Superstars of Wrestling
Date: September 13, 1986
Location: Providence Civic Center, Providence, Rhode Island
Commentators: Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura, Bruno Sammartino

From what I can tell, this is the second ever episode of this show. Hopefully I can find the debut eventually but for now this is what you get. I have a few more from this era which I’ll do in a row here. This is during the Hogan vs. Orndorff feud which will probably be talked about a lot on here. I’m not sure about what else you’ll see here but let’s get to it.

Intro and preview as usual. Well, as usual as you can get for the second show.

Paul Orndorff vs. Sivi Afi

Orndorff is more or less the top heel in the company and in a pretty brilliant heel move, he comes out to Real American. Why has no one ever used that in a feud since? Stealing someone’s music could be seen as a pretty big heel move. Could it be that 90% of the songs today are completely interchangeable? He even holds his hand to his ear. Jesse had said that the REAL Orndorff would come out eventually and that’s what’s going on here.

An inset interview from Orndorff has him laughing about the idea of being sorry for what he did to Hulk. We get some clips of Paul beating Hulk down during the feeling out process. Short and sweet, but they hardly ever happen anymore. Orndorff cheats to start but Afi rams the head into the buckle. And never mind as a knee to the face puts him right back down. Afi makes a comeback and goes up but his cross body misses. Clothesline sets up the piledriver for the pin. Short and about what you would expect.

We see Harley Race’s coronation as King.

Sika vs. Don Driggers

Sika is returning to the company here and has King Curtis as a manager. Curtis goes for the wild ones I guess. We get the inset of Curtis yelling about how great Sika is. Sika rakes his eyes over the face of Driggers then cranks on the neck a bit. Samoan Drop completes the squash.

Randy Savage is ready for his No DQ title defense in whatever city it is against George Steele. It’s in Boston and he doesn’t like Tunney putting him in there, because it’s a disgrace.

Islanders vs. Moondogs

I think the Islanders are faces here. Yep they certainly are. Here’s it’s Tonga Kid (Tama) and King Tonga (Haku) vs. Spot and Rex. Rex and Haku start and not much happens so here’s a double tag. Honky Tonk Man has an inset interview about Paul Orndorff for some reason. Honky talking about Hulk Hogan as his good friend is bizarre. The Moondogs take over on Tonga Kid but heel miscommunication allows for a tag to Haku. He rams the Moondogs together and a superkick sets up a top rope splash by Tama for the pin.

Heenan and Race are ready for Piper and Santana respectively. And cut, so sayeth the director.

Randy Savage vs. Troy Martin

Martin would be the real name of a brand new kid named Shane Douglas. His training partner is in the main event. Savage takes him to the mat and rides him around with ease. Pedro Morales thinks Savage is a bad champion. Martin gets a small package for two, so Savage throws him to the floor and drops the double ax on him. Troy gets thrown into the crowd for a bit and then goes back in for an ax handle and the elbow for the pin.

Time for the return of Piper’s Pit, which is back after being replaced by the Flower Shop for a few weeks. The guest is Ken Resnick, the backstage interview. Before he can talk though, Adonis comes in and says Piper’s time is over. Adonis is now and in two weeks, it’s Flower Shop vs. Piper’s Pit in a debate.

The Machines vs. Rick Hunter/JJ Jackson/Al Navarro

The Machines are a long story but it’s Ax, Blackjack Lanza and Andre under masks and pretending to be Japanese. I think Lanza starts with whichever jobber you want to pick. Ax comes in for some pounding before Andre is in, punches whichever jobber that is and it’s over. It lasted like a minute and a half.

Jack Foley/Les Thornton vs. British Bulldogs

This would be the main event I mentioned earlier, and that would be none other than Mick Foley as one of the jobbers. He looks like he weighs about 200 pounds here but the face is almost the same. The Bulldogs are tag champions. Thornton and Smith get us going with Les trying a test of strength for some reason, resulting in a nice sequence of them going back and forth for control.

Jimmy Hart talks for awhile and it’s off to Foley and Kid. Dynamite beats the tar out of him with suplexes and a headbutt. Off to Davey for the powerslam and suplex. Foley even gets in a little offense, but when he back elbows Davey, it’s Foley that goes down. That’s a new one. Kid comes back in and hits a clothesline with so much force that Foley said he couldn’t eat solid food for a week. Smith hits a belly to back off the middle rope for the pin. Foley is dead.

