Mike Reviews ECW Enter The Sandman 1995

Happy Extreme Friday Everyone!

We’re still in December 2024 when I’m writing this, so the WWE Network hasn’t melted away to nothingness yet and I can still review some ECW. So with that said, let’s review Enter The Sandman, and event from May 1995 where Sandman wrestles not once, but twice! If James Fullington isn’t one of your favourite grapplers then I suggest looking away now whilst you can!

You can view the full card for Enter The Sandman by clicking below;

ECW Enter The Sandman 1995 Card

Enter The Sandman is emanating from The Arena in Philly on the 13th of May 1995

Calling the action is Joey Styles

Opening Match
Tony Stetson Vs “The Extreme Shah” Hack Myers

Stetson you may know from his seemingly endless feud with Johnny Hotbody in Maffew’s TWA reviews. Myers is a big bearded dude who the fans like because they can yell “Shah” when he hits people. Stetson jumps Myers on his way to the ring in hopes that such a tactic will stave off his inevitable defeat as long as possible. Myers sells well and Stetson actually does a good job of riling up the crowd, so it’s a reasonable opener fought at a decent pace. The crowd has fun by giving Stetson bother when he’s on offence and then chanting along with Myers’ attacks when he gets a chance to fight back. Myers eventually gets a top rope face buster and that’s enough for three and a decent pop from the crowd.

WINNER: HACK MYERS
RATING: **

Thoughts: This was just fine as a opener, with Stetson getting a bit of offence and a chance to rile up the audience until Myers was able to fight back with his crowd pleasing spots

Match Two
The Oriental Connection (Hiroshi Itakura and Tsubo Genjin) Vs 911 and The Tazmaniac

Itakura is a Ryuma Go trainee, and thus likely cack. Genjin had an awful match on a previous ECW show, but he’s back here to have another go. 911 is a big lug who Choke Slam’s people and can’t really do anything else, but he still inexplicably got a WCW run at one stage. Tazmaniac would eventually go on to be known as just Taz and would win many belts in ECW, along with creating his own at one stage, but I digress. There’s a sign in a front row that doesn’t survive the WWE Network censors and I’m almost terrified at just how offensive a sign would have to be for it to get blurred out when we’ve already had the disclaimer at the start of the show. Taz actually asks 911 to wait on the floor as opposed to the apron so that Taz can go it alone here and show how tough he is. Taz makes easy work of the poor Japanese lads, throwing both of them around without much difficulty, even when they try to double up on him. Taz suplexes both of his hapless foes and that leads to 911 coming in for the Double Choke Slam. The rest is academic following that.

WINNERS: 911 & TAZ
RATING: SQUASH

Thoughts: The Oriental Connection were pretty pish, so getting destroyed like this was probably the best use for them, and it made both 911 and Taz look like absolute tanks, so the match certainly served its purpose

Joey Styles is at ringside and brings Axl Rotten down for an interview. Axl stokes the rivalry between the Floridian and Philadelphian fans, before saying the folks in Florida couldn’t handle Axl’s extreme ways. Axl also drops in a really offensive homophobic slur at one stage to describe the folks in Florida. Well that was unpleasant and unnecessary. I’m guessing that the ECW show got cancelled on Florida TV due to something being too violent and this was Paul Heyman’s way of letting off some steam about it? Anyway, the gist of it all is that Ian Rotten heads down to the ring with a barbed wire chair and we now have a match out of it.

Match Three
Barbed Wire Baseball Bat and Barbed Wire Chair
Ian Rotten Vs Axl Rotten

These two used to team but now they’ve split up and keep having increasingly gory weapons based matches in an effort to settle their seemingly never-ending feud. This is basically every match in this feud, in that Ian and Axl bleed all over the place and brawl both inside and outside of the ring. By this stage it was kind of getting a bit old hat just because it had already happened so many times, but as far as bloody brawls go it’s fine for what it is. They hit each other with the barbed wire weapons, they brawl in the crowd, they bleed buckets, the momentum ebbs and flows between the two, and then eventually Axl suplexes Ian onto the barbed wire chair for the three count.

