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Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WCW Halloween Havoc ’98

hh13

WCW Halloween Havoc ‘98
October 25, 1998
Las Vegas, NV
Reviewed on November 24, 2014

Off the heels of the destruction of the War Games gimmick…Hogan vs. Warrior! A lot has been made about this match over time, mainly that Hogan had Warrior brought in to get his win back. Whatever. Let’s just be surprised that this match didn’t main event the show.

The Warrior was the latest in line for an attempt by WCW to overtake the ratings war that the WWF was more or less winning. If WCW just had Goldberg wrestle top or even near top guys (like Jericho) I think WCW would have been more competitive. Instead, he’s stuck wrestling Meng in World Title matches somehow. Goldberg’s PPV title defense list so far: Curt Hennig in the semi-main at Bash at the Beach (understandable though), a battle royal victory at Road Wild (less understandable) and a no-show at Fall Brawl (completely unacceptable). That does change here though, for what it is worth.

Still, WCW was on a long road down…and things would get worse before they got better.

Note: I am reviewing this PPV as if the power doesn’t go out before the main event. Yes, many PPV subscribers lost connection to the show. Probably because it set for a three hour slot, and this running time here reads 3:15.

The Card

Hogan-Warrior hype video. I don’t even understand it all really. You are telling me they couldn’t have used Goldberg in Warrior’s place for this feud? That would have drawn HUGE.

The Halloween Havoc ’98 set is awesome.

The Nitro Girls? Um…this isn’t Nitro. How about we don’t waste time? Jeez.

Rick Steiner interview with Mean Gene. This is a PPV right? How about some matches?

Buff Bagwell is out here. Apparently he’s sick of Scott Steiner. He wants to help out Rick. I mean I know how this turns out…but its OBVIOUS Buff is gonna betray him, isn’t it?

Rick Steiner is a dumbass.

Eight minutes in…and we have a match!

WCW Television Championship
Chris Jericho© vs. Raven

Kinda funny background. Two guys who got over as heels basically putting together their own programs in 1998 was Raven and Chris Jericho. Raven just finished his feud with Saturn. Jericho was in the midst of trying to get a PPV match with Goldberg. We’re told this was just added…which means two of the most talented acts of WCW ’98 weren’t even on the card.

Raven also has a losing streak gimmick going on. I hate that idea as guys on losing streaks shouldn’t be getting title shots.

Jericho’s actually playing the face here. Raven decides he doesn’t want to wrestle, but Jericho wants to please his Jerichoholics. Jericho’s promo is a foreshadowing of his 2000 style.

Jericho gets impaled on the steel railing. Action packed from the start.

Raven hits a dropkick after running up the steps, and Jericho yells “HELP ME!” Awesome.

Some great sequences. Raven actually ducks Jericho’s back jump kick which leads to a belly to belly.

Fans really getting behind Raven here.

Jericho survives the Evenflow!

Chris Jericho retains by submission in 7:49. Raven crashes into Kanyon on the apron, but almost gets a 2nd Evenflow…until Jericho counters into the Lion Tamer. Quick tap out. Announcers talk about someone like Raven tapping out quickly, implying he just quit the match.

Seriously, a Hogan promo?

Meng vs. Wrath

Somersault off the apron from Wrath! He should have used that when he was Adam Bomb.

Wrath pins Meng in 4:23. Impressive Meltdown for the win. Wrath gets a good pop too. Meng didn’t seem to really be, er…trying, but this probably was Wrath’s best workrate run. The fans were into him…until Nash squashed him.

#1 Contender to the Cruiserweight Championship
Juventud Guerrera vs. Disco Inferno

This match has a really stupid ending that isn’t realized until Nitro the next night. Just note that the Cruiserweight Title match is tonight.

Disco in the Cruiserweight division is rather meh…although I believe he did the weight limit gimmick deal. I just don’t understand why we have Disco going for the Cruiser title when you have guys like Rey Mysterio, Dean Malenko and Eddie Guerrero on the roster.

Disco busts out a macarana. Great stuff.

Very good back and forth match here.

Disco Inferno pins Juventud Guerrera in 9:39. Jumping piledriver downs Juvi for the pin! I’ll get into why this was stupid after Disco vs. Kidman. This was quite a good match though. Pretty good start to the PPV wrestling wise at least.

NITRO GIRLS AGAIN?!

Scott Steiner comes out to challenge Rick Steiner and Buff Bagwell for the Tag titles. For some reason Steiner can replace Scott Hall in the Hall and Giant tag team. Whatever. FREEBIRD RULES!

Scott Steiner agrees that if Bagwell and Rick win the titles, he’ll face Rick one on one.

Fit Finlay vs. Alex Wright

Apparently Fit Finlay ended Alex Wright’s dad’s career with a broken leg 15 years ago or something.

Alex Wright pins Fit Finlay in 5:09. Neckbreaker out of nowhere for the win. Boring match. If you told me Finlay would be an upper midcard guy in WWE eight years later I woulda called you crazy.

Ernest Miller interview about him being the greatest.

Saturn vs. Lodi

I guess this is a spinoff of the Saturn vs. Flock feud?

Saturn’s new look just doesn’t work.

Saturn got no reaction. What a shame. He was mega over a month ago.

Saturn pins Lodi in 3:50. Death Valley Driver for the win. Total squash. Not sure why it was on PPV. Lodi was a bit funny trying to keep track of his signs I guess.

Nitro Girls a third time. It’s not fucking Nitro.

WCW Cruiserweight Championship
Billy Kidman© vs. Disco Inferno

Kidman beat Juvi for the title the night after Fall Brawl. Disco is here due to his win earlier tonight.

Disco nails the piledriver…but it’s not enough.

We get a macarana driver attempt, but Kidman facebusters Disco out of it.

Kidman retains in 10:49. Shooting Star Press for the win. Not as good as Disco-Juvi earlier, but still good. Here’s why’s it’s stupid. Kidman would defend the Cruiser title on Nitro against….

Juventud Guerrera! Whatever.

WCW World Tag Team Championship
The Giant and Scott Steiner © vs. Rick Steiner and Buff Bagwell

Chucky references. Oh goodie.

It takes about four minutes for Bagwell to turn on Rick. Rick looking like an idiot was a big reason he didn’t get over from this. He was getting a great reaction before all this too. It would only get worse for Rick sadly.

Rick Steiner wins the title in 8:24. What? Rick Steiner makes the comeback and hits a Top Rope Bulldog on the Giant to win the title! HUGE reaction!

Rick Steiner vs. Scott Steiner

Buff Bagwell comes back in a disguise and nails Rick Steiner with a slapjack. The disguise was totally unnecessary.

Rick Steiner pins Scott Steiner in 5:00. Top rope bulldog for the win. Really disappointing for a grudge match. It still only goes downhill for Rick…unless you were a Judy Bagwell fan.

Scott Hall vs. Kevin Nash

Story here: The Outsiders broke up when the NWO factions split, with Hall picking Hollywood.

In my opinion, this should have happened at Starrcade.

Hall was doing his “drunk” angle at this time. It actually leads to Hall pretending he’s wasted to get a cheap shot on Nash.

Early Hall dominance….then a Hall promo. Wasting time for sure.

Nash eventually takes control…then beats the crap out of Hall for a good five minutes.

Scott Hall wins via countout in 14:19. Nash hits two Jackknife Powerbombs (he fucks up each though)…tells Hall to suck it…then walks out. Not sure if that was ever explained. As we will see with Hogan-Warrior later, this was a match that was a lot better years ago in the WWF with Vince calling the shots (Summerslam ’94). It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t good either.

Nitro Girls for the fourth time.

WCW United States Championship
Bret Hart © vs. Sting

Another match that shoulda been slated for Starrcade!

I’m not even sure if Bret is NWO here. He didn’t use NWO music here.

Mike Tenay says this won’t be a technical wrestling match. I guess he’s never watched Bret Hart or something.

This is marketed as the Sharpshooter vs. the Scorpion.

Pretty boring first half…even though there’s nothing really wrong with this match. Just seems like two guys going through the motions.

Bret legdropping the ref is a highlight of the match.

Bret Hart wins when Sting doesn’t answer the ref in the Sharpshooter in 15:09. Bret beats the crap out of Sting with a baseball bat then locks him in the Sharpshooter. How un-Bret Hart like. Also pretty boring and disappointing for a dream match like Bret vs. Sting.

Sting does a stretcher job and wouldn’t be seen until March or so.

Hollywood Hogan vs. The Warrior

We are shown Horace Hogan getting beat down by NWO Hollywood. I would think Horace isn’t a big enough name to interfere here…

The opening sequence isn’t that bad!

Really weird criss crossing off the ropes spot leading to a bodyslam from Hogan…which Warrior no sells!

Random ref bump…and Hogan adds a kneedrop for no reason. Really hasn’t been that awful so far.

The famous logroll spot. Hogan misses two elbowdrops, and Warriors rolls into him with…a roll attack?

It only goes downhill from here. Hogan tries to light some flash paper to throw a fireball at Warrior…and instead it blows up in his face.

Hollywood Hogan pinned The Warrior in 14:07. Horace Hogan comes in and nails Warrior with a chair shot for the Hogan victory. The opening sequence was decent but it went downhill from there. Sharply downhill. Warrior and Hogan do a whole lot of nothing for the last 11 minutes with highlights being a logroll spot, a failed fireball spot and a match as important as this one ending with Horace Hogan involved in the finish. That doesn’t even consider the many missed kicks and messed up bumps taken (specifically by Warrior). Horrible. One of the worst PPV matches ever. Luckily, WCW didn’t put it as the main event!

WCW World Championship
Goldberg © vs. Diamond Dallas Page

I never liked the security for Goldberg. If you are so tough, why need security?

Pretty cool lockup that goes flying out of the ring.

Goldberg completed a backflip…but Page smartly trips him a second time! Great spot!

Nice drop toehold from Page. Great match so far!

Flying hurricanrana from DDP!

Page calls for the Diamond Cutter….and gets speared! Goldberg got him good too!

One of the most iconic moments in WCW history…Goldberg goes for the Jackhammer…only for Page to twist it into the Diamond Cutter! Page can’t capitalize though.

Goldberg retains by pin in 10:29. Page suplex gets turned into the Jackhammer for the win. Easily Goldberg’s best match ever, and arguably Page’s as well. Perfectly complimented the ideas of Goldberg the destroyer against the underdog Page. If there’s an argument to say that you could have built a company around Page, this match would be the launching point of the argument. Great match. It also tremendously helped the PPV.

I can’t give this PPV too much credit as there was a lot of bad and waste. Less is more would be a perfect description of this show. We don’t need the Nitro Girls four times. We don’t need matches like Saturn vs. Lodi or Finlay vs. Alex Wright. We don’t need non-sensical cruiserweight division booking. What we do need is more main events like Goldberg vs. Page and more openers like Raven vs. Jericho. Overall, the card was pretty good and a hell of a big improvement over Fall Brawl.

There’s only so much you can do though when one of the worst PPV matches of all time is on the card though. Warrior vs. Hogan was a joke. Nash vs. Hall wasn’t much better. Page and Goldberg saved this main events for sure.

Fun fact: Warrior made one more appearance on Nitro the next night…and it was the last time Nitro beat RAW for a full night.

But good thing for WCW is that they didn’t keep the Warrior on TV. His time had past.

Sadly in a few months Hogan wouldn’t realize his had as well.

Final Grade: C+

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WCW Bash at the Beach ’98

bashatthebeach98

WCW Bash at the Beach 98
July 13, 1998
San Diego, CA
Reviewed on March 18, 2014

Background: I wrote a bit about how WCW was going downhill in 1998…but to be fair they were still doing very well at this particular point. To Eric Bischoff the Monday Night War was everything. When he started losing in April of 98 he began to hotshot big main events that would have drawn big money on PPV. Eventually it would cost him. Yes, Goldberg pinning Hollywood Hogan clean for the World Title was a huge moment. But millions upon millions of PPV revenue was flushed down the toilet for that move.

WCW though, still had some aces up their sleeves. At Wrestlemania XIV, the WWF brought in Mike Tyson and it worked out handsomely for them. WCW had its own list of celebrities, and while the later crap with Jay Leno probably hurt the business in the long run, the big tag team match of Hogan and Dennis Rodman against DDP and Karl Malone seemed like it would work. Hell, Malone was in better shape than 80% of the roster, and Rodman at least was there the year before.

This card is missing some top tier guys, but hey, sometimes that’s how you get some undercard exposure. I remember this being a fun show, so let’s see if it holds up.

The Card

Mean Gene plugs the hotline of course.

Raven’s Rules
Saturn vs. Raven

Raven’s Rules of course means no rules.

Storyline here: Saturn is the one to break away from the Flock. It came to a head when Saturn needed to beat Kanyon at the Great American Bash and despite interference from a bunch of Mortis’s, Saturn still lost. Raven was one of the Mortis’s.

Saturn owns early on. Raven always knew how to sell guardrail spots.

Saturn falls off the top rope, but perfectly recovers and hits a dropkick. Mike Tenay puts it over as well, which was nice.

Somehow Tony Schiavone calls Raven getting a table “a chair”. Bobby Heenan kills him for it and it’s great.

Saturn misses a springboard…something…but it looked pretty rehearsed.

Raven with one of my favorite spots: The Russian Legsweep into the guardrail.

Springboard twisting legdrop on a chair on Raven’s face!

One of the better ref bumps, Saturn with Air Sabu and Saturn ends up kicking Nick Patrick in the face.

Bulldog headlock on the steps! Saturn has dominated.

Saturn makes a Raven sandwich with two tables, but Kanyon comes and pulls Raven out. Saturn jumps waaayyy too late to make that believable. Kanyon nails Raven with a Flatliner on an open chair though!

