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Welcome to My (And Not Sly's) House
Hardcore Homecoming
Date: June 10, 2005
Location: ECW Arena, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Commentators: Cyrus, Joey Styles, Joel Gertner
So back in 2005, WWE decided to have One Night Stand in New York. However, a lot of people, traditionally those lacking the mainstream appeal (according to some: talent, which isn’t true all around bit it certainly is in some) decided to have a One Night Stand of their own in the ECW Arena.
This eventually spawned a small tour which totaled three shows, two of which have been released and a third of which most has been released. We might get to those eventually. Anyway, this is more or less the alternative to One Night Stand, so let’s get to it.
We start with a bunch of people being glad to be back. They don’t mention that a ton of people that made that promotion mean anything weren’t there but it would have hurt things a bit I guess. Naturally they have Sabu vs. Shane vs. Funk, because it wasn’t good enough the first two times 9 years ago and 11 years ago I guess. We also have Justin Credible vs. Jerry Lynn and Raven vs. Sandman, who I didn’t think was here tonight.
Funk was offered a contract with WWE to show up so he wouldn’t be here. To be fair though, he doesn’t bash WWE whatsoever. He says he couldn’t do both physically, so he picked the one that was more special to him. That’s perfectly fine. This is actually somewhat emotional. I like that.
They spell the announcer’s name right. Tod Gordon comes out and we get a promo from him saying the fans are awesome. This is prerecorded as he gets in the ring. And I can barely understand him. The audio is AWFUL. He might as well be speaking German or something. I think he said tonight will be cool.
Hat Guy gets an introduction. He deserves that.
Joey, also prerecorded, says this isn’t a wrestling show but rather a party. We’ll ignore him saying on One Night Stand that that night was the best of his professional life. He and Cyrus get in the ring and I’ll give you two guesses as to what Joey’s opening line is. That gets a freaking ROAR. The ring looks very wide.
I still can barely understand him though. I do however understand Joel Gertner interrupting him. While I’ve been watching the old PPVs, this guy has made me laugh freaking HARD. And his neck is still injured. Shouldn’t he get that looked at already? Yep he hasn’t lost a step at all. Joey’s insane reactions to these jokes make them ten times funnier too.
Everyone still hates Cyrus so at least some things never change. He plays nice though and says he’s glad to be back. And that lasts a minute and a half as he goes after Gertner. AND THE NON FIGHTING IS ON! Gertner more or less humps him and runs him off.
Simon Diamond/CW Anderson vs. Mikey Whipwreck/Chris Chetti
Don’t look for any angles tonight obviously as this is just a reunion show. Whipwreck is still in his demon thing from his time with Tajiri. They announce the crowd at over 1,000. Ok that’s fine. They do the big match intros which they should here. Anderson is allegedly related to Arn. The specifics are never given but since they changed the whole thing time after time with the Andersons and Flair it’s ok.
Chetti is in street clothes for no apparent reason. Mikey and Diamond start us off. Diamond and Anderson are the heels by the way, but that’s not going to mean much here. Chetti gets a nice axe kick as there’s little flow to this. I won’t be criticizing them much for that though as a lot of these guys haven’t wrestled in a long time. Yeah this is Chetti’s first match in 4 years so yeah he’s getting a pass here.
Mikey comes in for the save of course and is still awesome. Joey calls them babyfaces. Those are the kinds of things that ECW did that no one else would. I love that. Diamond botches a Gordbuster (old school guys won’t need an explanation on that) and Chetti lands on his head. The Whippersnapper ends it quickly. Joey says Mikey could be Cruiserweight or X-Division champion. He might have a point there. Granted this is 4 and a half years ago.
Rating: D+. It was pretty bland, but that’s going to be said about most matches tonight. Note: just because I’m saying the matches are bad, keep in mind I’m grading them on my normal scale. It’s not factoring in the layoffs or lack of stories etc. That’s not what tonight is about so even though the ratings are going to be low, I’m not looking at this show like a normal show.
Blue Meanie says it’s good to be back. I didn’t recognize him without face paint.
Tracy Smothers vs. Blue Meanie
There’s no theme music for the most part also. Smothers’ dancing never gets old. Meanie does and as always I love his dancing. I never liked the FBI joke. It was ok for awhile but eventually it just got stupid as all hell to me. Styles just gets it out of the way and says it’s a comedy match. Meanie has lost a TON of weight. He looks a bit better so that’s good.
