ECW SATURDAY NIGHT HARDCORE at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center

2/13/99 in Poughkeepsie, NY

by Mike Lorefice (M.L.Liger@juno.com)

This was by far ECW's most successful show in the Civic Center, as they drew somewhere between 2,100-2,200 fans. Although I was able to get a ticket about 15 minutes before the show started, the show should be called a sellout because the attendance greatly exceeded the typical Civic Center configuration for ECW, and the place was basically packed. It seems that getting the television show back on MSG really helped because not only was attendance up, but a good number of fans knew "how to react" to the performers.

The crowd was pretty rabid for the first two matches, but died as the show went on. As weird as it may sound, it seems that turning the lights on killed the crowd heat. On all the previous shows, the lights had always been on the whole time, so the fans didn't know any better. Personally, I liked it better with the lights on because I couldn't see what I was writing (my pens weren't confiscated this time, yeah) during the first two matches, but ECW is a very raw and primal product, so it seemed to play better with only the ring lit. I guess it's something like how people wouldn't want to the lights in the theater to be on during a horror movie.

The wrestling wasn't horrible. It was just U.S. indy wrestling. I'd much rather see wrestlers concentrate on fundamentals and actually try to learn how to work so they might eventually produce quality matches, but you'd probably be able to hear a pin drop if any of these guys tried to wrestle this way. In two seconds it was obvious that no one was going to react to any of Yoshihiro Tajiri's matwork, and he's fairly proficient and entertaining on the mat, so there would be no hope of getting heat if you went out there trying to do a solid match with few risks, but also few flaws. It comes down to the style the fans are told or educated to like. In ECW, it's glamourous high spots, brawling/gimmick spots, and mic work. It's gotten to the point where you are either wasting your time, making a bad career choice or both if you go against the grain and try to be a complete wrestler or even simply do your own thing because, while you may be "unique," it's all about trying to get the fans to react, and there isn't much beyond the same old things that the fans will react to. Thus, nothing beyond what's known to work is seen as important to most of these guys, and many fans are more than content with this because they've been convinced that what works is also what is good about wrestling. It's like they are so caught up in wanting to believe the hype about the greatness of their beloved ECW (and the same could be said of WWF) that they convince themselves it's great even in the absence of any real quality.

I think people often fail to distinguish between entertaining and good. Entertaining should simply be whether you enjoyed something or not, while good has to meet some criteria or standard. To me, very little of the current ECW is good because the product is so limited in scope. There are plenty of matches that have good high spots, even great high spots, but how many matches have good psychology, selling, transitions, and so on? ECW reminds me of a low budget action movie. You know you'll get a ton of violence, and see some awesome spots and/or effects, but you also know the acting is probably going to suck and the movie will probably be technically bad because they don't have the money backing or the talented filmmakers. Everyone knows this coming in, and if you like the action you'll watch it and if you don't then you won't. I've watched more than my share of these movies and often find them to be entertaining, but the point is even if I loved some of them, I'm not going to rate them up there with Scorsese and Hitchcock. Of course, there are exceptions to everything, but it's been a long time since ECW has surprised me.

Even with the addition of Tajiri and Super Crazy, this promotion is still really short on talent. Most of the talent they have was not used well tonight, but that's the case every time ECW comes to Poughkeepsie. The majority of this roster consists of below average to poor wrestlers that have so many weaknesses in their game it's not even funny. Most of them aren't trying to be good though. To their credit, and especially Heyman's, the majority of the ECW wrestlers are smart enough to more than get by on their very limited in ring ability. Due to this, it seems like many if not most ECW fans are content with these guys the way they are now. This was not a good show by any means, which is typical, but the majority of the fans went home happy as always, so that makes it "okay." The show was better than the ECW's last offering in this building, and the undercard was better than the fodder WWF presented on the undercard of typically lousy and always overrated St. valentine's day MASSACRE PPV the following day. Hell, Cupid shooting you in the ass with an arrow is probably less painful than watching Goldust vs. Bluedust or Midian vs. Bossman. The sad thing is, largely due to Austin and a strong over storyline, McMahon was able to do a better brawl in practically his first match than the supposed best brawlers like Tommy Dreamer, Sandman and New Jack can do. How anyone could think Dreamer is a better brawler than Ozaki, Benoit, Lioness, Shimoda, or even Tanaka in "their" own league is totally unfathomable. What was running through people's heads (other than reputation deservedly garnered a long time ago but obviously not applicable to his work over the past three years) when voted for a far beyond washed up Stan Hansen, who had neither a good NTV singles match nor a good brawl during the entire year of 1998, might be even more puzzling though.