Rating: C-. For a squash, this was pretty hard hitting and brutal. I can’t remember where I read it but I seem to recall hearing about Foley accidentally disrespecting the Bulldogs and them taking it out on him in the ring for it. Based on the match I’d buy that because he took a BEATING. Cool to see for history’s sake though.

The Machines say they’re going to enjoy teaming with Piper Machine. George Steele pops in and is looking forward to a No DQ match with Savage.

The usual stuff ends the show.

Overall Rating: C. I liked this show better than last week’s, partially because of better star power this week. Seeing Savage and the Bulldogs in there is a rare treat and it’s cool to see the more famous guys getting in there as total rookies. I don’t have the third episode so I’ll have to skip the 9/20 episode, which is cool because the Pit vs. Flower Shop debate is on the 9/27 edition.

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Clash of the Champions 21
Date: November 18, 1992
Location: Macon Coliseum, Macon, Georgia
Attendance: 7,500
Commentators: Jim Ross, Jesse Ventura

Egads 1992 WCW. This is the stuff that nightmares are made of. After the summer ended and the NWA decided to take control of the company again because they wanted their 9 seconds in the sun again, things went way downhill in WCW because the big bad NWA decided they needed to reset everything because it was getting too good. They had set up a massive tag tournament to crown official tag champions and it was the sole focus of television for a long time. This is WCW after it because they had to restart everything. Let’s get to it.

The opening video is just about the matches tonight. This looks bad.

We see the weigh-in for the battle of the sexes match later. This results in seeing Paulie in his underwear. Madusa and Dangerously fight of course.

Tony is with Bill Watts and I still hate him. Why couldn’t they just have a character rather than the actual boss in there?

Teddy is with Michael Hayes who introduce the show I guess. Oh ok there’s a bounty on Erik Watts and they want to get it. The Freebirds that is. In an unrelated note, Brian Pillman is hurt and is at ringside.

Yep there he is on crutches with a knee injury. He can’t fight Brad Armstrong who isn’t happy. Pillman beats him up with his crutches and is disqualified before the match starts. The match starts anyway and goes for thirty seconds with Pillman winning due to Armstrong being hurt. Pillman was turning heel if you didn’t get that.

We get a clip from Halloween Havoc where Dangerously went on a huge rant against Madusa because she was a woman and fired her in a semi-famous bit. Madusa kicked him in the face to wild cheering. We get workouts from both of them, including a funny bit where Paulie fights a jobber and punches him, turns around so Austin can hit him, and then pins him.

We also see a showdown between Dangerously and Madusa where Paul runs his mouth so much that the rest of the Dangerous Alliance leaves him and he makes Madusa cry. She goes off on him and he runs for his life. Hayes is with Heyman and apparently he’ll have an arm tied behind his back. This anti-women thing is great from Paul as you have to wonder how much was legit. Paul: the only sacrifice women make is when they’re 16 and in the back of their boyfriend’s car. WOW.

Arn Anderson/Bobby Eaton vs. Kensuke Sasaki/Erik Watts

Ok so this is a bounty match. Watts is AWFUL and everyone hated him but they kept pushing him anyway because his daddy was the boss. They also gave him a big story with a bounty being on his head. Whoever hurts him gets $10,000 from Paulie. Eaton and Watts start us off.

Watts can’t do anything here as would be the case for his entire run. There’s one heck of a drinking game in there as you take a shot every time Watts does something that isn’t quite a wrestling move but was supposed to be one. You’ll die of alcohol poisoning in minutes. Anderson comes in and something tells me his thought process is “why do I have to deal with this garbage?”

Sasaki comes back in and is oddly enough a face here. That’s not something you see very often at all, at least outside of Japan. He’s not much better than Watts as he botches a monkey flip from Eaton. Sasaki is compact and very strong. I like that old school WCW ring skirt as it’s the first one I remember from when I was a kid.

Anderson might have a bad knee. He’s barely in there at all so maybe there’s something to it. Watts is back in now and he’s just bad. It’s not his fault mind you as he needed to be in some indy company for a few years just to get experience. He wasn’t ready for this exposure and his nerves made him a lot worse. Watts gets an STF on Eaton to end this.

