ECW Holiday Hell 95
1. The show starts off with the infamous, "Baron Von Stevie" and "Bluedust" promo. Hilarious, but Joey Styles just makes it for me, especially his comments towards Meanie.
2. Taz vs. Koji Nakagawa was great, but it should've been given more time, and probably shouldn't have opened up the PPV.
3. God, I have a certain tolerance level for Bill Alphanso promos. On that night, Alphanso made NO sense in his promo, but I will admit, him yelling at Koji mid-match was hilarious.
4.JT Smith vs. Hack Meyers- THIS match should've opened up the Pay Per View. I love how the New York crowd got behind Meyers. JT Smith is a fantastic "Fake Itallian" Heel, whereas Meyers put on a good match himself. These matches are why I love ECW, because the crowd gets behind jobbers like Meyers.
5. Just a side note, at some point during the match the crowd starts chanting "What'sa mattter with chu?" BEST. CROWD CHANT. EVER!
5. Mikey Whipwreck vs. Too Cold Scorpio was terrible, absolutely terrible. The match in itself was a good concept (a singles match for the TV/Tag Titles) and Scorpio requesting to be announced as "Too Gold Scorpio" was amazing
6. The match Itself starts out ehhh, but Scorpio does about 6 moonsaults too many on Whipwreck.
7. Cactus Jack shows up, and beats up Scorpio, allowing Whipwreck to get the win. Cactus pulls a GREAT heel move by declaring himself the other half of the ECW tag champs. I thought this was amazing.....until I found out Cactus was on the card later. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like they could've used some other heel who wasn't on the card, leaving Cactus to do his thing was Sabu.
8. For some reason, the footage I found cut out, Eliminators vs. Pitbulls, so let's skip to..... Dreamer vs. Raven.
9. If you're looking for a good, uniquely booked match that characterizes what ECW is truly all about, this is it. This match has several good spots in it, including Raven and Richards getting DDTed about three separate times between them in a row, Raven getting piledriven onto a table propped up on the ropes, and a brawl that takes the two outside the building. I forgot how awesome it was to see two wrestlers bleed. Raven winning was great, and I enjoyed it even more when I found out Sandman was booked as a heel, but more on that later.
10. My footage ALSO decided to leave out Bruiser Mastino vs. El Puerto Ricano, but for some reason Taz and 911 started brawling. That's one of the things I disliked about ECW, they took this, "Anything can happen" thing wayyyyy to far. I have a pretty good idea as to why 911 was out there (He usually came when the crowd called for him to end a boring match)....but Taz? WHY?
11. We start out what appears to be Sandman vs. Raven with Richards and Raven coming out. Raven (who had to be hauled out of the arena by his entourage after the Dreamer match) was looking like nothing even happened. I know that's supposed to be a testament to Raven's toughness, HOWEVER, that's one of my pet peeves in wrestling, a guy wrestling twice in one night. Unless one of the matches is a squash, nothing good can ever come out of a guy wrestling twice. He either gets beaten to a pulp by Wrestler 1 and Wrestler 2 gets an easy win, OR the wrestler in question gets his second wind in the match with Wrestler 2, neither of which are productive/believable uses of time, especially on PPV.
12. Sandman looking at the camera and saying, "Keep 'em separated" after his crowd barricade legdrop made me chuckle.
13. One thing I always liked about ECW matches was that there were no picturesque finishes, meaning the finishes came at the most surprising moments. For example this match, Tommy Dreamer comes out and plants both Sandman and Raven with a DDT, successfully conveying to us that he's fond of no one in this match. including Beullah, who he piledrives. Sandman throws an arm over Raven and pins him as Dreamer leaves.
14. I skipped the Gangstas vs. Public Enemy match, and I would like to talk about why. First of all, EVERY SINGLE MATCH INVOLVING THE GANGSTAS IS THE SAME! It's a wild brawl that goes all around the arena. Second of all, one of the most annoying things about The Gangstas is that their theme song "Natural Born Killaz" PLAYS FOR THE ENTIRE BRAWL! To make this even more annoying was the fact that the Gangstas were the only people in the arena that night who had entrance music. That's bulls*it. If Paul Heyman is that stingy about entrance music, at least give Cactus Jack or Sabu their entrance music, ya know.....the main event guys? Now, normally the Gangstas wouldn't bother me that much if somebody like the Eliminators or Samoan Gangsta Party or The Bruise Brothers were working with them. But who were their opponents? Equally s*itty Public Enemy, who did absolutely no favors for the watchability of the match. NEXT!
15. Cactus Jack comes out, we find out the match between him and Sabu will be an NCAA Rules Match. Makes sense, as CJ was Anti-Hardcore at the time.
16. Cactus Jack (the heel) cuts what I would imagine is a shoot promo about how he gave this kid with a disability a ride to the arena and made his dream come true. I know Mick Foley is known for shooting....but why now, especially in the midst of being the top heel in ECW?
16. Sabu comes out. Joey Styles, as usual, does a FANTASTIC job of developing Sabu's character, by saying, "I don't think he understood the ref's instructions, but here we go!"
17. 911 randomly shows up and takes out the referee, declaring himself the referee. Okay.
18. Cactus vs. Sabu=great, if not for one thing, Joey Styles' commentary. To begin the match, Joey Styles starts (in a sarcastic fashion) calling out points for takedown's, negative points etc, as if he's calling an NCAA rules match. This was funny the first time, but he proceeds to do this FOR AT LEAST HALF OF THE MATCH. I say "At least" because I watched the second half on mute.
My rating: 6/10
Do I recommend watching this: Yeah, but seriously, watch it for free.