The referee winds up helping Meanie beat up Smothers which is an old standard of these three. It’s stupid as hell, but it’s an old standard. Ok, I get that it’s a comedy match, but there needs to be some actual match in there to balance out the comedy aspect. I know it’s not going to be serious but at least try. Damn it, we’re going to have a dance off. I knew it was coming and I just reviewed the show the original one of these was at.
This is freaking stupid but the fans are into it so there we go. Joey calls Smothers a heel to make sure we’re clear on that one. Amazingly enough in two days Smothers would defend Meanie from a legit attack by JBL. Ah ok now we’re getting some…well I guess this passes for wrestling. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt.
Meanie gets a People’s Leg Drop. Eh it’s cheap but I can live with that. As Meanie goes for the moonsault, J.T. Smith, another “Italian” hits Meanie with a chain. Meanie gets to take some bows which is cool.
Rating: C-. It was a comedy match so I can’t complain much here. This was fine for what it was I guess and it worked pretty well. Like Joey said, this wasn’t about wrestling and while this would invent a new level of awful on a regular show, at a reunion show, this was just fine.
We now get what is more or less the signature moment of this show, as we have a tribute to the fallen heroes of hardcore. The three main ones here are Pitbull #2, Rocco Rock and Chris Candido, who passed away about a month and a half before this. Grunge, who is here on Rock’s behalf, would die soon after this due to heart failure. Sunny is rapidly gaining weight here, which to be fair she’s since lost.
Sunny needs to just flash the crowd once and for all and be over with it. Roadkill and Danny Doring come out to complain. Doring gets in an argument with Hat Guy. If there was one thing I would have loved to see ECW do, it was an angle with Hat Guy. Seriously, can you imagine how awesome it would be to let their most well known and loyal fan do a little something.
The interrupters beat up everyone as the fans chant for New Jack. They get 911 instead and both heels get chokeslams and Grunge puts Roadkill through a table. Nice pop there. This was cool but could have been a bit longer.
Kid Kash talks about the arena being cool.
Kid Kash vs. 2 Cold Scorpio
Scorpio has a belt with him. He had that at Heroes of Wrestling also, which is odd as hell. Oh this one is apparently a NOAH tag title. Both guys are doing quite a bit of crotch grabbing which is annoying as all hell. Joey can’t get over the fact that Scorpio has abs. One interesting thing is that this is officially a Hardcore Homecoming promotion.
They use the letters ECW as carefully as possibly. It sucks that that’s what has to happen but it’s reality sadly enough. What are you really expecting here? Of course it’s a massive spotfest. We get some nice spots which actually work as both guys are in pretty good shape at this point. They do throw in some ground work which is a nice perk. Scorpio dominates for the most part but then throws him to the floor and they brawl for awhile which doesn’t go well.
Joey keeps bringing up the heat, saying that it’s over 100 degrees in there. That’s saying a lot actually. Why is it doing that? I have no idea, but it sounds good. Scorpio really does look like he’s in good shape. They botch a few spots but nothing terribly bad. Joey calls a two count two and 15/16. Styles cracks me up at times. An arm trap powerbomb and the 450 ends this.
Rating: C-. For a spotfest this was fine. They were doing an old school vs. new school thing and it worked just fine. This is one of those that falls into the category of fine for what it was. It wasn’t supposed to be taken incredibly seriously and it wasn’t.
Axl Rotten says the same thing everyone else did.
Eliminators vs. Bad Breed
Ok not really. This was supposed to be the Eliminators but Saturn hurt his neck again. Also the Bad Breed (Axl and Ian Rotten) weren’t announced. They had a Taipei Death Match: tape up your hands, dip them in glue, dip into bucket of broken glass and pummel each other about the head and shoulders. Yeah there’s nothing dumb about that at all.
Oh ok since they lost a you can’t team together again if you lose match, this isn’t an official match so there’s no referee. This is a fight. Kronus, who is FAR fatter here, is bleeding already. And it’s New Jack, and it’s that damn song. This match is already failing. So it’s actually the Gangstanators vs. Bad Breed in a non match. Axl is busted open. Jack tries to stab Ian with scissors. Ian and Jack just carve each other up, literally, with the scissors.