Raven pins Saturn in 10:40. Saturn superkicks Raven in the face while Raven was holding a chair. Cover, but Riggs runs in to break it up. Saturn hits him with the Death Valley Driver. Raven though, uses the interference to hit the Evenflow DDT for the win. Fun brawl. Great use of the chair. Shows that WCW didn’t need cruiserweights to have a hot opener every show.

Mena Gene brings out Eddy Guerrero! He puts over Chavo’s craziness, especially in regards to his decision to wrestle Stevie Ray before he wrestles Eddy. Eddy wasn’t a great promo man yet. Unless you like run-on sentences.

Kidman vs. Juventud Guerrera

Here’s someone who got over from the Flock: Kidman. This was still the itchy heroin addict Kidman.

Small story: Who’s finisher is better? Juvi’s 450 or Kidman’s 7 Year Itch (the Shooting Star Press). Juvi also wrestled and beat the Flock’s monster Reese last month.

Apparently this is Kidman’s 1st PPV match.

Referee total ignores Lodi beating up Juvi. Kidman’s top rope dive though misses Juvi and he nails Lodi, then Juvi goes flying himself to take out Lodi and Kidman.

Awesome reverse catapult from Kidman to Juvi. I think that’s what it’s called.

Powerbomb/sunset flip off the apron from Juvi to Kidman. Nice.

Double leg underhook powerbomb from Kidman to Juvi off the top! Nice!

Juvi crotches Kidman on the top rope…then outside to inside hurricanrana for a two. Very nice!

Kidman German…but Juvi lands on his feet then hits the Juvi Driver! Only two!

Juventud Guerrera pins Kidman in 9:55. Kidman misses the 7 Year Itch…and Juvi follows with the 450 for the win. Very fun match. WCW smartly continued the Cruiserweight division with these two on top through the end of 98.

Lee Marshall and Konnan. Konnan asks if Skittles had a shirt give away. I guess that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard Konnan say.

Stevie Ray vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Story: Chavo challenges Stevie Ray even though he was already facing Eddy later.

Heenan calls Chavo Captain Cupcake. Imagine if they went with that for the MIA later on?

Chavo Guerrero Jr.’s insane 1998 run was great. Best thing he ever did.

Eddy makes his way down to watch the match, obviously rooting for Stevie Ray to pound Chavo.

Chavo dedicates the match to Eddy!

Stevie Ray makes Chavo Guerrero Jr. submit in 1:35. Chavo does some comedy spots…then submits to a handshake! He’s so tired now, I guess it’s time for him to face Eddy! Eddy is furious. Great booking here.

Hair vs. Hair
Eddy Guerrero vs. Chavo Guerrero Jr.

Eddy has major heat. Smh WCW, smh.

Chavo with more comedy. You know who Chavo reminds me of here? Santino!

Angry Eddy Guerrero is the best Eddy Guerrero.

This is just a well wrestled match here.

Perfect tilt a whil backbreaker on Eddy from Chavo!

Eddy Guerrero pins Chavo Guerrero Jr. in 11:54. Great ending. Chavo goes for Eddy’s finisher, the Frog Splash but Eddy gets the feet up. Eddy then plants Chavo with Chavo’s move the Tornado DDT (a move he should have kept). Eddy though goes for the scissors! Eddy misses a Frog Splash and Chavo hits his Tornado DDT. Chavo then goes for the scissors! Eddy rolls up Chavo for the win. Chavo scares Eddy away though…then cuts his own hair! Chavo was so over as a nutcase here. Three good matches in a row (not counting Ray-Chavo, lol).

Tony Schiavone and Mike Tenay talk about the Chris Jericho-Dean Malenko feud. You can tell he wasn’t told about the bonus match until that moment.

BONUS MATCH
Konnan vs. Disco Inferno

Alex Wright and Disco try to get with the “lingo” of the Hispanic scene. It’s pretty funny to be honest.

Only Wolfpac appearance of the show. But we get Lex Luger and Kevin Nash at ringside, so there’s that.

Konnan made Disco Inferno submit in 2:16. Disco throws Konnan outside for Alex Wright to attack. Wright dances afterwards and Luger comes around and racks him. This distracts the ref, and Kevin Nash comes in and kills Disco with a jackknife. Tequila Sunrise (awesome submission) for the win. I mean, it was 2 minutes and Disco got no offense, but it was fun at least.

The Giant vs. Kevin Greene

NWO time. This originally was Giant and Curt Hennig vs. Greene and Goldberg, but got split when Goldberg won the title.

The Giant pinned Kevin Greene in 6:58. Not much to say here. Smartly booked with a lot of hit and run from Greene but Giant’s power being too much. Greene finally knocks Giant down…but a mistake leads to him running into the big hand and the chokeslam for the win. Certainly not horrible. Greene could have been a solid wrestler I think.

Marshall is now with Curt Hennig. Hennig says he has the secret to beat Goldberg. Inexperience!

More recap of Jericho-Malenko, and how Malenko was suspended because he attacked Jericho even though he wasn’t supposed to. This feud was the highlight of Malenko’s career, and propelled Jericho to superstardom.

WCW Cruiserweight Championship: No DQ
Chris Jericho© vs. ???

Jericho comes out with a top hat and cane. Jericho equals buyrates afterall, so he’s gonna perform. JJ Dillion shows up and offers Jericho a local opponent (not before sucking up to Jericho. Good stuff all around). Jericho takes it. Huge pop for Rey Mysterio Jr., as he is from San Diego! Brilliant!

There is a story here too! Jericho injured Rey back at Souled Out, solidifying his heel turn.

Of course Jericho works on the knee. Good psychology.

Funny spots here. Jericho runs up the beach ladder in the set (which has tons of sand around). Rey pulls Jericho off the ladder into the sand, which Schiavone has to sell as “oh, that’s a soft landing, but the sand is irritating!” Mysterio then with the top of the ladder hurricanrana on the sand!

Jericho misses a top rope knee drop and lands on the chair…and now Mysterio works on Jericho’s knee! Dropkick to a chair on the knee as well!

Rey Mysterio Jr. wins the title when he pinned Jericho in 6:00. Jericho goes for the Liontamer, but Mysterio escapes! Here comes Malenko! This distracts Jericho enough for Rey to roll him up on a Liontamer attempt for the win! Jericho runs from Malenko, but Arn Anderson helps him get Jericho. This foreshadowed the Four Horsemen return. Because of the Malenko appearance, Jericho was awarded the title back on Nitro. Okay match, other than the top of the ladder deal you can tell Mysterio didn’t want to do any flying yet with the knee injury. Still, cool moments all around and Jericho is hilarious in the pre-match stuff.

TV Championship
Booker T© vs. Bret Hart

Story: Bret got involved in the Best of 7 Series that Booker T and Chris Benoit had. Booker challenged Bret.

Looks like unmotivated Bret here sadly.

Match I think is designed to put Booker T over with the upper-level guys, but this looks like Bret going down a level unfortunately.

Good psychology here…Booker T does his Spinarooni but doesn’t pop up, Heenan points out it’s because of the knee. Nice.

Booker T wins by DQ in 8:28. Booker with a dive over the rop…and Bret catches him midway with a chair! Bret bashes Booker’s knee with a chair…then my favorite hold…the Figure Four around the ring post! What an awesome move. Stevie Ray shows up slowly and Bret leaves. It planted seeds for the Harlem Heat problems later. Okay match, kinda boring. Finish is also meh but Bret made the beat down look good. Stevie Ray says Booker doesn’t need medical help and helps him back.

Video recap of Goldberg’s world title win. It was pretty damn awesome.

WCW World Championship
Goldberg© vs. Curt Hennig

Goldberg looks pretty damn incredible with the Big Gold Belt.

Goldberg is 111-0 here.

Goldberg retains when he pins Hennig in 3:50. Goldberg kicks out of the Hennig-Plex and wins with the Spear-Jackhammer combo. Hennig did something new here going for Goldberg’s leg, but it didn’t matter. Nothing wrong with this, helped Goldberg get that first title defense out of the way.

Hollywood Hogan and Dennis Rodman vs. Karl Malone and Diamond Dallas Page

A lot of stalling early on with the Malone-Rodman start.

Rodman is a great chickenshit heel.

Malone slams Hogan!

Rodman with the armdrag on Page!

Rodman messes up something leading to a collision of the heads. Rumors were Rodman wasn’t in great condition to perform here.

Surprising that Malone plays babyface in peril.

Now Page is the babyface in peril. Long tag match with not a lot happening.

Hogan and Rodman win when Hogan pins Page in 23:47. Page nails the Diamond Cutter on Hogan. Rodman runs in, but Malone Diamond Cutters him for a huge pop. Malone tries to pin Rodman out of inexperience, and The Disciple hits a stunner on Page for the Hogan pin. I mean, it was a spectacle. I think other than the Diamond Cutter a bodyslam was the biggest high spot. It’s supposed to be a spectacle though and I do think overall it’s booked well. Malone gets some moments. Rodman gets some moments. This could have been A LOT worse.

Bash at the Beach 98…is pretty entertaining overall. Good matches to start, big names to finish. Some good moments with Mysterio and Goldberg’s first title defense. There really isn’t a bad match on the card (although some boring ones), but everything had SOME entertainment value somewhere.

These were WCW’s last great days. They never ran with Page. They didn’t even seriously run with Goldberg somehow. They didn’t run with Raven. Or Jericho. Wasted talent all over the place that did some good stuff on this PPV.

But this show itself? It’s pretty good. Three good opening matches. Good comedy with Chavo and Jericho. Big main event. Goldberg squashing a high tiered guy. All good.

Final Grade: B+

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WWF King of the Ring ’98

Kotr98

WWF King of the Ring ‘98
June 28, 1998
Pittsburgh, PA
Reviewed on June 7, 2014

We are in the Attitude Era! The WWF had just taken over the Monday Night ratings War…but it was still a dogfight. The WWF was pushing new guys, and that fresh edge was helping over the same old on Nitro. Only The Undertaker was held over from the top of the card. Stone Cold, Kane, The Rock, Triple H, Ken Shamrock and Mick Foley were all guys getting their chance at the top or near the top.

The thing about the Attitude Era is that it was riveting television. Anything could happen at any time on any given Monday. As long as the card was headlined by Stone Cold in some way, it didn’t really matter what the rest looked like (as this card will show). Honestly, how many people can even name a match that wasn’t one of the three big matches on this show? (Some even forget about Shamrock vs. Rock).

Let’s watch some classic WWF Attitude!

The Card

There’s an awesome opening video hyping up the Austin vs. Kane and Taker vs. Mankind matches.

The Headbangers and TAKA Michinoku vs. Ka ent ai

I was always surprise that the Headbangers somehow got lost in the shuffle in the Attitude Era…since they seemed tailor made for it.

This was part of the long running Taka and random vs. Ka ent ai. Most notably teaming with Taka later was Bradshaw.

Ka ent ai is Togo, Funaki and Teioh. I think it’s interesting that of the six men in this match, it was Funaki who had the longest WWF/E career.

While I think Taka is a good wrestler, all of his pre-1999 WWF matches followed the SAME exact formula.

Togo and Funaki with a great facebuster-bulldog sequence.

Taka and the Headbangers win when Taka pins Funaki in 6:44. Michinoku Driver for the win. Short fun opener here. Good thing to get the crowd going.

Sable time!

She introduces Vince! This was part of the Vince re-hired Sable angle after Marc Mero beat her. Pat Patterson slaps Sable’s ass, which JR of course makes a subtle gay joke. It’s also pretty funny now that I know Patterson’s orientation.

Vince runs down Austin on the mic of course. Time waster here.

King of the Ring Semi-Final
Ken Shamrock vs. Jeff Jarrett

This easily could have been an early NWA-TNA World Title feud.

I’m a Jeff Jarrett fan, but the mid 90s Double J persona was waaaaaay dated here. He’d change gimmicks by Summerslam.

“Ain’t I Great?” Not really at this point Jeff.

Ken Shamrock advances via submission in 5:29. Shamrock hits his bad ass frankensteiner, then the Ankle Lock wins it. No surprise. Match was what it was: Jarrett putting Shamrock over.

King of the Ring Semi-Final
Dan Severn vs. The Rock

It was smart to have Shamrock winning 1st, as at least it’s somewhat believable Severn can win here.

Severn’s WWF legacy would be causing D’Lo Brown to wear a chest protector.

Severn doesn’t throw punches. Pretty much the opposite of the Attitude Era style.

The Rock advances via pin in 4:25. D’Lo with the Lo-Down…new chest protector and all! Rock gets the pin. Match sucked. Severn was about 15 years too late as a top bad guy. He might have been a real life bad ass, but he was an awful sports entertainer. Rock cuts a solid promo and was well on his way to being a top guy.

If Al Snow wins, he gets a meeting with Vince McMahon
Al Snow and Head vs. Too Much

Head is a mannequin head, in case anyone doesn’t know.

Al Snow had just returned with the Head gimmick after developing it in ECW.

If you were to tell me Too Much would be WWF World Tag Team Champions as a kid watching in 1998, and that they’d win the titles two years later, I’d laugh my ass off.

There is a story here. Al Snow was trying to get a job, and somehow that led to stealing Jerry Lawler’s crown. Apparently Lawler can get Snow a meeting with Vince.

Snow: “Boys, get ready, you’re about to get a little head like you’ve never gotten it before”. WWE Attitude folks!

Lawler is revealed as ref!

Al Snow alternates beating up Scott Taylor and talking to Head. Good stuff.

Of course Lawler blatantly cheats.

Al Snow with a ridiculous long running clothesline on the outside…then Scott Taylor “hits” a springboard chop? Ugly.

JR can’t even take the match seriously.

Tag to the Head! JR even justifies Lawler not counting a Snow pinfall because Head was legal.