(Edit: Apparently at some point there was a Buh Buh Dudley vs Blue Meanie match that was so useless and unimportant that most of the overviews of the card that I found didn't even acknowledge it)
2. Taz vs. Koji Nakagawa was great, but it should've been given more time, and probably shouldn't have opened up the PPV.
3. God, I have a certain tolerance level for Bill Alphanso promos. On that night, Alphanso made NO sense in his promo, but I will admit, him yelling at Koji mid-match was hilarious.
4.JT Smith vs. Hack Meyers- THIS match should've opened up the Pay Per View. I love how the New York crowd got behind Meyers. JT Smith is a fantastic "Fake Itallian" Heel, whereas Meyers put on a good match himself. These matches are why I love ECW, because the crowd gets behind jobbers like Meyers.
5. Just a side note, at some point during the match the crowd starts chanting "What'sa mattter with chu?" BEST. CROWD CHANT. EVER!
5. Mikey Whipwreck vs. Too Cold Scorpio was terrible, absolutely terrible. The match in itself was a good concept (a singles match for the TV/Tag Titles) and Scorpio requesting to be announced as "Too Gold Scorpio" was amazing
6. The match Itself starts out ehhh, but Scorpio does about 6 moonsaults too many on Whipwreck.
7. Cactus Jack shows up, and beats up Scorpio, allowing Whipwreck to get the win. Cactus pulls a GREAT heel move by declaring himself the other half of the ECW tag champs. I thought this was amazing.....until I found out Cactus was on the card later. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like they could've used some other heel who wasn't on the card, leaving Cactus to do his thing was Sabu.
8. For some reason, the footage I found cut out, Eliminators vs. Pitbulls, so let's skip to..... Dreamer vs. Raven.
9. If you're looking for a good, uniquely booked match that characterizes what ECW is truly all about, this is it. This match has several good spots in it, including Raven and Richards getting DDTed about three separate times between them in a row, Raven getting piledriven onto a table propped up on the ropes, and a brawl that takes the two outside the building. I forgot how awesome it was to see two wrestlers bleed. Raven winning was great, and I enjoyed it even more when I found out Sandman was booked as a heel, but more on that later.
10. My footage ALSO decided to leave out Bruiser Mastino vs. El Puerto Ricano, but for some reason Taz and 911 started brawling. That's one of the things I disliked about ECW, they took this, "Anything can happen" thing wayyyyy to far. I have a pretty good idea as to why 911 was out there (He usually came when the crowd called for him to end a boring match)....but Taz? WHY?
11. We start out what appears to be Sandman vs. Raven with Richards and Raven coming out. Raven (who had to be hauled out of the arena by his entourage after the Dreamer match) was looking like nothing even happened. I know that's supposed to be a testament to Raven's toughness, HOWEVER, that's one of my pet peeves in wrestling, a guy wrestling twice in one night. Unless one of the matches is a squash, nothing good can ever come out of a guy wrestling twice. He either gets beaten to a pulp by Wrestler 1 and Wrestler 2 gets an easy win, OR the wrestler in question gets his second wind in the match with Wrestler 2, neither of which are productive/believable uses of time, especially on PPV.
12. Sandman looking at the camera and saying, "Keep 'em separated" after his crowd barricade legdrop made me chuckle.
13. One thing I always liked about ECW matches was that there were no picturesque finishes, meaning the finishes came at the most surprising moments. For example this match, Tommy Dreamer comes out and plants both Sandman and Raven with a DDT, successfully conveying to us that he's fond of no one in this match. including Beullah, who he piledrives. Sandman throws an arm over Raven and pins him as Dreamer leaves.
14. I skipped the Gangstas vs. Public Enemy match, and I would like to talk about why. First of all, EVERY SINGLE MATCH INVOLVING THE GANGSTAS IS THE SAME! It's a wild brawl that goes all around the arena. Second of all, one of the most annoying things about The Gangstas is that their theme song "Natural Born Killaz" PLAYS FOR THE ENTIRE BRAWL! To make this even more annoying was the fact that the Gangstas were the only people in the arena that night who had entrance music. That's bulls*it. If Paul Heyman is that stingy about entrance music, at least give Cactus Jack or Sabu their entrance music, ya know.....the main event guys? Now, normally the Gangstas wouldn't bother me that much if somebody like the Eliminators or Samoan Gangsta Party or The Bruise Brothers were working with them. But who were their opponents? Equally s*itty Public Enemy, who did absolutely no favors for the watchability of the match. NEXT!
15. Cactus Jack comes out, we find out the match between him and Sabu will be an NCAA Rules Match. Makes sense, as CJ was Anti-Hardcore at the time.
16. Cactus Jack (the heel) cuts what I would imagine is a shoot promo about how he gave this kid with a disability a ride to the arena and made his dream come true. I know Mick Foley is known for shooting....but why now, especially in the midst of being the top heel in ECW?
16. Sabu comes out. Joey Styles, as usual, does a FANTASTIC job of developing Sabu's character, by saying, "I don't think he understood the ref's instructions, but here we go!"
17. 911 randomly shows up and takes out the referee, declaring himself the referee. Okay.
18. Cactus vs. Sabu=great, if not for one thing, Joey Styles' commentary. To begin the match, Joey Styles starts (in a sarcastic fashion) calling out points for takedown's, negative points etc, as if he's calling an NCAA rules match. This was funny the first time, but he proceeds to do this FOR AT LEAST HALF OF THE MATCH. I say "At least" because I watched the second half on mute.
My rating: 6/10
Do I recommend watching this: Yeah, but seriously, watch it for free.
(Edit: Apparently at some point there was a Buh Buh Dudley vs Blue Meanie match that was so useless and unimportant that most of the overviews of the card that I found didn't even acknowledge it)