ECW Extreme FanCam
This show was in Philly, but instead of their usual stomping grounds, ECW decided to have this show at Northeastern Catholic High School. If anyone knows why they ran here instead of the ECW Arena, please let me know.
They started out well, but it started to fall apart a bit at the end. Dreamer pinned Stevie with a falling neckbreaker of all things. Stevie kicked out basically right at three, which was also kind of odd.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT - Mostly good. Raven came out, and he and Tommy started throwing haymakers at each other. Stevie put Tommy down with a Stevie Kick to the back of the head, and Raven and Stevie stomped the crap out of Tommy. This was a very good little angle… but then Raven left and Stevie went to attack Tommy some more but Tommy nailed him with a running DDT that looked a lot cooler than the DDT that Tommy would spend years doing as a finisher. I wonder what benefit they thought there was to Tommy making his own little comeback here. Just to get a random pop from the crowd, I guess? This also made me wonder why Tommy didn’t use this awesome-looking as a finisher instead of the generic one.
HANDICAP MATCH:
The jobbers tried to jump Taz but he still destroyed both of them, even when one of them tried to use a chair on him. Taz got DQed for shoving the referee, then just kept beating on the jobbers. Then things got interesting, as Paul E. tried to pull Taz off, but Taz shoved him off as well. The fans then chanted for 911 and he came out and wrestled- yes, WRESTLED- the Tazmaniac to the ground. I wonder if this was Paul laying the grounds for Taz vs. 911 after the Tazmaniac would transform into Taz, or if that idea came later and this was building to something with 911 and the Tazmaniac not getting along despite both being charges of Paul E. Dangerously.
Then, just like the previous post-match bit, things went off the rails. When it was announced that Taz had been disqualified, 911 first threatened the ring announcer for announcing such a thing, then grabbed the referee and gave him a chokeslam (and he landed absolutely horrifically, right on his side). Then Taz went over and started to stomp on the referee. Then they made the barely-conscious referee raise Taz’s arm (while 911 was choking him). Then Taz swept his leg out and 911 gave him a chokeslam where he again landed on his side, this time even worse than his first landing. Then Taz started to go after the referee again. This all felt completely gratuitous.
Then 911 restrained Taz again, raised his arm in victory, then they all headed to the back, with Taz walking like he was hurt and needing Paul E. and 911 to help keep him upright. Where did that come from?
ECW TV TITLE MATCH:
This was an awesome match, and was probably even more mind-blowing in 1995. With the exception of comedy and hardcore, these guys basically did some of everything, and it worked quite well, keeping the crowd guessing as to which directions things would go in next. Scorpio hit Dean with the moonsault and was pinning him when the time limit expired. Unfortunately, I’m almost certain the announced time limit wasn’t 18:26, which was the amount of time that had elapsed since the bell was ring to start this match.
After Dean went to the back, Scorpio cut a promo challenging Dean to five more minutes. Dean came back out, but then just head right to the back again. Scorpio called him a â€"pussy†then went to the back as well.
This was the expected Sandman beating the sh*t out of an undercard guy with his cane… until J.T. got some strikes off, then countered a cane strike with a nifty little judo throw, got the cane away from Sandman, and then actually started to cane The Sandman with his own cane before snapping it over his knee. It looked quite awesome.
This whole match was quite awesome for the just under seven and a half minutes that it lasted. It was all big moves and weapon shots, but they all made sense in sequence and they all had that kind of rawness to it where it’s so unsmooth that you think someone might actually land wrong and die, but they never do.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT - Good, I guess? Sandman attacked J.T. with his cane just because, even though the cane was in tatters. Shane Douglas came out with a cane of his own to make the save, giving Sandman several shots to the head. I assume Shane was supposed to be a babyface at this point, but I’m never really sure where the guys revolving around Shane at this time (Sandman, Cactus, Funk) are on the face/heel spectrum at this time (though the Shane/Sandman dynamic becomes a bit easier to decipher at the next big show, Three Way Dance).
In this match we had the referee be distracted so that Sabu could use a chair. In ECW.
They did a lot of cool stuff here, and the crowd loved it. The finish was a little off, as I think Nishimura got knocked loopy and kicked out when he wasn’t supposed to, because Sabu immediately covered him again and got the three. After the match, Sabu and 911 beat Nishimura up some more because reasons.
They brawled all over the place and hit each other with things. Someone jumped off of something kind of high. We watching on the Fan-Cam had to see this through a basketball backboard.
ECW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH:
Even outside of the ECW Arena, Tully got booed. When they were working over each other’s legs this was pretty good, but the first half of this match was SOOO slow. Like something out of the 1970s (not that I’ve actually watched any wrestling from the 70s, but that’s what I assume it was like back then).
At multiple points the camera ignored the match to focus on some dude in the crowd. Good job, Rob/Gabe/Doug/whoever.
Final Thoughts
This was a good little Fan-Cam show. Scorpio and Malenko made it worth watching, but if you’re someone like me for whom the Tully-Shane matches are an intriguing curiosity, you’re also definitely going to win to hunt this down. It was also mostly free of the usual Fan-Cam problems, so hooray for that.