Too Much wins when Brian Christopher pins Head in 8:26. Oh man. Snow hits the Snowplow on Taylor, but Christopher attaches a bottle of Head and Shoulders to Head and pins it for the win. Ok the match was awful as you’d expect, but let me say something about this. This match is a great example of why WWF ’98 worked and WCW 2000 didn’t. This match furthered Al Snow’s character. As silly as this all was, storywise this actually made sense. Now, that’s not saying this should have been on PPV, because this is a RAW match if I ever saw one, but there is something positive to gain from it.

Owen Hart vs. X-Pac

Rematch of the ’94 KOTR here.

Sad storyline decent for Owen here. We went from shoving HBK through a table, to jobbing to HHH a lot, to fighting X-Pac. Clearly Owen wasn’t getting the main event push.

What a 12 months before this for Owen. He was feuding with Austin at one point.

I didn’t watch a lot of Syxx in WCW, but this I believe is the debut of the mat wrestling X-Pac. This was because of his broken neck he suffered at the end of his WCW run.

Owen’s gimmick was that of a guy who was done being taken advantaged of and was done being a nice guy. This just didn’t work for Owen. He was a lot better as the whiny heel.

Terrible Bronco Buster there. I wonder if Own purposely didn’t want X-Pac’s nuts in his face.

Owen with a terrible fall off the top, clearly messed that up.

X-Pac pins Owen Hart in 8:30. Mark Henry comes out and splashes X-Pac…to which Vader (talk about someone who’s really fallen from 12 months prior) attacks him. Owen locks X-Pac in the sharpshooter, but Chyna takes him out with a DDT (and busts Owen’s nose, wonder if that was a botch). X-Pac wins it there. Okay match, surprising small screw-ups near the end with the Bronco Buster and Owen’s top rope fall.

Paul Bearer comes out. He cuts an awesome promo about how proud he will be of his son Kane when he wins the World Title, and how Kane always wanted to be The Undertaker when he was young.

WWF World Tag Team Champions
The New Age Outlaws © vs. The New Midnight Express

Dirty little secret: the WWF Tag Team division absolutely blew in the early Attitude Era. Outside of the Outlaws, the division as made up of the Express, the underused Headbangers, the Godwinns/Southern Justice, the DOA and a washed-up LOD. That’s why the following makes up the list of non Outlaw champs: Kane and Mankind, Taker and Kane and Bossman and Shamrock. The division wouldn’t really pick up to mid-99, then of course in 2000.

One interesting storyline here: The Smokin’ Gunns are on opposite sides.

This was Bob Holly’s first repackaging. Could have been worse I guess.

Pretty awesome landing on the feet from Bart on a Billy hip toss.

Road Dogg is your Outlaw in peril.

Cornette gets involved with the NWA Tag Title, but Billy survives a pin attempt.

Cornette famously ranted about this. Cornette threatened to hit Billy with the title belt again, but Billy cornered him. Chyna was on the wrong side of the ring and was supposed to low blow Cornette…and she takes forever doing it, leaving Billy Gunn standing there.

New Age Outalws retain when Gunn pinned Holly in 9:34. A double stun gun gets the pin (what an awful finish). Not a bad match, but I mean, there’s a huge difference in statue for the Outlaws and the New Express, even at this stage. Match was solid.

King of the Ring Finals
The Rock vs. Ken Shamrock

HHH, last year’s winner, comes out for commentary.

There is a story here. Shamrock had chased Rock’s IC title for the first half of the year, but kept coming up short.

Rock-HHH get into a shoving match on the outside, as they were feuding. Good touch there.

The commentary is pretty distracting with HHH making dick jokes every 20 seconds.

Shamrock clearly leaps into a powerslam, but impressive enough I guess…

Nice reversal of the Floatover DDT into a Northern Lights suplex from Shamrock!

Ken Shamrock becomes King of the Ring via submission in 14:09. Rock argues with the ref and gets rolled into the Ankle Lock for the win. Very good match, probably the best of the Rock’s career at that point. Of course, hindsight being 20/20…I’m sure Vince wishes Rock won this tournament now. By the way, HHH’s commentary was horrible and annoying. I get that was the character, but it was just unnecessary.

Hell in a Cell
The Undertaker vs. Mankind

Story here: Where do I begin? Probably the first real Attitude feud that really began in 1996. Undertaker vs. Mankind was an amazing feud and that only added to the intrigue here. For recent storyline, Mankind cost Taker a title shot against Austin.

On the real life advice of Terry Funk, the match begins on top of the cage.

Mankind’s climb to the top of the cage does have some comedic value. Foley himself mentions how he wasn’t even sure if he’d make it to the top, and he lost feeling in his hand to get up there.

You can see Taker limp down to the ring when he goes down the rampway…he had a broken foot here (and still climbs the cell better than Foley).

Taker’s gimmick was getting a lot darker at this point. He had also shown some signs of the 2000 American Bad Ass as well.

Three minutes in…and Taker throws Foley off the cell through the table! It’s still one of the damnest spots I’d ever seen, especially since it was so sudden. There was absolutely no build-up. One second Foley was punching Taker. The next he’s flying off the cell.

Kayfabe is broken everywhere by Funk and Vince.

The crowd reaction is pretty nuts too. He literally hear people screaming in horror as Foley flies off.

Undertaker looks pretty damn bad ass standing on top of the cell.

Foley gets up and comes back…also one of the damnest things ever in wrestling.

30 seconds later Taker chokeslams Foley and the ceiling caves in…and Foley slams hard, and I mean hard on the canvas. I still cringe when I see that. Somehow the match continues. Taker chokeslams Funk, buying Foley time.

The match somehow continues. Foley causes Taker to crotch the top rope when Taker tries Old School, which in reality was Taker trying to buy Foley more time.

Ha, Taker clearly blades on camera after missing a dive and crashing headfirst into the cage.

Piledriver on a chair by Foley! Somehow Mankind might win this thing!

Thumbtack time! Unfortunately Foley’s the one who goes back first into them after a Mandible Claw attempt.

Undertaker pins Mankind in 17:00. Foley gets sent into the tacks again with a chokeslam! Tombstone wins it for Undertaker. Ok, there are two trains of thoughts with this match generally: it’s one of the greatest matches in WWE history, or it’s the most overrated match in WWE history. I’m in one of the greatest ever camp (2nd best HIAC match behind the original). This is because the brutality of the match matched the rivalry. If Undertaker had done this to HHH or something, I’d be like wtf? But Mankind and Undertaker had already done everything to one another over the past two years. Even though it wasn’t completely intentional, it made sense that something like this had to happen. This match is also one of the most influential matches in WWE history. Every huge table bump in the future really started here. And Of course, this was the major league thumbtack debut. This match also helped solidify Mankind as a main event player (although, Mr. Socko was needed to finish that process). It also was the match that made Undertaker’s heel turn a lot more effective, as a real mean streak was established. Lastly, anytime fans talk about a match for years and years after it takes place, then the match didn’t suck. Not all matches have to be artistically perfect. Amazing match. Probably in my top 10 all time.

WWF World Championship: First Blood. If Kane Does Not Win the Title He Will Set Himself On Fire
Stone Cold Steve Austin© vs. Kane

I wish the whole Kane setting himself on fire deal wasn’t a part of this…as it made it clear Kane was winning (then again…after the Cell match it wouldn’t shock me to see Kane light himself on fire).

Austin had a bad staph infection here, if you are wondering about the white elbow brace.

The cage actually comes down when Kane is dominating, and raises when Austin is winning. Not sure why that was done.

I don’t know if it’s because of Austin’s injury, but this brawl really isn’t that good.

Ref bump in a First Blood match? Sure why not.

Mankind comes down to the ring with a chair. I hate this for the record.

Stunner on Foley!

Stunner on Kane!

Here comes the Undertaker!

Kane wins the WWF Title by blood draw in 15:58. Taker aims for Mankind…but nails Austin with the chair on accident? Maybe? Austin blades on camera, and is busted wide open! Taker revives the ref (good way to do shades of grey here). Austin cleans house, but the ref finally sees the blood and awards the title to the KOed Kane. I do hate this finish, but I get why it happened this way. Match was not good though. It seemed like Austin was in slow motion here, and with his injuries he probably was. I also hate Mankind coming out here. Kinda demeans the Cell match a little…real as it was. As for Kane…well, he’d have a long title reign. 24 hours is more than most can say.

Really tough show to grade. It’s known today for one match and one match only. To be fair, that match owns. Too bad the main event was all over the place. Shamrock-Rock was pretty forgotten (because in hindsight, the wrong man won) and the rest of the card, while by no means bad (except for that Too Much-Snow thing), I wouldn’t call it good. Or memorable. The New Midnight Express? Headbangers teaming with Taka?

But when your PPV has one of the most talked about matches in wrestling history, the other stuff doesn’t really matter THAT much, right?
Final Grade: B+

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews ECW Living Dangerously ’98

Living_Dangerously_1998

ECW Living Dangerously ‘98
March 1, 1998
Asbury Park, NJ
Reviewed on August 28, 2014

“ECW!”

“ECW!”

So, are we too late?

No one doubts that ECW revolutionized the business, but four PPVs in ECW was slowly growing but not nearly at the level of the big two. Unfortunately for ECW, that show on USA called RAW began to look quite similar. As most who experienced ECW would tell you, ECW peaked in 1995. It’s not to say that it wasn’t a solid show in in 1997 and 1998, but nothing was really something that blew you away anymore. Sure Sabu was nuts and Taz was a bad ass…but I mean Stone Cold was a bigger bad ass and Mick Foley just as insane.

Still, as wrestling was in the rise, it could only be a good thing for ECW (hindsight note: probably not true). Sure the show didn’t stick out as much…but it still was different overall.

The Card

ECW always would start like an Attitude RAW or Smackdown, with someone coming to the arena. In this case, it’s our pissed off TV Champ, Taz!

I believe this is the debut of the old school WCW ramp being in ECW.

The FBI vs. Jerry Lynn and Chris Chetti

The FBI’s Network dubbed music is pretty something. It’s originally the N-Trance remix of “Stayin’ Alive”.

This is when Chris Chetti was being pushed as the first Graduate of the House of Hardcore. He was pretty bland but had a solid heel turn in 1999 (he always had an awesome finish, the double springboard moonsault). Jerry Lynn was still a lower card guy here, he wouldn’t get made by RVD until a year later.

Guido with some good chicken-shit dancing there. It looked ridiculous.

Guido actually gives Chetti the Italian “FU” taunt while in an armbar. Good stuff early on.

Jerry Lynn goes airborne to the floor! Chetti follows up with a springboard double clothesline. Real fun stuff so far.

I never get why the whole distract the ref so the manager can attack thing happened in ECW. It’s no DQ in ECW!

Tracy Smothers clearly calls out a spot for Tommy Rich to get on the apron. I mean, Guido was the star of the team anyway.

Tracy Smothers kinda killed this match. Offense was pretty boring.

Jerry Lynn in to save it!

Well, maybe not, the FBI and Lynn botch some flapjack to I think what was supposed to be a double DDT.

Jerry Lynn and Chris Chetti win in 8:19 when Lynn pinned Smothers. Clusterfuck, then Rich runs in and accidentally nails Smothers with the flag. Lynn gets the pin after taking out Rich. Smothers shoves Rich afterwards. I forgot the payoff here, but it seems like the wrong team one unless the FBI was breaking up here. Still, a decent match overall with a fun beginning.

We see videos of W*ING Kanmura and Masato Tanaka, as they are to go at it. It makes the next deal confusing…even though Joey Styles asks if anyone has seen Kanmura.

Masato Tanaka vs. Doug Furnas

Lance Wright comes out with Doug Furnas…STILL pushing the WWF vs. ECW angle that should have ended for good at November to Remember with RVD vs. Dreamer. Also, Doug Furnas? Seriously? That’s who the WWF is bringing in?

Furnas was always a solid hand, even if he was one of the most boring wrestlers ever. I liked his long term partner Phil Lafon though.

Tanaka comes out with a FMW flag. ECW and FMW were kinda working together at this point.

Good powerslam from Furnas!

They work a really boring figure four spot.

Tornado DDT off the top is botched. Not sure what happened but Tanaka didn’t land right for it.

Tanaka runs into Furnas and falls. Horrible botches here. Furnas tries to save it by dropping Tanaka on his head a couple of times.

Furnas goes for some pins and Wright tells him not go for some pins to punish Tanaka.

They screw up again! Tanaka off the ropes and both men come to a standstill!

Masato Tanaka pinned Doug Furnas in 5:46. Tanaka finishes with a weak Roaring Elbow and the crowd seems surprised that’s the finish. Wright gets angry that Furnas lost and berates him because he was “nearly a WWF Legend” as Wright namedrops every WWF suit out there. Furnas doesn’t seem to care and he lays out Wright. Furnas puts an ECW shirt on and tells Wright to tell Vince to kiss his ass. Yeah like Doug Furnas has leverage there. Anyway, match was horrible. I didn’t know Masato Tanaka has a side to him that’s pretty terrible. Or Furnas. Not sure who’s fault it was.

Joey Styles tells us that Sandman vs. Sabu was taped earlier but PPV censors refuse to air it. Jason and Nicole Bass make Joey Styles play a tape of Tommy Dreamer showing up. Ok? Jason says Beulah left Dreamer.

Rob Van Dam vs. 2 Cold Scorpio

Scorpio was on the WWF payroll here, in-between his Flash Funk and JOB Squad days. Not sure if this was the return or if he came back to hype this at all.

RVD wears an awesome Louie Spicolli tribute shirt.

In a lot of ways RVD took Scorpio’s position on the card as dominating TV Champ. So in ECW history this is like a weird type of dream match. Joey is trying to hype it that way.

Mat wrestling is pretty slow to start. I think the problem isn’t the match, but that the fans were pretty bored from the last match.

I think there was a botch by RVD, but Scorpio made it look cool with a knee to the face. By the way, how did Vince screw up Scorpio the way he did? Guy had natural charisma.

