It has been awhile since I fired up The Network. I was expecting to watch a Clash of Champions, but they have also added a lot of good ECW, and how can I say no to that?
(I was going to put this in the What Did You Juat Watch? thread, but it has died. I considered starting Part 2, but I'll let someone else decide if we need one.)
ECW Hardcore TV Episode #90
Tully Blanchard wants a piece of the Franchise! "One member of The Horsemen may be afraid of ya, but this one's not" Flashes the four fingers.
We open the show with the crappy theme.
Stevie Richards has a ‘Big Surprise’. (He has been on a minor winning streak wrestling as Stevie Polo and Stevie Flamigo.) Joey Styles has him out for an interview and tells him he can’t produce Johnny Polo. Johnny Polo last seen managing the Mounties and doing color commentary on Superstars, so it is weird that this is being teased as anything. Of course it is something, it leads to us meeting Raven, and I don't know if this is the music Raven originally debuted with or if this is stock overdub, but it's some of the corniest crap you will ever hear. Raven comes out and tells Stevie he shouldn’t have lost to Tommy Dreamer. He mouths off to Styles a little bit "Quoth the Raven, Nevermore" and then we get …
Stevie Richards vs Hack Meyers. This match is nothing to speak of. Hack Meyers is a basic garbage brawler named ‘The Shah of ECW’ for whatever that is worth. He is billed as being from the last house on the right which is great. Stevie wins when ref gets distracted and Raven comes in and kicks Hack with a loaded boot.
I had never seen how Raven came about and this was a weird way to do it, but you could tell Raven was going to work as a character. He was being called Richard’s manager by Styles throughout the match. It is going to be fun to watch these two evolve.
The middle of this show is total garbage. We get a drawn out Mikey Whipwreck segment of what happened last week with some laughable Shane Douglas at the club bits sprinkled in. Shane cuts a promo at the club on Ron Simmons.
We get a Ron Simmons promo. His arm is in a sling thanks to Shane.
2 Cold Scorpio is out for his match, but out come Malenko and Benoit who beat the snot out of him. Young Benoit seems even more vicious in retrospect. They leave Scorpio laying in the ring and The Sandman with Woman come out. Sandman's match with Scorpio is now, but nobody knows if Scorpio can go. Sandman gladly just mingles around the ring forever smoking cigarettes and staring off into the crowd. Nobody in wrestling can stare into a camera lens the way Woman could... you can't mistake that look she wants to crawl through that screen. Ahem, Scoripo is ready. Sandman controls most of the match with his Sandman slow plodding offense. Scorpio makes a comeback and gets the pinfall. This was really a nothing match, but Scorpio getting the win is kind of surprising because it is easy to forget how big a fish Scorpio was in the small ponds. He had himself a pretty good run there for awhile.
Benoit and Malenko get some more of Scorpio and we are out.
This show wasn't very good. If you want to see Raven debut then check out the first 10 minutes, otherwise find another episode to watch.
I think I am slowly going to go through these episodes now that we have hit a decent point in ECW lore. So, there may be more of this, or I might just flake out.
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"Hell, looking back at Brock's push, it's really hard to make a case that all of this putting Brock over stuff is going to help in the longrun. Within one year, he's won practically everything.