t think you’ll be able to return that even if you have the receipt) and whacks Sabu with it. All four men in the ring now, belly to belly from Taz takes down Rocco as Air Sabu lands on Grunge in the corner. ARABIAN FACEBUSTER! The first table is now in the ring and Grunge sets it up. Both tables are in the ring and Grunge is set up on one of them. Sabu’s got a chair and sets it up atop the turnbuckle. This is sure to end well. Sabu dives off, but Grunge manages to avoid it and Sabu crashes hard into the table himself. The table collapses but the only thing that breaks is one of the legs, which Rocco Rock shoves in the general direction of Sabu’s face while Sabu’s on the mat.. All four men eventually get back in the fight, Rocco Rock gets knocked down and Taz suplexes Sabu on top of Rock with a half-and-half. That was fun. Meanwhile, Joey Styles is impressed by the fact Johnny Grunge manages to execute a wrestling move on Taz. Taz gets whipped into a table in the corner, but it doesn’t break. Oh, now it does as Sabu drives Rocco Rock through it.  Please enjoy this random gratuitous Rocco Rock butt shot Rocco Rock should now be out of the match, but he’s still in because apparently that didn’t count. Do you have to put them through at the same time or something? Because the way they’re explaining this, that doesn’t seem to be the case.  Well, that should count. Apparently, both Taz and Grunge are now out, having gone through the table at the same time. Okay then, you don’t have to eliminate both members of a team simultaneously. Rocco Rock just wasn’t eliminated when he went through the table in the corner, because… reasons, I guess. Maybe the table wasn’t supposed to break there? Rocco sets Sabu on the remaining table and climbs up top, only to come back down because he feels the irresistible urge to do the cabbage patch. I’m sure we’ve all been there. Sabu’s still on the table as Grunge throws some sort of powder in Taz’s eyes. Insert your own jokes about the ECW locker room culture. Both men are eliminated, of course, but I don’t think they particularly care. Rocco goes back up…  AND PUTS SABU THROUGH! The Public Enemy retain their titles! Or not, because referee Jim Molyneaux somehow missed that whole car crash that just happened right behind him. Apparently, Taz was distracting him and the second ref, John Finnigan, just enough for both of them to miss the whole thing. Rocco Rock is ringing the bell as Johnny Grunge tries to choke out Paul E. Dangerously outside the ring, and all manner of chaos has broken loose at the ECW Arena. Among the mayhem, Taz has managed to place Rocco Rock on the timekeeper’s table. Sabu climbs up, what’s he gonna do?  Leg drop off the top puts Rocco Rock through the table! This time, the referees actually saw that, and we’ve got new champions! The Public Enemy’s reign of terror is over! They’re none too pleased about this development and immediately attack the new champs. The brawl continues, and now 911 has set up another table in the ring. Sabu has a table of his own set up on the turnbuckle, and I can’t wait to see what this is going to be. Rocco Rock gets set up on the table by 911, Sabu is up on the… okay, he has a table on the top turnbuckle and a chair set up on top of that table, which will either lead to a spectacular dive onto Rocco Rock or an even more spectacular plane crash. But oh no, Chris Benoit is here and he’s really mad! Benoit and Sabu briefly fight on top of the table, which is looking quite wobbly. The chair falls off, so there goes whatever they were planning to do with that. Benoit grabs Sabu, this doesn’t look good for Sabu at all. Benoit hoists him up…  JESUS gently caress! Sabu almost completely misses Rocco Rock and basically lands on his head on the other side of the table, because of course. And that’s the end of the show! Really, it just cuts out. That match was a pretty standard Public Enemy plunder brawl with some nice high spots. I’m glad the tag belts are finally off the Public Enemy and look forward to seeing what sort of defenses Sabu and Taz will put on at upcoming shows. After the show, we have a taped promo from Benoit, who’s talking poo poo about Sabu and Taz. He says the only reason Sabu came back is because he let Sabu come back. Benoit was definitely not a promo guy, especially at this point. Everything he says here sounds completely inauthentic and like he himself doesn’t believe any of it, although I do like how he pronounces humility as “yoomility.” Looks like our next feud for the tag titles will be Sabu and Taz vs. Benoit and Malenko, which seems like it could produce some entertaining matches. ------ It’s kinda hard for me to review this show. On one hand, there were a few entertaining matches and the Benoit/Snow match would’ve definitely been a highlight at the time. Mikey Whipwreck and Paul Lauria also put on quite a show, and the Double Tables match was a fun trainwreck as well. But then there were the actual trainwrecks. The opener was a big pile of “what the gently caress is this poo poo?” and I’ll never get those twenty minutes back. Axl vs. Ian Rotten was a pathetic but thankfully short mess, and I’ve already written plenty of words about the whole Sandman thing. Sure, it was a different time, and head injuries weren’t considered a big deal back then. But still, seeing this guy with his eyes totally glazed over, clearly having no clue where he is or what’s going on as he stumbles around the ring… while taking more shots to the head… yeah, I’m sure that put him over huge as a badass at the time, but that kind of thing just isn’t something I enjoy watching in this day and age. In any case, our next supercard will be Return of the Funker from February 25, 1995. Huh. I wonder what might happen and who might show up at that event. DMorbid fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Aug 20, 2022 |
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Aug 20, 2022 02:46
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The arena floor looks moist enough it could be mud in some of those pictures.