Thankfully we don’t have many close-ups of it. I hate this fucking shit but you knew it was coming. Hey they stopped the damn song! And there it is again. Oh fuck it. We have a scaffold wheeled in. To set up for that we have a fork lift being used. Oh look, it’s a table. Because you know, that’s far more hardcore than anything else we’ve used already. New Jack gets on top of the scaffold which would be like standing on someone’s shoulders who was on the top rope. The table more or less implodes.
Rating: N/A. Since this wasn’t a match, I don’t have to grade it, meaning I don’t have to think about it anymore.
New Jack is for some reason handed a microphone and told to talk. He drops more cursing than is needed at all. This goes on almost five minutes. He implies Vince offered him a contract. That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all night.
Jerry Lynn says he wants Justin Credible. He’s coming back after a shoulder surgery. Credible is still overrated as hell.
They make sure to emphasize this isn’t an official ECW show. It’s kind of amusing but at the same time they have to do that.
Justin Credible vs. Jerry Lynn
Justin is wearing a wifebeater so he looks like a bald and less interesting Billy Kidman. Apparently they had a best of 21 series in the ECW Arena in the summer of 2000. That’s not overkill at all. Jerry is in great shape which I type at the same time Joey says it. They do a technical style here and Lynn does an awesome move where he’s on the apron and teases a sunset flip but turns in the air and hits a Famerasser instead. I love that.
They slow it down a lot and we get a good wrestling match out of these two. Justin argues with Hat Guy which is just fun. It’s saying a lot when you have one fan that gets over just because he’s there a lot. That’s very cool. In a surprising spot, Jason pops Jerry with a chair and Justin gets the tombstone for a long two. This is actually pretty good. The Cradle piledriver only gets two.
Jason shoves Jerry off the top rope for general heelish purposes. Lynn comes back to hit a hurricanrana through a table to the floor, which Joey for some reason calls a reverse victory roll. What the hell? Jason pulls the referee out. Can someone exterminate him? Jazz breaks up the interference and beats up Jason. You think that’s enough J’s in this match???
The referee is named John also. Lynn hits a Cradle Tombstone Piledriver to get the pin. Lynn says that since his birthday is Sunday (This was a Friday), that wasn’t bad for a 42 year old. The fans actually chant for Justin which will never happen again.
Rating: B+. This was very good stuff. Had Jason not been so annoying and had you factored out the tables and the chair and given a hotter crowd, this was an easy A. Even still, as Lynn said, not bad for a 42 year old.
Plug for Hardcore Homecoming merchandise. That’s fine.
Raven of all people talks about his character. Pased on this like minute and a half, I’d love to hear Raven talk more. He was talking fast and interesting sounding. That was pretty cool.
Sandman talks about his entrance and saying how long the song was. He more or less comes out to dance music. Something tells me that in the arena they’re playing the real song but obviously they couldn’t afford to pay for the rights to a legendary song like that. We keep hearing Sandman talk which is rather interesting. He was a surfer but then they made him the Sandman. The rest is history.
Sandman vs. Raven
Does this need an explanation? Raven has Meanie and the Musketeer with him for no apparent reason. Raven REALLY needs to go back to the t-shirt and the jeans. Raven makes fun of Sandman’s entrance not being that cool. We’re less than 48 hours from One Night Stand and one of the most awesome entrances of all time, so that’s just very amusing.
Raven is apparently the only wrestler ever to have an action figure in WWE, WCW, ECW and TNA. That’s…kind of cool I guess. It would be hilarious to see Raven just sitting around coming up with random as hell thoughts like that. I’ve never heard Raven talk this much and I like it. He picks on Hat Guy also, which has to be the highlight of his career. Sandman has to beat Musketeer, who is dressed like a guy from 19th century France, to get to Raven.
They have a sword vs. cane fight. They did this before I think and it was stupid then too. Remember the match hasn’t started yet. Oh hey let’s get the match going. Raven hits like 6 shots to Sandman’s head with the cane before the ball shot puts him down. We get a Johnny Polo chant. Geez has there ever been a guy that changed so much from one gimmick to another?
And now we have Sandman in the Musketeer’s hat. Did that gimmick come to Paulie in a dream or something? There’s a ladder on the floor for no apparent reason. The fans that are standing up to see this get a nice SIT THE FUCK DOWN chant. Sandman comes back and we’re in the ring with the ladder now. We go back to the 80s with a handful of powder though as we get the DDT for two.