Rating: D-. Yeah this was bad. When Kensuke Sasaki is the best guy on a team, you know something is bad. This was pretty weak for the vast majority. Wait…that would imply there was a good part and that certainly wasn’t the case here. Watts was just awful but like I said it’s not his fault. This was a bad match and it didn’t advance anything. Oh and Bobby Eaton and Arn Anderson, two of the best tag team wrestlers ever, had to job to these guys. That’s sad.

Teddy Long and his new protégé say that they’ll knock out Scotty Flamingo. It’s Johnny B Badd if you were wondering.

Flamingo is with his trainers, Vinnie Vegas (Kevin Nash before he meant anything) and Diamond Dallas Page, say that Flamingo is ready. Flamingo’s more famous name: Raven.

Johnny B. Badd vs. Scotty Flamingo

This is boxing with three two minute rounds. Why do we get so many boxing matches in wrestling companies? Why can’t one in ring competition be enough? Round one starts with Badd pounding the face of Flamingo. Keep in mind that Badd was a very legit amateur boxing champion so he knows what he’s doing here. Flamingo cheats with wrestling stuff when the Vegas Connection (the more famous guys’ tag team name) and Badd just destroys him with basic boxing stuff, including a BIG knockdown to end it.

Between rounds the heels fill Flamingo’s glove with water which makes it more or less lethal. Flamingo can barely get up to fight as he’s been destroyed so far. Badd peppers him a bit more until Page gets up on the apron and Flamingo gets one big right hand with the loaded glove and that’s enough for Flamingo to win. No rating due to it being a big comedy angle.

We preview Starrcade 92 which is another Battlebowl. They air a clip from last year’s show where Sting got his head handed to him for the whole night before pulling out the miracle win. When I say clip I mean about five minutes worth. The show is on Monday too.

They do the first match’s draw here, and it’s Cactus Jack/Johnny B. Badd vs. Dan Spivey/Heavy Metal Van Hammer. What a coincidence that Jack and Hammer are feuding at this point too.

There’s a wrestling rap album. As in an album of rap songs about wrestling. Oh dear.

Cactus Jack/Tony Atlas/Barbarian vs. Ron Simmons/Too Cold Scorpio

Ok so Simmons is world champion and is feuding with various guys because they wanted to make Simmons seem like he had something to do while making the WCW Title a midcard title so that guys like Great Muta and Chono, NWA guys, could be the REAL focus of the show. Simmons vs. Barbarian was the WCW Title match at Halloween Havoc. Let that sink in for a bit.

This is Scorpio’s debut and the good guys sprint to the ring with the announcers having no clue what Scorpio’s name is. This match with having only one white guy in it is Watts’ attempt to make the company believe he’s not racist and of course he made the black dude worthless and the title a joke until Sting saved it. Jack is legit injured here so he was a manager for the most part. Somehow injured he was miles ahead of the guys he managed.

Atlas looks like a freaking tank here. There was supposed to be some guy named Robbie Walker as Simmons’ partner. Considering this is Scorpio when he was young and in awesome shape and totally mind blowing, I think he upgraded. Yeah he’s 27 here as is Jack so both guys are young and just awesome. Scorpio misses a moonsault completely and kicks Jack in the head so he has to tag.

Jack and Simmons now as Barbarian was in there all of 10 seconds. Remember: Jack is badly hurt here but he’s the only credible guy on his team. Ah, it’s the #1 contender: Barbarian. Yes that Barbarian. It’s weird hearing them constantly saying “Simmons’ partner” because they really don’t know who he is. Atlas comes in and is just old. He’s still ripped though so that helps.

Barbarian beats on him a bit but then Jack has to be the one to get kicked in the head. Hot tag to Scorpio who blows the roof off the place. He was SO far ahead of his time it’s not even funny. Barbarian misses the big boot to Simmons which kills Atlas and with Simmons holding the other two off, Scorpio unleashes the 450 which is more or less the national debut of it and you can’t hear Ross’ commentary (which is more or less him losing his mind) over how loud the fans are. Naturally that gets the pin.

Rating: B-. This was to do two things: further the Simmons vs. Jack’s team feud and the bigger one: make 2 Cold Scorpio look AMAZING. To say the very least regarding the second one, JACKPOT. The fans loved him as more or less he was a 240 pound Rey Mysterio and keeping in mind this is 1992, this was completely revolutionary stuff. Awesome debut and everything worked like a charm. Match sucked when him or Jack wasn’t in there though.