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Aug 20, 2022 03:02
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Sandman 1000% gets concussed in that deathmatch, I'm pretty sure there's a shoot where he does commentary over it and laughs at how out of it he is.
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Aug 20, 2022 07:33
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A couple of things: 1. I'd forgotten that Big Daddy V of all people would be that on that Dreamer's original outfit would be passed down to. 2. I didn't realise Homer Simpson was a referee for early-days ECW.
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Aug 20, 2022 11:39
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I met the cop in this picture a few years ago in the Philly amtrak station and he has the strongest handshake I've ever felt.
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Aug 22, 2022 00:38
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Return of the Funker (February 25, 1995 - ECW Arena, Philadelphia, PA) Great, we’ve got ninth generation VHS rip potatovision again. I don’t think any supercards between November to Remember 1994 and Hardcore Heaven 1995 have been released on the Network, so this is probably the best video quality we’re gonna get until HH95. It’s only been three weeks since the last big event, so not a whole lot has happened in the meantime. The biggest news is probably the fact that as a result of the severe concussion he suffered at Double Tables, Sandman has not been cleared to wrestle. The Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission requires any athlete who suffers a serious brain injury to stay out of action for 21 days. Unless my math is failing me, it has been exactly 21 days since Double Tables, so Sandman’s just barely not cleared in time (assuming he is cleared the next day after the 21-day period). So, instead of Sandman getting his revenge on Cactus Jack, Cactus has to wrestle a mystery opponent hand-picked by Sandman and Woman. You know, I think the name of the show might offer a bit of a hint as to who that mystery opponent might be, considering how Terry Funk has not been advertised for this show at all and it has not been called "Return of the Funker" on TV. Meanwhile, the Public Enemy lost the ECW tag titles to Sabu and the Tazmaniac at Double Tables and haven’t been seen since. Rocco Rock was hospitalized after Chris Benoit powerbombed Sabu onto him at the end of the show, but it was confirmed on Hardcore TV that the Public Enemy will be at the ECW Arena on February 25. Speaking of Hardcore TV, the February 21 episode dedicated nearly half an hour to a Shane Douglas promo in which he recapped everything he’s done in the last 18 months and cured insomnia throughout the state of Pennsylvania. With a promo like that to build his next title match, surely he has to be going up against some huge star! Right? Not someone like Marty Jannetty or whatever. Wait, what’s that? Oh, the Franchise is in fact defending the title against Marty Jannetty, who has been MIA since early 1994 (when he and the WWF were sued by Chuck Austin, a wrestler paralyzed by Jannetty’s Rocker Dropper finisher in 1990 and had to pay a total of $26 million). Okay then. The Pitbulls vs. Chad Austin & Joel Goodhart/Hartgood/whatever this guy is called, I don't care Yeah, I think the Pitbulls might have this. Pitbull #1 (the one with long hair, in case you were wondering) starts by beating up Austin. Austin tries to come back (to thunderous boos, because recently he talked about how he was going to Smoky Mountain Wrestling) but that doesn’t last very long. Crucifix is reversed by Pitbull #1, both Pitbulls drop Austin with a double vertical suplex. This has been all Pitbulls, and Austin gets thrown into his corner where Goodhart (who, according to Wikipedia, is supposed to be named Hartgood, but Joey Styles keeps calling him Goodhart and I didn’t see a graphic telling me otherwise) tags himself in and immediately gets wrecked by Pitbull #2.  The video quality doesn’t help, but that tattoo looks a bit like somebody tried to draw a character from Time Killers on Hartgood/Goodhart’s back. Goodhart is kicked off the top turnbuckle and falls to the always pleasant floor of the ECW Arena. The Pitbulls continue the assault, slingshot shoulderblock takes down Goodhart and it’s all academic now, SUPERBOMB and that’s the match. That was a basic jobber squash. Nothing much to say about it, really. Next!  What is that shirt? I can make out KID R, but it’s surely not Kid Rock because Kid Rock is lame and there’s a picture of a comic book style character with long black hair. (UPDATE: I finally saw this in higher definition on Hardcore TV, and it is of course a Skid Row shirt) Raven and Stevie Richards come out for a ringside interview with Joey Styles. Raven admonishes Richards again for failing to defeat Tommy Dreamer… well, again. He follows this up with another high school edgelord promo that says basically nothing but sure sounds cool. Tommy Dreamer eventually shows up and tells Raven to shut up.  