That’s one issue I have here: 8 years ago this would have been over for about an hour but here it gets two. The other thing is it’s more or less impossible to have a guy actually be a heel which is ok but it can get a bit annoying though. Sandman gets the White Russian Leg Sweep and then the Rolling Rock. Meanie comes in and completely misses the moonsault again.
Not that Sandman moves, but Meanie just completely misses. They do another and he misses it again. The THIRD one finally hits it. And yep, it’s a complete clusterfuck now. Donny Allen, who apparently was the ECW jobber, comes out to beat up Sandman but Mikey runs him off. After offering a beer to Sandman, he turns on him for no apparent reason with the Whippersnapper for the pin.
Rating: D+. It was a wild brawl and that’s all it was supposed to be. Raven outsmarts Sandman again as Joey says and all is right with the world. What more can you really ask for? Both guys get pops though, which is never really that interesting but whatever. It was a fun match so that’s fine.
Funk, Shane and Sabu talk. And I mean they talk A LOT. Literally they talk for about 10 minutes about how important the match was. Sometime I have to watch that as it simply has to be overhyped at this point.
Shane Douglas vs. Terry Funk vs. Sabu
Oh ok. This is a barbed wire rope match so that’s why they had to use so much time. Francine is with Shane (freaking hot) who booked the tour so this is a huge deal for him, Sabu has Fonzie and Funk has Sunny. Shane talks a lot. He’s great in case you didn’t remember that. Funk is 61 years old here. I get that people think it’s cool and impressive and stuff, but it’s not.
This is stupid of him to keep doing this and they shouldn’t let him. Let him come out and address the crowd and maybe even do a run in, but seriously, do not allow him to do this shit anymore. Sabu of course has no issues with wrestling without a shirt. They have this annoying split screen thing where it’s just another camera angle of the same thing. I don’t get that but whatever.
Sabu goes chest first into it which can’t feel good. More or less this is how many times can we fuck up Sabu, which tells me he’ll be winning. Naturally we get the triple sleeper which is a spot that I just hate. If someone is going to be eliminated, why not just let the person in the initial sleeper be in it so that that person is out? If you put the guy in the middle to sleep, he’s going to lose the sleeper he’s got.
So we get a ton of weapons and violence, none of which really go anywhere. This just isn’t that interesting, but it’s supposed to be a throwback to the original and on that note it’s a good thing. Funk gets tied up in the wire and there’s blood everywhere. Sabu gets his neck caught in it and the freak show is on. WILL YOU STOP WITH THE FREAKING CAMERA ANGLES JUMPING???
Joey suggests that Shane has been planning this beating for years. Ok then. The ropes are pretty much gone as they had to cut both guys out. Douglas hits the referee in the back of the head with a chain for no apparent reason, to set up the real shock of the night: the lights go out and as they come back on, MICK FREAKING FOLEY is in the ring to a massive pop.
He would do the commentary with Joey in two days so this really was a big deal. He busts out Socko to get booed out of the building but a double arm DDT helps things. He wraps Socko in barbed wire to help a bit and after the Tumbleweed and a chair shot, Douglas is out.
After more brawling, they set up a ladder and the ladder literally crumbles. I mean it just breaks apart which is cool looking. This lets Sabu hit an Arabian Facebuster with a chair to get the pin. There’s a HUGE celebration with these four guys and Terry gets carried out as his shirt is more or less covered in blood to end the show.
Rating: F. For letting Funk do this at 60+ years old. I get that he wanted to, but sometimes you have to tell the guy no. Let him do what Foley did instead or something, but you can’t have him out there getting beaten up like this, period.
Overall Rating: B+. This wasn’t meant to be about the wrestling and it wasn’t. This was about letting the old guys come out one more time and show off for the fans. That’s exactly what they did and it worked very well.
Now, One Night Stand blows this out of the damn water, but it’s interesting to see the shall we say unedited version here while you get the glossy yet awesome One Night Stand show which had FAR more star power plus the ending with them destroying Bischoff. I’d say this is a great companion piece for One Night Stand, but if you have to pick one, it’s One Night Stand by a mile.