Jesse talks to the newcomer and Simmons, who says he’s ready to overcome the odds. He introduces his new partner who says he’s ready for anything.

Tom Zenk and Johnny Gunn go into a clothing store and women mob them. This could not be any more pointless.

A clean shaven Rick Rude says he’s going to even the score with Sting. This is part of the King of Cable tournament which was apparently over the stuff the ropes were made of. Such a shame they didn’t tell us that until after the finals.

We talk about the World’s Strongest Arm Contest, which was a legit arm wrestling tournament. Van Hammer wound up winning the thing and that’s about it.

Dangerously says he’s a man.

Paul E. Dangerously vs. Madusa

This has a five minute time limit and Hayes is with Dangerously. He’s billed as the Psycho Yuppie. He has an arm behind his back too. A person with blonde hair and covered from head to toe runs in and Paul shatters his phone over her head. And as anyone could tell, it’s not Madusa but rather a jobber that was paid off I guess. Paul figures out what’s going on and you would think the Psycho theme started playing or something as they’re terrified.

She comes in and beats the tar out of Paul. This was her only thing she ever really did but it was a far cry from Chyna who was actually interesting when she did these things. All Madusa so far as would be expected. They go back into the locker room as Paul tries to run but she carries him back on his shoulder. Their chests are the same size apparently. Who is that good for actually?

Hayes trips up Madusa with two minutes to go so Dangerously can get in some cheap shots. He goes up top and hits a double axe but she’s up almost immediately. Let the pain be distributed as it’s all Madusa of course. And there go his clothes. He runs away for the last fifteen seconds or so. He was never seen in WCW again. Not going to rate this as it wasn’t a match and was a lot of just comedy stuff that went nowhere. Also, is there ANY reason to not have Madusa beat him here?

We look at the King of Cable tournament, which apparently IS about cable TV. I hate this company at times. The semi finals are Dustin vs. Vader and Sting vs. Rude, which is tonight.

Vader and Race reaffirm Vader’s awesomeness.

King of Cable Semi-Finals: Sting vs. Rick Rude

Larry Zbyszko, Hiro Matsuda and Ole Anderson are judges in case this goes to a 20 minute tie. Rude is US Champion at this point. He looks so odd clean shaven. Rude attacks early with lots of neck stuff to set up the Rude Awakening later on. Sting works on the ribs which I guess can work as they’re related to the back for the Scorpion. Far more Sting than Rude here.

Jesse talks about the thought process here as Sting needs to impress the judges while also trying to get a win which is rather true. The idea here is that Sting is trying to keep the advantage and just ride the time out which isn’t really a face thing to do but it’s a way to win.

Sting, like the idiot that he is, goes for the Stinger Splash against the railing and as usual it MISSES COMPLETELY. Why would you go for a move that has never hit once? Even Flair has gotten his shot off the top to work once or twice. Rude takes over and hooks a camel clutch at the halfway point. Jesse says Sting is ahead so far. He was usually honest which is rather refreshing.

Things slow WAY down with Rude on offense. Lots of chinlocks and lots of big heavy strikes. He was never a power man but he hit really hard. Rude tries to cannonball down onto Sting but misses and here comes Sting again. Under five minutes to go and it’s still Rude in control with a bearhug now. Less than four minutes left now as you have to go with Rude at this point.

I love how they’re not even trying to hide the fact that this is going to a draw. Everyone knew it but they don’t even bother suggesting that someone could get a clean win. Sting is in big trouble here with two minutes to go. He slams Rude off the top though and here comes the painted one. A cross body off the top gets two. Sting gets the Splash and goes for the Deathlock as time expires. The judges give it to Sting 2-1 with Larry voting for Rude. I’m not sure on that but I can see it I guess.

Rating: B. This was very different as they had to mess around with the style out there due to the judge aspect but it worked very well I thought. These two feuded for well over a year and it was no different here with it being pretty solid. This is another great example of psychology as they had to try to impress three people and survive. This worked very well I thought with Sting and Rude always meshing very well.