WINNER: AXL ROTTEN
RATING: **

Thoughts: It’s funny how two guys losing enough claret to stock a blood bank has become so blasé to me, but these two have been feuding forever and they aren’t really achieving anything unique or interesting with the matches anymore. It’s just the same thing every time out for the most part, and we seemingly see this match on every show. It’s not even like it was a bad bloody brawl as such, as it hit all the beats you would expect with a match like this, but I’m just kind of tired of seeing it at this point. Get these guys some fresh opponents or tag them back up again or something, because I’m not sure how many more of these identikit blood brawls between the two I can stomach

Before the next match; Shane Douglas joins us to complain about how extreme wrestling has become more important than traditional wrestling, so he’s brought someone in to address that issue in the form of Bill Alfonso. Alfonso’s character is that of a referee who will actually enforce the rules, which of course goes completely against ECW’s whole ethos. Thus “Fonzie” is now the most hated man in ECW just for existing. The booking of this promotion was just razor sharp at the time, as a character like Fonzie would not only totally push the fan’s buttons, but it would also allow the booker to subvert the unofficial “rules” within the promotion should a storyline call for it. ECW owner Todd Gordon is not happy about Fonzie being here, but Fonzie is unmoved and threatens to shut the entire company down if they don’t comply.

Match Four
Raven and Stevie Richards w/ Beulah Vs Tommy Dreamer and Mikey Whipwreck

Raven and Dreamer are the ones with the main issue here, with Dreamer still being unable to pin Raven in their feud despite it now going on for months. Beulah has a neck brace here because Dreamer gave her a Piledriver on a previous show, a violent act that finally endeared Dreamer to the bloodthirsty ECW faithful after they’d been hounding him for months for not being extreme enough. There are two main storylines in this one. The first being that Raven is avoiding facing Dreamer in a fair fight, and the second being that Fonzie is being difficult by refusing to allow the babyfaces to brawl or do any traditional ECW styled stuff.

Dreamer flattens Stevie with a DDT at one stage, but he neglects to go for the pin because he wants to fight Raven, which ultimately means that Stevie can recover and the bout continues. What I love about that is that all Raven has to do to ruin Dreamer’s day is to just stand on an apron and glare at him, with it being enough for Dreamer to bollocks up this match because he just can’t get over the hatred he has for his foe. Raven does eventually get in to do a bit with Mikey, and it’s scrappy but entertaining, which was ECW’s specialty at the time. Raven and Richards work some heat on Mikey for a bit, with Mikey of course selling it all well, because Mikey.

Raven actually tries to fling Mikey off the top rope to the floor at one stage, but Dreamer catches Mikey to save him and then puts Mikey back into the ring to continue the bout, which is a spot I don’t think I’ve seen before. That was pretty cool actually. Eventually Dreamer gets a tag, leading to Raven giving Mikey a DDT on the floor whilst Dreamer delivers a DDT to Stevie. This then leads to Raven and Dreamer finally going at it in the ring, but Fonzie refuses to accept Dreamer’s use of a closed fist and that leads to Dreamer getting DQ’ed, meaning that Dreamer gets screwed once again, as the feud with Raven takes yet another detour from the traditional story path most feuds do.

WINNERS: RAVEN & RICHARDS
RATING: ***

Thoughts: This was seemingly a real-life equivalent of choosing the “storyline” Road Agent instruction in a TEW game, as this match was all about advancing the Raven/Dreamer feud whilst also setting up Fonzie as arguably the #1 Heel in the promotion for the rest of the year. It succeeded in both fronts, as ECW continues to nail the execution of this Raven/Dreamer story

Shane Douglas tries to goad Tommy Dreamer into attacking Fonzie following the bout and thus getting the show shut down. However, Cactus Jack comes down to the ring to calm Dreamer down, leading to Dreamer backing off so that Douglas and Cactus can do some duelling mic work. That leads to Douglas and Cactus having a pull-apart, as it looks both are willing to clatter the other, but we get no match as of yet.

