ECW Hardcore TV #23 14/9/93 & #24 21/9/93

Combining two episodes here, as #23 is mainly a preview of Ultraclash 93 and #24 is dealing with the fallout.

Tony Stetson vs Tommy Cairo

This is for Cairo's Pennsylvania Heavyweight title. Actually a pretty good match here, thought Stetson was really good. Loved him jawing at the crowd and suddenly poking Cairo in the eye. Stetson controls with a nice flying clothesline and a throat chop. Also, loved the mule kick as he re-enters the ring, just flowing round into it in one quick movement. Cairo isn't great here, his belly-to-belly looks unimpressive and his leg lariat looks more like a clumsy hip attack, but he's perfectly carryable. The match ends with a clash of heads, the ref getting bumped and Hunter Q Robbins putting Stetson on top for the win.

Jimmy Snuka vs the Metal Maniac

Oddly, the face/heel roles seem off in this match. Snuka has been heel for his whole ECW run, but here he’s leapfrogging, moving quickly and posing for the crowd. Meanwhile, Maniac does stuff like a cheap shot knee to the stomach. Everything Maniac does looks slow motion, making this feel more like a training match. Snuka gets the win with a small package.

The Public Enemy vs Jason Knight & Ian Rotten

This is a full match from Ultraclash 93, and is a squash for the Public Enemy. Ian Rotten is oddly billed as coming from Newcastle, England. It’s an overlong squash, though TPE look impressive throughout. Liked their double-team tombstone on Rotten, though the bit where Rotten leaped over the top rope off an Irish whip just so Rocco Rock can hit a big tope looks off. The end sees Grunge hit a reverse DDT and Rock hits a swanton for the victory.

WWE Main Event 10/06/2014

Jimmy Uso vs Luke Harper

Really fun little match. Starts off really nicely, as both guys are big guys who can move at quite a pace, and both lay in some nice shots. Loved the Uso crossbody with Harper draped over the ropes, and I loved how Harper took control of the match by flinging Jimmy face first into the middle ropes. Uso gets a few hope spots, but Harper is great at cutting them off, be it stopping a corner charge with a big boot to the face or stopping an Uso suicide dive with a big forearm to the face. The end is a bit abrupt, as Uso nails a superkick and gets a quick roll up, but I like that it took a sudden death shot to stun Harper just long enough to pick up the win.

Rusev vs Kofi Kingston

Really interesting to remember how strongly Rusev was pushed in the early days. Right at the start Kingston tries to use his speed advantage to slide through Rusev’s legs, but gets caught and takes a huge clothesline to the back of the head. Rusev hits some great looking driving knees with Kingston in the ropes and though Kofi gets a brief fightback, Rusev hits a great looking sudden superkick and the Accolade finishes. Fun squash.

Seth Rollins vs Dolph Ziggler

So yeah, without including Enzo, who wasn’t on the main roster at the time, this is basically my nightmare WWE match. Two guys who haven’t the foggiest idea on how to put a match together or how to wrestle appropriately for their character. Therefore, I’m pleasantly surprised to say this wasn’t too dreadful. It actually contains a really good Seth Rollins performance for 2/3 of it – here, he grounds Ziggler, wearing out his back with repeated suplexes and ramming him into the turnbuckles with real force. I mean, Ziggler doesn’t bother to sell this damage long term, but I appreciated the effort from Seth. Plus, he acts like a total condescending prick throughout, dismissively kicking Ziggler in the head and talking shit to him. He gets drawn into a “you hit your move, I hit mine” ending, but he was really good here. On the other hand, Ziggler was wretched. Moves on Rollins like a hiptoss or a backdrop seem to happen in spite of Ziggler here, who barely connects with his opponent. His grounded punches are woeful and he hits maybe the worst fameasser of his career. Just terrible stuff. The end sees Ziggler sell a turnbuckle bomb by crawling conveniently into the middle of the ring to eat a curb stomp for the Rollins win. 

World Class Championship Wrestling 01/11/1982

The Great Kabuki vs The Samoan & Raul Castro

This is a handicap elimination match. The Samoan at least takes the fight to Kabuki, whilst Castro is basically useless, hesitant to attack from any angle. Kabuki looks good here, nice precise strikes and I loved the backwards roll into a body scissors. Kabuki forces a submission from Castro with two leg scissor knee drops. The Samoan actually fares better without his useless partner, but misses a top rope headbutt and Kabuki drops two more knee drops for the submission.