Tag Titles: Ricky Steamboat/Shane Douglas vs. Dustin Rhodes/Barry Windhams

Don’t worry about which titles these are. More or less they’re the WCW Titles and that’s all we’re going to go into it. Shane vs. Dustin to start us off. Notice here that the NWA stuff is going on last and is the featured contest even though it has less star power and is a lower match on the card overall but goes last anyway because it’s the NWA part. Most fans and definitely the majority of casual fans wanted to see Sting and have no reason to watch now. That’s bad booking and can probably be blamed on the NWA.

This is going to go rather slow as it has some time to work with for once. Oh Barry and Dustin are champions here if I forgot to mention that. Steamboat vs. Windham now in a battle of a future vs. former world champion. They go to the floor and Barry is being a bit more aggressive than you would expect from a face champion. Sweet goodness Steamboat can throw a chop.

Shane looks so out of place here but he’s holding his own here for the most part. I was right about the time prediction as this is going rather slowly. That doesn’t mean it’s bad as we’re getting some nice teamwork here. Barry vs. Shane at the moment. Shane misses a cross body and eats rope so it’s off to Dustin who wrestles away. Dustin and Ricky don’t like to strike that much.

Lots of tags by the champions. They work on the arm and tag in and out probably five times in a minute. The idea there: don’t let one guy get winded at all. Smart tag wrestling there. All champions here as Shane is in a lot of trouble. This is definitely an old school style going on here and it’s a bit hard to sit through in long stretches. Hey it’s the NWA though so it has to be great right???

Off to Steamboat finally and we get an issue as Dustin accidentally headbutts Steamboat in the groin on a leapfrog but Dustin won’t cover him because it wasn’t fair. Windham is TICKED about this so he tags himself in and covers for two. Atomic drops and a lariat get two but Dustin breaks up his partner’s cover because he’s hurt. He even pops Windham and Barry turns into Shane’s belly to belly to switch the titles.

Rating: B-. This one is hard to call as it’s technically great but at the same time it’s rather boring at times. The ending helps it a lot as there’s a lot of thinking here as you have the titles change because one guy doesn’t want to cheat to win and one says win at all costs. This was a good match but it’s one of those matches that isn’t for everyone at all.

Dustin leaves so Barry yells for him which is kind of funny sounding. Barry pays him back for the punch and hits a jumping DDT to leave Dustin laying. Oh and a superplex to.

After the last break Jesse is with the new champions but Barry runs in to crack their heads with a chair.

Overall Rating: C+. This was ok. I wasn’t sure what to expect here and while there are a ton of issues with it, it still comes off pretty well. The idea was to put a focus on wrestling but the problem was that the stories absolutely sucked for the most part. That’s fine, but at the same time you need to have something to work with. This was a bad era for the company, but mainly because the NWA wouldn’t get out of the way. Not a bad show but certainly not for everyone.

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Guilty As Charged 1999
Date: January 10, 1999
Location: Millennium Theater, Kissimmee, Florida
Attendance: 2,600
Commentator: Joey Styles

So tonight after about eight months of waiting too long, it’s FINALLY time for Shane vs. Taz. The main problem here is simple: until this point, no one bought for a second that anyone but Taz was going to take the belt off of Shane, so there was no point in caring about any other challenger.

The other issue was Taz wasn’t nearly as hot anymore. RVD was arguably the hottest guy on the roster but after the WAY long build for Taz, he had to have the belt at least 3-4 months. Other than that there’s not a lot here. Dreamer vs. Credible in a ladder match and that’s about it. Let’s get to 1999 in ECW.

Heyman thanks us for buying the event. He says the card has to be changed and Tanaka and Lynn won’t be working tonight, so instead of Tanaka vs. RVD and Lynn vs. Storm and Spike we get Storm vs. Van Dam. I like them just flat out telling us. It’s a nice little touch as the reality is simple: bad stuff happens sometimes and you have to deal with it at times. Good for Paul to just flat out say it.

Joey says ECW is Guilty as Charged. Doesn’t say what they’re guilty of but whatever.

Cue theme song.

Danny Doring/Roadkill vs. Full Blooded Italians

Doring and Roadkill don’t even get an entrance on PPV. That’s saying a lot about them I’d say. It’s Smothers and Guido in case you were wondering. Not a terrible choice for an opener I guess. Joey goes silent for a long time for no apparent reason. The arena setup is really weird as the ramp is coming from the bottom as opposed to the side. And here are Rotten and Mahoney.

