Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #357 – 26/02/2000

Hello You!

Last week’s show was a shedload of filler, with little in the way of new material and most of the show being made up of clips from the TNN show. Sadly this week’s show looks similar, but there are at least two fresh matches for us to enjoy. Hopefully they’re good.

But anyway, less chatter, let’s watch some chuffing wrestling!

This week’s matches were taped from Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Calling the action is Joey Styles

We open up the show this week with clips from TNN, as the now revealed Network Exec Cyrus tries to award the ECW TV Title to Rhino, who just so happens to be a member of his Network stable. Cyrus demands that Paul Heyman himself deliver the belt to him, as well as a cup of coffee, and then chastises and insults Paul once he finally shows up. Cyrus badgers Paul to give him the belt, so Paul does by clocking him right in the mush with it! This leads to a heel beat down from The Network, only for Sandman to make the “save” by sauntering down to the ring whilst Paul’s remains are carried away. Thankfully Rhino, Steve Corino and Jack Victory decide to patiently wait for Sandman to make it down to the ring rather than finishing Paul off. Sandman finally makes it into the ring and gets promptly clobbered thanks to a run-in from Tajiri. We cut to Super Crazy sprinting down for the save and clearing the ring. This segment was a bit of a mess but it at least served a purpose as Crazy got a legit rub from being the guy to make the rescue, which is something he’s needed.

Show Intro: This week’s tagline is “Tonight, Milwaukee Gets Extreme! It’s ECW Hardcore TV”

Joey Styles is in front of the ECW Banner, where he says that Rhino is taking credit for breaking Rob Van Dam’s leg, which sets up a feud down the line for when he gets back. He adds that tonight we’ll see some more from the Raven/Dreamer/Francine soap opera.

Opening Match
The New Dangerous Alliance (Beautiful Billy and CW Anderson) w/ Lou E. Dangerously Vs Nova and Chris Chetti

Lou E gets some promo time before the match starts, which he uses to insult the Green Bay Packers fans by saying nasty things about Bret Favre. It’s your basic cheap heat promo, but it works in getting the crowd to boo them at least. They really need a better dubbed theme for Nova and Chetti, as the one they have here doesn’t suit them at all and really is no substitute for Intergalactic by The Beastie Boys.

This is your typical opening tag team match, as Nova and Chetti shine on the heels with some fast paced stuff and it all looks pretty good. Nova and Chetti were becoming a solid team at this stage and you could tell that they were comfortable as partners after a slightly shaky start. A sneaky chair shot by CW to Chetti leads to the cut off, with The New Dangerous Alliance then getting some heat on him for a bit. The work in the heat is decent and the crowd gets behind Chetti to tag out.

Chetti eventually manages to catch CW with a desperation jumping side kick before making the hot tag to Nova, who gets a nice little comeback by running wild on both heels and even going to a ten punch in the corner on Billy. Chetti gets a fireman’s carry into a Michinoku Driver on Billy next, which leads to Nova coming off the top with a graceful Swanton Bomb, but when Chetti goes to make the cover CW drags him out of the ring.

The New Dangerous Alliance get a very nice near fall when Billy catapults Nova into a CW super kick before getting a roll up for two. Chetti tries to get back in to help his partner, but Lou E shoves him off the apron to the floor to put a stop to that before clocking Nova with his 80’s era mobile phone. This allows CW to splat Nova with a spine buster and The New Dangerous Alliance get their hands raised.

WINNERS: THE NEW DANGEROUS ALLIANCE
RATING: **1/2

That was a fun little TV match where they worked the traditional tag team formula well before giving the heel unit a win to give them some credibility. They should probably look to actually do something with Nova and Chetti though, as they are becoming a well-oiled unit and they could do something further up the card as a team.

COMMERCIAL

Back from the break, we get more clips from ECW on TNN, as Tommy Dreamer gets the crowd to cheer that Milwaukee is ECW Country. No, I think it’s probably still AWA Country if I’m being honest Tommy, as I don’t think any other major company really claimed it. Dreamer is still annoyed that Raven DDT’ed Francine last week and demands he come out for a fight, but Francine comes out instead to say that Raven was blinded and it wasn’t his fault. This leads to The Impact Players of Justin Credible and Lance Storm coming down to the ring with Dawn Marie. It’s been a while since Dawn was on the show actually and I’ve missed her. The Impact Players lay down the challenge for a match tonight, which leads to Francine choosing Raven as Tommy’s partner.

We get clips of the match, as Raven runs down in his civvies and actually works with Dreamer to try and win the belts. We cut to Dreamer giving Storm a Spicolli Driver through a table, which leads to our contractually mandated cat fight between Dawn and Francine. Whilst this goes on, Sinister Minister comes down to the ring to hand Raven some powder (make your own jokes, I’m busy here) but Raven ends up throwing it in Dreamer’s face by accident, which leads to a blinded Dreamer DDT’ing Francine. Raven goes to tend to Francine, which allows The Impact Players to defeat Dreamer with a prototypical Meltzer Driver.

ECW Magazine promo spot

Sinister Minister cuts a promo in a room with a prominent echo. Just as I’m about to complain about the production snafu, the camera pans out to show that Minister is sitting in a drained swimming pool, where he says things are getting “deep” in the Raven/Dreamer story before cackling in his usual style.

COMMERCIAL

Main Event
Masato Tanaka Vs Spanish Angel w/ Tony DeVito

Tanaka shines on Angel in the early going before getting cut off thanks to DeVito running interference. Angel gets a little bit of heat on Tanaka and tries to superplex him through a table. Tanaka fights him off however and tries a Tornado DDT through it, only to hit the table at a weird angle on the way down and not break it. Someone needs to send that to Maffew if he hasn’t seen it already. Hopefully he uses the menu music from Plok on the Super Nintendo

Tanaka decides the table MUST BE BROKEN so German Suplexes Angel through it before making a cover, which brings in DeVito to break it up. Heel miscommunication sees DeVito accidentally catching Angel with a chair however, which allows Tanaka to take Angel down with the Roaring Elbow for the three count.

WINNER: MASATO TANAKA
RATING: *

This one was rushed and just never really got going. The table botch was pretty bad as well.

Da Baldies attack Tanaka after the match, which leads to New Jack limping out for the rescue on his injured ankle. I must say, I quite like New Jack’s WWE Network dubbed them actually. It’s grown on me as I’ve watched these episodes of Hardcore TV. New Jack can barely move here, so Da Baldies have to patiently feed for him as he slowly works them over. Tanaka helps New Jack out, as I really think he’s way too good to get dragged into this insipid storyline. The faces stand tall and that’s the show.

In Conclusion

Another week of filler that you could easily skip. It’s a shame as Hardcore TV for a while was still maintaining a steady flow of new stuff and wasn’t just the Velocity to the TNN show’s Smackdown, but that hasn’t been the case recently. We still don’t have much of a Living Dangerously card either, so I really hope they start getting that going as we’re not far out from the show.