Steve Corino vs. Nova. The fans are always into the first match because they are excited about the show in general. That said, this had far more heat than expected. People didn't know Corino because he hasn't been on TV yet, but he did a good job of riling up the fans and keeping them interested in the match. Both men worked hard. The match had the flaws you would expect from guys of their experience level; a bit of hesitation, the flow wasn't that great, weak transitions, and not much in between their big spots. However, it was a good match, largely because of the nice high spots, cool counters, and good interaction with the crowd by Corino. Corino teased a corkscrew pescado, and the crowd was really pissed when he didn't do it. They got a pescado from Nova though. The highlight of the match was Nova countering Corino's back body drop outside the ring by bouncing off the ropes in a handstand and DDT'ing Corino on the rebound. Corino turning Nova's rocker dropper into a Liger bomb was also very cool, but not close to the level of the DDT. Corino did pushups after dropkicking Nova, which was reminiscent of Candido's corny WWF character Skip. Nova did a reverse swinging neckbreaker. Nova teased the Naniwa Frankensteiner off the top to the arena floor, but Corino has more sanity than SASUKE (and so does just about everyone else for that matter), so he headbutted Nova low and, with both men standing on the top, bulldogged Corino into the ring. Nova eventually won with his Novacaine. Corino showed a lot of potential, while Nova seemed improved. **1/2

Danny Doring & Amish Roadkill vs. Balls Mahoney & Axl Rotten. Doring cut a fairly weak promo, but he won brownie points with me by saying in reference to Balls & Axl, "You mean you people actually like these two idiots?" The two biggest idiots weren't Balls & Axl though, rather they were the fans who were ejected for hopping over the security rail. This match took forever to start then seemed to take forever to finish because the collective ability of these four doesn't add up to one average worker. Doring's selling is still way out of date. He was really trying hard to put the moves over, but his ridiculous overacting was making a farce out of the match. The highlight was big Balls taking both opponents out with a plancha. The lowlight was Roadkill avoiding Balls' avalanche before he even jumped then almost losing his balance on the top rope when trying his diving body press, which was eventually avoided. Axl and Balls then got the chairs and did a sandwich chair for the win. At least Roadkill had the sense to put his hands up to protect his head. The actual wrestling was terrible with nobody looking decent, but Balls, huh, huh, huh, and to a lesser extent Axl (if he changed his name to Rod, the Beavis & Butthead fans would think he was the shit too) are favorites of the crowd so the audience seemed to enjoy this match. I guess that means Balls & Axl deserve credit for knowing how to be do nothing, yet still be seen as entertaining. The chair got the biggest pop, but this time it wasn't the only thing the fans were interested in seeing Balls do. 1/4*