Bridging sequence seems slow…only it ends in a really cool way with Scorpio flipping to his feet.

Match picks up on the outside. RVD misses a stage moonsault but lands on his feet.

Match isn’t really jelling and we get a “This match sucks” chant. Not sure why it’s all technical wrestling because that’s the wrong way to go with these two by far.

Scorpio Bomb! Time for this to pick up!

Nice moonsault from Scorpio!

Four Star Frog Splash! Hey, it wasn’t his finish yet.

Somersault legdrop! Nice moves, but this is just spot after spot now.

Split Legged Moonsault is the rich man’s version of Starship Pain.

Pretty crappy looking Van Daminator on the stage. I’m so disappointed in this match.

Scorpio with a piledriver on the stage/ramp whatever. Some randomly good stuff in this horribly disjointed match. Scorpio does a reverse Tombstone on the stage next.

In one of the stranger ref bumps, ref holds RVD back and Scorpio dropkicks him, leading to RVD landing on top of Scorpio. Top rope splash then misses…but hits the ref.

Wow! RVD mocks Scorpio then does a PERFECT 450 Splash…only Scorpio moves. What a shame! Would have been a great finish.

Scorpio barely makes his 450…but it’s Sabu!

Arabian Skullcrusher to Scorpio! Scorpio kicks out. Here comes The Sandman! He’s chasing Sabu!

I see where Kofi Kingston stole the Thunder in Paradise From.

Rob Van Dam pins Scorpio in 27:10. RVD rolls Scorpio up in a tight package off a hiptoss for the win. How underwhelming! Crazy as I’ve seen this match before and liked it, and it was known as the beginning of RVD’s “great worker” run. But uh…the match pretty much sucked. I’ll give it some credit though as there were some cool spots, like RVD’s 450 and awesome Split Legged Moonsault. There was a nice spin kick off the top in there as well. It was a long 27 minutes.

Scorpio attacks RVD after a handshake after RVD was being an arrogant jerk. Sabu comes back in to attack Scorpio. They are about to table Scorpio but Sandman makes the save. We get the worse looking “Frankensander” in the history of the business, and Sabu’s feet break the end of the table. That gets an “ECW!” chant. Yikes. Fans give Scorpio a nice ovation at the end though. Scorpio and Sandman share some beers.

We get a promo vid about Lance Storm and Chris Candido…and their issues which has a World Tag Team Title run in there…but also a Triple Threat storyline.

Hardcore Chair Swingin’ Freaks vs. The Dudley Boyz vs. Spike Dudley and New Jack

Joel Gertner time!

Gertner is awesome. Here’s a gimmick you’ll never see on WWE TV.

I really wonder where he came up with these limericks.

Yeah I’m sure D-Von is 169 pounds. The ECW Super Cruiserweight Champion of the World! (His words, not mine!)

Balls Mahoney looks like a homeless Bam Bam Bigelow with hair.

Why are we getting armdrags by Axl Rotten. Joey Styles calls him the most underrated wrestler in ECW. Really now?

Spike and New Jack are no where to be seen. It’s 3 on 2 with the Dudleyz and Big Dick Dudley against Rotten and Mahoney. HERE COMES NEW JACK!

By the way, here is someone who might be the most underrated worker in ECW. New Jack. Seriously. Guy is one of the best garbage wrestlers ever and always had the crowd in the palm of his hand.

I have no idea but I’ve always been entertained by New Jack killing the Dudleyz. You know he did this for like 2 years straight and people loved it. Wait till we get to Heatwave 99!

Spike Dudley has shown up!

One of the craziest moments in ECW history here. The Dudleyz lie on tables and New Jack and Spike jump off a balcony that had to be at least 15 feet high! While of course things have topped that now, there was NOTHING like that on a wrestling PPV at that point. Even now it just looks deadly. I remember reading about it in Pro Wrestling Illustrated and it just seemed like the damnest thing.

We get a terrible Tornado DDT by Spike. Better than Tanaka’s earlier though.

New Jack and Spike Dudley win in 13:25. Spike and Jack double guitar shot the Dudleyz, then Spike drops Bubba with the Acid Drop. 187 Chair Splash later wins it. If you don’t like garbage wrestling this isn’t for you, but like the four way at N2R, this was just fun garbage with a ridiculous balcony dive. I enjoyed it. What can I say.

So many hype videos. This one of Justin Credible…getting beat up by Mikey Whipwreck? Really showcasing Credible injuring him, but it started odd. We then see the mean streak in Justin Credible leading up to the feud with Dreamer.

We got a porn star! Jenna Jameson in the house. We get her first interview with Justin Credible!

Credible tells her off because he says he has Beulah! That’s actually great build of a confident character right there.

Justin Credible vs. Tommy Dreamer

Now Jenna wants to interview Tommy Dreamer. Dreamer just outright kisses her. Sure Beulah loved that…

Actually storyline wise she probably wanted a piece of that.

Dreamer looks ready tonight. Great Tree of Woe chair dropkick.

Drop toe hold into a chair…but it was the back part of the seat. Never saw it done that way. Looked like it hurt.

Here comes Beulah! She fakes being with Credible then low blows Credible and spikes Jason with a DDT!

Nicole Bass ragdolls Beulah…AND WE GET A WARDROBE MALFUNCTION FROM BASS. FOR FUCKS SAKE.

Mikey Whipwreck is in. Whippersnapper to Bass.

Tommy Dreamer pins Justin Credible in 8:58. Dreamer finishes Credible with a Dreamer DDT. I actually enjoyed this one. It was nothing great, but it was putting Credible over by showing he could hang with Dreamer. Told a solid story. Then again Nicole Bass’s shirt dropping almost killed me right then and there.

We get history of how Bam Bam Bigelow went from losing the ECW World Title to Shane Douglas to turning on Taz and joining the Triple Threat.

ECW World Television Championship
Taz© vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

Story here: Bam Bam looked to Taz to get revenge on Douglas…only to turn on him.

Sidenote: Bigelow’s hometown is Asbury Park, NJ. And the fans love him.

Taz just armdrags Bigelow over his head. Great display of power. Doing a good job of not making Taz the underdog, something that killed him in the WWF.

Taz LEVELS Bigelow with a clothesline. Didn’t expect that.

Taz suplexes Bigelow on his head into the crowd and a row of chairs! Pretty sick.

Bigelow kind of misses his big moonsault, but gets an arm and it seemed just passable. Joey Styles kinda saves it on commentary by being honest about it.

Taz drops Bigelow face first through a table, which was an odd spot to say the least.

We get a choke him out chant. So much for the Bigelow getting cheers deal. Weird.

Now Bam Bam chants. So confusing.

Match has slowed to a crawl with some weak brawling on the outside.

Taz gets them back into it by taking shots and demanding Bigelow bring it…when Bigelow falls down on a kick attempt.

Crazy ECW moment #2! Taz locks in the Tazmission! Bigelow taps but the ref didn’t see it…then Bigelow drops back…and they go flying through the ring!

Bam Bam Bigelow wins the TV title in 13:37 by pin. Bigelow pulls Taz from the hole and pins him for the title win! Admittedly a genius finish! Taz was on such a hot streak that he couldn’t lose and they let him lose in way where he would lose no credibility whatsoever! The fans absolutely popped when they saw the ring break as well. Match slowed a bit at the end, but it was pretty solid and SHOULD have main evented this show.

Paul E. yells at Joey Styles to buy him time, then demands he play the Sandman-Sabu Cane match that was taped earlier that censors said not to air on PPV! Styles argues, then calls for it.

Dueling Canes Match
Sabu vs. The Sandman

I covered this feud mostly for the November to Remember review. They were still going at it at this point.
One of the weirdest openings to a match, Sabu attacks Sandman…only somehow Sabu is so well disguised…that’s it’s actually Rob Van Dam? Then the real Sabu attacks Sandman. Somehow that was well done. Especially since Sabu and RVD look nothing alike other than body build.

Nice guardrail corner table splash from Sabu on Sandman.

Triple Jump Moonsault on the ramp! Nice, even if Sandman was trying to roll away.

Creative ref bump. Ref standing behind a propped table and Sabu hit it, nailing the ref.

RVD comes flying in and takes out Sandman as he was propping Sabu on a table, leading to the table breaking. RVD is still in Sabu costume. It’s so good that if I were just watching and not paying attention I’d think it was the real Sabu.

The Sabus take Sandman out with a double legdrop through the table on the ramp!

Sabu pins The Sandman in 9:21. Sabu rolls Sandman in for the pin. I liked this match! So much better than that crap at N2R ’97. The RVD as Sabu thing was pretty creative. The spots hit and seemed to be in a rhythm. And when Sabu and Sandman’s stuff hit, its good stuff. There are two issues with this though. One: why did the censors not want this aired? It wasn’t that crazy and the New Jack stuff was FAR worse. Two: after the opening minute there wasn’t a cane to be seen in a dueling canes match. Still, liked the match. Pretty good overall with a solid finish too.

Styles complains about not following the format and that we were supposed to have Al Snow vs. John Kronus. Oh no!

Dream Partner Tag Team Match
Chris Candido and ? vs. Lance Storm and ?

Funny note, the corner of the ring with the hole has caution tape around it. Sounds perfect for a five star classic! The hole is still clearly there.

Francine looks incredible. Absolutely incredible.

Shane Douglas is Candido’s partner of course.

There are tons of styrofoam heads in the crowd if anyone is wondering who Storm’s partner is going to be.

There’s a funny convo in the ring with Douglas and the ref…where it seems like Douglas is disgusted that there’s a hole in the ring. I don’t blame him!

Lance Storm’s partner is…Sunny!

Yeah, this is a horrid idea. Styles thinks its genius because Candido and Douglas won’t hit Sunny. So I guess Storm is okay with the handicap match then?

Sunny turns on Storm about 2 minutes in by hitting him with a cookie sheet. You know if you wonder why Lance Storm never got over as a top face it was probably because of this stupidity. Sunny hilariously falls into the hole at one point.

Lance Storm yells that he’s gonna give Candido head. Here comes Al Snow!

The rave party thing does look cool.

We have heads being thrown into the ring and the camera spinning around. I’m gonna be sick.

Al Snow throws Douglas into the hole.

Al Snow and Lance Storm win in 4:49 when Snow pinned Douglas. Snowplow for the win. Crowd pops huge for that horrific main event. The Al Snow stuff is cool though, so I will give them that. Not sure why this couldn’t be the semi-main though, as Bam Bam winning the TV title would have left the crowd happy. But I mean that was a farce of a match for a main event.

Strange show. Gotta give credit for ECW giving it everything it’s got though. It was definitely a big effort from everyone. And there was good stuff here! Credible vs. Dreamer was decent sans Nicole Bass. Bigelow vs. Taz had a great holy shit moment and a good story too. New Jack and Spike Dudley also provided a holy shit moment. Even Sabu vs. Sandman was fun. Hell if the opening matches were better and RVD vs. Scorpio wasn’t so disappointing and long (20% of the show!), this could have gotten the best grade for any ECW PPV so far. But it was so that’s that.

But then there’s the main event. How do you close the show on a match like that? I mean it was really a glorified angle, no? The whole thing was ludicrous. Lance Storm picking Sunny as a fake to just pick Al Snow even makes no sense. It’s a surprise partner. Just pick Al Snow! It didn’t help that Joey Styles was making him out to be a nobody though hyping up the match with Kronus though.

Good effort ECW, but too much disappointment, no really great matches and a shit main event doesn’t let me boost it into that B range.

Final Grade: C+

Basketball, Football

Two Examples of Unlucky #13 in Sports

unlucky13

Friday the 13th, for whatever reason, is considered an unlucky day (Wikipedia says something about Jesus and the Middle Ages). Specifically, the number 13 is considered unlucky, with skyscrapers often omitting a 13th floor for example. In sports, the number 13 doesn’t seemingly have any real significance with luck. For example Kurt Warner won a Superbowl for the Rams wearing #13. But still, there are some examples, and I am going to cherry pick two of them.

Dan Marino is in the discussion of greatest Quarterback of all-time. He’s somewhere from #4 through #7 on my list. Before the NFL got all pass happy and before Brett Favre played for what seemed to be forever, Marino set virtually all the major passing records. When he retired Marino was 1st in passing yards (3rd now), 1st in TDs (now 1st), had the single season passing record for yards and TDs and countless other records. What he didn’t have, was a Superbowl ring.

Marino couldn't get by Montana...and never got there again
Marino couldn’t get by Montana…and never got there again

Marino got close early on with a Superbowl appearance in his 2nd season (the same year he set the single season yards and TD records), but lost to Joe Montana’s 49ers. The next season Marino and the Dolphins were upset by the New England Patriots in the AFC Title game. At that point Marino would never get farther, going back to one AFC title game in 1992 and losing to the Bills. In 1993 the bad luck really took hold, as the Dolphins were the AFC favorites but fell when Marino tore his Achilles Tendon. Marino was still quite good afterwards, but the Dolphins never got past the Divisional Round again (yes, as of 2015 this is still true).

The Dolphins never surrounded Marino with any elite talent, especially a top rusher to ease the pressure on him (like John Elway getting Terrell Davis). How can the most prolific QB of the pre-Manning-Brady era make only 1 Superbowl and 3 AFC Title games in 17 years? This

The other example of a cursed #13 in sports is two time NBA MVP Steve Nash. Nash had some early back troubles that limited his effectiveness, but came on strong for the Mavericks and transformed into a MVP candidate when the hand checking and defense rules changed for the 2004-2005 season. Nash would average over 11 assists a game in five different seasons and over ten in two others. He got to the Conference Finals three times, losing each time to a team led by a top 15 player of all time (Tim Duncan’s Spurs, Kobe Bryant’s Lakers and Dirk Nowitzki’s Mavericks). Despite being perhaps the top offensive player in the league for several seasons and producing the best possible basketball out of Shawn Marion, Joe Johnson, Amar’e Stoudemire, Leandro Barbosa and countless others, Steve Nash never played a NBA Finals game.

