What the World Was Watching: ECW Hardcore TV – November 7, 1995

The closing moments of Mikey Whipwreck beating the Sandman for the ECW Championship on last week’s show air.

Joey Styles tells viewers that the Sandman is incensed over losing the ECW Championship and has vowed revenge.

Opening Contest: J.T. Smith (1-3) pins El Puerto Ricano (0-1) after a slingshot powerbomb at 1:58:

Both combatants struggle with their ethnic identities since Ricano is not Puerto Rican and Smith is not Italian. Smith wastes no time with the comedy, botching a flip into the ring and then falling off the top rope when he tries a moonsault. These allow Ricano to score some close near-falls until Smith settles down and plants Ricano with a nice slingshot powerbomb for the win.

After the match the Sandman, bloodied over his ladder match with Mikey Whipwreck, hits the ring and wears out both men with a Singapore cane.

Hack Myers (6-5) beats Dances with Dudley after a modified facebuster at 1:17:

This is mercifully kept shot as Myers squashes the Dudley brother and wins with his finish.

Just like the opener, the Sandman comes in and canes Myers and Dudley. In a nice touch he mocks fans chants, getting on the house mic and chanting “Shah!” to hit Myers and “Shit!” to hit Dudley.

A flashback to last year’s November to Remember shows a guitarist fail to play the national anthem correctly, which earns him a chokeslam from 911. Styles also narrates footage of the results of the previous year’s card.

Lance Wright hypes a bit of November to Remember, tossing the broadcast over to footage of Buh Buh Ray Dudley appearing in the ECW Arena and trying to do ring announcing. Sadly, Buh Buh could not make it through his own name due to his stutter.

Title-for-Title Match: 2 Cold Scorpio (Television Champion) (6-2) beats Rocco Rock (Tag Team Champion w/Johnny Grunge) after a short-arm clothesline at 6:25 shown:

The Sandman tries to attack Rock before the match but is driven off by Grunge. The match is heavily clipped, showing Scorpio putting Rock through two tables with a moonsault near the broadcast position and Dropping the Bomb but refusing to cover until it is too late. Rock responds by superplexing Scorpio onto a table but an attempted Drive-By through a flaming table misses. Scorpio feigns interest in rolling Rock around and gives him back his tag team title belt as a show of sportsmanship until clotheslining him to take the titles. That last spot gives Scorpio makes Scorpio a babyface to the crowd. If the clips here are an indication, the actual match, which took twenty-five minutes to complete, must have been torture. Rating: *

Following the match, Scorpio offers the Sandman a chance to be the other half of the ECW tag team champions and he and Woman enthusiastically agree.

Styles says that more stipulations have been added to the 2 Cold Scorpio and Sandman-Public Enemy match at November to Remember. Not only is the ECW Tag Team Championship at stake but if Scorpio is pinned, he will lose the Television Championship. And whomever scores the winning fall in that match will wrestle Mikey Whipwreck later in the evening for the ECW Championship. That last stipulation goes too far as it gives away the outcome of the match.

A replay of Steve Austin’s Eric Bischoff impression on last week’s show airs.

Beulah McGillicutty interviews Commissioner Tod Gordon as part of a “Beulah’s Box” segment at the ECW Arena. Gordon vowed to fight Alfonso, who charges the ring and hits Gordon in the back with a chair. McGillicutty complains about Alfonso messing with her segment, to which Alfonso responds that McGillicutty is a woman and her opinion does not matter. After Alfonso calls McGillicutty a “slut” he is attacked by her and the ECW locker room has to separate the two. In a promo after the footage airs, Alfonso says he is going to whip Gordon every time he sees him.

The Public Enemy talk about their match against 2 Cold Scorpio and the Sandman at November to Remember, reviewing the complicated match stipulations. They are not thrilled about having to wrestle Mikey Whipwreck but they like the idea of holding all the gold in the promotion.

In a promo montage, Buh Buh Ray Dudley is still stuttering, Steve Austin-as-Eric Bischoff talks about firing more people and falling asleep during shows, the Public Enemy talk about the November to Remember tag team title match again, Big Dick Dudley growls, Cactus Jack discusses his abstinence from illegal drugs and painkillers because he is an addict to hardcore wrestling, and Terry Funk tells Tommy Dreamer that wrestling will always be a sport to him regardless of what form it takes.

The Last Word: The recent run of good episodes of Hardcore TV ended with this show that did not provide much value to the viewer. The Sandman wrecking things was fun, as was Cactus Jack’s small promo at the end, but it did not make up for a really long recap of the previous year’s November to Remember and a lackluster singles match that headlined the broadcast. Putting Beulah McGillicutty into a feud with Bill Alfonso adds shades of grey to her character as she continues to be aligned with Raven’s heel faction while looking like a babyface to the crowd for fighting ECW’s evil referee.

Backstage News*: While ECW’s official punishment from the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission will be made public in two weeks sources indicate that Ed Zohn, ECW’s promoter of record, will be fined for not having a doctor on the show. Paul Heyman is also going to be told that if another incident happens at the ECW Arena that the promotion will not be allowed to operate in the state. The fallout from the incident has caused tensions between Zohn and ECW, who have supposedly gone their separate ways, so Tod Gordon will have to get a promoters’ license or ECW will have to operate through another local promoters’ license. There were rumors that the Commission was not going to let ECW have more than 700 fans at the ECW Arena going forward but those are not true. While the incident on October 28 angered some fans, November to Remember looks like it will be a sellout.

*Although ECW has a history of attacking the WWF and WCW, the WWF is on good terms with Heyman and might start using ECW as a place to send talent to work if they cannot be used on house shows. This is becoming more important since the WWF cancelled its B-house show loops due to poor ticket sales.

*ECW continues to look to broaden its appeal outside of Pennsylvania, exploring the possibility of running regular house shows in Danbury, Connecticut. ECW will be running Danbury on Thanksgiving night and hopes to sellout an 850-seat night club there. The promotion will also be going into Maine by running a show in Salisbury Beach on November 25, with the Eliminators serving as the point persons for it.

*In talent relations news, ECW could see a massive talent defection. First, Kevin Sullivan has offered the Public Enemy a six-month contract to join WCW. The Enemy are leaning toward going to WCW because locker room morale in the WWF is low and if they went to the WWF, they would have to work more road dates for less money. If the Enemy go to the WWF they could be rebranded as “Assault & Battery,” while WCW is leaning toward calling them “The Mac Daddy’s.” Heyman would like to keep the Enemy around until ECW secures a pay-per-view deal but if WCW gets them, that might not be possible. Second, Cactus Jack could be heading to the WWF as they look to diversify their roster going into 1996. Like the Enemy, Heyman would like to keep Jack around for more dates until spring. Third, Woman might be going to WCW to manage Harlem Heat or Diamond Dallas Page. This would allow Woman to work in the same company as her husband, Kevin Sullivan. And finally, WCW is looking to sign Konnan and bring him into the promotion by January. That would open the door for WCW to bring in other Mexican talents and could lead to them poaching some of those used by ECW.

*Backstage news is sourced from Dave Meltzer’s Wrestling Observer for November 20.

Up Next: ECW Hardcore TV for November 14!