Apparently this is now a three way dance. Ah there’s Joey. I wonder if Rotten ever got annoyed with the music always being about Mahoney. Rotten says he hates this dancing stuff so now it’s a three way dance, meaning elimination rules. Well sure why not. Yep it’s chair shot time. There’s no one in the ring at all. Ah ok we have Mahoney and Smothers in there. The commentary is really quiet as it’s hard to hear Joey.

Of course there’s nothing resembling tagging or wrestling at all here so it’s ECW. Ok that’s not fair or true but you get the point. Apparently Roadkill screws sheep. The ring is REALLY loud. He puts Smothers down and in a move that literally has my mouth hanging open, Roadkill hits a top rope splash ¾ across the ring. That was IMPRESSIVE.

And the Italians put out Roadkill and Doring with a double fisherman’s suplex. Rotten has been nowhere to be seen for a LONG time now. Oh there he is on the apron. Both freaky looking guys hit their finishers on the Italians to end it. They add a pair of SICK chair shots for the heck of it.

Rating: D+. Just way too short to mean anything here. It was beat up one guy, go for a finisher, counter finisher, hit finisher, pin. The adding in of the Freaks helped too I think as it’s not like this was anything remotely resembling interesting otherwise so there’s nothing wrong with that. Still though just something to get the crowd going and it worked pretty well in that sense. Match was awful though.

Terry Funk is here to complain about Tommy Dreamer. Apparently this is about Jake Roberts for some reason. Yes I know the story behind it.

Yoshihiro Tajiri vs. Super Crazy

Tajiri is in regular tights here and he looks weird like that. He looks YOUNG too. This should be fun if nothing else. Joey sums up Tajiri by saying he loves to kick. Yep that’s accurate. DANG they are freaking moving out there. That was awesome looking right there. Not huge on Tajiri completely no selling that spinning DDT but whatever. There’s that handspring elbow. I love that move.

Picture perfect Asai moonsault follows that up. SICK kick to Crazy’s head and a Tarantula follow that up. Awesome stuff. I always cringe whenever someone is put in a surfboard. That move is just freaking painful looking. This is awesome to say the least. They trade rollups but both guys just get two. It’s followed up by some insane strikes and counters that I can’t keep up with. Tajiri ends it with a Dragon Suplex (full nelson into a suplex pin).

Rating: A-. OH YES. Ok, now if this was what ECW meant by the best of the rest of the world, I get it. This was AMAZINGLY fun to watch. It’s about 11 minutes long which is perfect as both guys were starting to get a bit tired at the end so instead of sucking the life out of the place at the end they wrapped it up. This was awesome and very fun at the same time. It was a spotfest and there isn’t a thing wrong with that. Incredibly entertaining match.

Come see us!

John Kronus vs. ???

Kronus has completely outlived his usefulness at this point and no one cares. Judge Jeff Jones debuts as the Judge instead of being the crooked referee that he had been for months prior to this. Considering Bill Clinton had a heart issue last night, his jokes about him are a bit touchy. He declares a bunch of people Guilty as Charged.

Apparently Kronus beat Jones up at a live show. He brings out Sid Vicious to beat the tar out of Kronus. Sid throws him through a table which more or less explodes. There’s a massive POWERBOMB chant. For the life of me I never got why Sid was so over but he always was to be fair. This might have lasted two minutes at most.

Rating: N/A. Well he’s a bigger deal than Jake Roberts if nothing else. Never been that big on him but he got a pop and a freaking half so there we go.

We recap Shane vs. Taz, including Taz vs. Sabu. Oh and Shane offered him Francine. She was hotter than given credit for. Sabu got his neck broken…again, by Taz. I guess this made more sense in context. Oh ok it was a plot by Taz to get into the ECW Title picture and drop the FTW belt. Got it.

Gertner and the Dudleys show up unannounced for no apparent reason. Clean shaven Bubba is odd looking. They’re only five time champions here. That’s odd to say the least. Big Dick just growls at the camera. Nicely done. Gertner makes these shows, period. He’s the bacon in her eggs, the man for whom she begs and the face between her legs. He’s talking about Daisy Duck of all….well actually non people in this case.

I have a new favorite line from Gertner. When talking about Sign Guy: he’s pretty fly for a sign guy. Apparently Big Dick split open YOUR 42 year old mother and then gave it to her like a pair of 21 year old twins. Yep, I love Gertner. They call out anyone and they get a pretty bad answer.