The Fabulous Freebirds vs Gran Markus II & the Destroyer

Before we’re anywhere the match starting, we get an awesome brawl as Bill Irwin and King Kong Bundy attack the Freebirds. The whole locker rooms seems to empty and the ring is filled with guys brawling. Eventually, order is restored and the match can start. It’s pretty one sided, as the Freebirds control their masked opponents. Hayes is face-in-peril for approximately 30 seconds before he hits a back suplex on the Destroyer and tags out to Gordy. Spike piledriver on Gran Markus gets the win. Fun squash, but the brawl beforehand was excellent.

Al Madril & Bugsy McGraw vs Checkmate & Magic Dragon

The opening sections, with McGraw facing Checkmate, is pretty entertaining. Checkmate constantly goes to the mat, curled in a ball, which seems to baffle McGraw who paws at his like a confused wild animal. Checkmate’s constant reverting to the ball state seems to be frustrating both McGraw and the crowd. There’s a fun spot where McGraw dives into the corner to save Madril on an Irish whip attempt, but when Magic Dragon tries to do the same, Madril changes direction and whips Checkmate into the opposite corner. The heels work over Madril to make him face-in-peril, and though he tags out to McGraw, he ends up getting tagged in pretty quickly. It looks at first like it was too quick, as Dragon beats him down, but Madril nails a crossbody to pick up the win. This was a really fun match, the two teams played off each other nicely.

Kevin von Erich vs Wild Bill Irwin

Feels a bit one-sided, considering how well Irwin was presented earlier, but I enjoyed this. Von Erich is all motion, constantly on guard. Loved his quick little leg sweep when he catches Irwin off guard. Kevin’s running forearms into the corner look terrific, really goes in full pelt. Irwin counters a headscissors attempt by dropping Von Erich neck-first on the top rope. Irwin sells his ribs as hurting even when in control, which gives Kevin openings for hope spots, and the hesitation allows Kevin to lock in an abdominal stretch. Irwin takes out the ref whilst in the hold to give KVE the win by DQ, but despite a cheap ending, this was a fun little sprint.

WWF Prime Time Wrestling 12/05/1986

George Steele vs Jim Neidhart

This isn’t a match up that really appeals, but this is surprisingly not too bad. Liked the opening where Neidhart suckers Steele to chase him outside and ends up with Steele tangled up in the ropes. This is a really short match, which is probably for the best, as Neidhart goes to get a chair from outside, gets stopped by the ref and in the melee Steele hits him with a loaded fist for the win.

Bret Hart vs Sivi Afi

There’s a noticeable gulf in quality between these two here, Bret being clearly a step or two ahead of Afi. An early O’Connor roll is blown, but at least we return from an ad break with Bret in control. His offence looks really good here, loved how fluidly he goes from dropping a 2^nd rope elbow into a pinfall. We get a “Samoan man has a hard head” spot as Afi no-sells a shot to the turnbuckle and rams his own head several times, but aside from that he contributes little. He looks like he’s not really sure how to run the ropes, always going from odd angles. A flipping senton looks more like he’s doing a forward roll, but Bret suddenly catches him with a great-looking backbreaker for the win.

Iron Mike Sharpe vs Corporal Kirchner

Hard to say how I felt about this one, wasn’t a particularly bad match, but nothing about it really stands out. It just…happened. Sharpe continues to be fun at stooging about, leaping about to put over the power of Kirchner’s hammerlock and taking a hilarious fall into the announce table. Sharpe isn’t as much fun on offence – he’s plodding and slow, with big pauses in between blows. Kirchner seems pretty athletic and moves well, but doesn’t do anything to convince he can put a match together. A nice Samoan drop gives the Corporal the win.

Jake Roberts vs Scott McGhee

McGhee is pretty generic on offence, all pretty simple bodyslams and decent punches. Jake’s movement really stood out, loved the way he doesn’t so much climb in the ring as he slinks in. Jake hits a nice stomachbreaker and I dug the mindgames as he held McGhee in a chinlock and slowly dragged him towards the snake bag in the corner. McGhee fires back and looks really good in the process – nice looking back suplex that hits with real impact and a decent second rope kneedrop. Roberts hits a DDT from out of nowhere to win. The post-match ‘snaking’ sees McGhee coughing up blood in a nice twist.

