ECW Hardcore TV #26 05/10/1993

The Public Enemy vs Silver Jet & Gino Caruso

JIP match, and we’re definitely in proper ECW territory now. The arena is better lit now, with the crowd in the dark and the ring illuminated. Looks a lot better than the crappy “ECW” banner from the first few episodes. This is a largely sluggish beatdown by the Enemy, bar a few nice little spots. Silver Jet looks terrible in his camo trousers and black t-shirt. He’d be the most bush-league looking guy in a 2003 CZW student battle royal. Rock hits a nice quebrada, Grunge hits a reverse DDT and Rock finishes the Jet with a Swanton, admittedly getting good distance on it.

Sabu vs Tazmaniac

I am sure this was revolutionary in 1993, and the fans eat it up, but viewed through 2017 eyes…this is shit. There’s very little structure, just a bunch of spots which are hit with varying levels of success. I did think Taz showed some smarts when, after the table Sabu placed him on falls apart, Taz just gets up and suplexes Sabu through the remains. I was less impressed when Sabu elbowed him in the face and Tazmaniac sold it by climbing to the second rope to eat a top rope Frankensteiner. Taz hits a huge suplex that almost drops Sabu on his head. The transitions here are woeful, momentum just switching arbitrarily. Sabu picks up the win with a sloppy moonsault. Really disliked this.

The Sandman vs The Metal Maniac

This wasn’t any better. Sandman hits a nice high waistlock takedown early, and that’s probably the best part of the match. Maniac barely gets Sandman off the ground with an unbelievably shit side suplex. Sandman hits a top rope clothesline to win. Awful.

Terry Funk vs Jimmy Snuka

This is a cage match for the TV title, billed as “Funk’s Last Stand”. There’s bits of this that are good, and bits that are very poor. Funk sells like a champion early, as Snuka whips him into the corners, making a simple move looks vicious. He’s also the first to eat a faceful of cage. For two veterans, they both manage to make piledrivers look utterly ineffectual. Funk sells one by getting up 10 seconds later to prevent Snuka escaping a cage, and Styles helpfully points out that Funk is hitting headbutts just moments after taking a piledriver. Funk soon hits his own ineffectual piledriver. They base a lot of this match around headbutts, which isn’t particularly interesting, though Snuka is at least sensible enough to base a lot of his offence around trying to hurt Funk’s neck. The end feels pretty anticlimactic, as Funk just gets to the top of the cage, manages to knock down Snuka then hangs from the top of the cage before dropping to the floor to win. Even with the advanced age of Snuka, you’d expect better from these two. My opening claim of “Some of this is very good” doesn’t seem accurate now.