Tommy wants to settle this right now, but this isn’t the time or place. The two have a brief exchange of words and Tommy wanders off, so Raven continues his promo and tells Tommy you can’t escape your past. Stevie starts rambling about having a great time at a rock club this past weekend, which doesn’t seem relevant but maybe he gets to some sort of point eventually. Stevie continues his story and mentions two tough guys from South Philly who beat him up. And if those guys can beat him up, they have to be real tough, right? That’s why Stevie has brought them here tonight, and they’re gonna kick Tommy Dreamer’s butt! Raven looks less than impressed. These guys are none other than… former ECW tag team champions JOHNNY HOTBODY AND TONY STETSON, THE BROAD STREET BULLIES! *crickets* So, if you have no idea who these guys are, I don’t blame you! I forgot Johnny Hotbody even existed, but he and Tony Stetson were mainstays of Eastern Championship Wrestling back in 1993 and haven’t been seen for a while now.  These guys. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tony Stetson wear a stetson, which is just silly. I also don’t remember which one is Stetson, but I’m sure that’ll be cleared up eventually. See, this is why Tony Stetson should always wear a stetson... oh, wait, I do know which one is him! I just remembered he went by "Hitman" Tony Stetson (because it's not like anyone else was using that nickname at the time), and that definitely says Hitman on his gear. The Bullies tell Raven that he is a product of modern society and that they’re here to serve him. Dreamer comes back with a stop sign and takes out the Bullies before going for Raven, blocking an attempted superkick from Stevie and clobbering him with the stop sign as well.  Dreamer and Raven face off in the ring and seemingly prepare for a fight, but Tommy is attacked by Richards and the Bullies. He fights them off and attacks Raven again, but Raven simply stands there. This goes on for a while, until Richards and the Bullies subdue Tommy for a second and Raven just pounces at him. Now the two are fighting tooth and nail, with the Bullies and Richards trying to separate them to no avail. The brawl spills to the outside, and wrestlers from the locker room arrive to try and separate Dreamer and Raven. Well, like the song says, you gotta keep ‘em separated, but these guys really suck at doing that. The fighting continues to the back, and it’s time for the next segment. Mikey Whipwreck & Hack Myers (fine, I’ll spell it Myers since ECW insists on doing that) vs. “The Giant” Paul Lauria & Jason  Mikey defeated Lauria at Double Tables, but of course Lauria wasn’t going to be done with Mikey just yet. He cut a promo running down Mikey and, for some reason, 911, who according to Lauria wasn’t a real giant. 911 wasn’t pleased and chokeslammed Lauria three times. Just dumped him like a sack of poo poo, which didn’t look pleasant at all. So, of course, now Mikey is teaming with 911… I mean Hack Myers against Lauria and Jason, the self-styled sexiest man on earth. Lauria and Jason attack from behind to start the match, but soon both heels literally show rear end when their trunks get pulled down by stereo sunset flips. Hack and Mikey are in control early on, throwing Lauria around. Mikey even pulls Lauria up because he doesn’t want to pin the guy just yet. Myers flattens Lauria with a clothesline and Mikey drops a fist as a big guy in a purple mask looks on.  Bane? Wait, when did that guy show up? Joey Styles seems confused as well, as Mikey continues the offense on Lauria. Jason comes in and now both he and Lauria get dumped out of the ring. This is still all Mikey and Hack at this point, I don’t think Lauria and Jason have managed to hit any offensive maneuvers since the start of the match. Oh, there’s one now as Lauria cuts off Mikey with a spinning kick. Jason gets tagged in by Lauria and then spit on by Myers, which he obviously doesn’t appreciate very much. Lauria back in the ring now as he and Jason get the upper hand on Mikey. Jason climbs up to the top and hoists Lauria up for a big leg drop!  I call this move the Tower of Lauria. Jason follows up with a clothesline off the top and completely whiffs in full view of the camera. Jason is back up top and dumps Lauria onto Mikey again. Mikey goes out of the ring and eats a frying pan to the head as Lauria distracts Myers. Mikey now crotched on the top rope and gets kicked in the face by Jason. Jason is the legal man again and continues the attack on Mikey with a springboard dropkick. More double teaming from the heels but Mikey kicks out of the cover. Lauria goes for the Romero Special, but Mikey gets to the ropes to break the hold. Mikey’s really getting worked over in this match, but I guess that’s what he does best. Inverted Razor’s Edge by Jason, that was interesting. Jason takes forever to get to the top rope and Mikey plays possum, eventually counter-attacking with a dropkick. Jason blocks Mikey’s superplex attempt and dumps him down. Jason goes up top but Myers pushes him off, Mikey tries to mount a comeback against Jason but is sent crashing down to the floor. Mikey misses a top rope dropkick but lands close to Myers, and Myers finally comes in for the hot tag. Hack and Mikey are back in control now, Mikey hits the bulldog and Myers takes down Jason, but Jason manages to break up the pinfall. Pinfalls getting broken all over the place now. Mikey and Jason go to the outside, and Jason eats a stop sign and a chair. Meanwhile, the big boy in the purple mask enters the ring and takes out Myers with a right hand. The masked man throws Lauria on top of Myers and leaves, and there’s the three-count! That was a decent match. I think they spent a little too long beating up Mikey, because as good as Mikey is at being the babyface in peril, it does get old eventually. I’m guessing we’re gonna get some sort of feud between Hack Myers and the masked man, so that’s something to look forward to. The story between Mikey and Lauria clearly isn’t over either. ECW Television Championship: 2 Cold Scorpio(c) vs. Hector