Dudley Boys vs. New Jack/Spike Dudley

Oh great. IT’S THAT STUPID SONG!!! Spike is dressed like a gangsta. I hate my life. Two guesses as to what the primary focus of this match is. Go ahead and guess. BOY TAKE A GUESS! Spike almost gets his head taken off by a shot with something made of metal. D-Von just unloads on New Jack. Spike is launched into the crowd and they body surf him back to the ring. You know ECW: always doing new stuff. And let’s just do it again!

The faces both have guitars and the heels both have chairs. Big Dick winds up taking both guitars. And New jack is freaking cheered for this stuff. They botch a 3D on the ramp so it looks like Jack splashes Bubba. He never even touches the ramp. Ok wait so a guitar being broken over the head of Dick does nothing but an Acid Drop puts him down. A good 3D ends Spike and thankfully that song too.

Post match the Dudleys just freaking kill New Jack with chair shots. They then talk about how they’ve destroyed every team in ECW history. He calls out Public Enemy for a match in six days. They actually did show up despite working for WCW at the time.

Rating: F-. I hate these things and I always have. Call it bias or whatever but guys like New Jack are a disgrace to the sport of pro wrestling and anything he’s involved in is a failure on the part of the booker for putting him on the card. He has no business in wrestling and should be in jail for attempted murder with the Grimes incident.

Big long RVD video package set to Walk. Nothing wrong with that. So instead of Tanaka it’s Storm vs. Van Dam. That could work quite well.

TV Title: Rob Van Dam vs. Lance Storm

Dawn Marie isn’t human. She can’t be. Storm gets in a great line: he’s not the whole F’ing show but he’s the best part of it. Now Paul make sure you pay attention to the reaction that Van Dam gets, because you won’t be hearing anything like it in the main event. We get a LONG feeling out process that actually isn’t boring at all. I’ve always liked the way Storm threw punches for some reason. Storm gets the half crab which doesn’t mean anything yet.

Fonzie and Dawn (Tammy Lynn Bytch at the time but not a lot of people would get that name) go at it on the floor which lets Van Dam take over. SWEET superkick by Storm. Has to be the second best guy at that ever. We’re in the crowd now and in probably one of the five sickest bumps I’ve ever seen, Van Dam gets a reverse DDT onto the floor. No protection at all and he just slams into it.

Storm is WAY underrated in the ring. This has been solid stuff so far, but I’d like more in ring stuff. Storm is a Canadian bad boy apparently. Van Dam more or less cuts a promo in the middle of the match. That’s just awesome. Ah there we go. We’re back in the ring. I don’t mind the insane stuff as long as it winds up being about wrestling. Van Dam goes for the Van Daminator (why can’t he go for coffee or lunch instead?) but Storm jumps away. WHAT A BRILLIANT IDEA!!!

It connects the second time and Storm is out cold. Oh ok he was faking. The referee takes a SWEET looking Van Daminator. After Fonzie interferes, a Van Daminator from the top gets two. The quick taunts from Van Dam are what set him apart I think. Like I’ve said before, the playing to the crowd is a signature of the all time greats like Austin, Rock, Sting, Hogan and Flair. In a very surprising finish, we get a wrestling sequence and Van Dam gets the CLEAN pin with a nice German suplex. I greatly approve.

Rating: B. Good stuff here but the overbooking and interference hurt it a bit. This was one of those matches where both guys could definitely bring it and they did here. The ending worked very well too as Van Dam beat him with his own game. What more can you ask for? Solid stuff.

We recap Dreamer vs. Credible which is because of Funk apparently taking Credible under his wing. So yeah, it’s about Funk vs. Dreamer again, which never had the blowoff because Funk headed to WCW.

Justin Credible vs. Tommy Dreamer

You know if you cut Nicole Bass’ head off she’d look good. Jazz, who doesn’t have a name yet, is also with Credible. This is a ladder match ECW style, meaning there is barbed wire hanging over the ring and you need a ladder to get to it. I love Man in the Box. I just do. What in the world is the appeal of Justin? I have never gotten that at all. We get a weird as shot from across where the cameras would be to see the ladder. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.

