ECW Hardcore Heaven 1995 (Version II)

July 1, 1995

From Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Your Host is Joey Styles

Opening Match: The Pitbulls v The Dudley Brothers: Not the Dudley's we're most familiar with, but rather Snot Dudley and Dudley Dudley. Pitbull #1 starts with Snot, and stomps him down in the corner. Over to Pitbull #2 with a running powerslam, and he hits Snot with a dropkick before passing back to Pitbull 1 for a savate kick for two. The crowd for these shows are so fucking rowdy, even for this shitty opener. I love the passion, especially compared to the way today’s crowds barely respond to anything other than the big spots in the main events. The Pitbulls get bored of beating up Snot, and toss him into his corner to tag out to Dudley, but that backfires when Dudley dominates Pitbull 2, and hits a front-powerslam. He makes the mistake of passing back to Snot, however, who promptly gets destroyed again. Meanwhile, Stevie Richards (in the Pitbulls corner), interacts with Francine (at this point in the crowd as a fan), but Beulah gets jealous, and they start cat fighting until Raven breaks it up, and drags both Stevie and Beulah to the dressing rooms. Meanwhile, Pitbull 2 powerbombs Snot off the top rope, but Dudley dives with a flying elbowdrop to break the cover, and Snot gets the upset pin at 6:25 - becoming the catalyst for the Pitbulls/Raven breakup. This was more about the stuff happening outside of the ring than anything else, but man, ECW sure knew how to make even the shittiest of matches come off as exciting. ¼* (Original rating: DUD)

Chad Austin and Broad Street Bully v Don E. Allen and Dino Sendoff: Austin and Allen start, and this is straight out of any local indy show you've ever been to. Over to Bully, and he beats down Austin, but 911 is as tired of this junk as anyone else, and decides to walk out and chokeslam everyone involved for a no contest at 2:10. Again, this was less about having a match as it was about getting to watch 911 destroys these goobers. DUD (Original rating: DUD)

Hack Meyers v Big Val: Wow, that 'big' is certainly not of the ironic variety. And neither is that 'hack.' Lots of stalling to start, as Val plays to the crowd, and practically gets winded while doing so. Meyers goes for a slam, which goes about as well as could be expected. He opts to simply slug away instead, which brings him more success, but Val avalanches him after reversing a cross corner whip. Four more avalanches follow over the course of the next few minutes, and Val delivers a scoop powerslam. Splash follows, but an elbowdrop misses, and Meyers actually gets the pin off of it at 7:37. These poor fans just can't catch a break. First they suffered through King of the Ring '95, and now this. -*** (Original rating: -***)

Taz v 2 Cold Scorpio: Taz dominates him to start, but Scorpio manages to avoid getting suplexed, and bails to the outside. The Network's closed captioning spells Taz with the extra 'z,' WWE style. I can imagine what the college kid who gets assigned handling the captioning of these shows must think of pro-wrestling. Things slow down as they feel each other out, but Scorpio annoys Taz with all of his jumping around, and ends up eating an overhead suplex. Scorpio bails again, and tries to slow things down again with a double-knucklelock on the way back in, using it to set up a monkey flip. Superkick hits, and Scorpio drops Taz with a nice powerbomb, then follows with a butterfly suplex for two. Scorpio with a standing moonsault, but a flying splash hits knees, and Scorpio has to throw a thumb to the eye to prevent a comeback. He adds a uranage, but Taz blocks a second one, and executes an exploder suplex. Scorpio cuts him off with a tombstone to set up the tumbleweed, but Taz no-sells, and hits a half-nelson suplex for three at 8:00 - despite Scorpio having a foot in the ropes. Unfortunately for Taz, Bill Alfonso runs out to alert the original referee to the foot on the ropes, and he wants the match restarted. Paul Heyman objects, but as they argue, Scorpio sneaks up on Taz with a chair to lay him out, then comes off the top with a flying legdrop onto a chair covered Taz for an Alfonso counted pin at 9:36. I've seen worse. This was certainly the most professional looking match of the show thus far. ** (Original rating: ½*)