Guerrero  You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Hector Guerrero wrestle. I’m sure he’s great because he’s one of the Guerreros, and him against Scorpio should be an entertaining match. Guerrero starts off with an arm drag, and Scorpio hits two of his own. We’ve got some nice scientific wrestling going on here in the early stages, as some idiot yells “BORING!” While the ECW Arena crowd is known for appreciating good wrestling, there’s always some guy who just wants to see Axl Rotten or something. Headscissors from Scorpio sends Guerrero to the outside. Guerrero flips over the ropes to get back in the ring, and the scientific wrestling continues. Guerrero turns an abdominal stretch into a backbreaker for a two-count. High sunset flip by Scorpio, but Guerrero kicks out and applies a side headlock. Guerrero has Scorpio on the mat and continues taking him apart with various holds as some moron yells “BORING” again. Both men are now outside the ring, and Scorpio eats the ringpost followed by a chair held up by a fan in the front row. Joey Styles comments on the crowd participation, remarking that this is not the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I wonder what Dr. Frank N. Furter would think of the ECW Arena crowd. Guerrero tries to cover Scorpio on the outside, but is soon informed that this isn’t a falls count anywhere match. This might be Extreme Championship Wrestling, but we still have some rules here sometimes. Guerrero is confused and aggravated by the idea of this place having rules, so he gets in the face of referee Jim Molyneaux before Scorpio hits him from behind. BIG BACK BODY DROP for a two-count, arm submission into a takedown but Guerrero counters. Some solid mat wrestling here, but that’s probably not gonna last very long as Scorpio’s face gets introduced to the turnbuckle. Guerrero misses a splash and takes a while to get up, so Scorpio gets the upper hand and kicks Guerrero in the jaw. Kneeling powerbomb by Scorpio, cover, Guerrero kicks out at two and pokes the ref in the eye. Now he has his fingers in Scorpio’s nostrils, because you take all the advantages you can get. Back suplex gets a two-count, splash off the ropes also gets a two-count. Scorpio misses a standing moonsault… well, mostly misses, as his leg hits Guerrero in the upper back on the landing, which doesn’t look nice. Scorpio misses another moonsault, this time off the top. Guerrero rolls him up for another two-count but eats a sidewalk slam, the two roll each other up but they’re in the ropes so the ref breaks them up. Scorpio gains the advantage and goes up top once more, SCORPIO SPLASH for the three! That was some really nice mat wrestling and high-flying action from two excellent wrestlers. Some members of the crowd seemed to get a little bit restless during the slower parts as Guerrero tried to ground Scorpio, but I thought this was a great match. Hector was 40 years old at this point and his best years were behind him, but he could still go (and let’s not forget he’s younger than Rocco Rock) and matched well with Scorpio. Barbed Wire Baseball Bat on a Pole Match: Axl Rotten vs. Ian Rotten Oh, wonderful. These guys again, and we’ve got a pole match! Hell yeah! Who doesn’t love a pole match? Well, I guess I spoke too soon, because Ian Rotten has no time for any of that nonsense and just grabs the bat before the ring crew manages to put it up. Ian waits for his brother Axl to arrive, and here he comes now. Axl’s got a chair and Ian’s got the barbed wire bat. Let’s get this over with, I guess.  THIS IS AWESOME *CLAP CLAP CLAPCLAPCLAP*... is what you might hear in some completely different match. Axl blocks a couple of bat shots with the chair and dives out of the ring. Ian hits the ringpost with the bat and is the first to feel the barbed wire as Axl hits him in the arm and drags it over the back of his head. Chair shots are exchanged, Ian steals a nightstick from the cop at ringside and whacks Axl with it, and now Ian has the bat and rakes it over Axl’s face. The two brawl on the outside and Ian… I’m gonna charitably call that a dive over the barricade. Both men are bloodied up and fight in the crowd, now Ian has a frying pan but chooses to use the barbed wire bat instead. The bat gets stuck on Axl’s leg, or at least his tights. Joey Styles is selling it like he’s about to throw up. Ian sets the bat up in the corner but runs into it himself, and now Axl is fish-hooking Ian with the barbed wire and raking the arm as well, as you do. Axl chokes Ian with the bat and whacks him over the head as Joey Styles suggests giving baseball players barbed wire bats. Hm, that might make baseball a little more interesting. Not that this match can be called very interesting either, but I think if you replaced these two useless stiffs with a couple of baseball players, you might have something. Unfortunately, Ian kicks out of the cover and the match continues. Axl hits a clothesline off the apron in what will probably be the best part of this match. Joey Styles throws shade at WCW putting on a PPV called Uncensored a while back… wait a minute, that wasn’t until March 1995. Joey, you’re breaking the time and space continuum there. Or he’s recording the commentary for this ECW Home Video exclusive months after the actual event. Pick one. Oof, big suplex by Axl on the iron bleachers. Axl drops the big elbow on the bleachers, not that we can see much of that.  