Nash never played in a NBA Finals
Nash never played in a NBA Finals

Nash will most likely go down as the player who played the most games without playing in a NBA finals game. In his post #13 days, Nash looked to engineer a Lakers offense with Bryant and Dwight Howard. That unfortunately fell apart and one of the reasons is Nash’s body fell apart. Nash is expected to retire this off-season without ever having that chance to play in the finals. Did #13 curse him too?

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WWF In Your House XIX: De-Generation X

IYH19

WWF: In Your House De-Generation X
December 7, 1997
Springfield, MA
Reviewed on March 15, 2014

Background: Where to start? This was the first PPV after the infamous Montreal Screwjob. The WWF was looking toward the Stone Cold Steve Austin era, but now had this lull between Survivor Series and the Royal Rumble. Reportedly, Bret vs. Shawn was supposed to be the top feud to get us to Mania for Austin vs. Bret, but here we are.

The WWF had just turned to the Attitude phase of their marketing. You can’t really blame them for their lack of success though…WCW was promoting the Match of the Century: Hollywood Hogan vs. Sting which everyone watched. All eyes for the short term were on Bret Hart as well, so WCW really had all the momentum (and with a great Starrcade could have really put the pressure on the WWF). As the WWF was in the lame duck status, they decided to try to get some money out of Ken Shamrock and threw him in the main event with Shawn. The WWF had two really big time things here: DX was in fact revolutionary, and Austin was on the rise.

The Card

WWF Lightheavyweight Championship Tournament Final
Taka Michinoku vs. Brian Christopher

You knew the WWF blew the Lightheavyweight title when Brian Christopher was in the final of the inaugural tournament.

Match starts off with a LOT of stalling.

Taka’s springboard plancha was always a thing of beauty.

Taka is doing all he can to steal the show. Nice Asai moonsault using the corner.

Most of the commentary is about Christopher being (or not being) Jerry Lawler’s son.

Taka Michinoku wins the title when he pins Christopher in 12:00. Christopher misses the Tennessee Jam and Taka gets the Driver for the win. Way too much stalling from Christopher for this to have any flow. At least Taka gets a good pop when he wins the title.

The Disciples of Apocalypse (Chainz, Skull and 8-Ball) vs. Los Boricuas (Miguel Perez Jr, Jesus Castillo Jr, Jose Estrada Jr.)

The sooner this is over the better.

Does anyone care about this feud anymore? This spawned from when Crush and Savio Vega were members of the Nation of Domination, but were fired. They created their own gang and have been feuding with each other ever since. The Truth Commissionalso got involved at some point. The Gang Warz these are, and they suck.

Miguel Perez gets the Albert shave your back chants.

Miguel Perez with a standing moonsault. More excitement that I expected.

Skull or 8-Ball (can’t be assed to figure out who is who) can’t even take an Irish Whip correctly.

Los Boricuas win when Estrada pinned Chainz in 7:58. Perez was faking a knee injury! Somersault legdrop on Chainz! Perez puts Estrada on Chainz for the win. Ridiculously boring.

Toughman Match
Butterbean vs. Marc Mero

Story: Mero thinks Butterbean is a nobody. Mero’s also been treating Sable like crap, which Butterbean doesn’t like.

The only person to get over from this whole thing was Sable, and well, that’s how it should be.

Four round boxing match here. This is a WRESTLING PPV you know.

A whole lot of nothing happens in round 1.

Mero takes a cheap shot in between rounds.

Mero with some heel tactics in round 2. A knee to the back and a choke with tape.

Boring chants are faint, but there.

Mero nails Butterbean with a dropkick after the bell.

Mero gets his ass kicked in round 3 but is saved by the bell. Butterbean then tosses ice cold water on Mero at the end.

Butterbean wins by DQ in 10:20. Mero gets nailed again early in round 4, and Mero lowbridges Butterbean for the DQ. This sucked and the finish sucked. What a waste of PPV time. No one cared.

Oh god…here comes The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust and Luna. This shit is just disturbing. He reads Green Eggs and Ham.

JR wins the segment by apologizing to Dr. Seuss.

You know there’s not a Mick Foley or Kane match on the card for this shit.

Luna then shoves Goldust down and then pulls him by his chain. It’s over thank god.

LOD promo. Hawk compares the Outlaws to a booger. At least there was intensity there.

World Tag Team Championship
The New Age Outalws© vs. The Legion of Doom

Let me say this, the LOD may have not really worked here…but they way they put over the Outlaws was fantastic. They received instant legitimacy from this feud.

Very strange start with LOD trying to fight NAO and the Outalws just running to the back to stretch.

Funny spot where Road Dogg crawls to a corner where Billy Gunn isn’t.

It ends up happening again, but at least Dogg crawled to the correct corner (Gunn was knocked out from Hawk earlier).

Ice bucket shot to the head! This match kinda sucks.

Road Dogg busts out the worm? The hell?

Hawk sells the knee to the gut with a spin. Well at least he sold it.

The New Age Outlaws win by DQ in 10:32. Doomsday Device set up…but Henry Godwinn comes down and smacks Animal with a bucket. Hawk goes nuts with the bucket and gets DQed. Match and finish sucked. I guess putting over the Outlaws again was too much to ask.

Promo video putting over Sgt. Slaughter. Look, Slaughter looked washed up against Hogan at Mania VII. This was a bad idea at this point.

Boot Camp Match
Triple H vs. Sgt. Slaughter

Slaughter has the Kurt Angle music…although I assume it was considered The Patriot’s music at the time.

This match starts with all Slaughter. What?

Slaughter goes for the cover on the outside but ref says it has to be in the ring. What was the point of that?

HHH finally takes control. Slaughter takes his over the top rope corner bump which shocks the hell out of me to be fair.

HHH tries to grab the ring bell, and the timekeeper holds on for dear life. HHH smacks him with it. How randomly awesome was that?

Slaughter does the Ric Flair slammed off the top spot.

Powder to Chyna!

HHH pins Slaughter in 17:36. Chyna saves HHH from the Cobra Clutch. Pedigree on the chair for the win. Horrible match. Slaughter shouldn’t be in the ring. What was the point of making HHH barely beat Slaughter and for Slaughter to look like the better wrestler? Absolutely horrible on all accounts.

Jeff Jarrett interview! He calls Michael Cole “Mark”.

The Undertaker vs. Jeff Jarrett

This was a quick push Jarrett got as he just returned from WCW. His gimmick was to shoot on things. It would lead to the midcard and the NWA North American Champion gimmick. I’m a Jarrett fan, but this sucked.

This is a pretty random match for Undertaker.

Jeff Jarrett wins by DQ in 2:52. Here’s Kane! Jarrett tells Kane to attacks Taker, so Kane chokeslams him for the DQ. Funny as he got Taker DQed the same way at Deadly Games. Kane wants to fight Taker. Taker doesn’t want to fight him…yet. Nothing match that felt longer than three minutes, but I guess the postmatch is what mattered.

Jeff Jarrett with the postmatch attack! This Jarrett push did not last. Jarrett gets chokeslammed for his troubles.

Michael Cole is in the crowd with [Mark Henry! Henry will return from an injury soon! Woo?

Intercontinental Championship
Stone Cold Steve Austin© vs. The Rock

There are a lot of similarities between early Randy Orton and early Rock.

This was the classic feud with the 3:16 beeper. This was the first real attitude Austin feud.

Rock is out with the entire Nation.

Austin drives the truck into the arena!

D’Lo gets backdropped on the truck. Stunner on the truck!

Austin whips Kama into the truck!

People’s Elbow didn’t have a name yet!

Austin accidentally stuns the ref! Nice spot that worked into the story on RAW!

Steve Austin retains when he pinned Rock in 5:31. Stunner gets the win. You can see the first ref calling for the DQ. Fun little match, although too short. The ref bump would led to Austin forfeiting the title to Rock on RAW. This became the standard Stone Cold main event style, so historically, this match is a huge deal.

We get a recap of HBK vs. Shamrock. Then a bland Shamrock promo.

WWF Championship
Shawn Michaels© vs. Ken Shamrock

Great kick from Shamrock that HBK sold like a million bucks.

Overall HBK is just making Shamrock look like a million bucks.

Despite the great selling from HBK this match isn’t clicking. A lot of slow Shamrock stuff with HBK ducking and moving.

DX getting involved. Slam by Chyna!

HBK with a splash from the apron. That’s new.

Shamrock near the end gets caught in the top rope in a weird way and it hits his eye it seems. Strange.

Ken Shamrock wins by DQ in 18:27. Shamrock makes a comeback and hits the belly to belly. Ankle Lock but HHH and Chyna cause the DQ in record time. Match didn’t click at all and I assume how this went ended any chance of a Shamrock main event run (I always assumed it would have been Austin vs. Shamrock at some point in 98). Finish blew as well. You know that was the fourth DQ finish of the PPV. Not good.

As HBK celebrates on the apron Owen Hart shows up out of nowhere and shoves HBK off and through the announcer’s table (although the camera misses it). It’s a cool moment though and it’s a shame they don’t run with HBK vs. Owen (this would have worked at No Way Out, as both had a history with Stone Cold). Rumor has it that HBK didn’t want to work with Owen (ugh) and we know Austin didn’t (a lot more understandable). So, Owen’s main event push was DOA.

Anyway, this PPV is awful. No really good matches. A lot of crap. A boxing match. Whatever the fuck that was with Goldust. Bad finishes. Boring main event. Very close to F status. But this show has a big redeeming quality that helps it tremendously.

This was THE SHOW where Stone Cold vaunted to the main event. He was still really an upper midcarder at this point. This also showed The Rock could have a fun match and be that upper midcard guy for a while. HHH was also shown off here, even if the match blew, as another guy at that Rock level. Kane too continued his path of destruction. At least storylines showed progression here. This PPV also showed that some guys just weren’t going to make it on top. Shamrock and Jarrett, I’m looking at you two.
And again, the Owen thing was pretty cool, just a shame it went nowhere.

Final Grade: C-

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews ECW November to Remember ’97

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ECW November to Remember ‘97
November 30, 1997
Monaca, PA

Shane Douglas was the man Paul Heyman was putting his top heel money on. Douglas was…an okay choice. They could have been a lot worse (I assume he really wanted to use Raven). Douglas had some time in the WWF and WCW, so him as the top heel was a legitimate draw for ECW’s level at that point.

Top face? You got me. Taz wasn’t ready quite yet, but he was clearly the one they would go with. Terry Funk was a nice nostalgia run. Sabu will always be an attraction (and I think was heel at this point anyway). Rob Van Dam was still coming along (and was still heel here too). The short term answer? Bam Bam Bigelow was still a name in wrestling, only two and a half years removed from main eventing Wrestlemania. I’ll hand it to Paul Heyman, big name wise, these two seem to be the right guys for the main event.

As for the rest of the card, there is a mix of making new stars (RVD, Taz), just putting current ones wherever (Sandman, Dreamer, Sabu) or a lot of what the hell is going on (we’ll get there).

But hey, wrestling was getting hot, to be fair ECW was pretty hot at this time as well. This is ECW’s 3rd PPV, let’s see how it goes.

The Card

Largest crowd in ECW history. My research says 4,600 fans. I think that’s not bad?

Chris Candido vs. Tommy Rogers

I’ll admit, I don’t even know who Tommy Rogers is.

He’s Bobby Eaton’s old partner. I did know that, weird I didn’t make that connections.

I was thinking this match was boring…then we got a “boring” chant.

Tommy Rogers looks like he’s running at 80% speed.

Rogers suplexing Candido to the floor looked cool.

Seriously match is boring. It’s not even bad, it’s just a bunch of spots.

Lance Storm is out here and he attacks Tommy Rogers.

Now Jerry Lynn is here. And we have a tag match?

Ref makes it a tag match. Sure why not. The singles match sucked.

Hey, at least it got more exciting when Lynn and Storm got added.

Rogers does the nicest Unprettier I’ve ever seen.

Chris Candido and Lance Storm win when Candido pins Rogers in 16:42. Northern Lights Suplex wins it. Match picked up when it became a tag for sure. Storm and Candido would continue the Triple Threat storyline and even win the Tag Belts in the future.

We get images of Mikey Whipwreck beating Steve Austin and Justin Credible beating the Great Sasuke. Take that WWF!

Justin Credible vs. Mikey Whipwreck

Mikey Whipwreck: the only ECW Triple Crown Winner in ECW history. In all honesty, a stat like that is what was wrong with ECW (I also thought Sabu had done this).

My best memory of Credible’s manager Jason is Jazz crushing his balls at Heatwave ’99 (we’ll get there).

Credible was doing his X-Pac (or Syxx at this time) impression at this point. I think Credible was a little underrated at this point.

Sunset flip powerbomb was nice.

Mikey Whipwreck pins Justin Credible in 7:15. Whippersnapper for the win! Jason gets involved, but Whipwreck counters and actually uses Jason to get in position for the Whippersnapper. I will say that the result makes no sense whatsoever though. Credible was supposed to be pushed as a top ECW guy, no? I mean Whipwreck sure as hell wasn’t.

Joey Styles says that in the locker room Al Snow is getting Head. A lot funnier in 1997, and if I was 15, I guess. Snow makes the segment work though, and it’s pretty cutting edge to be fair, which Snow saying things like “get this guy over, and get this guy over” and doing the “J-O-B”.

Joey Styles is hilarious sometimes.

Sandman-Sabu promo…nope. Weird technical difficulties I guess.

ECW Television Championship
Taz© vs. Pitbull #2

Pitbulls turned heel at some point. The Pitbulls were two guys who just couldn’t do anything but brawl, and on PPV there just couldn’t be that much of ECW style brawling.

