ECW Hardcore TV
10/10/1995
Philadelphia, PA
ECW Arena
ECW Hardcore TV this week is full of promos and interviews. For the most part, I love ECW promos. They aren’t always good, and I even enjoy the bad or awkward ones most of the time. On this telecast, we get one of the more legendary promos, as well as a really funny one that I’d bet most people haven’t ever seen. Taz is back in action as well this week.
Before we dive into the episode on the 30th anniversary, let’s take a look and see if there was any notable ECW news in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
– Sabu update: He’s not coming back to ECW. He’s working against Paul on a Coraluzzo show on the same day as an ECW Arena show, so Paul Heyman is once again adamant against ever bringing Sabu back ever again, ever.
– Terry Funk update: He’s only going to do the one week for IWA in Japan, and then finally hang it up at age 51. ECW is very interested in using him, but don’t expect him to be doing anything further in the ring. At least not until 1996 at least.
– Dave watched the Rey Mysterio v. Psicosis match on ECW TV and gave it ****1/4. He also praised the commentary work of Joey Styles in making it even better.
The show opens with an iconic “Superstar” Steve Austin promo. Close your eyes and you can visualize it: the ECW banned in the background, the long blonde hair below his baseball cap, and the closing line “No one in ECW can stop me.” Steve Austin was cooking in 1995.
Steve begins the promo upset that he was fired from WCW via telephone. He’s a disgruntled former employee. As a manager of thirty people at my job in real life, I understand that most people don’t take accountability for their mistakes or bad work ethics. It’s never “their fault” when they get in trouble or fired. But in pro wrestling, because it’s such a one-of-a-kind line of work and unique industry, the disgruntled former employees are usually pretty damn justified in their disgruntledness.
Case in point: Austin repeatedly pitched ideas to Dusty Rhodes and others in the office at WCW, and was repeatedly told “Naw Steve, that’s for somebody else baby,” with a really good Dusty Rhodes imitation. His ideas and plans all ended up being used for other people on the show. When he pitched getting back together with Brian Pillman to re-form the Hollywood Blondes, he was told no. They wanted Steve Austin to remain where he was on the undercard.
Imagine asking a boss or manager at your job what you have to do to move up in the company, and their answer is, “That’s for somebody else, I want you where you’re at.” Time to find a new job.
“They say you are what you eat. In WCW, they didn’t feed me nothing but garbage, so I became garbage.”
Steve says he finally accepted the offer from ECW after receiving offers from every major wrestling organization in the world. He says he’s not sure how many times Todd Gordon had to mortgage his house to afford him, but he took the opportunity. Steve says he finally made it to the ECW Arena and it was the biggest piece of crap he’s ever seen. Steve Austin started in Dallas, TX at the Sportatorium, and after being there with real wrestlers with real talent, he says ECW is “just a bunch of violent crap.”
Steve Austin is in ECW to wrestle. No one will hold him back.
I have some thoughts, though, and you might want to sit down. What I’m about to say might get me banned, but this is my review and I have to be honest about my opinions. I don’t like it.
I don’t like this promo. I knew the promo, I’ve seen it before, I know I’m supposed to love it, I know everyone else loves it, and I was surprised by my own feelings as I watched it this morning. It feels like a rambling, repetitive, uncreative diatribe that could’ve been better with scripting or at least some bullet points. I’ve heard the story that Steve wanted to stay for everyone else’s promos so that he could watch everyone else and know what he had to top when he delivered his promo. Steve was told it was his turn at around 4 AM, he took a quick walk to get himself in the zone, and said “I’m ready.”
The promo wasn’t scripted, and you can tell. He’s thinking on the fly, and he’s basically just venting. I appreciate that and I appreciate the lack of intelligence-insulting from ECW in that regard, because often they would just tell the audience what was actually going on. WWF would never do this. It made ECW different and in a lot of cases, special. But here, it feels out of place for me. I don’t think this promo would’ve happened if RF video existed in 1995. If shoot interviews were popular at the time, he would’ve done this there. Instead, we got a 7 minute promo on some precious TV time where he spent about 6 of those minutes talking about how upset he was that WCW didn’t work out for him and spent 1 minute burying ECW. That’s my takeaway.
I know I’m in the minority, but again, this is my review and my opinion. I appreciate the legacy of it, though.
Lance Wright is standing by at “Hype Central,” where he tells us The Sandman will defend the ECW World Heavyweight Title against Mikey Whipwreck on Saturday October 28. If you had the Rise & Fall of ECW DVD, you know the significance of this match.
We go to The Sandman and Woman, standing next to a ladder. Woman gives a quiet, cold warning to Steve Austin that he can join them if he wants, but there will be consequences if he stays away. The Sandman asks Steve Austin if he thought he “was gonna resuscitate his career on the Sandman.” Whatever that means.
After a commercial break, Taz is with Joey Styles. Taz sends out a warning to Jason and says Jason will get choked out. He then goes on to cut a very un-Taz-like promo about his childhood hero, Lou Thesz. After talking about his inspiration, he warns 2 Cold Scorpio that he’s coming for the World Television Title.