Match Five
ECW World Television Title
Champ: Eddy Guerrero Vs “Shooter” Dean Malenko

These two went to a 30 minute time limit draw on a previous show, so now they’re running it back. Taz jumps on commentary here, being a precursor to the path his career would eventually take. Sadly this one is chopped up and we don’t get the full match, with the clips instead giving us the cliff notes of what happened. The two start working holds on the mat, with Malenko having the edge there, so Eddy then starts trying to use high flying as a way to counter that, which seems to work for the Champion. If they’re on the mat or the pace slows then Malenko has the edge, but when they’re moving quickly or it’s taken to the air, then Eddy has way more of a chance of picking up the win.

The ECW Arena crowd is mostly respectful to the wrestling like they were when these two last clashed for the belt in The Arena, which again is nice to see. I always feel like the ECW Arena crowd felt like they had to be on their best behaviour during these matches because it would just give ammunition to the anti-ECW contingent if they were being belligerent jerks during a good wrestling match like this. Eddy lands badly on a rana attempt at one stage and comes up bleeding from it, which adds some extra jeopardy to the situation for the Champion. Eddy eventually manages to catch Malenko in a Figure Four, but the time runs out and we have another draw.

TIME LIMIT DRAW
RATING: N/A

Thoughts: Sadly I can’t rate it because we didn’t get the entire match, but the action we did get to see was really good, as you would expect when these two go at it. Another draw means we get to see them wrestle again, and that certainly works for me!

We get a video package for Taz, with the idea being that they are trying to break him away from The Tazmaniac gimmick into a more serious character focusing on his legitimate martial arts credentials as opposed to him being a wild man from Tasmania.

Match Six
ECW World Heavyweight Title
Champ: The Sandman w/ Woman Vs Cactus Jack

Sandman recently defeated Shane Douglas for the Title, with Cactus ostensibly being the de-facto top babyface who can oppose him now seeing as the likes of Tommy Dreamer and Taz are busy with other things. Woman caressing the belt like she’s Gollum with the precious is such a great little touch to show what she REALLY cares about in this business relationship. Paul Heyman would do similar when he managed Champions. It just tells you a very important part of Woman’s character is that she cares about the belt first and foremost, so Sandman needs to always be looking over his shoulder in case she finds a better deal, especially as she betrayed Shane Douglas so that Sandman could win the belt in the first place. This one is a total brawl right from the off, with the two fighting around ringside whilst Cactus’ music is still playing, in a trope that ECW would often employ in order to give the show a feel of a rock concert that just happened to have a wrestling show going on inside it.

The winner of this one faces Shane Douglas straight after, so not only is the belt on the line twice tonight but one of these two competitors is going to have to deal with double duty. The fans helpfully pass the two fighters weapons, like this bout is taking place in WCW/nWo Revenge or something. Sadly one of the fans passes Cactus a bowling pin but Cactus doesn’t get a chance to use it as a weapon. Cactus usually did a decent job of getting something watchable out of Sandman, and that tends to be the case in this one, as they have an entertaining wild brawl filled with weapon shots and bumps onto the concrete. They do occasionally make it into the ring at points, but that inevitably leads to them fighting outside of the ring and in the crowd again. Sandman even leaps off the apron into the front row at one stage, seemingly banging his knee on the metal railings in the process. Thankfully for Sandy he’s probably had enough beer to floor a rhinoceros, so he’s able to manfully struggle on.

Eventually a table finds its way into the ring (because OF COURSE it does) and that leads to an inventive spot where Cactus uses the table to seesaw Sandman out of the ring onto the concrete floor in an utterly BRUTAL looking moment that Sandman was somehow able to survive. Cactus manages to find some barbed wire following that and hits his trademark elbow drop off the apron onto the floor with the wire wrapped around his arms. This looks to be it for Sandman; but Shane Douglas decides that he’d rather face Sandman for the belt than Cactus, so that leads to Douglas distracting Cactus in order to cost him the match. This allows Sandman to clock Cactus right in his Mr. Socko, which is enough for a flash three count for the Champion.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: SANDMAN
RATING: ***