I was hoping that would be the finish, but of course the match continues. Ian hits a low kick and steals a fan’s belt, whipping Axl with it. Both men crawl back into the ring and Axl tears Ian’s shirt with it before raking his face with it again. Ian doesn’t mind and spikes his brother with a piledriver. This match has officially gone on way too long, as Ian gets a two-count. Will one of you assholes just pin the other already? All you need to do is hold the guy down for three seconds - or, to be more precise - about one second because these ECW referees tend to count super fast. Come on, lads, work with me here. “If Gordon Solie was watching this matchup, he would surely say that the crimson mask is now on both the faces of Axl and Ian Rotten!” says Joey Styles. Somehow, I get the feeling that if Gordon Solie was watching this matchup, he would very quickly stop watching this matchup. Facebuster by Axl pancakes Ian with the bat in there somewhere, 1-2-3 and this is finally over as the crowd breaks into a loud ECW chant. Ian gets up before Axl does and attacks him with the barbed wire, so it looks like this feud is set to continue. Fantastic. Now, I should point out that I don’t dislike bloody hardcore matches. If I did, I would not be doing this project. But like I said the last time the Rottens fought each other, what I do dislike is bad bloody hardcore matches that are just a couple of useless lumps shambling around and bleeding all over each other. To be fair, the fans at the ECW Arena were clearly into the match and I’m sure it must’ve been more entertaining if you were in attendance instead of watching this on your computer over 27 years later. For better and for worse, nobody else in the US was doing barbed wire matches in 1995 and this was something different, so even though you probably would’ve been better served watching an Atsushi Onita compilation tape even at the time, I can kinda see the appeal. And that marks the halfway point of the show. Join me next time, as The Franchise Shane Douglas takes on ROCK ROCK TILL YOU DROP ROCK ROCK NEVER STOP Marty Jannetty to defend the ECW World Heavyweight Championship. ------ DMorbid fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Sep 27, 2023 |
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Return of the Funker, Part 2 Our next contest is for the ECW World Heavyweight Championship, as we cut to the challenger already in the ring. It’s pretty interesting how the Franchise’s world title defenses are in the midcard so often, but then again I don’t know if you really want the likes of Marty Jannetty (or Shane Douglas, to be honest) in the main event of your show. ECW World Heavyweight Championship: “The Franchise” Shane Douglas(c) vs. Marty Jannetty  Marty Jannetty looks massively out of place at the ECW Arena. The gear that looks like he’s auditioning for Stryper doesn’t particularly help. The Franchise walks out, doing the Triple Threat hand gesture (which is like the Four Horsemen sign but with three fingers, logically enough). On the way, he stops to admire a custom shirt a female fan brought. Check out this masterpiece:  To be honest, I’ve seen much worse official wrestling shirts. “Simply the Best” by Tina Turner was played during Shane’s promo this past week on Hardcore TV. You know, that promo that consisted of him recapping his entire ECW career and somehow seemed to last 38 hours despite only taking up half of a one-hour show. And all that to build a match against Marty Jannetty of all people. The ECW Arena greets the former WWF Intercontinental champion with thunderous boos. Douglas gets a more mixed reception with plenty of audible boos of his own, so we have a heelish champion going up against a challenger the crowd hates. This should be fun. Actually, I take that back because Shane has a mic in hand and wants to say something. Shane, you just talked for what seemed like days on Hardcore TV. Please, just get on with the match. Shane reminds Marty of their history in the WWF and how they were friends in the WWF, saying that he doesn’t want to fight and instead just plans to give Marty a wrestling lesson. Somehow, I feel like he’s not being entirely truthful. Shane extends his hand, but Marty wants none of that bullshit. Eventually, Marty does shake the Franchise’s hand, and the latter immediately tries to attack him. Marty is ready for it and grabs the leg, but Shane whacks him with some forearms. Marty gets a couple of two-counts and some of the fans actually start chanting for him because, well, he’s still a really good wrestler.. Marty comprehensively outwrestles the Franchise in this initial sequence, so Shane takes a breather outside the ring. Shane gets back in the ring, only to eat a victory roll from Marty. This gets another two-count, and Douglas rolls out of the ring again as the crowd chants “WE WANT SHAWN!” Douglas returns to the ring again and we get some back and forth, powerslam from Marty gets yet another two-count. Douglas hits a bit low and gets the upper hand, but Jannetty fights back and lands a running fist drop. Things slow down a bit as Shane avoids a superkick and counters with a kick in the balls. Marty eventually recovers and sends Shane flying out of the ring, and now they’re fighting on the outside. Douglas gets whipped into the first row, and Marty follows up with a clothesline over the barricade!  