Tony Atlas vs Hercules

This is JIP and we’re instantly into a test of strength spot. Hercules is pretty sluggish in control, which really contrasts with Atlas, who looks fired up on his comeback. Herc locks in a pretty mighty looking torture rack before Atlas gets the win with a sunset flip. Too short to be offensive, at least.

The Killer Bees vs Nikolai Volkoff & the Iron Sheik

Pretty decent match to end the show, it’s a formula tag team match and they interestingly keep Volkoff out for the majority of the bout. The Bees work well in the early stages, isolating Sheik and making quick tags. Brunzell and Blair both spend time as the face in peril, and I liked how, when Brunzell did get to make a small comeback with a sunset flip, Sheik instantly come in to distract the ref and prevent a count. Blair gets locked in the Camel Clutch and gets to hold on a surprisingly long time before Brunzell makes the save. Brunzell gets the hot tag, and looks pretty fired up when he get’s on offence. He locks a sleeper in on Sheik, but Volkoff nails him from behind which gives Sheik the win. Just a nice, solid tag match.

ECW Hardcore TV #22 07/09/1993

Stan Hansen vs Don E Allen & Herve Renesto

Allen and Renesto are billed here as Twisted Steel & Sex Appeal. They get utterly destroyed by Hansen, who doesn’t go easy on them. Short lariat on Allen gets the win.

The Headhunters & Freddy Krueger vs The Super Destroyers & Salvatore Bellomo

We’re joined in peril, because I guess time constraints meant we had to keep the opening ten minute skit with Eddie Gilbert’s increasingly terrible King of Philadelphia skit rather than show this in full. It makes total sense to fly in these WING guys to show a sub-five minute clip of their match. Liked the Headhunters doing some basic cheating, swapping over a chinlock on Bellomo behind the referee’s back, before we get a stupid ending. Super Destroyer #1 gets tagged in, and gets ganged up on by all three opponents….then Super Destroyer #2 joins in to make it 4-on-1. I mean, it’s good they’re continuing the storyline from the previous show, but why would SD1 still team with his partner after getting betrayed the previous week? It makes no sense.

JT Smith vs Masayoshi Motegi

This is for Motegi’s WING Jr Heavyweight title. Odd one this, I assume that neither party wanted their man doing the job, so we get a time limit draw that Motegi totally dominates from beginning to end. Smith is allowed the odd mat counter and I think one suplex, but the rest is just Motegi totally controlling him on the mat, locking in a nice Indian Deathlock and two STF’s. Motegi finally looks to have it won with a German suplex, and the time runs out. I guess the idea was it made Smith look tough hanging on despite being put in all manner of holds, but it just made it look like he couldn’t hang with this guy half the audience didn’t know.

Eddie Gilbert & the Dark Patriot vs Salvatore Bellomo & the Sandman

Two Bellomo matches on one show? These are blessed days indeed. Basically a team of two of the best guys in the promotion vs the two dirt worst. I like the irony, in hindsight, of Gilbert taking control of the Sandman by hitting him in the head with an empty can as a cheapshot. Dark Patriot bumps about for Sandman’s terrible offence, really putting in a good shift. We get another match cut off halfway through for a Abdullah the Butcher promo piece – this is the third main event in a row to suffer this fate, really stupid programming. Patriot looks good on offence when we return, and I dig the heels constantly distracting the ref in order to cheat. Sandman gets the hot tag and has some good energy, even if his missile dropkick is super sloppy. The heels finally get the win with a shot from Paul E Dangerously’s phone, and this was the best you’re going to get from Sandman and Bellomo at this point. Not terrible.

WWE Main Event 03/06/2014

Only two matches this week, but they make up for it by virtue of one match being a real cracker.

