Canon Wrestling Review: ECW Hardcore TV, February 27, 1997

The second of two posts about ECW shows in the last 24 hours. Let's see if this show is any good, shall we?

- We start from Cyberslam 1997 with Joey Styles in the ring, who brings out the Pitbulls for an interview. Pitbull #1 (Gary Wolfe) has just recently come back from a broken neck, and wants revenge on the man that broke his neck, Shane Douglas. Wolfe compares Shane Douglas to Shawn Michaels, which apparently is fightin' words in ECW, because the Franchise gets on the mic from a stage in the arena. Douglas curses about 11 times in two minutes, because nobody in wrestling could work in swear words like The Franchise. Really, Taz is the only other wrestler that comes close to working in swears to Douglas. Douglas invites the Pitbulls to take him on up on the stage, and the Pitbulls follow, but Douglas's Triple Threat members Chris Candido and Brian Lee are lying in wait, and the three take out the Pitbulls. Lee chokeslams Pitbull 2 through a table, and the Triple Threat stand proud over their fallen foes.

- Up next is a Tables and Ladders Tag Team Match from Cyberslam 1997 with the Eliminators (John Kronus and Perry Saturn) defending their ECW Tag Team titles against the team of Sabu and Rob Van Dam.We get a handshake between Van Dam and the Eliminators at the beginning of the match, while Sabu does his trademark point to the sky pose. The match starts with Van Dam and Saturn trading holds, the two then start to trade punches. Van Dam with a standing dropkick gets two, Kronus and Sabu are tagged in, and since both of these men are a little crazy, Styles expects wackiness between the two. Instead the two trade some holds and Kronus eventually gets the advantage with a uranage suplex. That gets two. Sabu puts Kronus in a camel clutch, but Saturn dives off the top with a clothesline to break the hold. Saturn tags in, but Sabu regains the advantage with some punches. Sabu tags in RVD, puts Saturn in a camel clutch and holds him while Van Dam dropkicks him in the face, nearly breaking Saturn's nose in the process. That gets two. Both men are up, and Van Dam and Saturn attempt hammerlocks before Saturn gets the advantage and crotches Van Dam on the top rope. Saturn with a springboard clothesline to the outside and RVD is down. Saturn gets a ladder, but Van Dam is up. While the two fight for the ladder, Sabu dropkicks the ladder into both men, and the fight is now ON! Both teams brawl on the outside for a couple of minutes, Sabu gets whipped into a wall at one point. Now everyone is back in, and Sabu throws a chair at Saturn. Triple Jump Moonsault by Sabu gets two. Van Dam with a moonsault off the second rung of the ladder gets two. Sabu and RVD place Saturn on the ladder and sets up for Rolling Thunder. It connects, but Kronus breaks up the pin. Van Dam gets kicked in the face by Saturn, and gets the ladder thrown into him. Saturn sets the ladder in a corner, whips RVD in, than tags Kronus, who does a double springboard elbow. Sabu breaks up the count, while Saturn returns with another ladder. Saturn just throws the ladder straight into the side of RVD's head. That probably hurt. Saturn sets up the ladder in the corner, whips RVD in, but Van Dam reverses and Saturn goes down after hitting the ladder. RVD has Saturn in a Surfboard, and Sabu dives off the top and clips Saturn in the chest, barely connecting. Sabu uses a ladder to hit the Arabian Face Buster on Saturn, but Kronus breaks up the count. Sabu is tagged in, the two try to double clothesline Saturn, but Saturn delivers clothesline to both men. Saturn is still down, so Sabu gets up and slingshots himself from the apron to do a flipping leg drop. That gets two. Kronus is tagged, and the Eliminators tag Sabu with double superkicks. Kronus with a bodyslam and a twisting senton on Sabu, but RVD breaks up the fall with a dropkick to Kronus. Falcon arrow by Saturn on Sabu, but Sabu kicks out. Somehow Saturn and Sabu end up in the crowd, while Kronus gets whipped into the corner, where a ladder has been set up. RVD runs into Kronus but gets dumped over the top rope, while Sabu dives onto Saturn. These guys look tired. On the other side, Van Dam does a moonsault off the guardrail onto a standing Kronus. Back in the ring, Saturn hits a Frankensteiner on Sabu. That gets a two count. Van Dam and Kronus come back in, and Van Dam gets body slammed. The Eliminators set up a six foot ladder, and Saturn dives off the top onto Van Dam. It would have been more impressive if Saturn did that off the top turnbuckle, but oh well. Sabu dropkicks the ladder into Saturn, drags Kronus outside of the ring and sets him up on a table. He then slingshot leg drops Kronus through the table. Van Dam takes forever to set up the next spot. He puts a ladder in the corner draped over two ropes, sets Saturn on it, ducks under the ladder to get on the top turnbuckle and attempts a split-legged moonsault onto Saturn. He ends up overshooting his target and nearly land head-first onto Saturn. Nice try, but that would be nearly impossible to hit perfectly. Sabu and Van Dam with slingshot kicks onto Saturn, Kronus breaks up the cover with his fist. Saturn eats another slingshot kick from Sabu, than Van Dam sets him up in the corner, and the two do the "Whisper in the Wind" move that the Hardys lifted from their repertoire. Van Dam tries to catch Saturn with a kick, but nearly hits Sabu instead. The two stare at each other, which allows Saturn to dropkick RVD into Sabu. The Eliminators hit two sloppy looking Total Eliminations on RVD and get the victory. Post match, the Eliminators shake hands with Sabu, but RVD refuses, and he and Sabu have words. I see what they were trying to do with this match, but somewhere in the middle it kind of fell apart and became a spotfest, and not a very good one at that. I'll give it a 1.7 out of 5.