Skull Von Krush vs. Jerry Lynn. This was really bad matchmaking. Obviously it was a waste of one of ECW's only good workers, but beyond that it was almost sure to kill Lynn in this building. Lynn doesn't go with the flow and repeat the same line or two every night, constantly swear, or tell other guys to suck his dick, so in this day and age he isn't going to get much of a reaction unless he does what he is capable of, which is have a hot match. Even then he might not get much of a reaction because fans have been trained to be much more interested in guys saying the same old crap over and over because that is what the wrestlers they see as stars do. Putting Lynn against Von Krush not only assured he wouldn't have a chance at a hot match, but assured that Lynn was going to be seen as a bathroom break wrestler because Von Krush is about as useless and uninteresting as they come. Von Krush can't work to save his life and he doesn't talk or show any personality, so he's absolutely hopeless. To make things worse, his gimmick went out with Karl Von Hess, or at least Baron Von Raschke. The only place this guy would have a chance of getting over is the WWF because Vince is always glad to insult every race, sex, color, and creed, so I'm sure they could come up with a horrible anti Semitism routine for him and call his finisher genocide. Anyway, this was a terrible match with no heat. Von Krush teased a low blow forever, but still couldn't get a reaction. The execution was way off, as Von Krush was screwing up the spots and sequences. Von Krush has little flexibility, so he also doesn't bump well. They did near falls down the stretch, but they were ice cold. The finish saw Lynn try an ultra huracan rana, but Von Krush started to take the bump too soon, causing Lynn to hit his head on the mat on the way over. Von Krush was so good here that he made The Cat look like Juventud. Lynn wasn't average tonight, but all the blame for it being the worst Lynn match I've ever seen needs to be placed on Von Krush. This match had no redeeming factors, as just about every big spot was botched. -**

Little Guido vs. Chris Chetti. These two didn't work well together so these two probably wouldn't have had a decent match if Stone wasn't limited by his dumb gimmick. Chetti did some nice spots as always, but these two had no chemistry and the big oafs interfering added nothing to the match. The coolest spot was Guido jumping off the second and taking Chetti over with an Oklahoma side roll. Chetti won with his swandive moonsault. Guido and co. destroyed Chetti after the match so little Spike Dudley could make the save. As always, Spike was way over. Spike acid dropped Big Guido then acid dropped Big Sal on top of Guido, which was cool, for the 3 count. It was initially cool when Spike was Hackney and every big stiff was Yarborough, but the idea of showing Spike could beat big guys should have been that it would allow them to push him as far as his talent could take him. Instead, he's the king of the 1-
minuter doing the most predictable DUD in wrestling seemingly every night. Even though his record has become immaculate, we still never see him in a meaningful match. I remember people talking about how much talent and potential Matt Hyson had when he was wrestling in California. I gather they overrated him to some extent, but I didn't expect the guy to become Little 911. 1/4*

Tajiri vs. Super Crazy. I bought the ticket to see these two, and they made it worth my while. This is the best and most consistent series of matches in the US so far this year. The problem is that there is no storyline to the series or any of the matches. Due to this, despite the action being excellent and the work being very strong, all of these matches are starting to look the same and there is "no reason" for these two to continue fighting each other on every show. I'm not complaining that these two are delivering a ***1/2 range match every time out, and I don't care to see them fight anyone else in ECW other than Lynn. Furthermore, I commend ECW for pushing this series as hard as they have been. That said, these matches should be improving now that they are more familiar with each other, but I don't see that at all. Every match seems so similar because they are just out there displaying their spots for a brief amount of time. They are doing pretty much the same spots in every match, so it's like you know you will see the same basic move set and since the match is so short, there's not much time for them to do much beyond the requisite. Tajiri is capable of putting on a selling exhibition, as shown by his 2/3/98 match vs. Gedo, but we haven't seen any of this in the US. It's like he's reverted back to the wrestler we saw on 1/4/97 against Shinjiro Otani. Crazy doesn't really sell. He seems like one of those wrestlers who is a mark for himself, content that his flying is awesome and his work is strong, and not really interested in developing into the great wrestler he could be. Perhaps it's just that these guys are working in ECW and they are simply giving the fans "what they want to see?" In any case, these matches really need to start getting a little longer because the spots have all been seen and they don't really have any meaning since run through them all in 8 minutes without really putting any of them over. Some of the spots are over because they look great, but what purpose does say Tajiri's tarantula have within the context of the match? While it's one of the coolest looking submissions there is, he does it for about five seconds about four minutes into each match so there is no build to it, no chance of a submission from it, and it's not doing any damage that will advance the match in any way or lead to the finish. These matches just aren't building, which is why every match between these two seems to just end. Moving on to tonight's match, I found it to be slightly worse than the rest, which surprised me because I figured I'd enjoy the one I saw live more simply because I was there. I liked it less because I felt I'd seen the match before and because these two weren't over. The idiots behind me made fun of Tajiri when he came out by making stereotypical martial arts sounds like "Hi- ya." After some matwork, they did a nice Lucha opening sequence that got a respect pop upon its conclusion. Tajiri did a great arm drag. My pen went flying off my lap when I marked out for Tajiri's quebrada, so I missed a little of the match looking for it. Crazy climbed the ropes and did a moonsault then followed with an incredible dive. When he missed his moonsault attack, Tajiri did a stiff low dropkick that must have left footprints on Crazy's forehead. Tajiri got a near fall with a Misterio rana. Finish saw Tajiri get his knees up for Crazy's moonsault then deliver a locomotion German suplex for the win. The match seemed like it was really short. The big spots got pops, but sadly they didn't win the crowd over. ***1/4

