Mike Reviews: ECW Hardcore TV #358 – 04/03/2000

Hello You!

Last week’s show was pretty missable, as have most of them been for the past month or so, with Hardcore TV being very much the secondary show now to TNN, especially as they’ve started doing the big Network Vs ECW feud. Still, there’s at least something notable happening on this show today, so we can all look forward to that.

But anyway, that’s enough jibber jabber, let’s watch some chuffing wrestling!

This week’s matches were taped from Cincinnati, Ohio

Calling the action is Joey Styles

The show opens up with The Dupp’s coming down to the ring. One of them grabs a mic to say that they lost a Loser Leaves ECW match at some point, but they are refusing to leave and that no one can make them. The Sandman disagrees with this however and comes down to beat them up and send them out of ECW. I can’t say I’m too upset by this, as I’ve never thought The Dupp’s were worth much as a workers and I thought the gimmick was just a poor man’s Jamie Noble and Nidia styled trailer trash one. By wrestling standards that’s always a very cheap and lazy one, so you have to really play it to the hilt like Noble did to actually get some worth from it, and The Dupp’s never really did in my opinion.

Show Intro: This week’s tagline is “Tonight, We Take Cincinnati, To The Extreme, It’s ECW Hardcore TV!”

Network Executive heads down to the ring, although he has no jurisdiction here because it’s Hardcore TV and not ECW on TNN. This leads to him yelling at Jim Molineux for giving away free copies of ECW Hardcore Revolution: The Video Game, before introducing a guy from “Rocket Bowl”, which is something I’ve never heard of. The kid does an awful dance and Cyrus asks Molineux to do it as well, but Molineux attacks him instead, which leads to Cyrus attacking him. This entire segment was the definition of filler that was done just to get a sneaky plug in for the video game. Speaking of Acclaim wrestling games, I actually dug out WWF Warzone from my collection and had a quick go on it this week. It’s by no means a great game but it has a pretty nifty roster and it’s dripping with early Attitude Era…attitude. It’s just a shame they didn’t try to really improve the game engine that much, as Warzone is a decent enough first stab that could have been the precursor to some decent games if Acclaim hadn’t been interested in just releasing the same game every year with a fresh coat of paint.

COMMERCIAL

Masato Tanaka is cutting a promo to camera, which leads to Dawn Marie coming over to yell at him. The Impact Players of Justin Credible and Lance Storm run up to attack him.

Opening Match
Super Crazy Vs CW Anderson w/ Beautiful Billy, Erik Watts and Lou E. Dangerously

Super Crazy got to run out and save the babyfaces last week, and they continue to book him strong by having him shine on all four heels to start, ending with him putting Lou E through a table before the break.

COMMERCIAL

Back from the ads, Hardcore TV has engaged in its most annoying trope, by cutting out a huge chunk of the match and coming back with CW kicking away a bloody Crazy. Couldn’t they have cut out the opening two segments and just given us the match in its entirety? Anyway, Crazy soon fights his way back into things but ends up getting wheelbarrow suplexed through a table in the corner for a two count.

You can really tell that they saw CW as the star of the team here, as it was usually always him working the singles matches and they would usually give him chances to look strong in the matches themselves. Heel miscommunication leads to CW super kicking Billy off the apron through a table, which allows Crazy to brain CW with a sickening chair shot to the head. Yup, it’s the year 2000 alright! A Quebrada follows next and that’s enough for Crazy to get the win.

WINNER: SUPER CRAZY
RATING: N/A

Far too much of that match was cut out for me to have any chance of rating it fairly. What was shown was exciting and they are continuing to a good job making Crazy look like a strong babyface character that you can get behind. This was all about making him look like a top guy, and it worked for the most part as the crowd was really into him by the end.

COMMERCIAL

Back from the ads, Danny Doring and Roadkill are delivering the Buggy Bang to Little Guido to pick up the three count. Joey pushes on commentary that they’ll be looking for a shot at The Impact Players in the near future, whilst Elektra shows off her skimpy outfit to everyone.

Match Two
Jazz Vs Simon Diamond w/ Mitch and “The Prodigy” Tom Marquez

Joey hypes on commentary that this is supposed to end the feud between these two, but Cyrus interrupts again as Joey snarks on TNN’s ratings outside of ECW. Cyrus says that the inter-gender matches have run their course and that they are now killing ratings. This is to tease that he’s going to find an alternate opponent for Diamond, but it turns out that he has another opponent for Jazz, who ends up being Rhino. Sadly the show description on The WWE Network spoiled that swerve. Rhino easily dispatches Jazz with a GORE and Piledriver, and that’s all she wrote.

WINNER: RHINO
RATING: N/A

This was just an angle to get some heat on Cyrus.

COMMERCIAL

Tommy Dreamer comes down to the ring with a microphone. He asks the crowd if Pete Rose should be in the Hall of Fame, and they seem to think so based on a loud cheer. Dreamer apologises to Francine for DDT’ing her last week, saying that he was blinded and didn’t know it was her. He also apologises to Raven as well, saying that they need to patch things up to win the Tag Titles against The Impact Players. Francine comes out, but she doesn’t look happy at the apology.

COMMERCIAL

Back from the ads, Francine says that Dreamer is lying and that he wasn’t blinded, although he obviously was. So yes, this is the end of the Dreamer and Francine tandem, which is probably for the best as they never really worked together as a partnership. Francine insults Dreamer and says that he did nothing in ECW until she started managing him. Dreamer tells her to hit the bricks, which leads to her slapping him. Dreamer tries a piledriver, but Raven runs in with the DDT and then leaves with Francine to give Dreamer some payback for taking Beulah from him all those years ago. The Impact Players join us next to put the boots to Dreamer, as this becomes the typical Paul Heyman “conjoining segments into an elongated angle”, as Masato Tanaka avenges the attack from earlier by running down to the ring for the rescue. A referee starts counting pins, so this would appear to be an impromptu match.

Main Event
ECW Tag Team Titles
Champs: The Impact Players of Justin Credible and Lance Storm w/ Dawn Marie Vs Tommy Dreamer and Masato Tanaka

We go straight to the arena wide brawl, with all four men fighting all over the place. Eventually things head back to the ring, where Storm and Credible work over Dreamer before bringing a table into the ring. Dreamer manages to end up giving Storm a Spicolli Driver through it though, which leads to Credible destroying everyone with his Singapore cane. Tanaka mounts a comeback though and gets the coolest move in wrestling, The Diamond Dust, to pick up the three count and the Titles!

WINNERS AND NEW CHAMPIONS: MASATO TANAKA AND TOMMY DREAMER
RATING: N/A

This was also more of an elongated angle, which has been a theme tonight. Still, Tanaka and Dreamer as Tag Champs is an interesting way to go at least, as they may be wacky miss-matched partners but they are also both babyfaces who will probably be able to get along, which means we might get some good matches out of it.

Tanaka and Dreamer barely have a chance to celebrate and we’re out.

In Conclusion

I wasn’t bored, I’ll give it that, and relevant storyline stuff actually happened, so I’ll give the show a tentative thumbs up this week. I’m very happy that they’re giving Crazy a genuine push though and actually having him do something else other than just wrestling Tajiri every week.