If you guys caught Jim Fannin's IWA hotline update this week, you heard the shoe lifts, etc. catchphrase I blatantly stole. It's a code for the Three-Stooges of Kentuckiana wrestling who can't leave well enough alone. Anyway, there's bigger stuff to get on to.
Tonight was ECW's latest foray into the land of PPV with this year's Living Dangerously, and it was a damn good show. . . here's what happened.
Mikey Whipwreck beat Pitbull #1 (the one with the long hair who had the broken neck) in the dark match. Both Pits were at the ECW Arena show this past weekend, but apparently, only Pit #1 is gonna be around for any length of time, but as is the case oftimes with ECW talent, that can change in about five minutes.
The show opened with another angle between Joey Styles, Joel Gertner and Cyrus. This one ended with a pull-apart between Joel and Cyrus when Cyrus tried to butt into the announce team of the PPV. It's a shame Cyrus' character has taken off, because he likely won't be doing much broadcasting, and I always liked Cyrus the best of the ECW color-men.
Then Steve Corino hit the ring to cut the angle that makes The Truthster's prediction that Sandman WILL NOT win a title in ECW this year good for at least another few weeks. Corino laid the verbal boots to Sandman's wife Lori Fullington aka Peaches and the Sandman's spawn who happened to be sitting ringside. This brought Sandman out and in the insuing chaos, Peaches took a mean spear from Rhino through a table. Peaches was "seriously injured" and we found out later was "taken to the hospital where Sandman accompanied her", thus giving Rhino a bye to the finals of the TV Title tournament.
Corino then met Duthty Rhodeth in the bullrope match, daddy. Good for what it was sums up this match. Dutht's offensive array has now gone from elbows, a crappy DDT and even worse figure-four to just elbows, but they made up for it with solid brawling and the fact that the crowd ate-up Thardutht so much it wasn't even funny. Corino's crew tried to interefere, but was thwarted by the ref who Corino took out a week or so ago and Duthty got the duke with a chairshot onto a cowbell taped to Corino's forehead.
The next match was surprisingly good and started a new angle with some promise. Lou E. Dangerously's Alliance members "The Enforcer" C.W. Anderson and "Beautiful" Bobby Wiles took on Danny Doring and Roadkill. I expected basic ECW mid-card stuff, but this match exceeded. There had been some friction between Elektra and Doring as of late that boiled over when she full on turned on Doring and Roadkill and helped the Alliance get the win. Afterwards, they cut a great promo where they ran down Paul E., they may be getting play with Cyrus as part of the ECW v. TNN angle down the line.
Next match, Mike Awesome killed Kid Kash in a glorified squash. This match reminded me of the killer squashes that Ian Rotten did when he had television. All it did was show how amazing Mike Awesome is. It came out of nowhere, and probably was made to remind everybody that the world champ is still a killer even though he jobs in the tag title match. . . ERRRRRR. . . is a threat to strike at any time.
Nova and Chetti then beat Gedo and Jadoh in a very good tag match. I hope Gedo and Jadoh hang around awhile, they are an incredibly talented team. I could stand a best of seven with Nova and Chetti who finally seem to be getting back together after Chetti's injury.
Super Crazy beat Little Guido to move onto the finals of the TV Title Tournament. This match was damn good, and one of the best of the year. Guido may finally be moving out of comedy into being a serious worker in the eyes of the fans. Guido can flat out go, and is pound-for-pound one of the toughest wrestlers anywhere. I'd love to see Guido tear Tazz a new a-hole in a shoot-fight, but like an interesting column from Sara, I'll be waiting until hell freezes over to see that.
Balls Mahoney beat Kintauro Kanemura in the ECW v. FMW battle with the Nutcracker Suite onto a chair, then the Baldies hit the ring bringing out New Jack. These two beat the shit out of each other leading into a brawl on top of scaffolding with two tables beneath. New Jack pulled Baldie Grimes off the scaffold and went through the tables with lard-ass Grimes crushing New Jack.
It looked like New Jack was seriously injured. Notice no quotation marks this time. Word from Scherer who was at the show was that he suffered a neck stinger and a serious concussion, but was lucid and didn't lose consciousness. He was stretchered out and ambulanced to a nearby hospital, for real. New Jack is working with a cracked foot as well. New Jack doesn't know a wristlock from a wristwatch, but he sure as hell makes up for that with finding ways time and time again to top his last insane PPV bump.
The Impact Players won the three way dance to regain the ECW Tag Team Titles. This was a solid match. I smelled that the recent swapping of the tag titles was just to create interest in this last minute PPV semi-main. With RVD, Jerry Lynn and now Spike Dudley out with injuries and Sabu totally undependable in any role with ECW, Paul E. needed something to create interest at the top of this PPV card.
It's no secret that Paul E. has groomed Credible and Storm to be the tag team that the Dudleys used to be for him. Hell in the a year or so, they may be 57 time tag champs just like the Dudleys. Anyway, Tanaka pinned Awesome to eliminate the champs Raven and Awesome, then they spiked Tommy on a chair to regain the belts. This was a solid match even if the outcome was on the predictable side. See why Awesome came out and destroyed Kid Kash mid-card?