Goldust & Kofi Kingston vs Luke Harper & Erick Rowan

This is during the “Cody Rhodes tries to find Goldust a better partner” angle that ultimately led to Stardust. This is a really cool little match however. Goldust and Kingston work this as a real cat-and-mouse match to start, doing their best to try and avoid their larger opponents and only approaching them on their own terms. Things like holding the ropes to halt an Irish whip and working in opening from their opponent’s confusion. Goldust hits a lovely bulldog on Harper. The tactics actually work perfectly against someone like Rowan, who is a very meat-and-potatoes, no-nonsense wrestler who can be outsmarted by quicker opponents. The heels do take over on Goldust for a fun spell of heat, and Kofi is really good on the hot-tag, hitting a huge dive onto Harper. Really liked the end too, as Kofi tries Trouble in Paradise on Harper, but gets caught with a rolling clothesline in mid-air to give the heels the win. Ending made the face team look good too, as one seconds difference would have seen Kofi nail his knockout blow first, putting this THAT close to winning.

Bad News Barrett vs Rob Van Dam

This is for Barrett’s IC title, and is played up as a big deal. Match itself isn’t anything special though. Van Dam really shows his age here, despite a nice cannonball from the apron, as his kicks all look super-light and he’s definitely moving at 2/3 speed. Barrett isn’t a guy who’s going to carry Van Dam to anything better, but at least his offence was better. His second rope elbow was terrible, basically landing feet-first then falling onto RVD, but his strikes looked nice and I dug him meeting a diving kick with a big clothesline. Barrett looks to be about to hit the bullhammer for a clean win, but Cesaro interferes and hits both men, drawing the DQ. The terrible ending doesn’t help an already average bout.

WWE No Mercy 2007

I'd never watched this show before, but the recent announcement of the returning Punjabi Prison match made me realise I'd never actually seen one before. So, hoping to use the hype for the returning match to pad up the reading figures for this blog, I decided to give it a watch. No-one warned me about THREE Triple H matches though...

Triple H vs Randy Orton

Right, I don’t want to get onto a “slagging Triple H” off thread right at the start of the show, but there are a select band of wrestlers I’d be happy to see wrestle three times in one night and HHH is not one of those guys. The challenge is to have three interesting matches on the night, and unfortunately you suspect he must have been saving the interesting stuff for later in the night. Honestly, if I told you to close your eyes and imagine a 10 minute HHH/Orton match, you’d almost certainly picture this match move-for-move. There are a few positives: I liked the big clothesline and double-sledge to the back of the head that HHH hit, Orton had great timing kicking the ropes into HHH’s crotch before hitting the draping DDT and HHH locking in a figure-four after Orton misses a kneedrop is a logical move. Also, the ending was a nice change – no finishers, Triple H gets the pin from a roll-up after Orton missed a corner charge.

Jeff Hardy, Paul London & Brian Kendrick vs Mr Kennedy, Lance Cade & Trevor Murdoch

This is billed as a bonus match, and it’s a nice little 8 minute match. Wisely, they largely leave Kennedy out of this, only really featuring at the end. Murdoch seems especially inspired here, really liked him countering Hardy’s sitdown jawbuster by simply not going down with him and instead booting Hardy in the face. Kendrick becomes face-in-peril after Murdoch opens up the ropes, sending Kendrick tumbling to the floor. The heat on Kendrick is brief due to the match length, but he hits a wild leaping DDT on Cade to make the hot tag. Hardy basically dumps Murdoch on his head with a gourdbuster, and everything breaks down, leaving Kennedy and London in the ring. Kennedy takes the win with the leaping Finlay roll. Good little sprint here.

CM Punk vs Big Daddy V

Nonsensical stuff here. V looks great dominating Punk to start, smothering him on the mat and wailing away with crossfaces. When Punk does escape, he’s quicker getting up so can hit V in the head with some (admittedly crap) kicks to the head…and so Matt Striker leaps in to beat him down for the DQ. This costs his charge the ECW title, doesn’t make any sense. Waste of time match.

Triple H vs Umaga

Because Vince is a bastard, he puts HHH into another match to defend his title. This is a lot better than the opener, they keep it brief and actually tell a decent story. An early HHH DDT looks like shit, with Umaga falling to his knees with his head nowhere near the mat. Umaga hits HHH in the ribs with a thrust kick, and from that point on has a focal point. A Samoan Drop and a series of big strikes highlight this plan, and HHH does a nice job of selling the damage. Umaga locks in a bearhug, continuing the focus, though I’m not a fan of HHH using an eyerake to escape when he’s a face. The end doesn’t hurt Umaga either, as HHH takes advantage of one mistake – a missed corner charge – and quickly hits the Pedigree to retain. This was a fine little match.