TOMMY DREAMER vs. STEVIE RICHARDS - 4.25/10
They started out well, but it started to fall apart a bit at the end. Dreamer pinned Stevie with a falling neckbreaker of all things. Stevie kicked out basically right at three, which was also kind of odd.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT - Mostly good. Raven came out, and he and Tommy started throwing haymakers at each other. Stevie put Tommy down with a Stevie Kick to the back of the head, and Raven and Stevie stomped the crap out of Tommy. This was a very good little angle… but then Raven left and Stevie went to attack Tommy some more but Tommy nailed him with a running DDT that looked a lot cooler than the DDT that Tommy would spend years doing as a finisher. I wonder what benefit they thought there was to Tommy making his own little comeback here. Just to get a random pop from the crowd, I guess? This also made me wonder why Tommy didn’t use this awesome-looking as a finisher instead of the generic one.
HANDICAP MATCH:
Don E. Allen & Dino Seadoff vs. the Tazmaniac (w/Paul E. Dangerously) - no rating, bad segment
The jobbers tried to jump Taz but he still destroyed both of them, even when one of them tried to use a chair on him. Taz got DQed for shoving the referee, then just kept beating on the jobbers. Then things got interesting, as Paul E. tried to pull Taz off, but Taz shoved him off as well. The fans then chanted for 911 and he came out and wrestled- yes, WRESTLED- the Tazmaniac to the ground. I wonder if this was Paul laying the grounds for Taz vs. 911 after the Tazmaniac would transform into Taz, or if that idea came later and this was building to something with 911 and the Tazmaniac not getting along despite both being charges of Paul E. Dangerously.
Then, just like the previous post-match bit, things went off the rails. When it was announced that Taz had been disqualified, 911 first threatened the ring announcer for announcing such a thing, then grabbed the referee and gave him a chokeslam (and he landed absolutely horrifically, right on his side). Then Taz went over and started to stomp on the referee. Then they made the barely-conscious referee raise Taz’s arm (while 911 was choking him). Then Taz swept his leg out and 911 gave him a chokeslam where he again landed on his side, this time even worse than his first landing. Then Taz started to go after the referee again. This all felt completely gratuitous.
Then 911 restrained Taz again, raised his arm in victory, then they all headed to the back, with Taz walking like he was hurt and needing Paul E. and 911 to help keep him upright. Where did that come from?
ECW TV TITLE MATCH:
Dean Malenko(c) vs. 2 Cold Scorpio - 8/10
This was an awesome match, and was probably even more mind-blowing in 1995. With the exception of comedy and hardcore, these guys basically did some of everything, and it worked quite well, keeping the crowd guessing as to which directions things would go in next. Scorpio hit Dean with the moonsault and was pinning him when the time limit expired. Unfortunately, I’m almost certain the announced time limit wasn’t 18:26, which was the amount of time that had elapsed since the bell was ring to start this match.
After Dean went to the back, Scorpio cut a promo challenging Dean to five more minutes. Dean came back out, but then just head right to the back again. Scorpio called him a â€"pussy†then went to the back as well.
J.T. SMITH vs. THE SANDMAN - 6.5/10
This was the expected Sandman beating the sh*t out of an undercard guy with his cane… until J.T. got some strikes off, then countered a cane strike with a nifty little judo throw, got the cane away from Sandman, and then actually started to cane The Sandman with his own cane before snapping it over his knee. It looked quite awesome.
This whole match was quite awesome for the just under seven and a half minutes that it lasted. It was all big moves and weapon shots, but they all made sense in sequence and they all had that kind of rawness to it where it’s so unsmooth that you think someone might actually land wrong and die, but they never do.
POST-MATCH SEGMENT - Good, I guess? Sandman attacked J.T. with his cane just because, even though the cane was in tatters. Shane Douglas came out with a cane of his own to make the save, giving Sandman several shots to the head. I assume Shane was supposed to be a babyface at this point, but I’m never really sure where the guys revolving around Shane at this time (Sandman, Cactus, Funk) are on the face/heel spectrum at this time (though the Shane/Sandman dynamic becomes a bit easier to decipher at the next big show, Three Way Dance).
OSAMU NISHIMURA vs. SABU (w/911 & Paul E. Dangerously) - 7/10
In this match we had the referee be distracted so that Sabu could use a chair. In ECW.
They did a lot of cool stuff here, and the crowd loved it. The finish was a little off, as I think Nishimura got knocked loopy and kicked out when he wasn’t supposed to, because Sabu immediately covered him again and got the three. After the match, Sabu and 911 beat Nishimura up some more because reasons.
THE PUBLIC ENEMY vs. MIKEY WHIPWRECK & HACK MYERS - 6/10
They brawled all over the place and hit each other with things. Someone jumped off of something kind of high. We watching on the Fan-Cam had to see this through a basketball backboard.
ECW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH:
Shane Douglas(c) vs. Tully Blanchard - 6.75/10
Even outside of the ECW Arena, Tully got booed. When they were working over each other’s legs this was pretty good, but the first half of this match was SOOO slow. Like something out of the 1970s (not that I’ve actually watched any wrestling from the 70s, but that’s what I assume it was like back then).
At multiple points the camera ignored the match to focus on some dude in the crowd. Good job, Rob/Gabe/Doug/whoever.
Final Thoughts
This was a good little Fan-Cam show. Scorpio and Malenko made it worth watching, but if you’re someone like me for whom the Tully-Shane matches are an intriguing curiosity, you’re also definitely going to win to hunt this down. It was also mostly free of the usual Fan-Cam problems, so hooray for that.