We now get a special look at one of the greatest tag teams of the 90s, Perry Saturn and John Kronus – The Eliminators.
Saturn does the majority of the talking throughout the video while Kronus laughs a lot. But we do get to see plenty of cool spots from some of their matches. I’d never seen anyone do this besides Kevin Steen, but apparently Kronus was using a front flip leg drop in the 90s. Cool stuff.
And of course, the video ends with a visual of the coolest finish in tag team wrestling – Total Elimination.
We now get my highlight of the night – a Steiner Brothers promo.
Rick and Scott are in front of the ECW banner. Wearing their Michigan letter jackets, Rick with a dip tucked into his lip, and Scott with the smallest pair of sunglasses I’ve ever seen. Scott starts things off with subtle hints of “Big Poppa Pump,” 3 years before we get that version of him. While Scott is talking, he lost my attention, because I couldn’t notice how zoned out Rick looked. But I soon realized Rick wasn’t zoned out. He was already thinking about his lines. And when it was his turn, he blew me away. Listening to Rick Steiner was like watching Picasso at work.
“ELIMINATORS! LIKE MY BUDDY *no idea what he says right here* SAY, I’M GONNA BEAT YOU UNMERCIFULLY AMONGST THE HEAD AND SHOULDERS. MAYBE I’LL CRASH YOUR CRANIUM WITH SOMETHING BLOOD! COME ON DOWN TO THE DOG POUND AND FIND OUT WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT. Bark bark”
I’m not kidding, I recorded this and sent it to a buddy, I rewound it and watched it at least 6 times, and each time, I noticed something else I missed the last time. I have no idea who his buddy is that he referenced. He said the name, but I’ve never heard such a combination of letters before in my life.
When Rick says “I’ll crash your cranium with something blood,” Scott Steiner starts laughing, and he looked like a totally different person. He almost looked like the Joker or the Riddler or something; I don’t really know how to describe it. And then I realized, it looks so weird because Scott Steiner never freaking smiles.
This promo gets all the stars. Should’ve ended the show here.
Up next, Beulah says her box is always open for us. Send letters to her PO Box and she promises to respond.
Bill Alfonso is in the ring cutting a promo but it’s impossible to make out what he’s saying because of the sound quality. On top of that, Joey Styles is talking over him the whole time anyway. Styles informs us that Alfonso says Taz has failed his physical and is not allowed to compete. Taz is angry, and gets blindsided by Jason when he’s not paying attention. The bell rings, and we get our first match of the night.
MATCH 1: JASON VS TAZ
I couldn’t help but notice Jason looks like Michael Keeton here, just more bulky and oily.
And then Taz locks in what could be the first ever Tazmission on Jason. Styles doesn’t have a name for it on commentary and just refers to it as a Judo choke, which is legal in ECW.
WINNER: TAZ
After the match, Joey Styles is ringside with Taz, who wants Jason to tell The Eliminators that the Steiners are going to kick their “f’n ass.”
After the commercial, Jason wakes up and demands the mic from Joey Styles. He tries cutting a promo, but it seems like he had no clue what to say. Eventually, Styles tells him to “get on with it.” And now there’s a camera cut and he’s in the ring talking to some dude in a black singlet with a mask on.
We still can’t understand anything Jason is saying, but he does start slapping the poor masked guy. Jason makes a luchador so mad, that he unmasks himself unprompted, and calls him a very nasty name in Spanish.
The luchador then proceeds to throw three of the weirdest dropkicks I’ve ever seen, followed by a very nice springboard plancha to the floor. And we get another camera cut, this time with Raven and Cactus Jack appearing in the ring with the luchador.
Raven is sitting in the corner, emotionless. Cactus Jack has the microphone, telling the guy whose name is apparently El Puerto Ricano, that he has a great future in the business. But if he were to engage in some sort of combat with Cactus Jack, Cactus doesn’t know if Ricano has a future in the sport or in life. Ricano attacks Cactus Jack and we’ve got our second match of the night.
MATCH 2: CACTUS JACK W/ RAVEN VS EL PUERTO RICANO
We get more weird dropkicks, followed by a springboard moonsault that gets the fans on their feet. Ricano goes back to the top rope but gets crotched by Cactus, and falls to the floor. Cactus is fired up and climbs to the middle turnbuckle while Ricano is laid out on the floor, teasing a big elbow, but Cactus climbs down and tosses Ricano back into the ring.
Cactus follows up with a pair of side headlock takeovers and Joey Styles is dumbfounded that Cactus Jack is actually wrestling. He holds Ricano in the headlock position on the mat for a long time, and the ECW crowd starts booing mercilessly. They then participate in one of the best crowd waves I’ve ever seen. Joey Styles says he’s getting sea sick.
Styles says Cactus is intentionally trying to have the worst match in the history of the sport. That covers a lot of ground. Even with this, I don’t think it’s even a top 5 worst match of all time. This was actually pretty entertaining.
Raven hits a DDT on Ricano on the concrete floor, tosses him back inside, and Cactus executes a small package for the win. After the match, Raven and Cactus Jack hit poor Ricano with a spike piledriver, tossing him out of the ring afterwards.