Well, that looks more like he just did his best to brain himself on the floor, but that was supposed to take Shane down and now Marty’s hammering him with right hands on the floor. The two move towards the concession stands and the camera has completely lost sight of them. Apparently, Shane manages to hit Marty with a soda can and a frying pan, but we see none of that. Back to ringside now as the Franchise whacks Marty with a crutch and rolls him back in the ring. Marty is getting some more chants now as Douglas works him over. Jannetty fights out of a bearhug but eats a clothesline for two and a half. Back on the outside as Marty gets thrown into the steel guardrail but manages to fight back and throw Douglas into the barricade himself. Shane tosses Marty into the ringpost and Marty sells it like he was shot with a cannon. BACK BODY DROP ONTO TWO CHAIRS!  That didn’t look like a particularly nice landing. Marty, however, gets back up almost immediately and drags Douglas to the outside. The Franchise hits the ringpost with a chair and takes a superkick to the jaw. And there’s another. We get back in the ring and there’s more back and forth action until Shane runs shoulder-first into the ringpost. Marty has the upper hand again and we go back outside. Shane gets straddled on the steel guardrail and is thrown back in the ring. Marty counters a hip toss and lands the Rocker Dropper!  Shane kicks out and immediately eats a big superkick with an even bigger leg slap, and the Franchise goes down. Marty climbs the turnbuckle and goes for a fist drop, but Douglas rolls out of the way so Marty is quickly able to turn it into a flying nothing in mid-air. DDT by Jannetty, cover, Douglas gets his foot on the rope and the match continues… for a few more seconds.  Douglas hits a big and slightly sloppy-looking powerbomb, covers with a high stack, one-two-three, and the Franchise retains. That was a pretty good match, easily the best of these recent Franchise title defenses. Marty Jannetty might be Marty Jannetty and best known as a punchline or a cautionary tale these days, but the guy was a hell of a wrestler in the 80s and 90s. Hell, he could still go ten years after this, when he briefly reunited with Shawn Michaels during Shawn’s feud with Kurt Angle. Despite looking like he teleported from the year 1986 and getting booed by everyone at the ECW Arena at the start of the match, Marty showed he could both wrestle and take things to the extreme, getting the fans to cheer him by the end of the match. Not bad at all. “Here Comes the Hotstepper” plays and we know what that means - the Public Enemy is here. Speaking of the Public Enemy, you know how they used “Slam” by Onyx as their entrance theme until November 1994, right? Well, I’ve been playing the new Saints Row (which, while buggy, is not nearly as bad as it’s made out to be), which has “Slam” on the radio soundtrack. The first time the song started playing, I was a bit confused for a moment and half expected Johnny Grunge and Rocco Rock to show up.  As we can see, Chris Benoit put Rocco Rock in a wheelchair by powerbombing Sabu onto him while he was lying on a table at the end of Double Tables. Well, Sabu basically missed him entirely (and Benoit slipped during the spot as well, which could’ve been disastrous), but let’s try to keep up some sort of kayfabe here. Joey Styles asks Rocco about the extent of his injuries. Rocco says that on the streets, sometimes you pay the price and end up in a wheelchair if you don’t get killed or caught by the man. He talks about getting screwed by idiot refs at Double Tables, because obviously the Public Enemy should’ve won that match. The crowd agrees and chants “YOU GOT ROBBED!” Johnny Grunge says that the Public Enemy doesn’t get robbed, they do the robbing. Taz and Sabu might be the ECW tag champions, but the Public Enemy is coming back for the belts. Rocco Rock says ECW Commissioner Tod Gordon is clearly in cahoots with Paul E. and the new champs because he doesn’t want a couple of hoodies representing his company. And as for the Crippler and the Shooter, the only cripplers and shooters here are Rocco Rock and Johnny Grunge. Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko are clearly not impressed by this attempt at gimmick infringement, so they walk out and get in Grunge’s face as he tries to protect his partner.  Grunge tells them they came to the wrong place at the wrong time ‘cause the P.E. is coming for their asses. Malenko looks like he’s about to say something but thankfully doesn’t, opting instead to spit in Grunge’s face and start a big old brawl. Grunge gets beaten down, and Malenko grabs Rocco Rock’s wheelchair, pushing it down the entranceway where Benoit hits Rocco with a clothesline. I think it’s safe to say the Public Enemy are now firmly babyfaces after such a horrific assault. The assault isn’t over yet either, because Benoit picks Rocco Rock back up, puts him sideways in the wheelchair and runs it hard into the steel guardrail.  Worst orderly ever Meanwhile, Grunge is fighting Malenko in the ring and seems to be getting the upper hand until Benoit whacks him with a chair. Before the two are able to do any more damage, Sabu and the Tazmaniac run in to make the save. There’s 911 and Paul E. Dangerously as well. Joey Styles screams “THE MATCH HAS BEGUN! THIS IS FOR THE ECW TAG TEAM TITLES!” Oh, right, that was on the card, wasn’t it? Well, here we go then! ECW World Tag Team Championship: Sabu(c) & The Tazmaniac(c) vs. “The Crippler” Chris Benoit & “The Shooter” Dean Malenko Johnny Grunge helps Rocco Rock to the back as the action in the ring has already heated up. Sabu is fighting Benoit as Taz works on Malenko. The Triple Threat members get the advantage pretty quickly and Paul E. apparently looks worried off-camera, but the champs turn it around with a springboard leg drop from Sabu and a belly to belly suplex from Taz.  