Tommy finally brings the ladder into play as this has been all brawling anyway. The fans want Funk apparently. For a good while it’s all Dreamer and that’s over already. Do you think four people with Justin is enough? Dreamer has a bad arm now too. All of Justin’s entourage helps him out and down goes Tommy. I JUST SAID THAT JOEY!!! I didn’t think it was possible but Jazz is somehow more annoying than she would be in WWE.

It’s all Justin at this point as he just beats the living heck out of Tommy with all kinds of stuff. Tommy makes his comeback and of course here’s Funk because according to Heyman, Credible isn’t allowed to lose. That’s Incredible, which in this case is a powerslam, onto a ladder ends it. I know this is supposed to be an epic storyline and whatnot but I just couldn’t care less at all.

Rating: D. This whole thing was so that Funk could screw over Tommy. I didn’t need a 20 minute beating and Jazz/Nicole screaming to get to that point. Just a waste of time that I wanted to end after about five minutes or so.

Some guy named Stephen Prazak (has to be related to Dave in ROH somehow) interviews Taz. This reaches Rock and Coach levels of insulting. How did Taz go from this to the raving idiot he is now.

Shane says he’s not ready to lose the belt. That’s so funny because it’s supposed to be in character.

ECW World Title: Shane Douglas vs. Taz

Oh and to be clear: Shane has a broken wrist so Taz won’t win deservingly no matter what he does. Ok, before we get into this, let’s get this out of the way. In my eyes, it was this feud that officially killed ECW. Shane should have dropped the belt at least six months ago to Taz who would then be able to drop it to RVD who was the hottest thing in the company and also the best wrestler in the company.

For those of you that don’t know, Taz wins the belt here and holds it until September when he goes to WWF. The problem was that by this time, no one cared about Taz at all. RVD was the popular guy but instead of putting the belt on him like the money would have been in, as that by this time, no one cared about Taz at all.

RVD was the popular guy but instead of putting the belt on him like the money would have been in, he belt more or less had to go to Taz since he had chased it for a year now. Shane should have dropped it in like August and this should be Van Dam vs. Taz for it, but instead by the time Taz dropped it, ECW was dead in the water anyway.

Overall Rat….oh that’s right we still have a match to go. They’re trying to make this seem epic but both guys are more or less done as far as meaning anything in the ring at this point. Taz is ok but the people are just rather apathetic to him at this point. We get a conversation with either production or security guys which is always interesting.

They’re out in the crowd now, meaning more time that the inevitable can’t happen. No one on the planet thinks Shane has a chance here but I guess it has to be made out to be epic right? We’re still in the crowd, which is a very annoying one this time. OH GOOD NIGHT JUST GO TO THE FREAKING RING!!! This is so freaking stupid. We can barely see them as they’re just brawling.

This has been going on for nearly 10 minutes. Shane is bleeding and we’re BACK IN THE RING! Oh look, it’s a table. Taz goes through it as I think watching a test pattern might be more interesting. Shane goes through a table. This is just dull. And now we have no lights. Sabu appears, complete with pyro (in ECW?). He beats up both guys for not apparent reason other than Taz breaking his neck and Shane putting Taz up to it. At least it makes sense.

Pretty impressive that a guy with a broken neck can beat up two professional wrestlers. Shane calls for the Triple Threat and here’s Tammy (Sunny). You know what that means. Candido is here and he turns on Shane, I guess going face? That sets up the Tazmission which of course Shane is allowed to escape for a second before it’s locked on again and Shane passes out. Was that supposed to be Austin/Hart again or something?

Rating: D+. And that’s being VERY generous. This match was 22 minutes long. Of that, 12 were brawling in the crowd, three were Sabu doing his thing, two were Candido running in and 5 were actual wrestling. That’s the EPIC match though right? This could have been good, but seriously, there was enough time spent just “brawling” in the crowd to have the main event of Mania 9. Steamboat beat Savage in about as much time as they brawled in the crowd. See what I mean?

Overall Rating: C-. This show tried. I can’t take that away from it at all. This show had some thought and effort put into it and that helps a lot. However, some of the stuff here was just flat out bad. There is some very good stuff in here, but there’s too much brawling to make it great. A problem with ECW is that they tried to substitute brawling and violence for storytelling and wrestling and that can’t work long term.

Two of the last three matches were brawling and a moment at the end with nothing else going on. This is indeed better than most of the shows that ECW has had lately, but still the last hour of this show just bored me to tears. Check it out, but have a remote in hand to fast forward it.