Francine signed an autograph for anyone who bought official ECW merchandise during the intermission. This was a great idea because merchandise was moving like hotcakes. There was still a pretty big line when the show restarted. Given the match they restarted with, I bet the people who gave up on getting an autograph and went back to watch the show were pretty pissed.

Tommy Rogers vs. Big Dick Dudley. Talk about wasting good workers. Big Dick is even worse than Von Krush, although tonight Von Krush was the more god awful of the two. I think I was the only one in the building that popped when Rogers was announced. Everyone around me thought Rogers had no chance because Big Dick had a huge size advantage and Rogers looks like a jobber. Luckily they were wrong as Rogers played possum, acting like the chair Dudley threw in the ring hit him and knocked him out. When Dick reentered the ring, Rogers attacked him and Tomokaze'd him on the chair for the win. Only the finish got a positive reaction, and Dudley managed to ensure that even this highlight wasn't executed to perfection. Rogers tried, but you can't do anything with Dick. This match had no business being in the top half of the card. Mercifully short. -1/2*

ECW World Title: Taz vs. Kronus. It's weird having a heavyweight title match be third from the top, but even weirder to have a guy that's been totally jobbed out getting a shot at what ECW and Shane Douglas want you to believe is the sport's top prize. Douglas' music played and the fans went nuts. It's funny how quickly things can change in wrestling. Douglas said he held the tag titles with (the great) Ricky Steamboat, but the Eliminators were the best tag team he'd ever seen. Obviously Shane has spent most of his life with his eyes closed. Anyway, he said he's earned a title shot against whomever the winner may be, as if there was any doubt. Then he urged these two jabronies who haven't had a good singles match since he was the Dean to provide what the WWF and WCW can't provide, a great pro wrestling heavyweight title match. Douglas' speech went over really well. He's the best talker in wrestling for delivery, although Arn is right up there, but unfortunately he belongs in USO. This was really poor wrestling, especially for a world title match, as these guys have no fundamentals. Kronus is way down from where he was a few years ago. He's gained weight, which has caused him to lose some of his athleticism. He was struggling to do his same old high spots, so they didn't look as good as they used to. Taz put Kronus in the udehishigigyakujujigatame 30 seconds into the match, but Kronus didn't sell it at all and eventually got a rope break. They did all kinds of high impact spots, but Taz didn't sell anything as usual, so that pretty much killed the last shred of credibility Kronus had. The stupidest thing was after Taz did all this no-selling, he cut Kronus off on the top and did a nice overhead belly to belly then sold like he was dead. Kronus tried what has become his poor version of the space rolling elbow, but Taz countered it with the katahajime for the win. This wasn't a total squash, but no one in the building gave Kronus a snowballs chance in hell, and selfish Taz did nothing to make anyone think they should change their mind. These two really did Douglas and ECW proud. At least he was right about the WCW and WWF part of his speech though. It's well beyond the point where Kronus needs to find employment elsewhere. 3/4*

