The SmarK Rant for ECW Wrestling on TNN – 02.25.00

The SmarK Rant for ECW Wrestling on TNN – 02.25.00

So I bought the Elite Edition of AEW Fight Forever on PS5, and just for fun I want to try streaming it to Twitch because I’ve got an account I never use and some of you might appreciate the early look tomorrow when it releases. I was hoping it would drop at midnight tonight, but NOPE. Stupid work means I gotta miss the actual early release at 9am EST, but I’ll try to play for a couple of hours when I get home from work and before I watch Dynamite. My Twitch channel is at http://twitch.tv/rspwfaq2 and I’ve successfully linked my account to the Playstation network and I think I can muddle through broadcasting it live. Not gonna lie, it might be a trainwreck, I dunno.

Speaking of trainwrecks…

Taped from Milwaukee, WI

Your hosts are Joey Styles & Joel Gertner, with no time for a funny intro this week.

Cyrus is in the ring for the cold open, as he announces that TNN does not want the TV title on the shelf for 12 weeks, so he’s made an executive Network decision and he’s going to appoint a new TV champion. And that champion is RHINO. And even better, Paul Heyman will personally bring him the TV title belt so he can award it to Rhino. Also a coffee.

After the opening, Paul does bring out the belt, but not the coffee, and Cyrus demands the title and tells Paul he’s going to sell out to the Network and like it. So Paul milks the moment like a pro, and then gives him the title…right upside the head. So Rhino and his crew all attack Paul, and Sandman leisurely makes the save. Well he saves in that he comes out and stands there drinking and posing with the crowd to provide distraction for Heyman to escape, I guess. Kind of funny how much Heyman changed in years following, going from the ballcap and leather duster rebel promoter look, to the suit-wearing businessman he became just a couple of years after this.

Sandman v. Rhino

Apparently this is an actual match, as the Corino crew all attacks Sandman and Rhino tosses him to the floor. They head back to the entrance way, but Sandman throws him off the stairs and randomly throws a ladder into the ring. Rhino takes some bumps into the ladder and they head back to the floor, where Sandman drops a table on him and they head back in the ring again. Sandman with a slingshot senton on the ladder as the announcers crack jokes about how drunk Sandman is. But it’s not really “ha ha” funny at this point because he was a complete wreck physically and a shell of his former self, doing stupid shit in the ring like that. So all the dweebs run into the ring and it’s a 4-on-1 beatdown, as Tajiri blows green mist in his eyes and it’s a DQ at 4:55. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a DQ in ECW, actually. They happened even less than in AEW. There was barely even a finish here but to be fair it was barely even a match in the first place. DUD. And Super Crazy makes the save.

Meanwhile, Joel is trying to do his schtick, but Joey cuts him off and throws it to a random backstage segment with Danny Doring and Roadkill. They run into the Dupps, and challenge them to a loser leaves town match. Sure why not.

The Dupps v. Danny Doring & Roadkill

The Dupps attack at the bell and double-team Doring, but they comes back with their usual stuff and quickly finish with the Buggy Bang at 1:00 to send the Dupps elsewhere. So we continue the storyline of Doring & Roadkill working towards a tag team title match, which was abruptly dropped and forgotten.

Meanwhile, you can buy ECW Hardcore Revolution, rated M for Mature! Sure, but does it have an exploding ring barbed wire death match in it?

Tommy Dreamer joins us for some easy heat by getting the crowd to chant for ECW, and then he’s had “enough of the fucking soap opera” and wants to finish things with Raven right now. I agree, the storyline has been treading water for six months now, I also appreciate them finishing it and moving on. But Francine comes out instead and stands up for her abuser, claiming that Raven didn’t DDT her on purpose and he’s still a good guy deep down. But then the Impact Players interrupt and Francine and Dawn Marie bitch at each other and call each other sluts and bitches like it’s TNA, and Francine basically nags Dreamer into accepting a tag team title match with Raven as his partner. Kind of embarrassing and cringy to listen to this whole thing.

ECW World tag team title: The Impact Players v. Tommy Dreamer & Raven

So Raven comes out in his street clothes and he shouldn’t be doing drugs because apparently he’s 4 months pregnant. So they have their brawl and poor Justin Credible is just bumping all over the arena for Dreamer. I will say, he was overpushed way beyond all sanity, but he was killing himself to get over on these shows. Dreamer pulls a row of seats into the ring and we get a DOUBLE DROP TOEHOLD OF DEATH on the Impact Players. This is all just the same smoke and mirrors empty brawling that we got in the opening match on the show, just going up and down the aisle and using weapons and tables. Tommy puts Storm through a table with a death valley driver, but Dawn Marie saves and fights with Francine for the millionth time, but the Sinister Minister comes out and gives Raven some magic powder (cough), which he tosses in Tommy’s face by mistake. Having to throw that amount of white powder away must have really hurt Raven. But then Raven helps out Francine and Tommy is left alone and double-teamed while the Minister takes Raven away. And the Players hit Dreamer with the belt, which gets two for Justin. And then a spike piledriver on a chair finishes at 7:31 to retain. That being said, by the time this show aired, they had already dropped the titles to Tommy Dreamer & Masato Tanaka. 1/2*.

And then a cackling Sinister Minister, in the empty arena, basically reveals that he’s been pulling the strings behind the Dreamer-Raven soap opera to end the show.

Hey, did you know that ECW has a PPV in two weeks after this show? And they haven’t even announced a single match yet or mentioned it on their nationally televised TNN show? The crowd was hot but that’s about the only thing the shows have going for them at this point in time, as the matches are all just the same tables and chairs brawls with no point and no direction. Like, yeah, RVD is out for 12 weeks, that sucks. But would it kill Heyman to just announce Mike Awesome defending against someone and hype it? Were his plans so intricately booked that losing RVD destroys his entire PPV plan up and down the card? Sabu was hanging around doing nothing after getting snubbed by WCW, just stick him in there against Awesome and say he’s fighting to avenge RVD or whatever, problem solved.

Anyway we’ll continue slogging through this era but these are seriously some of the worst shows ECW ever produced.