- Taz comes out with Bill Alfonso and some jokers wearing "Team Taz" merchandise. He's here to wrestle Tracey Smothers in another match from Cyberslam. This is Smothers' first match at the ECW Arena, and he gets a mixed reaction. Taz starts the match by slapping Smothers straight in the face. This causes Smothers to get angry and the two start trading blows on the ground. Front headlock Taz plex from Taz gets a two count. Smothers is able to keep Taz off balance with a series of punches and kicks, and uses a sunset flip and a flying body press to get a pair of two counts. Jawjacker elbow (hey, that what Styles called it, so I'll go with it) from Smothers gets a two count. Smothers whips Taz in, but Taz ducks a clothesline, goes behind Smothers and hits him with a German Suplex. That spells the beginning of the end for Smothers, as Taz gives Smothers a T-Bone suplex before sinking in the Tazmission, causing Smothers to tap out. Short match that showcased Taz and gave Smothers some credibility. I'll give it a 2.3 out of 5.

- Chris Candido does an interview saying he could be a hardcore legend just like Terry Funk. Candido does a good Terry Funk impression, I must say. Raven and Brian Lee come out to the ring. The Eagles' "Desperado" plays and Terry Funk and Tommy Dreamer come out to the ring for a big time tag team match. The stipulation is that if Terry Funk pins Raven, than he gets a shot at Raven's ECW Title at Barely Legal, ECW's first pay-per-view coming up about two months after this. The introductions are given in the match starts, but Raven grabs a microphone. He says to Tommy that Dreamer hasn't pinned him in two years, but tonight Raven will let Tommy pin him, if he wants to cost his mentor Funk a shot at the World Title. Raven says Tommy doesn't have the stones to do it, which sends Tommy into a rage, punching a prone Raven. Back up, Dreamer hits a powerslam on Raven and covers him, but quickly gets up because he can't cost Funk his title shot, even though he's become obsessed with beating Raven. Tommy's dilemma will continue next time, because that's all the time for this week.

Well, this show featured a rather lengthy title match and Taz doing his thing, so it wasn't all bad. But I liked the show I watched earlier a little better than this. I'll give it a 6 out of 10. Thanks for reading, and if you have any thoughts about this post or about ECW in general, or ideas for future posts, than share them by leaving a comment on the blog, or send me an e-mail at KtheC2001@gmail.com.