Date: June 10, 2005
Location: ECW Arena, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Commentators: Cyrus, Joey Styles, Joel Gertner
So back in 2005, WWE decided to have One Night Stand in New York. However, a lot of people, traditionally those lacking the mainstream appeal (according to some: talent, which isn’t true all around bit it certainly is in some) decided to have a One Night Stand of their own in the ECW Arena.
This eventually spawned a small tour which totaled three shows, two of which have been released and a third of which most has been released. We might get to those eventually. Anyway, this is more or less the alternative to One Night Stand, so let’s get to it.
We start with a bunch of people being glad to be back. They don’t mention that a ton of people that made that promotion mean anything weren’t there but it would have hurt things a bit I guess. Naturally they have Sabu vs. Shane vs. Funk, because it wasn’t good enough the first two times 9 years ago and 11 years ago I guess. We also have Justin Credible vs. Jerry Lynn and Raven vs. Sandman, who I didn’t think was here tonight.
Funk was offered a contract with WWE to show up so he wouldn’t be here. To be fair though, he doesn’t bash WWE whatsoever. He says he couldn’t do both physically, so he picked the one that was more special to him. That’s perfectly fine. This is actually somewhat emotional. I like that.
They spell the announcer’s name right. Tod Gordon comes out and we get a promo from him saying the fans are awesome. This is prerecorded as he gets in the ring. And I can barely understand him. The audio is AWFUL. He might as well be speaking German or something. I think he said tonight will be cool.
Hat Guy gets an introduction. He deserves that.
Joey, also prerecorded, says this isn’t a wrestling show but rather a party. We’ll ignore him saying on One Night Stand that that night was the best of his professional life. He and Cyrus get in the ring and I’ll give you two guesses as to what Joey’s opening line is. That gets a freaking ROAR. The ring looks very wide.
I still can barely understand him though. I do however understand Joel Gertner interrupting him. While I’ve been watching the old PPVs, this guy has made me laugh freaking HARD. And his neck is still injured. Shouldn’t he get that looked at already? Yep he hasn’t lost a step at all. Joey’s insane reactions to these jokes make them ten times funnier too.
Everyone still hates Cyrus so at least some things never change. He plays nice though and says he’s glad to be back. And that lasts a minute and a half as he goes after Gertner. AND THE NON FIGHTING IS ON! Gertner more or less humps him and runs him off.
Simon Diamond/CW Anderson vs. Mikey Whipwreck/Chris Chetti
Don’t look for any angles tonight obviously as this is just a reunion show. Whipwreck is still in his demon thing from his time with Tajiri. They announce the crowd at over 1,000. Ok that’s fine. They do the big match intros which they should here. Anderson is allegedly related to Arn. The specifics are never given but since they changed the whole thing time after time with the Andersons and Flair it’s ok.
Chetti is in street clothes for no apparent reason. Mikey and Diamond start us off. Diamond and Anderson are the heels by the way, but that’s not going to mean much here. Chetti gets a nice axe kick as there’s little flow to this. I won’t be criticizing them much for that though as a lot of these guys haven’t wrestled in a long time. Yeah this is Chetti’s first match in 4 years so yeah he’s getting a pass here.
Mikey comes in for the save of course and is still awesome. Joey calls them babyfaces. Those are the kinds of things that ECW did that no one else would. I love that. Diamond botches a Gordbuster (old school guys won’t need an explanation on that) and Chetti lands on his head. The Whippersnapper ends it quickly. Joey says Mikey could be Cruiserweight or X-Division champion. He might have a point there. Granted this is 4 and a half years ago.
Rating: D+. It was pretty bland, but that’s going to be said about most matches tonight. Note: just because I’m saying the matches are bad, keep in mind I’m grading them on my normal scale. It’s not factoring in the layoffs or lack of stories etc. That’s not what tonight is about so even though the ratings are going to be low, I’m not looking at this show like a normal show.
Blue Meanie says it’s good to be back. I didn’t recognize him without face paint.
Tracy Smothers vs. Blue Meanie
There’s no theme music for the most part also. Smothers’ dancing never gets old. Meanie does and as always I love his dancing. I never liked the FBI joke. It was ok for awhile but eventually it just got stupid as all hell to me. Styles just gets it out of the way and says it’s a comedy match. Meanie has lost a TON of weight. He looks a bit better so that’s good.