Tommy Dreamer hits the ring and lays out Cactus and Raven with a pair of DDTs. He mounts his bitter rival Raven and rains down with punches. Tommy hits Cactus on the outside with an elbow from the apron onto the concrete. He goes for it a second time, but gets launched off the apron and into the railing by Raven. Raven mounts Dreamer and delivers several shots from his TAPED FIST. If you’ve been keeping up with my reviews from WCW Saturday Night, you know a taped fist is the most dangerous foreign object in wrestling at the time. So this was just downright brutal.
Raven wants to DDT Dreamer on a chair, but Cactus tells him not to. Raven wants to whack Dreamer with the chair now, but Cactus doesn’t want him to. Raven finally swings the chair on Dreamer, and hands the chair to Cactus Jack. He refuses to hit Dreamer, but eventually lays him out with a double arm DDT on the chair in the end. After Cactus Jack leaves the ring, Raven finally hits a DDT on the chair, and gives one more chair shot for good measure.
But that’s not enough… Cactus throws a bundle of barbed wire into the ring, wraps it around his arm, and drops an elbow on Dreamer. Raven sets up a table in the ring. Cactus now comes off the middle rope with a barbed wire elbow through the table.
The ECW Tag Team Champions, the Pitbulls, storm the ring and Raven and Cactus retreat.
WINNER: CACTUS JACK
Backstage, Joey Styles says after our next commercial break, he promises to give an update on Tommy Dreamer. But before he can throw to commercial, 2 Cold Scorpio interrupts him while wearing the most 90s jacket I’ve ever seen. The Television Champion is laughing.
Styles asks Scorpio what connection he has with Cactus Jack and Raven. Scorpio says he doesn’t have any connection, he’s a champion! Styles asks why Scorpio interrupted him, and Scorpio just gets offended and tells him to kiss his-
We cut to Lance Wright in Hype Central. Wright promises we’ll hear from Tommy Dreamer. He hears that Dreamer is backstage on a “cellular phone” with a person he claims will have his back on October 28, where he will battle Cactus Jack for the first time ever.
There’s another camera cut, and Wright is no longer doing his shtick. He asks who Tommy Dreamer could possibly recruit that can take care of Tommy Dreamer and Raven. He says “we can’t hype this match.”
We now cut to Cactus Jack and Raven sitting somewhere in the arena together. Raven says the condition they left him in was a result of his own selfishness. Years ago, Raven and Dreamer were best friends. But Dreamer wasn’t there for him. Now, Cactus Jack needs Tommy Dreamer for a higher purpose, and Dreamer isn’t there for him either. So they walk side by side now as the true friends he and Dreamer should’ve been.
Cactus says Tommy had to be hurt tonight, because his words weren’t getting through to him. Cactus has pity for Tommy. He says he wants Tommy to walk down the path of righteousness. He doesn’t blame Tommy for the sins of the ECW fans, but the people don’t understand what he’s going through and Tommy had to be hurt. When Tommy has Cactus feeling down, he will tune is TV into WTBS, turn the volume down, and the basking of their good and moral programming rain all over him. As he lies in a meditative state, awaiting his next challenge, he fell asleep. When he woke up, it had all come to pass, and Tommy Dreamer was in WCW as a tag team champion. But he realized it wasn’t real, and they won’t wait for Dreamer for too long.
In the magical land of WCW, you can be anything you want to be. He’s seen a farm boy from Nebraska become a rapper and a kid from New Hampshire become a Frenchman. I wonder who he’s referring to here, hmmmmm.
He brings up the Rotten brothers, who started in ECW with fake English accents, and later embraced the hardcore mentality of ECW. Now, they don’t even have a job anymore because that’s what hardcore wrestling does to people.
And then there’s Tommy Dreamer. A good looking kid reduced to a bloodthirsty, woman abusing, person on a roller coaster trip straight to hell.
Raven opened his eyes. Cactus loves Tommy, but Tommy is making it hard. Cactus Jack can’t go back to WCW because it’s too late for him. Cactus is asking Tommy to open his eyes before it’s to late.
Cactus and Raven end the promo with a look in Cactus’s eyes that I’ve never seen before. He legitimately looks possessed here. It’s a visual that will send chills down your spine.
In the ring, Tommy Dreamer is with Joey Styles. He says he’s ready for a war with Cactus Jack on October 28, and he’s coming prepared. He’ll be showing up to his match with TERRY FUNK in his corner! The crowd goes nuts for the Funker.
Terry Funk is backstage laughing with a flaming branding iron as we go off the air.
Final thoughts:
This one was a little harder for me to get through. There was so much talking on this telecast. We did get one of Steve Austin’s most famous promos (my feelings aside) and another great one from Cactus Jack. But the stuff with Jason and Lance Wright just takes me out of it.
El Puerto Ricano was… something. Our only real match we got on the whole show was he and Cactus Jack, and the match was made a joke of, to progress Cactus Jack’s story.
I’m interested to see the evolution of Taz going forward. I’m very curious to see how we get from the guy we see now to the Human Suplex Machine killer that he becomes.
And that’s that for the 30th anniversary of ECW Hardcore TV on October 10, 1995.