Taz covers Benoit but only gets a two-count. Sabu falls to the floor, leaving Taz to fend off both of the challengers. Sheer drop brainbuster on Sabu by the Shooter, targeting that recently injured neck. Another brainbuster, two and a half, and the match continues. Double team move off the top rope takes Sabu down again, but here’s Taz to suplex the everliving poo poo out of the challengers. Taz is cut off by Malenko but hits an inverted suplex, Taz now grabs Benoit and dumps him on his neck with a German suplex. Taz looks to finish the match and gets Benoit up on his shoulders, but Malenko stops him with a chop block. Sabu tries to help but is thrown out, and now Taz is in trouble as he can’t put any weight on his leg. Malenko grapevines the leg, and this is looking pretty bad for the champions at the moment.  Taz refuses to give up as Malenko wrenches on his leg and Benoit stomps him. Malenko finally releases the hold, but now the challengers are doing more damage to Taz’s legs. Taz wants back into the match, but clearly he has taken too much damage as Paul E. orders 911 to carry him to the back for his own good. Hmm.  ”I’m not hurt at all! Put me back in, coach!” Sabu is left alone against the Shooter and the Crippler, which definitely doesn’t bode well. He fights back, but the combined assault of the two challengers is surely too much even for him as they attempt to drop him on his head. Sabu manages to kick both out of the ring and follows up with a somersault plancha on Malenko.  Despite landing hard on the floor, Sabu pops back up immediately and dives through the ropes on the opposite side to hit a tope suicida on Benoit, followed by an Asai moonsault. Paul E. gives Sabu a chair, but instead of using it he climbs up to the top turnbuckle and dives onto both challengers. Sabu brings the timekeeper’s table in the ring and sets up the chair next to the ropes, this should be interesting. Another somersault plancha, this time with a chair assist!  He’s spamming these dives like me in Here Comes the Pain. And another hard landing on the floor. Sabu gets back in the ring and sets the table up on the turnbuckle, much like we saw at Double Tables. Scoop slam on Malenko, Sabu puts the chair on top of the table and plans to leap onto Malenko, but Benoit pushes him off and he lands right on the chair. Sabu is now on the table and here’s Benoit, looking to re-enact the top rope powerbomb at the end of Double Tables but this time without Rocco Rock to break the fall. Surely, he’s not going to, that would be silly and dangerous even for ECW. Someone’s gonna interrupt him, or…  HOLY loving poo poo Cover, one-two-three and we have new champions! The reign of Taz and Sabu is over after just three weeks, and Triple Threat now carries most of the gold in ECW! What a shock! Also, someone please check on Sabu, I think his bones just exploded. Benoit grabs a mic and says that ECW is finally complete. Finally, we have true tag champions, and the Public Enemy know where to find the gold. Oh poo poo, here’s the Public Enemy now!  Rocco Rock seems to have spilled some ketchup or possibly raspberry jam backstage. Rocco Rock and Johnny Grunge get in the ring and are immediately attacked by the new tag champs, but they fight back, and here comes 911 carrying Taz, and things are going all kinds of crazy. Everyone’s out of the ring except for 911 and Taz, as 911 has decided to gorilla press Taz onto the large pile of men waiting outside the ring. Taz and Malenko fight on the outside as Sabu climbs up, loses his balance for a bit but lands a high crossbody onto Rocco Rock, Johnny Grunge and Chris Benoit. 911 has grabbed the ref and has him up for a chokeslam. It’s absolute mayhem!  911 dumps the ref like a sack of poo poo as the brawl continues outside the ring. We have six men fighting each other all the way to the backstage area, and the segment ends with only Paul E. and 911 left standing in the ring. Well, that was quite eventful. The match was basically what you’d expect from Benoit and Malenko vs. Sabu and Taz, which is to say an entertaining clash of styles - especially with Sabu doing his thing, of course. The story was basic, but that’s all it needed to be. Taz got taken out and Sabu couldn’t quite defeat both opponents by himself, and even then it took a horrifying powerbomb off the top rope to put him away so he still looked strong. With the Public Enemy out for blood as well, things are shaping up nicely for the tag title scene. And with that, we only have our main event match left, with Cactus Jack facing an opponent of the Sandman’s and Woman’s choosing. Still no sign of any Funkers, so I think we can guess where this is going. Here are Sandman and Woman now, about to introduce Jack’s opponent.  Before that introduction, however, Woman runs down Cactus Jack for running his mouth about her husband, Kevin Sullivan. The last time we saw Kevin Sullivan a few months ago, he showed up as Jack’s tag partner and promptly betrayed him, so no wonder Jack hasn’t been too impressed with him. She also takes Jack to task for giving Sandman (whom she calls her meal ticket) that concussion three weeks ago. Fair enough, I guess. But now, let’s bring out Cactus Jack and see who that mystery opponent is.  On the last episode of Hardcore TV, this match was promoted with The Cult’s cover of “Born to be Wild”, with Cactus Jack of course using the original Steppenwolf version as his entrance theme. I hadn’t heard The Cult’s version before, but I really enjoyed it. There’s ECW introducing people to cool and good music once again, copyrights be damned. Well, now that we’ve got Jack out here, let’s find out who the opponent is. Just bring out Terry Funk already so we can stop pretending… wait, D.C. Drake? Who the gently caress is D.C. Drake?  