The referee winds up helping Meanie beat up Smothers which is an old standard of these three. It’s stupid as hell, but it’s an old standard. Ok, I get that it’s a comedy match, but there needs to be some actual match in there to balance out the comedy aspect. I know it’s not going to be serious but at least try. Damn it, we’re going to have a dance off. I knew it was coming and I just reviewed the show the original one of these was at.
This is freaking stupid but the fans are into it so there we go. Joey calls Smothers a heel to make sure we’re clear on that one. Amazingly enough in two days Smothers would defend Meanie from a legit attack by JBL. Ah ok now we’re getting some…well I guess this passes for wrestling. I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt.
Meanie gets a People’s Leg Drop. Eh it’s cheap but I can live with that. As Meanie goes for the moonsault, J.T. Smith, another “Italian” hits Meanie with a chain. Meanie gets to take some bows which is cool.
Rating: C-. It was a comedy match so I can’t complain much here. This was fine for what it was I guess and it worked pretty well. Like Joey said, this wasn’t about wrestling and while this would invent a new level of awful on a regular show, at a reunion show, this was just fine.
We now get what is more or less the signature moment of this show, as we have a tribute to the fallen heroes of hardcore. The three main ones here are Pitbull #2, Rocco Rock and Chris Candido, who passed away about a month and a half before this. Grunge, who is here on Rock’s behalf, would die soon after this due to heart failure. Sunny is rapidly gaining weight here, which to be fair she’s since lost.
Sunny needs to just flash the crowd once and for all and be over with it. Roadkill and Danny Doring come out to complain. Doring gets in an argument with Hat Guy. If there was one thing I would have loved to see ECW do, it was an angle with Hat Guy. Seriously, can you imagine how awesome it would be to let their most well known and loyal fan do a little something.
The interrupters beat up everyone as the fans chant for New Jack. They get 911 instead and both heels get chokeslams and Grunge puts Roadkill through a table. Nice pop there. This was cool but could have been a bit longer.
Kid Kash talks about the arena being cool.
Kid Kash vs. 2 Cold Scorpio
Scorpio has a belt with him. He had that at Heroes of Wrestling also, which is odd as hell. Oh this one is apparently a NOAH tag title. Both guys are doing quite a bit of crotch grabbing which is annoying as all hell. Joey can’t get over the fact that Scorpio has abs. One interesting thing is that this is officially a Hardcore Homecoming promotion.
They use the letters ECW as carefully as possibly. It sucks that that’s what has to happen but it’s reality sadly enough. What are you really expecting here? Of course it’s a massive spotfest. We get some nice spots which actually work as both guys are in pretty good shape at this point. They do throw in some ground work which is a nice perk. Scorpio dominates for the most part but then throws him to the floor and they brawl for awhile which doesn’t go well.
Joey keeps bringing up the heat, saying that it’s over 100 degrees in there. That’s saying a lot actually. Why is it doing that? I have no idea, but it sounds good. Scorpio really does look like he’s in good shape. They botch a few spots but nothing terribly bad. Joey calls a two count two and 15/16. Styles cracks me up at times. An arm trap powerbomb and the 450 ends this.
Rating: C-. For a spotfest this was fine. They were doing an old school vs. new school thing and it worked just fine. This is one of those that falls into the category of fine for what it was. It wasn’t supposed to be taken incredibly seriously and it wasn’t.
Axl Rotten says the same thing everyone else did.
Eliminators vs. Bad Breed
Ok not really. This was supposed to be the Eliminators but Saturn hurt his neck again. Also the Bad Breed (Axl and Ian Rotten) weren’t announced. They had a Taipei Death Match: tape up your hands, dip them in glue, dip into bucket of broken glass and pummel each other about the head and shoulders. Yeah there’s nothing dumb about that at all.
Oh ok since they lost a you can’t team together again if you lose match, this isn’t an official match so there’s no referee. This is a fight. Kronus, who is FAR fatter here, is bleeding already. And it’s New Jack, and it’s that damn song. This match is already failing. So it’s actually the Gangstanators vs. Bad Breed in a non match. Axl is busted open. Jack tries to stab Ian with scissors. Ian and Jack just carve each other up, literally, with the scissors.