Paul E. Dangerously is in the commentary booth…and they take shots at RAW.

Pitbull #2 has Pitbull #1 and Mr. Wright at ringside.

Pitbull #2 totally misses a spinning heel kick that Taz sells.

Well, that was quick.

Taz makes Pitbull #2 submit in 1:29. A few suplexes, then the Tazmission ends it. Makes sense. Taz looked like a killer in his run up to the ECW World Title.

Taz calls out Brakkus, who is at ringside. Good thing that was never on PPV.

Taz makes fun of a security guard, who gets in Taz’s face. Taz bitchslaps him then chokes him out. Weird. Paul E was worried about lawsuits and calls for something else. Somehow he did this stuff better than Russo.

We get highlights of Bam Bam throwing Spike Dudley into the crowd. One of the things that made me an ECW fan for the record. I wrote about this in an earlier review.

Now we get highlights of Bigelow winning the World Title from Shane Douglas in New York a few weeks ago.

ECW World Tag Team Championship
The FBI© vs. The Gangstanantors vs. The Dudley Boyz vs. The Chair Swinging Freaks

We get some racist remarks from Tommy Rich to D-Von Dudley.

Joel Gertner is pretty incredible.

The Chair Swinging Freaks just come in and hit everyone with chairs. New Jack and Kronus have yet to show up.

Here comes New Jack! Only took 4 minutes.

Just how many times did New Jack do the run in and weapons thing? Jeez.

The Gangstanators is the result of Perry Saturn going to WCW…and Mustafa doing…something.

I don’t know what the hell is going on…although it looks like Jack and Kronus got killed here.

Big Dick Dudley misses a big moonsault…but he chokeslams Kronus anyway.

Kronus 450s Big Dick and tries to pin him, but he’s not in the match. I’m shocked the ref has still kept track.

Bubba Ray Dudley over the top rope plancha was not something I expected to see. Wow.

Tommy Rich takes a guitar to the head from an off the top rope New Jack!

Bubba eliminates Kronus with a Bubba Cutter. Fans aren’t happy.

Bubba Ray throws Little Guido into the top turnbuckle in a pretty sick way. Wow. That was better than Nash and Mysterio.

What the fuck? They did the powder in the eyes and Bubba 3Ds D-Von by accident spot. I thought that was just something stupid TNA came up with in that Fish Market Match. Dudleys are gone.

Evil referee! Evil referee! What else will this match have?

The FBI retain when Guido pins Mahoney in 14:32. Judge Jeff Jones kicks Mahoney low, and Guido rolls up Mahoney. Fast count and its over! Wow. I feel like I just watched 4 matches in one or something. I can’t remember a overbooked clusterfuck quite like that…but…I admit I was quite entertained and enjoyed it. It was fun, even if it was all over the place.

Rob Van Dam vs. Tommy Dreamer

RVD was still pro-WWF here. Amazing how he did this as a heel gimmick and still became the most popular wrestler in ECW history.

This is a flag match. How about that.

Bill Alfonso is the Vice President of Senior Affairs for the WWF or something. At least that was the gimmick.

1997 was a huge year for RVD. He looked a bit sloppy at Barely Legal. Here, he’s nearly the Whole Fuckin’ Show.

Not sure if he was the first, but the way RVD would jump on guardrails and do kicks and stuff (this one, Alfonso held a chair near Dreamer’s face and RVD double jumped on the guardrail and superkicked it) was just breathtaking at the time.

Nice DDT counter from RVD.

RVD does a split on the top rope as a tauntlike counter…but Dreamer sees it and kicks RVD in the middle, and then DDTs him off the top! Only 2!

Dreamer with the most obvious Van Daminator counter…he hits RVD with the chair.

Jeff Jones again! Horrible Dreamer Van Dreaminator there.

We get a referee match in the middle of this, but Beulah low blows Jones and the two refs DDT Jones. Fonzie takes out the refs, Beulah takes out Fonize.

RVD’s famous selling of Dreamer’s piledriver by popping up 4 feet (seriously) in the air.

Doug Furnas and Phil Lafon are out here! Then Stevie Richards comes back! Short WCW stint there.

Five Star Frog Splash on the garbage can!

No Contest in 14:32. Not sure how 14:32 was the original time, as we don’t get a real finish. Dreamer is out from the Furnas, Lafon, Richards, RVD beatdown. We have no more refs. This was a pretty good match actually, but the finish hurt it a lot, really because we didn’t have one.

We got Dreamer on a table and Sabu is out here. They wrap Dreamer in the WWF flag..but Sabu comes off the top and punches Beulah in the face! Wow I didn’t see that coming! Here comes the Sandman!

Tables and Ladders Match
The Sandman vs. Sabu

I like how Sandman just takes his time here with his normal entrance despite the fact that Dreamer was in trouble.

Sabu dives into Sandman’s kidney through the ropes. That seemed dangerous.

Sandman throws a ladder at Sabu’s head that could easily have hit a fan. Looked great though.

Sandman pretty much legdrops himself through a table on the floor but kinda gets Sabu. Really sloppy match, but it looks sick when the spots actually hit.

The match is literally spot after spot. It’s like a rehearsal.

Sabu and Sandman fall over on one spot, which leads to Sandman comically rolling over the ladder.

Fans aren’t buying it.

If I were to guess by that somersault senton through the table, I’d say Sandman is drunk.

We get a screwed up fireball by Sabu.

Sabu pinned The Sandman in 20:55. Atomic Arabian Facebuster with a Ladder for the win. Pretty horrible, but not the worst match of all time. They didn’t even try. It was literally set up spot, do spot, maybe hit spot. At least some of the spots look cool, like the javelin ladder. And we got some violence. Crowd seemed to hate it though. Or not care.

Taz is here for commentary! Actually he just challenges Bigelow to a match at Living Dangerously…4 months from now.

ECW World Championship
Bam Bam Bigelow© vs. Shane Douglas

Random personal thing: I always disliked Bigelow’s grey color scheme, I just thought the orange and red flames were better.

We are near Douglas’ hometown, so he gets the cheers. Bigelow though was kinda a bad ass face, so it works anyway. He doesn’t care.

This is all Bigelow. While Bigelow’s offense looks good, Douglas as the hometown face in peril, considering his character at the time, just doesn’t work.

Douglas tries an over the top rope hurricanrana and gets powerbombed through a table. That was real believable.

The Triple Threat run down, even though they are banned, and Bigelow tosses Douglas over the top rope and wipes them out. Bigelow is putting on a typical Bigelow performance here, and that’s not a bad thing.

Shane Douglas wins the ECW Title in 25:02. Douglas gets a belly to belly through a half table propped up by a chair (the hell?) and gets the three. Douglas just doesn’t cut it as hometown face in peril and the match suffers greatly. This is the kind of match Bam Bam and Bret Hart would have owned with four years prior. Crowd popped huge. I’ll call it decent.

Second ECW PPV in a row where Douglas wins the World Title. He would hold it through 1999 because of injuries, allowing ECW to become the Taz and RVD show.

Nothing on this show barring Sabu and Sandman is horrible. I’d even go as far to say I liked the show. But we aren’t getting into B territory with the crap finishes to the tag title and Dreamer-RVD match. Nevermind Sabu vs. Sandman’s blatant spotfest.

Historically, well, Taz and RVD looked great, no?

Final Grade: C+

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews ECW Hardcore Heaven ’97

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ECW Hardcore Heaven ‘97
August 17, 1997
Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Reviewed on April 1, 2014

Background: I coved a lot of this in the Barely Legal review, so I’ll go from there.

Now that ECW has gained some national recognition, spirits in the ECW seemed high…for a little while. Unfortunately because of that high profile WCW would continue to pillage stars (ok, WCW was fighting a wrestling war too). ECW had put the finish of the two year long Raven vs. Tommy Dreamer feud on one of their big non PPV shows, as Raven bolted to WCW. But the ending angle for that match is what leads us to a very important part of ECW’s 1997.

Remember back in February of 97, there was the ECW invasion of RAW. Well, this time it was the WWF’s turn. Jerry Lawler invaded the ECW arena on the night Dreamer beat Raven. This tied in with Rob Van Dam’s Barely Legal angle…about how he was worth more money elsewhere. RVD even wrestled on an edition of RAW. So, RVD, Sabu and Lawler beat the crap out ECW. Jim Cornette showed up one night too. And while I think the angle itself is pretty awesome…you have to admit that Jerry Lawler wasn’t exactlyShawn Michaels in terms of statue. Nonetheless, it was an interesting angle (and, I should point out, I am surprised that ECW fans forgave RVD for this angle the next year).

Some storyline notes: Taz choked out Shane Douglas to win the TV title…and Sabu actually won the ECW Title from Terry Funk a week before this event in a crazy barbed wire match (one of the sickest matches I’ve ever seen. I believe Sabu only won the title because in the way Funk and Sabu got tangled and Sabu was on top of Funk. Not sure if true though).

The Card

Arena looks really small here.

Big heat for Jerry Lawler’s name.

Here comes Rick Rude! How, ECW-like?

Heavy You Sold Out chants….people must have known already he was returning to the WWF in a few weeks after this.

Joey Styles actually says that Rude sold out to a boytoy from another organization. So there you have it.

Rude intros Chris Candido. Tod Gordon tells Rude he has to leave or Candido forfeits the upcoming TV title match. I’m guessing this was Rude’s last appearance.

ECW TV Title
Taz© vs. Chris Candido

You know, the ECW TV title belt always looked better than the ECW World title belt.

Cool start with Candido pushing and spitting at Taz, and Taz no selling all of it. Taz eventually counters a leapfrog and drops Candido on his head.

Nice powerbomb from Candido!

Candido is getting a lot of offense, a lot more than I expected.

Damn Freestyle Bow and Arrow from Taz. You don’t see that everyday.

Taz retains the title when he choked out Candido in 10:52. Tazmission gets the win. Pretty solid opener. Not sure if the Triple Threat existed yet, but if it did it does make sense for Taz to start with Candido here on the loooong path to Douglas.

We get some Insane Clown Posse? Ok?

RVD beats them up! Nice!

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Spike Dudley

The match on ECW Hardcore TV they had right before this is the match that got me into ECW. Spike upset Bigelow and the way Joey Styles calls it is amazing (“Spike can tell his grandkids he got a 2 count on Bam Bam Bigelow!”) Spike being bodypressed into the crowd was another thing.

Always liked the grey color on Bam Bam. Felt more badass.

Bam Bam is in the Triple Threat…which answers my earlier question.

Bam Bam is just murdering poor Spike here.

Bam Bam just tosses Spike from the ring into the crowd!

Ridiculous inverted Greetings From Asbury Park.

Bam Bam Bigelow pinned Spike Dudley in 5:05. Moonsault for the win. Hand it to Paul Heyman to book a squash match I cared about. All because of one upset. Poor Spike.

Apparently, RVD and Sabu took out The Sandman too.

Rob Van Dam vs. Al Snow

This will be contested under Monday Night Rules!

Snow is still in the Rocker gear. This was still pre-head.

Snow looks annoyed with Bill Alfonso’s whistleblowing.

Amazing how Snow looks so much better than when he was jobbing to Flash Funk.

Always liked RVD’s railing moonsault.

RVD’s Five Star Frog Splash wasn’t his finisher yet!

Rob Van Dam pins Al Snow in 13:43. Van Daminator for the win. Good match. Showed both that RVD was really getting there as a performer, and Al Snow showed that he wasn’t just some joke wrestler.

The Sandman has taken over the ambulance he was in! But he’s lost!

Jerry Lawler promo!

We’ve got Dudleys in the ring. And adult actress Jenna Jameson. But more importantly, Dudleys!

Apparently this was supposed to be Tag Champs the Gangstas vs. The Dudleys, but Gangstas were taken out. Dudleys new champs? Leading us to…

ECW World Tag Team Championship
The Dudley Boys© vs. PG-13

This is basically heel vs. heel. Since PG-13 is from the Jerry Lawler based USWA.

JC Ice runs out and kisses Jameson. She reacts like he’s the most disgusting thing ever in her mouth. That’s pretty bad JC.

Dudley arguing! Leads to an awesome heel spot as Big Dick Dudley attacks the distracted PG-13.

Jameson gets a bounce chant…and she obliges. This match sucks by the way.

The Dudley Boys retain when Bubba pins Wolfie D in 10:58. 3D for the win. Confusing match as PG-13 acted as faces? Also, very hard to take PG-13 seriously as a threat here. Points for Jenna Jameson involvement though! In all seriousness, not a good match. JC Ice says Bubba’s mother is a ho. Storyline wise…that’s true, no?

Still following the Sandman here. Weird.

Jerry Lawler in the house!

Another promo…and an In Your House: Ground Zero plug!

Tommy Dreamer vs. Jerry Lawler

Lawler always took one of the best over the top rope bumps in the business.

Fighting in the crowd! I’m surprised fans don’t kill Lawler.

Lawler’s a solid brawler. I wonder why the WWF didn’t use him more as a midcard heel in the Attitude era. Lawler could still go.

Lawler with some great heel stuff. He wipes his ass with Dreamer’s ECW shirt.

Dreamer is EXTREMING UP!

Lawler DDT’s the ref!

Lights go out…RICK RUDE is back! Smashes Dreamer with a garbage can!

Dreamer gets control…lights out again!

Jake The Snake Roberts! Drops Dreamer with a vicious DDT!

Jake shortarm clotheslines Lawler. Good history there with their 96 feud.

ANOTHER LIGHTS OUT.

It’s Sunny! Hairspray to the eyes of Dreamer!

Tommy Dreamer pins Jerry Lawler in 18:57. DDT! Pretty solid brawl to be fair, but tons of overbooking. Rude, Jake and Sunny? A little too much. But this isn’t bad or anything.