ECW World Tag Team Title Match: Raven and Stevie Richards v Tommy Dreamer and Luna Vachon: Raven fights off both challengers by himself to start, and he and Tommy spill to the outside, while Stevie stomps on Luna in the ring. Raven sends Dreamer into the guardrail and hits him with a chair, but a suplex on the floor is countered with a DDT, and Tommy heads in to save Luna. He holds Richards for Luna to grab in a testicular claw, and Tommy drops Stevie with a fallaway slam. Luna hits him with a swinging neckbreaker, as Tommy hops to the outside - holding Raven for fans to hit with frying pans! That may be the riskiest spot anyone tries tonight. Dreamer beats a bloody Raven up the aisle to abuse with a newspaper dispenser, as Luna works over Richards in the ring. Dreamer finds an ironing board, and helps Luna beat on Stevie with it, but that allows Raven time to recover, and he takes Tommy out. Raven and Richards blast Luna with a chair, and Raven takes Tommy up the aisle - wedging his hand in the door of the newspaper dispenser for some Scorsese movie style fun. Raven adds a DDT onto the dispenser, and he leaves him for dead so he and Stevie can finish off Luna with a tandem DDT, but it only gets two! Raven refuses to believe it, and ends up getting tied in the ropes while in denial, allowing Luna a floatover superplex on Richards! Cover, but the referee is distracted with Raven and Dreamer on the outside, and Beulah throws a handful of powder in Vachon's eyes - Stevie covering to retain at 7:34! Some awesome chaos here. *** (Original rating: ½*)

Taipei Death Match: Axl Rotten v Ian Rotten: ECW Commissioner Tod Gordon forces pest referee Bill Alfonso to referee this one, purely out of spite. Both guys have their fists taped and covered in bits of broken glass and tacks for the occasion. It doesn't take long for blood to start flowing here, as literally the first contact of the match results in Ian getting busted open, and Alfonso stops the match at 1:30. As the crowd reacts to that, suddenly Public Enemy and the Gangstas brawl out into the aisle, which draws police to break them up, and that distracts Alfonso long enough for Gordon to restart the match! Axl is bleeding within moments as well, and my God this crowd is disturbingly bloodthirsty. They keep trading punches with the glass covered fists, and then spill to the outside - both guys bleeding all over the place as they brawl. Inside, Axl covers for two, but Ian punches him in the balls with the glass, and fetches a bag of thumbtacks. He spills them out and tries to piledrive Axl, but Axl counters with a backdrop onto the tack, and a splash finishes at 7:10. Look, I'm not into gore fests, so this wasn't my thing at all. Like, a bladejob here and there to enhance a match is one thing, but there was no artistry to this. And, call me old fashioned, but two dudes straight up stabbing each other is not a wrestling match. DUD (Original rating: DUD)

Raven and Stevie Richards get into another brawl with Tommy Dreamer and Luna Vachon, wiping the ring with them. They go for the kill by summoning the Pitbulls out to powerbomb them, but the Pitbulls are still sore about what happened in the opener, and they turn on the tag champions! They look to powerbomb Stevie off the top rope to send a message, but now the Dudley Brothers run back out to save! That leads to a wild brawl all around the arena, leading to Raven and Richards getting put through pieces of the entrance set, but the Dudley's save them from getting powerbombed off the stage!