Thankfully we don’t have many close-ups of it. I hate this fucking shit but you knew it was coming. Hey they stopped the damn song! And there it is again. Oh fuck it. We have a scaffold wheeled in. To set up for that we have a fork lift being used. Oh look, it’s a table. Because you know, that’s far more hardcore than anything else we’ve used already. New Jack gets on top of the scaffold which would be like standing on someone’s shoulders who was on the top rope. The table more or less implodes.
Rating: N/A. Since this wasn’t a match, I don’t have to grade it, meaning I don’t have to think about it anymore.
New Jack is for some reason handed a microphone and told to talk. He drops more cursing than is needed at all. This goes on almost five minutes. He implies Vince offered him a contract. That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all night.
Jerry Lynn says he wants Justin Credible. He’s coming back after a shoulder surgery. Credible is still overrated as hell.
They make sure to emphasize this isn’t an official ECW show. It’s kind of amusing but at the same time they have to do that.
Justin Credible vs. Jerry Lynn
Justin is wearing a wifebeater so he looks like a bald and less interesting Billy Kidman. Apparently they had a best of 21 series in the ECW Arena in the summer of 2000. That’s not overkill at all. Jerry is in great shape which I type at the same time Joey says it. They do a technical style here and Lynn does an awesome move where he’s on the apron and teases a sunset flip but turns in the air and hits a Famerasser instead. I love that.
They slow it down a lot and we get a good wrestling match out of these two. Justin argues with Hat Guy which is just fun. It’s saying a lot when you have one fan that gets over just because he’s there a lot. That’s very cool. In a surprising spot, Jason pops Jerry with a chair and Justin gets the tombstone for a long two. This is actually pretty good. The Cradle piledriver only gets two.
Jason shoves Jerry off the top rope for general heelish purposes. Lynn comes back to hit a hurricanrana through a table to the floor, which Joey for some reason calls a reverse victory roll. What the hell? Jason pulls the referee out. Can someone exterminate him? Jazz breaks up the interference and beats up Jason. You think that’s enough J’s in this match???
The referee is named John also. Lynn hits a Cradle Tombstone Piledriver to get the pin. Lynn says that since his birthday is Sunday (This was a Friday), that wasn’t bad for a 42 year old. The fans actually chant for Justin which will never happen again.
Rating: B+. This was very good stuff. Had Jason not been so annoying and had you factored out the tables and the chair and given a hotter crowd, this was an easy A. Even still, as Lynn said, not bad for a 42 year old.
Plug for Hardcore Homecoming merchandise. That’s fine.
Raven of all people talks about his character. Pased on this like minute and a half, I’d love to hear Raven talk more. He was talking fast and interesting sounding. That was pretty cool.
Sandman talks about his entrance and saying how long the song was. He more or less comes out to dance music. Something tells me that in the arena they’re playing the real song but obviously they couldn’t afford to pay for the rights to a legendary song like that. We keep hearing Sandman talk which is rather interesting. He was a surfer but then they made him the Sandman. The rest is history.
Sandman vs. Raven
Does this need an explanation? Raven has Meanie and the Musketeer with him for no apparent reason. Raven REALLY needs to go back to the t-shirt and the jeans. Raven makes fun of Sandman’s entrance not being that cool. We’re less than 48 hours from One Night Stand and one of the most awesome entrances of all time, so that’s just very amusing.
Raven is apparently the only wrestler ever to have an action figure in WWE, WCW, ECW and TNA. That’s…kind of cool I guess. It would be hilarious to see Raven just sitting around coming up with random as hell thoughts like that. I’ve never heard Raven talk this much and I like it. He picks on Hat Guy also, which has to be the highlight of his career. Sandman has to beat Musketeer, who is dressed like a guy from 19th century France, to get to Raven.
They have a sword vs. cane fight. They did this before I think and it was stupid then too. Remember the match hasn’t started yet. Oh hey let’s get the match going. Raven hits like 6 shots to Sandman’s head with the cane before the ball shot puts him down. We get a Johnny Polo chant. Geez has there ever been a guy that changed so much from one gimmick to another?
And now we have Sandman in the Musketeer’s hat. Did that gimmick come to Paulie in a dream or something? There’s a ladder on the floor for no apparent reason. The fans that are standing up to see this get a nice SIT THE FUCK DOWN chant. Sandman comes back and we’re in the ring with the ladder now. We go back to the 80s with a handful of powder though as we get the DDT for two.