Tommy Dreamer vs. Justin Credible vs. Lance Storm. This was going to be Dreamer vs. Credible for the 1000th time, but Storm came out and said, "tonight I'm going to wrestle Credible so you people don't have to watch another shitty Tommy Dreamer match." Too bad that wasn't really the case because Dreamer made what would have been a decent match into, well, another shitty Tommy Dreamer match. Dreamer cut a hardcore promo that worked. He said Bytch's confidence comes from a new pair of silicone tits. I always thought the silicone was under the tits rather than the tits themselves, but I guess you learn some new inaccuracies every time you attend an ECW show. Dreamer whined that Credible's cronies always interfere when they are in Poughkeepsie (like it's any different in the other buildings) and said Credible should send his rat to the back to blow another one of the boys. Jasmine went nuts, but Dreamer said he meant Jason, who lost just it. Dreamer didn't leave Jasmine out though, saying the boys won't touch her because she's a crack whore. Credible and his seconds left, but of course they returned a few minutes later. Storm and Credible teamed up on Dreamer for a while, but they couldn't coexist once a spot backfired, so they went at it while Dreamer went and got a ladder. Dreamer jumped off the apron, teeter tottering the ladder into both opponents. Dreamer tried to piledrive Jasmine, but she low blowed him and suplexed him. Storm then tried to hit Dreamer with a cane, but he wound up hitting Credible, who Dreamer then pinned. Dreamer then Russian leg sweeped Storm. This was a really weak finish that came too soon, as the match was actually starting to get slightly interesting. The match defied all logic since Dreamer didn't really have any problem winning despite the fact that this was practically a handicap match. It would have been a lot more entertaining if Credible and Storm got to display their spots, but that's what happens when the guys that have some decent athletic moves are heels and stuck in a crummy no-sell brawl. In any case, the match didn't have as many cool spots or risks as you'd think. 1/2*

ECW Tag Titles: Rob Van Dam & Sabu vs. Buh Buh Ray Dudley & D-Von Dudley. As usual, Buh Buh got off on enticing the fans to jump the guard rail. They spit on fans and even threw a drink on one guy they were picking on, but luckily no one was dumb enough to take them up on their stupid offer. It's inevitable that the Dudley's routine is going to cause them and ECW serious problems sooner or later, but it's well beyond the point where anyone should feel sorry when it happens. Gertner said the Dudleys were five times former and "soon to be future" tag team champions of the world. The early portion where they tried to wrestle wasn't very good and had no heat at all. Buh Buh was in forever trying to work a straight match, which didn't bode well because he eventually got tired. Buh Buh is less awful than D-Von so it does make some sense for him to try to carry the load. The match got pretty good and the building coming to their feet when Sabu & Van Dam got the Dudley's on the floor. Sabu did an awesome springboard plancha over the guard rail and about three rows deep, but Van Dam put that to shame with his incredible tope con hilo over the guard rail. Sabu did another great dive later on. Van Dam did all his flying, while the Dudley's did all their high impact moves. Still, the match had too many lulls where nothing was happening, and this was killing the heat. As usual, the fans didn't seem to care about much beyond the spots that in some way involved a gimmick. When Van Dam was in trouble, some fans were yelling for Sabu to just come in because you don't need to tag in ECW. Sabu finally made the hot tag, but didn't have much of a flurry. The finish saw Sabu leg drop D-Von off the top through a table then Van Dam hit the Van Daminator on Buh Buh for the win. The match was fair because Van Dam & Sabu were hitting their high spots. *1/2

As always, no return date was announced, but it will be interesting to see if ECW will start selling this building out every time. In any case, while the show was an improvement, an ECW show at the Civic Center is still Just Another Night.