ECW on TNN – December 10, 1999: We’re Running Around In Circles

ECW on TNN
Date: December 10, 1999
Location: The Tabernacle, Atlanta, Georgia
Attendance: 2,000
Commentators: Joey Styles, Joel Gertner

We’re slowly getting to Guilty As Charged but it’s still far enough away that we don’t need to talk about it yet. The main story here is still Raven vs. Dreamer because it worked in 95 so of course it’ll work now right? These shows are all over the place most of the time so there’s no way to know what’s coming here. Let’s get to it.

We open with Van Dam in the ring dedicating his title defense tonight to Sabu who is here but injured apparently. Sabu doesn’t like it and has to be held back. Van Dam calls Sabu the Sheik’s (Sabu’s legit uncle and trainer) second favorite wrestler.

We cut to the back where Raven is ramming his head against the wall but Dreamer comes in to stop him, saying they’re proud of Raven.

Theme song.

Joey and Joel are in the ring and after our opening limerick, we throw it to a recap of last week with Steve Corino going to a Limp Bizkit concert. Back in the arena we have Corino and Jack Victory in the ring. Corino bashes hardcore wrestling and hardcore music but praises the Backstreet Boys, N’Sync and Britney Spears. Corino goes on a rant about how bad music is and then complains about Dusty Rhodes……who happens to be in the crowd.

Corino rants about how everyone here is drunk and Dusty killed WCW. Dusty comes to the ring with a smile on his face and gets in Corino’s face. Corino calls himself the future of pro wrestling and says he never respected Dusty. Dusty elbows Steve and Victory in the head and drops the big elbow on Corino.

After some ads, Dusty is in the ring still. He takes a bow and that’s it.

We recap the Hardcore TV taping from earlier.

The Impact Players say they can both beat Sandman and don’t need any help.

Spike Dudley vs. Uganda

Acid Drop pins Uganda in almost less time than it takes me to type this sentence. Uganda isn’t Kamala in case you’re one of the many who think this. Basically he’s a Kamala imitator, as in he looks identical to him, wears the same attire, has the same paint, and wrestles just like him. Different guys though.

RVD (stoned even more than he usually is) says he was the star of his team with Sabu.

ECW World Title: Mike Awesome vs. 2 Cold Scorpio

Awesome (the champion) runs Scorpio over to start and Scorpio isn’t sure what to do. Scorpio knocks him to the ramp (the arena is strange as the aisle to the ring is on the level with the ring but the ring itself is in a kind of a pit) and hits a flip dive to take over, but back in the ring Awesome suplexes him to the floor. Scorpio is launched into the crowd and the champion dives over the barricade with a clothesline.

A chair to the back puts Scorpio back at ringside and a charge into the chair into Scorpio gets two back in the ring. Another tackle puts 2 Cold down and a clothesline knocks him inside out. This has been a total squash so far. Scorpio grabs a quick cradle for two and “hits” a superkick to set up a big top rope splash for two. A moonsault gets the same but Scorpio walks into a modified powerbomb for two.

Awesome hits a sweet release German suplex and it’s table time. It is ECW after all. Jazz, Scorpio’s manager, gets in and Scorpio has to save her from being powerbombed through the table. There’s another superkick to Awesome but Scorpio takes too much time to go up top and a HUGE powerbomb through the table kills 2 Cold dead to keep the title on Awesome.

Rating: C. I like both of these guys so I was a fan of this match before it started. This was when Scorpio was a shell of his old self when he was flying all over the place back in WCW in the early 90s. Good stuff here though as Awesome was moving around like Scorpio used to despite being bigger and taller than Scorpio ever was. Fun stuff.

Justin Credible is here to complain about Sandman having a Singapore Cane of his own. Apparently Jason, the Impact Players’ lackey, has stolen Sandman’s Cane.

Justin Credible vs. The Sandman

Sandman has what looks like a broom. After a break Sandman is going after the cane but gets caught by a baseball slide to send him into the barricade. Justin rams him into a chair in the ring but Sandman gets a shot in of his own and heads to the floor where he climbs a magically appearing ladder. He climbs the ladder and then climbs back down, making this another pointless ECW sequence.

Justin puts the ladder in the corner between the ropes and due to wrestling law #1, is sent into it himself, getting a two for Sandy. The ladder is placed on the top rope and Justin is launched into it for two. A slingshot legdrop onto the ladder onto Justin gets two again and it’s time for another table. The table is set in the corner but Credible grabs a sleeper out of nowhere. Speaking of out of nowhere, here’s Rhyno to Gore both guys through the table. The White Russian Leg Sweep would seem to get the pin but Lance Storm comes in and hits a missile dropkick on Sandman to drive a chair into his face and give Justin the pin.

Rating: D+. This is a great contrast of two kinds of matches. The world title match had a coherent story to it (mostly) and both guys were hitting almost everything they used. This was a lot messier with the weapons being the focus of the match instead of the wrestlers in the ring, which is almost never a good thing.

Post match Dreamer runs out to beat up Storm and we get a Dawn Marie vs. Francine catfight.

After a recap of the show, Dreamer yells at Raven who says he wasn’t going to help Sandman. Dreamer calls him Scotty to prove how serious he is.

Overall Rating: D+. This just wasn’t that good. Corino finally has an actual wrestler to feud with and the world title match wasn’t bad, but the focus is still completely on the tag title feud and I only have kind of an idea what’s going on. The Impact Players want the titles and Candido (not here tonight) and Rhyno want the titles and Dreamer hates Raven and Sandman is in there somewhere and Raven hates Sandman. Now one question: when are the belts going to be defended? That’s the main (of multiple) problems with this: there’s no match anywhere in sight so far. Not a horrible show but still messy.

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