Time for the main-event to crown a new ECW Television Champion. Gertner and Paul E. came out to tell Cyrus that tonight the network was going down. Rhino pretty much had his way with Super Crazy, until Crazy went for his three-moonsaults from each turnbuckle that I absolutely love. Rhino pulled the ref in the way for number three. Then RVD came out again on Scotty Riggs's shoulders. Can't they pick a better wrestler to be RVD's wheelchair?
Anyway, RVD helped Super Crazy get the win and become the first ECW TV Champ not named Rob Van Dam in damn near two years. Then Sandman came out to get revenge for Rhino's dastardly attack on his old lady earlier in the show and all of your heroes celebrated with hops and barley as we fade to black.
And that was your PPV. ECW put on a strong show. I liked this one better that Guilty as Charged which was good too. I still think the Royal Rumble was the best show of the year, and I was the most emotionally tied to No Way Out, but I think it's time to officially crown ECW as NUMBER TWO.
Yeah, and this is why. ECW is making money. Hardcore Revolution is selling well, even though it is a horrible video game and not worthy of being on the shelf next to Wrestlemania 2000 or Smackdown. WCW has sold all of 2000 tickets for Uncensored which is next week. ECW had a packed house of 4000+ for Living Dangerously. . . NO PAPER except for press passes and such.
Add in the fact that the WWF terminated it's TV contract with the USA Network this week, allowing them to become free agents with their programming. CBS has made a $100 million or more deal to the WWF to put their programming on TNN and keep Smackdown on UPN which CBS owns. With WWF on TNN in the fall, that means ECW moves. . . to USA?
USA and wrestling have made lots of money the past few years, and ECW has the renegade brand of sports entertainment that made USA the number-one cable network. USA will give ECW that solid nationwide cable outlet they have desired. Also paired with Acclaim and USA bucks, hopefully ECW can finally get that big league TV production where the actually look like the number-two wrestling company in the world.
All of this bodes poorly for WCW which seems to be doing nothing right. And when they do something right (like push Vampiro or put the world belt on Jarrett, which is a possibility, if Jarrett accepts the belt) nobody cares.
Those two clones who are actually bored enough to read Sara's columns are probably waiting for me to respond to her dig at the Ugly Truthster. I might as well do it here and then correct her attempt at reporting the Sabu situation with ECW. I wonder if this rat has ever actually read this webpage before she joined it.
Every clone knows the Ugly Truthster leaves up his last two columns since often, clones spend too much money on malt liquor and Ricky Martin trading cards to have phone access for more than a week at a time. That way I provide them a service, by having up my columns to brighten their otherwise moribund lives when they have found enough change in their couches to get back on AOL for a day or two. And yes, I will be putting up an archive of my older columns, so quit whining about that clones.
Anyway, as far as the Truthster going "on and on about nothing" that's because unlike your sophomoric ramblings, I actually have something to say. God forbid I try to tell a whole story than just, "Bodydonnas are coming back. Rock and Benoit on RAW. Send me e-mail.".
Remember sister, it was the Rick and I on this webpage when you were doing nothing more than playing fingercuffs with the local soccer team, and not getting undeserved run on this website. So if anyone needs to dictate policy on this website, it sure as hell ain't you.
Now, I expect this crap from Imran because he gets into some bad falafel now and again, but you need to be a good little girl and know your role. I'm sure you're just jealous that I am happily married and will never get to go twenty minutes with the Truthster's bald-headed champion.
But I digress. . . Sabu, here's the whole story so far. Sabu did walk out of the ECW Arena last weekend when he was told he would be jobbing to Super Crazy in the TV Title tournament. Doing that could be construed to be a breach of his contract. However, Sabu's contention is and always has been either a)he did not have a contract with ECW or if he did b)he breached it when ECW missed or was very late with PPV bonus payments.
ECW has pretty much agreed that they missed promised payouts, but contend that Sabu must institute legal proceedings to void his contract. Saying "Sabu's career is in jeopardy" is a stretch. He won't be able to jump to WCW or the WWF short of buying himself out of his ECW contract or winning a lawsuit against ECW for breach. However, Sabu has a name in Japan, and he can work over there if he pleases, so don't pass the towel for Sabu yet. . . he's not exactly breaking tables on street corners for spare change.
Speaking of spare change. . . Tammy Sytch and Chris Candido finally decided to show up to sign their ECW releases. Word had it that Paul E. put a clause in them that he had the right to use them once a year, but that either wasn't in the release or has been waived or bought out by WCW. Candido and Sytch are now cleared to debut with WCW as soon as they can show up and sign a contract.
Rumor has it that Candido will be a cruiserweight who works a Tazz-like submission style and just kills the other cruiserweights. Nash came up with the idea, so it'll be guaranteed to suck. Tammy Sytch had been linked with Flair, but no definite plans are in place except that she most likely will not be Candido's valet as he will be going solo. Sytch and/or Candido to be on this week's Nitro rumors are starting at 2-1.
Monday is shaping up for a crappy Nitro. Sting will be there, but doing God knows what. He's still balking at a full-time return until he's happy with the direction of the company. Like I've said before, get that release Steve, because it will be a LONG-ASS time before WCW's house is in any kind of order.
Expect the Chicken in a Diaper to defeat Hacksaw Duggan for the TV Title on an upcoming episode of WCW Saturday Night.
That's all for this week. I'll be back with an blow-by-blow of the train-wreck that will be WCW's Uncensored. You clones OWE ME BIGTIME for giving three hours of my life I'll never have back to review that crap for the website!!