That’s one issue I have here: 8 years ago this would have been over for about an hour but here it gets two. The other thing is it’s more or less impossible to have a guy actually be a heel which is ok but it can get a bit annoying though. Sandman gets the White Russian Leg Sweep and then the Rolling Rock. Meanie comes in and completely misses the moonsault again.
Not that Sandman moves, but Meanie just completely misses. They do another and he misses it again. The THIRD one finally hits it. And yep, it’s a complete clusterfuck now. Donny Allen, who apparently was the ECW jobber, comes out to beat up Sandman but Mikey runs him off. After offering a beer to Sandman, he turns on him for no apparent reason with the Whippersnapper for the pin.
Rating: D+. It was a wild brawl and that’s all it was supposed to be. Raven outsmarts Sandman again as Joey says and all is right with the world. What more can you really ask for? Both guys get pops though, which is never really that interesting but whatever. It was a fun match so that’s fine.
Funk, Shane and Sabu talk. And I mean they talk A LOT. Literally they talk for about 10 minutes about how important the match was. Sometime I have to watch that as it simply has to be overhyped at this point.
Shane Douglas vs. Terry Funk vs. Sabu
Oh ok. This is a barbed wire rope match so that’s why they had to use so much time. Francine is with Shane (freaking hot) who booked the tour so this is a huge deal for him, Sabu has Fonzie and Funk has Sunny. Shane talks a lot. He’s great in case you didn’t remember that. Funk is 61 years old here. I get that people think it’s cool and impressive and stuff, but it’s not.
This is stupid of him to keep doing this and they shouldn’t let him. Let him come out and address the crowd and maybe even do a run in, but seriously, do not allow him to do this shit anymore. Sabu of course has no issues with wrestling without a shirt. They have this annoying split screen thing where it’s just another camera angle of the same thing. I don’t get that but whatever.
Sabu goes chest first into it which can’t feel good. More or less this is how many times can we fuck up Sabu, which tells me he’ll be winning. Naturally we get the triple sleeper which is a spot that I just hate. If someone is going to be eliminated, why not just let the person in the initial sleeper be in it so that that person is out? If you put the guy in the middle to sleep, he’s going to lose the sleeper he’s got.
So we get a ton of weapons and violence, none of which really go anywhere. This just isn’t that interesting, but it’s supposed to be a throwback to the original and on that note it’s a good thing. Funk gets tied up in the wire and there’s blood everywhere. Sabu gets his neck caught in it and the freak show is on. WILL YOU STOP WITH THE FREAKING CAMERA ANGLES JUMPING???
Joey suggests that Shane has been planning this beating for years. Ok then. The ropes are pretty much gone as they had to cut both guys out. Douglas hits the referee in the back of the head with a chain for no apparent reason, to set up the real shock of the night: the lights go out and as they come back on, MICK FREAKING FOLEY is in the ring to a massive pop.
He would do the commentary with Joey in two days so this really was a big deal. He busts out Socko to get booed out of the building but a double arm DDT helps things. He wraps Socko in barbed wire to help a bit and after the Tumbleweed and a chair shot, Douglas is out.
After more brawling, they set up a ladder and the ladder literally crumbles. I mean it just breaks apart which is cool looking. This lets Sabu hit an Arabian Facebuster with a chair to get the pin. There’s a HUGE celebration with these four guys and Terry gets carried out as his shirt is more or less covered in blood to end the show.
Rating: F. For letting Funk do this at 60+ years old. I get that he wanted to, but sometimes you have to tell the guy no. Let him do what Foley did instead or something, but you can’t have him out there getting beaten up like this, period.
Overall Rating: B+. This wasn’t meant to be about the wrestling and it wasn’t. This was about letting the old guys come out one more time and show off for the fans. That’s exactly what they did and it worked very well.
Now, One Night Stand blows this out of the damn water, but it’s interesting to see the shall we say unedited version here while you get the glossy yet awesome One Night Stand show which had FAR more star power plus the ending with them destroying Bischoff. I’d say this is a great companion piece for One Night Stand, but if you have to pick one, it’s One Night Stand by a mile.
It's Raven, and it's Sandman, and the memories alone make this an instant "B". Their feud in ECW was probably the greatest thing to happen there, and this match could have easily happened 7 years before this show, and been completely in storyline.