BRM Reviews ECW The Night The Line Was Crossed

[Big Red Machine]

ECW The Night The Line Was Crossed (2/5/1994)- Philadelphia, PA

SAL BELLOMO vs. MR. HUGHES (w/Jason)- 3.75/10, all on great psychology

DOUBLE DOG COLLAR MATCH: The Sandman & Tommy Cairo vs. The Rockin’ Rebel & The Pit Bull (w/Jason)- 4.5/10. Creative finish, but the match was very flat, and the hard-camera-only set-up was not good for a match that was all over the ringside area.

THE PUBLIC ENEMY vs. THE BRUISE BROTHERS- 3/10. The Bruise Brothers beat the crap out of The Public Enemy, then one of the Bruise brothers goes down after just a shot with a 2x4? Really? Yet another flat, disappointing finish.
Similar camera problems continued to plague the show in this match. There were times when there were no wrestlers on camera at all. What the hell? Did Paul E. or Todd or anyone not own a camcorder?

TOMMY DREAMER vs. “SUPERFLY” JIMMY SNUKA (w/Hunter Q. Robbins III)- 2/10. Sunka wastes five minutes jawing with the fans, they wrestle for a minute or two, then Sunka hits a Superfly Splash. Tommy kicks out, then Snuka hits a bunch more splashes for the win and beats Tommy down afterwards. It did make you get behind Tommy a bit, but other than that, this match stunk.

THE TAZMANIAC & KEVIN SULLIVAN (w/Woman) vs. PAT TANAKA & THE SHEIK- 3.5/10. More ridiculously short matches plagued by camerawork. Taz and Tanaka are on the inside for about two minutes while Sully and Sheik brawl in the front row. The Sheik threw two fireballs in moderate succession, and the change in camera focus caused the cameraman to miss the finishing move, which apparently, was a fireball to the back of Taz.

JT SMITH vs. MIKE AWESOME- No Rating- good squash-type match

THREE WAY DANCE FOR THE ECW HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE: Terry Funk(c) vs. Shane Douglas (w/Sherri Martel) vs. Sabu (w/Paul E. Dangerously & 911)- 6/10. Crazy… but not the good kind of crazy. I’m pretty sure that the referee was knocked out for at least half of the one hour match. Sabu and Shane’s selling was very good, though.

JOEY STYLES INTERVIEWS TERRY FUNK- Eh. Funk takes shots at WWF and WCW management, and puts over the ECW roster.

PAUL HEYMAN PROMO ON BEHALF OF SABU- GREAT! And good character work by Sabu, Heyman, 911, and the other guy trying to restrain Sabu.

SHANE DOUGLAS PROMO & CONFRONTATION WITH TERRY FUNK- AWESOME!

Overall, this show sucked. Absolutely sucked. The best part of the whole show was the promos at the end. This looked nothing like the ECW we normally think of.