Finlay vs Rey Mysterio

When you’ve got two guys who were pretty much the best in the world at the time facing each other, you go in with pretty high hopes. I’d say that these hopes weren’t fully met, but that’s due to the booking rather than the performances of both men. Love Rey’s fluidity early on. It’s not just that his spots look impressive, but also that everything flows in a way that makes sense, each move follows on logically from the one he’s just hit. For example, he hits a slingshot dropkick into the ring on a sat-down Finlay, which positions him perfectly to hit a slingshot splash. Finlay takes over in a lovely way, avoiding a Rey sunset flip powerbomb to the floor by grabbing the ring apron and pulling it up over Rey’s head to pummel him. From there, Finlay slides Rey shoulder first into the ringpost, and from there works over the shoulder. Loved him stopping Rey’s momentum on a flying headscissors to turn it into a shoulderbreaker. Mysterio’s comeback is really nicely done and he kind of peppers Finlay with offence until Finlay tumbles backwards from the ring apron with a sickening thud. This ends up being the end of the match, with the referee throwing up an X for the match stoppage. They really blow the end though, as Finlay is faking the injury to jump Mysterio, and the camera zooms in on Finlay’s face to show this. Even odder, Cole acknowledges the faking, but then continues to pretend Finlay is actually injured, thus blowing all the suspense. Unsurprisingly, Finlay jumps off his stretcher and attacks Rey. Match was really good until the hokey ending.

Candice Michelle vs Beth Phoenix

This is really interesting, as the match itself is very much not good, but there are some really good bits mixed in. Candice, for example, hits really shit kicks and can barely run the ropes, but she pulls off this cool little roll-up and works a nice short-arm scissors. Michelle also hits a decent crossbody. Phoenix is really good at working the size difference, but the match is a bit too clunky and they both seem a bit lost in between moves. Phoenix wins with a cradle suplex.

Batista vs The Great Khali

So, the rules of the Punjabi Prison match are that there are two big cages, with the inner cage attached to the ring. Each side of the ring has a door that can only be opened once and is padlocked after 1 minute. If all four doors get padlocked, you have to climb out. The winner is the guy who successfully escapes both the inner and outer cage.

This isn’t a match you’d technically call “good”, but it’s an enjoyable spectacle for the most part. The limits on the door opening times are, I assume, designed to add some psychology as you can’t just open doors willy-nilly, but Khali pretty much blows that by calling for the first door less than a minute in. Batista pretty much bumps around like a loon for Khali here, and this may be what carries the match. There’s a nice tease of the Batista Bomb when Khali tries a ten count in the corner, and the spinebuster Batista hits on Khali looks good. Less good is Khali attempting to crush Batista under the weight of the final cage door when he realises that they aren’t going to be able to walk out – it looks really terrible despite Batista doing his best to make it look painful. Batista takes a huge bump from the cage when they both try climbing out, which gives Khali a huge lead, and this means that Batista also has to take the biggest risk by leaping from the top of the inner cage to the outer, which would have been a nasty bump if he’d missed. Luckily, he makes it and touches down first to win this fun, but nonsensical, match.

Triple H vs Randy Orton

This is, thankfully, the final HHH bout of the night and is a last man standing match. Orton goes right after HHH’s injured ribs to start. Really nicely done too, he’d hit a rib, then take advantage of HHH recoiling to blast him in the face a few times. Then, when HHH would start to cover his face, back to the ribs again. Orton continues the rib work with a backsuplex on the barrier, then brilliantly locking in a bodyscissors on the ribs whilst choking HHH with a cable. Nice spot. Orton shows great poise here, standing by passively whilst the ref counts, but as soon as HHH even moves an arm, he changes stance, getting ready to strike. HHH gets his moments to shine as he throws Orton through a table on a missed RKO and then hits a spinebuster on the floor for a close call. They start hitting bigger and bigger shots that should really finish it, considering both guys had barely been making an 8 count earlier. The RKO on the open chair would have been an acceptable finisher, and it does start to get towards overkill by the end. HHH hitting a chairshot with Orton’s head held in the “V” of the ringsteps looks shit, as he’s obviously not hit him. Eventually, Orton hits the RKO on the announce table to finish it. This was actually a pretty good match for the most part, but honestly you could have put anyone in the HHH role, as Orton’s character work and match timing were spot on here.