Apparently, this guy is D.C. Drake. Well, I guess we have a match with Cactus Jack and D.C. Drake now. Joey Styles explains Drake is a local talent and one of the sickest and most sadistic wrestlers you can find in the state of Pennsylvania. Not only that, but he used to be managed by Woman. Okay, fine. This show is still called Return of the Funker, though, so I expect something to happen in the last 13 minutes. Cactus throws Drake out of the ring and whacks him in the shoulder with a chair. Oh, there’s a frying pan now, hopefully this one is slightly less hefty than the one he scrambled the Sandman’s brains with.  ”Seriously, could you not at least find a guy people watching this in 2022 would’ve heard of?” Cactus clonks Drake in the head with the frying pan, but Drake doesn’t particularly mind and now he has the timekeeper’s hammer. Jack goes for the DDT on the floor but Drake counters. The fans in the front row are giving Drake some poo poo, so he steals the Hat Guy’s hat! What a jerk!  Okay, apparently Drake only knocked the hat off his head, as another fan hands it back. Joey Styles describes Drake as looking like he hasn’t seen the sun or a bed in three weeks, which frankly hits closer to home than I’d like (why yes, I’m still quite busy with work). Woman looks on and enjoys what she sees, at least until Jack takes down Drake and follows up with the Cactus Elbow.  BANG BANG! Stop sign to the head, double arm DDT in the middle of the ring, and that takes care of D.C. Drake. Thanks for coming. Sandman canes Jack immediately after the bell and the two fight in the ring. Cactus chokes Sandman but Woman rakes him in the eyes. Cactus now attacks her, but here’s Sandman again with his trusty old cane and his patriotic pants. Now Drake and Sandman are attacking Jack together, but he fights them off and DDTs Drake again. Headbutt to the Sandman, followed by a clothesline taking both men down to the floor. Jack throws Sandman back in the box they were apparently keeping Drake in, but now they’re back in the ring as Sandman does his best Phantom Blot cosplay.  I’m gonna get you, Mickey Mouse! Jack removes the Sandman Blot’s cloak, and… IT’S NOT THE SANDMAN AT ALL! IT’S TERRY FUNK!  Oh, there’s the Return of the Funker. Took them long enough. Jack and Funk face off in the ring and start throwing hands. It seems Funk is in cahoots with the Sandman and Woman, and this whole thing with Drake was just a ruse to throw Jack off. The two brawl for a while, but here’s Sandman again and now he’s caning Jack as Funk punches him. As the beatdown continues, Joel Hartgood of all people comes to make the save and is immediately thrown out of the ring. For a second, I thought he was just a random fan until Joey Styles mentioned his name (this time actually saying Hartgood instead of Goodhart). Some other guy in a tie dye tanktop also enters and immediately exits the ring, and I’m not entirely sure who that is.  The video quality doesn’t exactly help. Cactus has the Singapore cane now and canes Funk in the head five times, which he nosells. Sandman is back and now he and Funk attack Jack again. Here’s Chad Austin, also getting caned for his troubles. Funk has the house mic but it’s completely impossible to hear what he says, so he just hits Jack with it. Tommy Dreamer comes in and attacks Sandman, caning him multiple times and taking him down, so now it’s just him and Funk.  Funk slaps Dreamer around and Dreamer is about to punch Funk, but then Sandman canes him in the back of the head and goes back to cane Jack some more. Funk grabs the mic again and asks if Jack thought he would forget Japan. This is before the famous IWA King of the Death Match finals that would take place in August 1995, so Funk is referring to something else here. Funk doesn’t care about any of the ECW fans, and that’s about all I could make out from the rest of the promo. Sandman keeps caning Jack with two canes while Funk brings in a chair. Cactus is begging for help, but nobody is coming… oh, wait, here’s Shane Douglas! At last year’s November to Remember, we saw Cactus Jack check on Shane after he got beaten down, so maybe the Franchise is here to help. Shane gets in Funk’s face, we know these two have quite a bit of history and they don’t particularly like each other.  Shane looks on as Funk and the Sandman continue the beatdown. Woman wants the Franchise to join forces with her, which would make Triple Threat even more powerful. Will Shane accept the offer?  Apparently not, as he hits Sandman in the head with the ECW belt! Another shot to Funk! The Franchise is fighting off the Sandman and Terry Funk and has saved Cactus Jack! Douglas celebrates with his belt as the show ends. ------ Aside from the wretched Axl vs. Ian Rotten match (and the obviously intentional anticlimax of the D.C. Drake thing), this was a pretty drat good show with solid matches and segments building up multiple storylines. We’ve had some growing pains as ECW has been transitioning from Eastern to Extreme Championship Wrestling, and Shane Douglas still doesn’t really work as the face of the company, but it feels like things are really starting to take shape. The next supercard is Extreme Warfare on March 18, but it seems the full show has never been released so we’ll skip that (I’ll at least watch the highlights on Hardcore TV) and move on to April 8 and Three Way Dance!
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Sep 2, 2022 20:56
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