The SmarK Rant for ECW Wrestling on TNN – 01.07.00
Last week: Mike Awesome regains the ECW World title from Masato Tanaka in one of the best matches in ECW history!
Taped from White Plains, NY
Your hosts are Joey Styles & Joel “I tried to beat the women off me with a stick, but it would be a waste, because they love the size of my stick, and you can’t beat the taste” Gertner.
We’re in full hype mode for Guilty As Charged 2000, which I’ll likely redo this week because I’m on vacation anyway.
Meanwhile, Paul Heyman gives us a video package running down the history of the ECW World title for some reason, as we’re already 10 minutes into this show with nothing but highlights from last week thus far. Like literally they show every title change from Shane Douglas throwing down the NWA belt until present day. I’m assuming they’re very short on tapings before the PPV and needed something to fill a LOT of time?
Spike Dudley does his pre-match promo for the PPV, noting that he was kicked out of the Dudleys for being too violent, basically sounding like a regular person for once doing a regular wrestling promo. Not a good thing, because Spike as a regular person isn’t very interesting. Well at least that ended once he jumped to the WWF.
Mike Awesome is fine with knocking a woman’s teeth down her throat, so just think what’s gonna happen to Spike?
The Impact Players do their weird grunting promo about Tommy Dreamer in advance of tonight’s main event, but at least they don’t do the stupid catchphrase.
The Dupps v. Danny Doring & Roadkill v. Nova & Kid Kash
Everyone quickly brawls to the floor and Kash dives onto the pile. Back in, Doring & Roadkill hit a Hart Attack clothesline on Nova for two. Roadkill takes out both of the Dupps with a springboard clothesline. The Dupps have some miscommunication, however, and Kash drops an elbow on Bo for the pin at 2:33 to eliminate them. Doring with a top rope legdrop on Nova for two, but Kash crotches Roadkill to bring him down for two. Kash takes Doring to the top for a rana and Nova gets a frog splash, but Elektra breaks it up and gets into a brawl with Jazz. And then it gets wacky as Simon Diamond hauls out Jazz and Chris Chetti puts the moves on Elektra and carries her away, and Doring & Roadkill finish Nova with a double team legdrop at 4:50. These guys had a lot of matches in 2000 and this was certainly one of them. **
Hey, let’s run down the PPV card again. That’ll use up some TV time!
Stairway to Hell: Tommy Dreamer v. Justin Credible
Justin decides to walk out on the match for some reason, so Tommy follows him up the stage and tosses him into the railing. The wide shot shows that it’s a pretty good crowd for ECW, actually, or at least shot to look impressive. So the deal here is that there’s a cane hanging above the ring and you use the ladder to get the cane so you can use it. Oh man, what are they gonna do if they can’t get to the cane? Use a chair? Perish the thought. They fight on the floor and Tommy runs Justin into the ladder. Into the ring for a spinebuster, but Justin runs him into the ladder to take over and slugs away on him. Tommy comes back as they do the contrived stuff with the ladder in the corner and fight for a superplex, but of course Tommy falls on his nuts because that’s what he does. I’m shocked he was able to reproduce with Beulah given that 72% of his selling was taking shots to the groin.
Justin uses a DROP TOEHOLD OF DOOM on a chair for two and goes up to steal Shawn Michaels’ ladder ride spot from WMX, but Tommy whips him into the ladder and over the top rope. Tommy puts the ladder on Justin’s head and tries to I guess run him into the corner, but Justin blocks it and goes to the top rope. So Tommy brings him down with an electric chair onto the ladder in the corner and then runs the ladder into Justin’s crotch. I don’t object to Justin Credible getting hit in the junk and in fact I encourage it, but there’s not much else to this match thus far. So this allows Tommy to climb up and get the cane, but then all the run-ins start as Jason comes in and attacks. And then Francine hits HIM in the nuts and gives him a broncobuster (Joel: “What do you think I can do to make Francine angry at me?”) and then Lance Storm runs in and hits Tommy in the nuts, but Raven pulls HIM out and we get the Francine-Dawn Marie cat fight as this thing has completely lost whatever point it had. Finally Justin beats on Tommy with the cane and piledrives him to win at 13:22. Because of course they spent the whole match building up Tommy wrestling in his hometown with his crippled father watching and then he does the job. This was the usual nonsense where they ran out of ideas and just started having people run in and hit each other in the balls. *1/2.
This episode definitely felt like reheated leftovers, especially the random World title rundown video. Look for a redo of Guilty as Charged later this week, though.