Styles hypes the famous Sabu-Douglas-Funk match in 1994.

More Sandman stuff. He’s near the arena!

Sandman canes some people outside the arena. I don’t even know what to make of this.

ECW World Title: Three Way Dance
Sabu© vs. Shane Douglas vs. Terry Funk

Three Way Dance is an elimination match.

Strange start with Funk standing on the outside and Douglas and Sabu going at it. Soon though, Douglas and Sabu double team Funk.

Loved Douglas’ selling of a German Suplex there.

Sabu’s Asai Moonsault seemed twisted…which was great.

Some really weak chairshots in this one.

Double sleeper!

Sabu hits both men with the triple jump moonsault. Double kicksout. Not gonna lie, this match is pretty damn boring.

Weak chairshots all around.

Tod Gordon just saved Terry Funk from a table. OK?

Sabu drives Gordon and Alfonso through a table. I’m confused on what’s going on now.

We have a ladder in the ring now. Ladders for everyone!

Sandman’s here! He attacks Sabu!

Douglas and Funk double pin Sabu. That means we will have a new ECW Champion!

Funk is bashing his own head with a garbage can now. Weird.

I just can’t take Douglas’ Belly to Belly as a serious finisher.

Dory Funk Jr.? Seriously?

Some weird table bump. This match has fallen apart.

Funk kicks out of another Belly to Belly. Then he kicks out of a 3rd one!

Shane Douglas pins Terry Funk to win the title in 26:37. Douglas hits another belly to belly for the win. Bad finish. Sorry but the belly to belly is a horrid finisher. I don’t know what the fuck was going on at the end. Dory Funk Jr. was in the ring. And the Sandman. Whatever. Douglas tried, I’ll give him that, and I actually like him as a World Champ at this point. Still, anti-climactic finish.

Douglas now whips Funk with a belt. Dudleys out here now to keep being up on Funk. Gertner wants Douglas to join the Dudleys! Now Candido and Bigelow are out here. Triple-Threat vs. Dudleys brawl!

ECW locker room is out here. Once again no idea what is going on.

Chair Swingin Freaks out here now attacking the Dudleys. Why are we doing this?

Oh man, the debut of the Gangstanators, New Jack and Kronus! This happened because Mustafa was awful and left, and Saturn went to WCW.

Actually, Saturn on one leg is here? How about that. I am confused. So this show ends with a Dudley beat down?

What a weird ending.

Not sure what to say about this show. Started off fun enough but tailed off with the PG-13 vs. Dudleys match. But Candido vs. Taz was fine. I enjoyed Spike vs. Bigelow for what it was (an ass kicking). Snow vs. RVD was solid. PG-13 vs. Dudleys was meh. Dreamer vs. Lawler was fun until the 8 billion run-ins…although that wasn’t really bad either. The main event was a mess with a poor finish. Douglas winning was fine. What the hell was the New Jack ending? Why didn’t this happen earlier in the show? Did Heyman know that fans would shit on the Douglas finish?

Historically, this show seems irrelevant. Taz was hardly featured. RVD didn’t do that much. Douglas is Douglas.

But there is some good stuff in it, so there is that.

Final Grade: C+

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews In Your House XVI: The Canadian Stampede

IYH16

WWF In Your House: Canadian Stampede
July 6, 1997
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Reviewed on September 19, 2014

WCW was still winning…but suddenly, the WWF had something hot on their hands.

Say what you want about Bret Hart, his 1997 heel run is one of the great heel runs in pro wrestling. This heel run made Stone Cold Steve Austin and established him as THE face of pro wrestling.

At this point Vince was still in trouble financially (practically because of Bret’s deal), but in reality he just had to hang on. Austin was on his way. The WWF in 1997 was an exciting show once again.

Now in Canada, Austin would have a chance to further his legacy. He might have been a face…but in Canada because of the Harts he was still the biggest heel in the world. And…he would.

Careful WCW, the WWF is coming.

The Card

One of my favorite intro promos here. A black and white montage…explaining that the world is black and white. One of the fantastic things about Bret’s heel turn was that he felt he hadn’t changed…he felt the fans changed. He actually wasn’t wrong.

Mankind vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley

Story: HHH won the King of the Ring over Mankind last month (Pedigree on the table for the first time). Chyna interfered immensely. Mankind wanted a rematch.

Pretty hot start, including the elbow off the apron.

One of the brilliant aspects of this feud was that before it, Mankind was higher up the card than HHH. Yet Foley and HHH told a great story that brought HHH up.

Mandible Claw! Chyna though breaks it up.

Awesome spot here: Mankind looks to whip HHH into the steps…but HHH reverses and Chyna slams Mankind into the steps! It’s interesting that so many wrestlers didn’t want to sell for Chyna, and Mankind had no problem getting his ass kicked by her. (SeeJohnson, Ahmed).

Loving Mankind’s selling of the knee. Even the small grasp of the knee after piledriving HHH matters so much.

Chyna is playing the role of equalizer perfectly.

Double Countout in 13:14. HHH and Mankind brawl on the outside and are counted out. They keep going at it though, fighting in the penalty box. HHH shows great aggression here. Anyway, great opener. Normally I’d hate the double countout, but it made sense in this context. HHH owes Foley pretty much everything in his in ring career.

We get a Hart Foundation interview…until Stone Cold looks to fight he Foundation 1 on 5. Bret points out that he wants 5 on 5, not 5 on 1.

The Great Sasuke vs. Taka Michinoku

The WWF Light Heavyweight Division had pretty much been a joke before this point. I guess Brian Christopher vs. Steve Rogers or whomever wasn’t getting it done.

JR says that Taka is making his American PPV debut…in singles competition. It’s like he remembered Barely Legal midway through the sentence and added the single thing.

Mankind and HHH are going at it again! Brilliant!

Anyway, here we go. Lawler explains this Japanese style using Inoki vs. Muhammad Ali as an example.

Nice kick from Sasuke! Crowd isn’t into it yet. Slow build so far.

Knockout spin kick from Sasuke! Crowd reacted to that!

Nice slap by Taka and Sasuke does a great sell.

Taka with some nice dropkick spots. Shame no one would care about them later.

Sasuke with a karate kick off the top to the outside!

More crazy kicks from Sasuke! Taka is getting killed.

Taka goes airbourne, springboard plancha! Another move people stopped caring about over time sadly.

Taka perfectly lands on his feet out of a German. Hurricanrana gets two.

Awesome backspring elbow from Sasauke…and a perfect Asai Moonsault to follow up!

Michinoku Driver gets a huge reaction…and Sasuke kicks out! JR talks about it being his finisher…which should tell you who they were gonna build the division around.

The Great Sasuke pins Taka Michinoku in 10:00. Thunder Fire Bomb then Tiger Suplex for the win. What a match! This may be the greatest match in the history of the entire division…which sadly tells you how much they screwed that up (Malenko vs. Scottyis the other contender). Incredible though. Lawler screaming everywhere is also awesome.

HHH and Mankind are STILL going at it outside! Shovels, garbage cans! Everything! Great stuff.

We are told Ahmed Johnson was injured and can’t wrestle The Undertaker for the WWF Title. Bullet dodged there…because Vader is taking his place for what should be a good match (although their Rumble 97 match was a mess).

Paul Bearer interview. Wonders how Taker can live with himself for killing his family. Of course, this all led to Kane.

WWF World Championship
The Undertaker© vs. Vader

Undertaker in 1997 looked like a freaking bad ass World Champion.

Paul Bearer hides behind the apron. What a great heel.

Taker just levels Vader with a clothesline. Somehow this is already better than the Rumble.

I wonder when Taker added that Stinger Splash to his arsenal.

This was a couple months after the Vader Kuwait thing. I wonder if Vader knew he was only going downhill from this point forward in the WWF (unless you think him getting his ass handed to him by Shamrock in May was good for him)…and looked to make the best out of this opportunity.

Vader hot some height on that 2nd rope body tackle.

You know what’s weird? Bearer and Vader here remind me of Heyman and Lesnar in 2014.

Low blow from Vader! Ref letting it go…

Vader Bomb time? No, Taker sits up and low blows Vader! Good symmetry with the letting it go from the ref! Then Taker Chokeslams Vader off the second rope! Wow! I woulda bought that as a finish.

Taker had to be in top form physically here. He’s throwing the 450 pound Vader around like he’s Taka.

The Undertaker retains by pin in 12:39. Vader kicks out of another chokeslam…but Taker puts him away for good with a Tombstone! We are THREE for THREE with great matches here. Vader’s last great match (in the USA at least) ever. I mean, imagine if this was Ahmed?

The Hart Foundation (Bret Hart, Owen Hart, The British Bulldog, Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart and Brian Pillman) vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin, Ken Shamrock, Goldust and L.O.D.

We get interviews from team Austin side. Austin doesn’t say a work though. I also don’t think Hawk knew where the camera was.

We get the Canadian National Anthem from Farmer’s Daughter. Weird group name.

Stu and Helen Hart get huge ovations.

Huge boos for Austin. Amazingly though, he’d actually get cheered beating Owen at Survivor Series four months later.

Brian Pillman gets the biggest pop of his career. Pops get bigger and bigger with each guy. You can barely hear Owen’s music. Unless you listen closely…it’s difficult to hear when Bret’s theme begins. I argue this is the biggest pop in wrestling history, although I know it has competition.

We get an awesome face off between both teams…and then Hart and Austin go at it!

Hart beats the hell out of Austin and the crowd is has come unglued!

Austin takes over…and HUGE boos.

They randomly bust out the Survivor Series 96 finish!

Neidhart mocking Shamrock was great.

This is one of the all time great crowds.

Huge Austin sucks chants…he’s not even in the ring…

We get our first out of control brawl when Goldust gets trapped in the tree of woe.

Owen with a perfect missile dropkick and a nip up! Animal stuns the crowd by powerbombing Owen though.

Anvil breaks up a pin and it’s a melee everywhere!

Austin slams Owen’s knee across the ring post, then beats it with a chair! Bruce Hart attacks Austin from the crowd, but Austin takes him out.

Owen gets carried to the back as crowd gets on Austin again.

Stunner to Pillman!

Bret grabs Austin though and slams Austin’s knee into the ringpost! Then he hits Austin’s knee with a fire extinguisher! Of course…he follows it with a Figure Four around the ringpost! Now Austin is being helped to the back.

Some old school Hart Foundation!

Brian Pillman was absolutely brilliant in this thing…just being a pesky jerk.

Another brawl!

Shamrock gets the FIVE MOVES OF DOOM!

JR with an awesome Dusty impression here.

PILLMAN AGAIN!

Austin’s back! Austin’s back!

We get Bret vs. Austin again! This time Austin stomps a mudhole in Bret though!

Sick DDT on Austin by Bret!

FIVE MOVES OF DOOM! He didn’t finish against Shamrock.

Bret gets the Sharpshooter…but Animal saves Austin to huge boos.

Austin locks Bret in the Sharpshooter…but here comes OWEN!

Austin clotheslines Owen out, and Austin goes after him.

The Hart Foundation win when Owen pinned Austin in 24:31. Bruce Hart throws his drink at Austin, and Austin goes after Stu! The Harts get involved and it’s chaotic everywhere (and Bruce begins to kick ass and gets a Bruce chant, which apparently pissed Vince off). Austin gets rolled back in by Bret…and Owen rolls him up, 1…2…3! HUGE pop. Security breaks up the fight and the Harts remain tall in the ring….Bret’s music plays and everything, they wave the flags, etc. etc…

Until Austin comes back with a chair! Austin comes in by himself and everyone beats him up! “THAT RATTLESNAKE IS NOT AFRAID OF ANYTHING!”

Austin gets handcuffed…but makes sure to give the Canadian crowd the middle finger on hos way out. As Austin would say, “you might have tied my hands behind my back…but you didn’t shut up the fingers!”

Anyway, with all due respect to all the War Games matches I’ve seen, this is the best ten man tag team match ever. Ever. 24 minutes of nonstop action. Incredible.

An incredible PPV. Four great matches out of four. Bret Hart’s last great moment in the WWF as a babyface. Further established Austin as a not caring rebel. Helped establish HHH as well. Random awesome light heavyweight match. There’s just so much greatness on this show. There’s not ONE bad moment.

It’s a shame it all went downhill for Bret after this. Maybe it wouldn’t have been as good as the Attitude Era…but Bret Hart showed he could be a draw and a top guy. It would have probably always been in 2nd place…but the WWF would have survived surely.

Anyway, this whole show was incredible.

Final Grade: A+

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews ECW Barely Legal

Barelylegal97

ECW Barely Legal
April 13, 1997
Philadelphia, PA
Reviewed on March 11, 2014

Background: This was it. ECW for years had tried their damnest to get on Pay-Per-View. Companies thought they were too violent. Companies thought they were real. ECW actually got on the PPV schedule for 1997, but the Lesbian Kiss angle, SandmanCrucifixion and most importantly, the Mass Transit incident got them kicked off. ECW found a way back on though. Amazingly if not sadly, things wouldn’t be that great for ECW much longer. Their talent rosters had already been raided (mostly by WCW) and the more notable they got, the more that would happen. Nonetheless, this is a big moment for ECW, so let’s dive into it.

The Card

Joey Styles runs down the card…but The Dudley Boyz show up.

Dudleyz cut a promo. They weren’t ridiculously offensive yet, but still riot inducing heels.

We get the ECW Opening Video. Weird order of things.

Joel Gertner with his limericks!

ECW World Tag Team Championship
The Dudley Boyz© vs. The Eliminators (John Kronus and Perry Saturn)

Sign Guy Dudley “attacks” the Eliminators…and gets hit with Total Elimination!

This is more of a Texas Tornado match early on.

Springboard backflip from Saturn into a double dropkick. Nice.

Saturn would be in WCW in September of 97.

Double Feliner (that’s all I know it as, damn Cat) from the Eliminators!

