The SmarK Rant for ECW Wrestling on TNN – 06.09.00
By Scott Keith on 25 February 2024
The SmarK Rant for ECW Wrestling on TNN – 06.09.00
Man we’re getting into a real hate-watch situation with this show now.
Taped from New Orleans, LA in THANK GOD a well lit arena this week. It also looks like a large high school gym where they used to do ECW shows in 1993 but I’ll take what I can get.
Your hosts are Joey Styles & Joel Gertner, with limerick so filthy that they have to be doing it just to annoy TNN now.
Jazz joins us to start because she’s local, but then Justin Credible hits the ring and takes her out with the cane because he’s like the ingrown hair up the nose of life. So he whines about Tommy Dreamer ducking him, and that brings out Dreamer for the attack as ECW officials separate them, marking the only time in ECW history where this sort of thing didn’t lead to an immediate title match.
Meanwhile, Scotty Anton is getting ready to kick Raven’s ass, but Cyrus thinks that Raven is part of the “lazy male demographic” and so maybe they should cut him a break and just give him the clap. “And it’s not like he hasn’t had the clap before” notes Cyrus.
Meanwhile, Joel complains about being censored by TNN last week, and apparently you can hear Heyman whine further on the ECW website instead. Ironically, after ECW was bought by their arch enemy, the uncensored version of the show became the only one available.
Meanwhile, Raven notes that Scotty went from being his flunky in WCW to being a hired gun for the Network instead. Sounds like a pretty good deal for Anton.
Scotty Anton v. Raven
OK, I will say that Anton’s new theme music about giving you the clap is pretty funny. Also this arena is awful for TV, and it’s way too cavernous. So we take a break and Cyrus cuts a promo on Raven about how Raven is having problems with Paul Heyman and everyone knows it, which actually was not the case unless you were the equivalent of terminally online Twitter nerds in 2000. Cyrus offers him the chance to join the Network in exchange for shaking Anton’s hand but of course Raven refuses and they slug it out in the corner. Cyrus trips up Raven and they head to the floor right away, where Raven misses an elbow and puts himself through a table. Back in the ring, Anton with a dropkick and he puts the boots to him in the corner before clipping Raven to go after the knee. He tries the Sharpshooter, which is apparently called The Clapper as they really hammer the one joke hard, but Raven kicks out of it and Anton goes back to work on the leg again. Back in the ring, Raven makes a comeback with the kneelift and the dumb snot rag spot before hitting the DROP TOEHOLD OF DOOM for a visual pinfall while Cyrus takes the ref. Raven with a rollup for two and a backslide for two. Anton takes him down and applies the CLAPPER and Raven taps at 5:25. Clearly it was either clap or tap. Just a normal match, like something you’d see on Thunder at the time, which I guess is a nice change of pace for these shows. **. I don’t know why the fuck Heyman kept putting Raven on TV, since he clearly didn’t care and was probably quite literally sleepwalking through the matches.
Meanwhile, Da Baldies are still obsessed with New Jack because we apparently haven’t seen that one enough.
Meanwhile, we get a lengthy montage of Justin Credible’s greatest hits, set to some kind of generic electronic music. And it just keeps going and GOING AND GOING and it’s like 6 or 7 minutes long.
Justin Credible & Rhino v. Tommy Dreamer & Sandman
And it’s more talking from Cyrus, who offers up Rhino as a partner so they can destroy Tommy Dreamer. And of course Dreamer finds Sandman to be his mystery partner as they keep rolling out the same guys in the same feuds week after week. Amazingly, Sandman just comes out and doesn’t take 10 minutes to make it to the ring this week and the match starts. Dreamer brawls with Rhino into the ridiculously empty bleachers, like hard cam side of an AEW TV taping empty, while Sandman whips Justin into a ladder a few times and gets two. Why is there even a ladder in the ring? Who knows. Tommy and Rhino join them in the ring and then of course Steve Corino runs in because of course he does and we get a heel beatdown for a while. And then Tajiri runs in and saves and I guess it’s a six-man now, but then Scotty Anton runs in and of course RVD comes out to save as well as the chaotic nothing brawl continues. Rob hits Rhino with the frog splash and Sandman pins Rhino at 6:21. And then we get more brawling to end the show with the Network standing tall for the 76th week in a row.
This show was SO LAZY, as they had about 10 minutes of wrestling and filled up the rest with talking and a music video about Justin Credible. Oh and the big push on the show, which I didn’t even mention, was that Dawn Marie is returning to the show at some point.
But I have been REPEATEDLY ASSURED that this show gets better further into the summer.