ECW World Title Match: Sandman v Cactus Jack: Joey Styles makes a reference to WCW, calling it the 'old timers freak show at CNN Center.' Dude, wait a couple of years and get back to me. Not to be outdone by the earlier freak show, Jack comes out with his fist wrapped in barbed wire for this. Sandman taunts him from the outside for a while, frustrating Jack enough to go after Woman, but it turns out to be a ploy - Woman throwing a drink in his face to allow Sandman to attack with his Singapore cane. He beats on Jack and tosses him to the outside, then dives over the top rope with a cane shot. Back in, Cactus manages to DDT him, and he grabs the cane to tee off. He grabs a chair next, but that ends up backfiring on him, and Sandman is able to cane his wire covered hand. Sandman works him over with dull punch-kick stuff, and delivers a slingshot legdrop for two. Bodyslam sets up a flying legdrop for two, and Sandman adds a piledriver onto a chair. Woman passes him a strand of barbed wire, which Sandman wraps around his body ahead of hitting the challenger with an avalanche. Bodyslam sets up a flying splash from the wire wrapped champion, but a charge gets him backdropped over the top, and Cactus dives off the apron with a chair-assisted elbowdrop on the floor. He whips Sandman into the rail out there, then back inside where Jack wraps some wire around Sandman's head to set up a 2^nd rope flying legdrop with a chair for two! One thing I dig about this compared to a lot of other similar deals is that Francine is still sitting at ringside this whole time. She didn't just do her bit during the opener and leave, she stayed for the whole show! Cactus keeps working over Sandman, so Woman comes in with the cane, but Jack beats her up. That results in the referee getting bumped, so Shane Douglas runs in, and gives Sandman a piledriver. He decides to hit Jack in the eye with the cane for good measure, and Sandman ends up crawling on top of him to retain at 13:10. This was pretty shitty, with Jack not only limited by having his right hand wrapped in barbed wire, but also opting to wear Cuban heeled boots into the ring for some reason. And then afterwards, Tod Gordon comes out to fire Douglas for his behavior, but Shane kicks the shit out of him, which of course leads to 911 coming out with a chokeslam as a goodbye gift! One thing ECW truly excelled at was writing out characters, and this was no exception. ½* (Original rating: ½*)

Main Event: The Public Enemy v The Gangstas: ECW fans remind me of being in the crowd when The Kinks do 'I'm Not Like Everybody Else,' all singing along in unison about what individuals they are. Sign in the crowd notes that Public Enemy are 'more violent than a Klan rally.' Jesus. They immediately all spill to the outside for a brawl, with weapons immediately getting involved. Mustafa Saed whips Rocco Rock into the rail, as New Jack beats Johnny Grunge bloody with a disabled fans crutch. Rock and Mustafa spill into the crowd for a brawl over to the Eagle's Nest area, and over in the ring, Grunge pounds Jack with an umbrella. Rock dives off the platform with a flying somersault senton splash to put Mustafa through a table, as some poor little kid in the crowd looks terrified by it all. Why on earth would you bring a small child to an ECW show? Mustafa hits Rock through a table with a slam, as Jack hits Johnny with a hotshot in the ring. Rock and Mustafa head back to ringside, where Mustafa hits Grunge with a powerslam for two, as the weapons get more and more creative - a mailbox, a computer keyboard, and a croquet mallet can all be seen. Rock puts Jack through a table with a flying moonsault, but Mustafa breaks up the cover at two, and he dumps Rocco to the outside. That allows the Gangstas to double up on Grunge, but they fail to see Rock coming off the top with the mallet - blasting Mustafa for the pin at 11:33. This wasn't as good as the earlier tag brawl, but still a million times better and more authentic than whatever shit the Nasty Boys were doing with Harlem Heat every month. And then afterwards, we get a great visual to end the show on, with Public Enemy inviting the fans into the ring to celebrate with them, looking like the ghetto version of the yacht party scene from The Wolf of Wall Street. * ½ (Original rating: ¼*)

BUExperience: It wasn’t great wrestling in the traditional sense, but damned if it wasn’t entertaining as hell! This felt like it was emanating from an entirely different planet than wherever the WWF and WCW were coming from during this time. It felt fresh and exciting, all of which still shines through even over twenty years later. Imagine someone bottled the first Ramones show at CBGB, and you’ve got an idea of what this was like. It was dirty, unpolished, sloppy, unsafe, bursting at the seams, and generally out of control – like nothing else mainstream in 1995.


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