Thoughts: This was a fun brawl that continued the triple way feud for the World Title. Cactus did a good job of holding things together and Sandman was his usual unwieldly self in there. That meant that pretty much every move Sandman tried looked either wonky or just outright bad, but I can’t deny that the dude had a charisma to him that could sometimes offset the fact that he was pretty mince as a wrestler

Match Seven
ECW World Heavyweight Title
Champ: The Sandman Vs “The Franchise” Shane Douglas

So now Douglas has a chance to avenge his prior defeat to Sandman. Interestingly Sandman has almost become the de-facto babyface here due to how hated Douglas is, even though Sandman was clearly the Heel in the bout with Cactus. ECW, WCW and the WWF were experimenting with more Heel/Heel and Face/Face matches around this time, but ECW was probably the company that did that stuff the most, with the idea being that they were just going to put conflicting characters in there with one another and allow the fans to choose who they wanted to cheer. Not surprisingly, Vince Russo was a big fan of ECW and he clearly took that storytelling notion to heart when it came to his shades of grey booking in the WWF and WCW. For some reason it works a bit better in ECW, possibly because the whole point of the promotion was to be counter culture and different, meaning it attracted the sort of fan who wouldn’t be put off by the whole Face/Heel alignment getting a bit complicated.

Douglas dominates most of this one in the early going, which you would expect considering that Sandman just had a brutal fight with Cactus Jack. It follows the usual pattern of Douglas Vs Sandman, in that Douglas focuses on wrestling whilst Sandman tries to use brawling as a way to combat Douglas’ superior wrestling ability. It’s amazing to watch Douglas be so dynamic (no pun intended) and reasonably smooth in there with a drunkard who can barely wrestle when you consider just how awful he looked in the WWF as Dean Douglas when he was actually working with much better wrestlers. Sandman does eventually manage to get the fight out on the floor and gain a bit of a foothold, with Douglas taking some big bumps out there and even doing the Flair Flip in the corner when the two get back in the ring. The crowd decides that they like Sandy more than The Franchise, and that leads to them cheering along when Sandman starts flinging Douglas onto tables outside of the ring.

Douglas goes for his dreaded Belly to Belly Suplex, but Sandman actually manages to counter it into his own version of the move and makes the cover. Douglas gets his foot on the rope, but Cactus comes down to get revenge by knocking Douglas’ foot off the ropes, which seemingly leads to Sandman getting the three count. Bill Alfonso comes down to restart the match though, which leads to Sandman teasing that he will clock Fonzie with his Singapore cane. Sandman does swing, but Cactus leaps in front of the cane shot in order to keep Fonzie from shutting down the company. This seemingly leads to Douglas rolling up Sandman in order to win the belt, but head referee John Finnegan waves that off and declares that the initial three count on Douglas will stand, and thus Sandman is still our Champion.

WINNER AND STILL CHAMPION: SANDMAN
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: It got a bit messy at the end with all the stuff with Fonzie getting involved, but it was a decent match in general. I think **ish is probably the ceiling for these two, but they had a match that mostly worked for them and they could normally be expected to deliver it when required

Dean Malenko rescues Douglas from Cactus following the bout, which is a match I would be interesting in seeing just due to the epic clash of styles it would be. Tommy Dreamer eventually runs down to rescue Cactus, but that leads to Raven and Stevie Richards running down to attack Dreamer, as this has become the Paul Heyman Special of numerous angles and storylines all bleeding into one another.

Main Event
Luchas de Apuestas
The Public Enemy gets 5 minutes with Stevie Richards if they win
Double Dog Collar for the ECW World Tag Team Titles
Champs: The Public Enemy (“Flyboy” Rocco Rock and Johnny Grunge) Vs The Pitbulls (#1 and #2) w/ Stevie Richards

TPE managed to defeat The Pitbulls on a previous show, but it was a very narrow victory, so we’ve got another match now with a more violent stipulation. There are no tags in this one, with Grunge and #1 collared together whilst Rocco and #2 are collared as well. All four wrestlers pair up with the competitor they are collared to and brawl all over the place. There’s quite a muted reaction to it from the crowd, possibly because they’re burnt out following a long evening of blood, brawling and storylines. The brawl kind of feels like it lacks some energy as well, especially when compared to the previous match these two had. Everyone kind of just walks around hitting one another with chairs and occasionally using the chain as a weapon.