Double twisting top rope splashes. This is all Eliminators.

Kronus catapults Saturn in a backflip/moonsault from the ring to both Dudleyz on the outside.

Space Flying Kronus Drop!

Totally forgot that Saturn once had one of the best top rope elbow drops in the business.

Double jump springboard moonsault from Saturn. Really a shame he tore his ACL a couple months from this.

Kronus with a nice 450 splash!

The Eliminators win the title when Kronus pinned Buh Buh Ray Dudley in 6:11. They double kick Buh Buh, then hit Total Elimination for the win. Match was 95% Eliminators. It works because ECW was trying to be different, and this was. How many total six minute ass kickings did you see on the WWF and WCW at the time? Also, great idea to start the show with a title change, makes the show feel important right out of the gate. As for the wrestling, it is a bit sloppy, but some of the spots you just didn’t see on a national stage in the US at the time. Perfectly good way to start the show. I’d even bet this match is how Saturn got signed away to WCW.

Joel Gertner states that in his scoring system, the Dudleyz win 86-83 and they are still the champs. He also gets Total Elimination…which led to the broken neck cast for his career (he even uses it at One Night Stand!)

Sandman hype video. He was the #2 guy behind Raven over the past year.

Lance Storm vs. Rob Van Dam

This match has some historical significance. Chris Candido, fresh off being Skip, got injured and was supposed to face Storm. RVD replaced him. RVD was legitimately upset over this as he felt he was overlooked. Smartly, Paul Heyman took advantage of this, first convincing RVD to stay, then running with the Mr. Monday Night gimmick and how everyone wants RVD. Of course, RVD is the biggest star to ever come out of ECW.

Surprisingly, neither of these guys would get a WWF or WCW deal until 2000 (Storm).

Some okay chain wrestling early.

RVD always had a great leaping somersault plancha.

Storm jumps to the top rope cleanly and hits a back elbow.

Storm goes SPLAT.

RVD with a moonsault off the railing!

RVD has the arrogance thing going on.

Sell-out chants for RVD. You know, Paul Heyman knew how to do the REALITY thing.

Frog Splash from RVD. Kick out from Storm. It wasn’t his finisher yet.

Storm with a nice last second splash off a cartwheel.

Storm gets the floatover Crab, but it wasn’t clean.

Storm with the weakest chair shot of all time…but when a very nice powerbomb on a chair. How confusing.

Storm tries to hit a top rope guillotine legdrop on RVD and an open chair, but it doesn’t quite work.

RVD botches one of my favorite moves. He crotches Storm on the top rope (not a corner) then goes for the springboard flying back kick…but he falls and only hits an elbow.

Rob Van Dam pins Lance Storm in 10:10. WEAK chair shots. But…RVD punishes Storm with a Van Daminator (the coolest move in the industry in my opinion at the time). Match was designed to get all of RVD and Storm’s spots in to show them off on a national stage. But, the match was pretty damn sloppy and some stuff was just botched. You don’t hear this match as one of those where RVD stole the show. Nonetheless, RVD does a “No Respect” promo which launched Mr. Monday Night.

Gran Hamada, The Great Sasuke and Masato Yakushiji vs. Taka Michinoku, Terry Boy and Dick Togo

When Jim Ross said Sasuke vs. Taka was each of those two’s first North American PPV match at Canadian Stampede…he missed this.

Michinoku Pro are honorary members of the BWO.

Streamers! Must be a Japanese thing according to Styles.

Sasuke would have some more ECW matches, most notably putting over Justin Credible.

Taka would be WWF Lightheavyweight Champ by December.

Dick Togo is like a great power cruiserweight.

The crispness of these moves is awesome.

Hamada with a lightning fast armbar. Nice.

AMAZING sequences of moves between Terry and Sasuke. I can’t even explain it, but it had about 10 reversals and some cartwheels. Wow.

Ouch, they stand Sasuke on his head and Taka dropkicks him right in the gut.

Michinoku Pro with an awesome group taunt and they included Sasuke!

Terry Boy is named that as a tribute to Terry Funk. He busts out the Spinning Toe Hold.

Wow Terry Boy props up Masato with a weak slingshot…so Togo can clothesline him down and Taka can come off the top with a flying knee drop!

Michinoku Pro gets a triple powerbomb on Masato, but they botch it on Sasuke. The only mistake this whole match.

Bad Sasuke hurricanrana counter as well.

Sasuke with a Asai Moonsault and he lands in the crowd!

Hamada with a really nice leaping swinging DDT.

Sasuke, Hamada and Yakushiji win when Sasuke pinned Taka in 16:55. Sasuke hits a Tiger Suplex on Taka for the win. Very good match, although I recall this being heralded as one of the best matches of the year (it wouldn’t even crack my top 3 matches on PPV that year). But nonetheless very fun and very good.

Big Stevie Cool backstage skit. BWO! He didn’t think he was a man being Raven’s flunky. He was in WCW in three months as well.

ECW TV Championship
Shane Douglas© vs. Pitbull #2

Story here: Douglas broke the neck of Pitbull #1. Revenge for Pitbull #2, maybe. Francine was also the former manager of the Pitbulls.

Francine is pretty damn hot.

Pitbull #1 is in the front row.

Douglas interview, talks about breaking Pitbull #1’s neck. Also about the masked stalker he has.

By the way, the Triple H Game gimmick was done first by Douglas. Although Douglas never evolved.

Headlock start really killed the crowd. Bad start.

It’s early, but this match is missing on all accounts right now. Very boring.

Blown spot where Douglas does a twisting crossbody and the Pitbull catches him…but then has to drop him.

Pitbull does a weak Fall Away slam for Douglas to go over the top rope and though a table, but even that looks weak.

Pit Bull #1 gets involved, and crowd didn’t even pop for it. This is not a good match.

Pitbull #2 throws a steel guardrail in the ring.

They botch crotching Pitbull #2 on the guardrail. Jeez.

Even the brass knuckles spot is boring and unexciting.

Shane Douglas retains by pin at 20:43. Overhead belly to belly out of nowhere for the win. Match was awful. While Douglas seemed off, Pitbull #2 had to put in the laziest performance of any wrestler I can remember, Vampiro included. Horrible punches. He wouldn’t even kick out right at the end. No surprise that he was gone in a few months and never caught on with WWF or WCW. Terrible match that went 12-13 minutes too long. Paul Heyman apparently apologized for it as well.

Here comes the masked man! He’ll take off the mask if he gets the girl!

Everyone seems to know it’s Ruck Rude, including Joey Styles.

Shocker…it’s not Rude…as Rude comes out from being disguised as one of Douglas’ bodyguards! It was Brian Lee who’s turned on Douglas. No idea why this all happened, but it was better than the 20 minute snorefest we just got. Crowd agrees. By the way, both Lee and Rude were in the WWF in 4 months. I feel bad for ECW sometimes.

Raven interview! He kinda gives away the fact that Terry Funk is going to win the three way to face him later. You know, since he’s cutting a promo on him.

Taz promo. Last hype job for the grudge match of the century!

Sabu vs. Taz

This match had been built up since 1995 I believe, when Sabu left Taz while they were World Tag Champs. It turned into a lot of moments where both men were close to coming to blows, but never would. Each claimed to be scared of the other. To be honest, the build was absolutely fantastic.

Taz is the heel and Sabu is the face.

This just has a big match feel.

Taz with the early Taz-Mission attempt…although Sabu escapes and Styles calls it as a huge deal.

Focus is mostly on Taz outwrestling Sabu, which I don’t really think is the way to go to be honest.

I always thought Sabu’s springboard leg lariat was a real creative move.

Sabu with the plancha into the crowd! Landing was a bit off…but it incites a serious ECW chant nonetheless.

Nice submission holds from Taz (Bow and Arrow), but this isn’t what the crowd wants.

Some nice chair spots.

Sabu misses Taz on an chair springboard dive, then Taz overhead belly to belly suplexes him over the top (which makes Douglas’ finish look awful anyway). Unfortunately, while I’m sure it hurt, it didn’t look great.

Sabu goes for a swinging DDT though a table off the apron, but Taz counters and sends Sabu through the table. Bill Alfonso, who is Taz’s manager here, starts begging Sabu to get up. Styles calls it mocking, but this makes sense in a few minutes.

Sky high legdrop from Sabu! Very nice.

Taz wins when Sabu passes out in 17:49. Sabu escapes a Taz-Mission with a suplex…but Taz suplexes Sabu in return on his head. Sabu though then busts out his own T-Bone Tazplex! Sabu locks in the Taz-Mission on Taz! Taz counters and drops Sabu on his head twice with two suplexes…then the Taz-Mission ends it. Watching Alfonso here is also quite telling as he looks disappointed, too bad it isn’t referenced. Sabu and Taz shake and hug to boos…but here comes Rob Van Dam! They double team Taz! Sabu botches driving Taz through the table, then dangerously does it a 2nd time (where we easily could have broken his neck). Sabu chokes out Taz with his own hold. Alfonso then reveals a Sabu shirt! How often does the manager end up siding with the loser of the team (he bet money on Sabu to win)! Anyway, this began the awesome RVD-Sabu team. RVD says he “loves to work Mondays”. Awesome.

Let’s talk about this match for a bit. It’s a good match, but this is the problem. This was supposed to be the greatest grudge match in history. Taz said it best in the ECW Rise and Fall documentary that there was no way the match was going to live up to expectations and unfortunately he was correct. I do think they should have done a different type of match though. Maybe because it wasn’t late enough yet or something, but there hasn’t been a whole lot of violence on this show. This match (and Douglas-Pitbull #2) needed hardcore matches, not wrestling matches.

Here comes Tommy Dreamer for some commentary for the main events. I wonder why he didn’t wrestle on this show.

#1 Contender to the ECW World Championship
The Sandman vs. Terry Funk vs. Big Stevie Cool

BWO!
BWO!

Here comes the Sandman. Dubbed entrance, but I do like Megadeth’s Trust anyway. This may be a while.

Sandman starts the match off by drinking and spitting the beer in Stevie’s face.

Tommy says he won’t interfere in this match or the one with Raven for Funk. Again, just giving it away are we?

The crowd is hot for this, which is good, because this has been some sloppy wrestling so far.

Four neckbreakers on Stevie Cool. Sandman just throws a ladder in the ring and nails Funk, what a throw.

Funk with a moonsault off the top of the ladder (nutcase) which totally misses Stevie…except for a boot. Still, crazy old man with a crazy spot.

Sandman takes the ladder and comes off the top and smashes Richards. You don’t even see that in Ladder matches today!

Funk with the spinning ladder! Styles with the accurate assessment: Funk’s nuts.

Catapult move seem to get botched somehow, as the ladder doesn’t come up.

Crowd clearly wants Stevie to win this thing by the way. Stevie Kick gets 2 on the Sandman…crowd chants bullshit.

Some crazy Sandman over the top rope dive to catapult the ladder into Stevie’s face. Ouch.

Sandman with a PERFECT toss of a trash can into the ring…as it lands with a crash on Terry Funk’s head!

Another ladder catapult! The ladder goes flying and almost ends up in the crowd. Sandman must be drunk.

Double powerbomb eliminates Stevie. Fans are not happy. I never realized Stevie was so over here.

Sandman finds barbed wire in the streamers that were thrown earlier! Funk though, gets it and whips the hell out of the Sandman with it. Ouch.

Terry Funk wins when he pins Sandman in 19:07. Sandman legdrop from the top only gets two. Richards on the apron, but Sandman (who wrapped himself in barbed wire) body splashes him off. Funk gets control by getting the can on Sandman’s head. Stevie Kick, then a Funk Moonsault for the pin. Very sloppy…but I guess it could still be classified as a fun brawl. Raven’s out right away, as there is only ten minutes of show time left.

ECW World Championship
Raven© vs. Terry Funk

This is booked smartly early, as Raven beats the crap out of Funk. Funk just wrestled a 20 minute violent brawl. So it makes sense.

Funk is bleeding everywhere. There’s a doctor in the ring, but Funk continues on.

Commentary from Dreamer is awesome, as he’s near tears as he promised he wouldn’t help his mentor.

Doctor’s in there again. The Funker fights on.

Raven drives Funk through a table with a flying dive over the top rope. That looked very cool!

Raven takes out the doc!

Reggie Bennett is out here. No Idea who she is, but she attacks Funk (Raven’s Nest did own).

Raven gets on the mic. He says he’s going to end Funk’s career right here.

Big Dick Dudley attacks Dreamer with a hard trash can shot! Dreamer turns the tide though and chokeslams (kinda) Dudley off the stage through a stack of tables! OH MY GOD from Styles!

Dreamer’s coming for Raven!

Dreamer throws a trash can at Raven…who catches it and throws it back at Dreamer. It gets Dreamer good…and he awesomely no-sells!

Terry Funk wins the ECW Title when he pinned Raven in 7:20. Dreamer DDT. 1…2…no…? Fans thought it was over. THE BELL EVEN RANG….but Raven kicked out. Small package…and that gets the three! Big pop for the title win. Match wasn’t even a match really, in fact the small package was the only move Funk got in. But it was a fun mess of interference and Raven kicking Funk’s ass…with a great moment at the end.

This is a tough one to grade. If I grade it purely on its quality of matches, it is a disappointing show overall, somewhere in the C+ range. One great match quality wise, a couple of good ones (even if one of those didn’t live up to the hype) and some crazy brawling.

If you grade it on the historical aspect, this PPV launched RVD’s career. It launched Taz’s top run as a face. It put ECW on PPV, and it lasted four more years in a very competitive era for wrestling. It had great moments. This was an ECW fan’s dream.

Sometimes you have to go with history. It’s almost a B+ and would be if not for the disappointing hype around Taz vs. Sabu (still a good match)….and the disaster that was Douglas vs. Pitbull #2.

Final Grade: B