One thing you could say about TPE was that even if the wrestling quality was lacking in their bouts sometimes, the matches at least had an enjoyable frantic energy to them, but that isn’t really the case here. It just feels flat for whatever reason. The crowd does wake up a little bit when #2 Powerslams Rocco off a table into the ring, but then dampen down again following it. Some jumper cables get introduced to the challenger’s groins, as a young Glen Jacobs takes some notes for 8 years down the line, and that leads to Rocco coming off the top with a Moonsault through a table onto #2, but #1 breaks up the count. Seeing a Moonsault through a table causes the Arena crowd to chant about how much they don’t like Sabu, although they’d change their collective tunes when he returned later in the year.

Things do pick up a bit following that, with Rocco and #2 fighting over to the Eagle’s Nest, where Rocco comes flying off the stage with a TOPE CON HILO onto #2 in an impressive looking spot. However, when Rocco heads back up the stage again he gets brought down with a Superplex through a table. #2 makes the cover out there, but the referee is still in the ring with Grunge and #1, meaning there is no one to count. It’s a good way to give the challengers a visual pin fall though, with the idea being that they would have won the belts by now if the referee had been with Rocco and #2 instead of in the ring with Grunge and #1. Rocco ends up finding his way back to the ring, where he takes a Super Bomb through a table.

That should be the three, but there is a delay in making the cover and Grunge is able to save his partner. Stevie tries to help his charges, but he ends up taking a bump off the apron through a table in order to remove him from proceedings. The finish is a bit awkward, as #1 has Grunge seemingly down and pinned whilst #2 tries some kind of suplex on Rocco. Rocco lands on top though and, despite #1 seemingly making a pin first and their being no “legal man” due to this being tornado rules, referee Jim Molineux decides to count Rocco’s pin on #2, thus leading to TPE retaining. I get that they wanted to show that The Pitbull’s were viable winners so that they could still go after the belts later in the year and be credible challengers, but that finish made it look more like they got robbed more than them just being unlucky, as really the ref should have counted #1’s pin before even attempting to count the pinning attempt from Rocco.

WINNERS AND STILL CHAMPIONS: TPE
RATING: **1/4

Thoughts: I wasn’t feeling this one for the first half, and neither did the ECW Arena crowd by the sound of things, but it picked up a bit once they increased the energy and by the end it was sloppy yet fun, which is the kind of fun that TPE specialised in for the most part. I’m not sure the finish really worked, but the general idea of TPE managing to scrape two nail biter victories over the monster Heels makes sense and it’s clearly telling the story of the Champs being softened up more and more so that they can eventually drop the belts to someone

So Stevie Richards now has to fight The Public Enemy for 5 minutes. Stevie is kind of cocky due to TPE being so beaten up from the match, and he stomps away on them. However, Stevie is too much of a putz not to mess this situation up somehow, and indeed TPE soon fight back and put Stevie on the backfoot. Stevie takes some nice bumps for the Tag Champs, and the crowd seems to enjoy watching Stevie get battered, with the fans demanding that TPE draws some blood. However, Raven runs down to ruin the fun by attacking TPE, which leads to The Pitbulls coming back to help beatdown TPE as well. Tommy Dreamer makes the save for TPE though, and he’s not come alone, as Luna Vachon joins in to help Dreamer against his enemies. Poor Beulah takes another Piledriver, and the ECW Arena yobs of course love it. Dreamer then plants a smooch on Luna, suggesting that this will be a romantic relationship as well as a business one.

In Conclusion

Like most of ECW’s big Philly output from 1995, Enter The Sandman was a solid effort. There was some decent brawling, some strong storyline advancement, and some good wrestling in the TV Title match as well (although we sadly had to watch it in clipped form). It’s not a show you desperately have to go out of your way to watch if you never have, but if you do stumble across it then it’s a decent enough use of 2 hours if you can withstand having to watch Sandman wrestle two matches in one show.

Recommended Show!