Monday, April 17, 2006

Hardcore Homecoming- 06/10/05- Philadelphia, PA

Former: ECW Arena
Now: The New Alhambra?

This show was done on the eve of WWE's pilfered tribute to the hardcore fed that made bingo halls cool. It was done by Jeremy Borash Productions, which makes me a little leery immediately, and apparently put together by Shane Douglas.
1 Simon Diamond/ CW Anderson v. Mikey Whipwreck/ Chris Chetti- 3- No better way to kick off an ECW tribute show by randomly throwing four guys together in a tag match. These guys really had no connection in ECW at all, except maybe they all liked chili dogs after the show. But, I digress. The match never broke down in typical ECW fashion nor did it have anything hardcore in it. It was just a straight wrestling match, which I'm all for, but shouldn't they have incorporated the spirit of ECW into this somehow? Lost points for that.

2 Tracey Smothers v. Blue Meanie- 1- This was pure garbage. A dance off. The referee becoming a tag partner to Meanie. I'm not sure what this is supposed to do, but entertain me it isn't.

3 Kid Kash v. 2 Cold Scorpio- 6- Now, this was worth watching. 2 guys from diff. eras of the company going out and putting together a 15 minute match to see what the other has. 2 Cold is a hugely underrated performer, which is maybe why he works mainly in Japan. Kash kept up best he could, and 2 Cold sold the best he could; they worked together like a married couple in the pioneer days. Neither really liked or dislike each other and times are hard, so let's make the best of it. And they did an admirable job.

4 Kronus/ New Jack v. The Bad Breed- 2- You know exactly what happened here.

5 Justin Credible v. Jerry Lynn- 6- A retelling of this classic feud, which was the only work Credible did that didn't suck farts. They redid their famous hurricanrana off the top through a table and they both seemed to really have a good knowledge of the other guy. A top rate match with hard work and effort shining through.

6 Raven v. Sandman- 5- you're bound to get stiff with Sandman in the ring, and I'm not talking about the shots of liquid cocaine he had before the match. There was some interference in it, but what else from ECW. This had the flavor of the '95 era there and there was some good blood and the crowd ate this match up with two hands.

7 Terry Funk v. Shane Douglas v. Sabu(No Ropes Barbed Wire Match)- 4- I'm not sure what I actually liked about this match, thinking back. Sabu looked particularly good and Douglas hit the wire a few times and Funk didn't totally hobble around the ring, fall in a corner haphazardly and wither away into a pile of ash, but he did break a ladder and fuck up a table spot. Mick Foley showed up to get booed for using Socko, so he wrapped barb wire around it. I thought Socko was a vegetarian. Anyways, all 3 guys blantaly said before the match they couldn't top what they had already done, but they still tried to send the fans home happy and they had a half ass decent match in the process, as far as Barb Wire Matches go.

This DVD was a pretty good presentation. I prefer it to the One Night Stand because it allows some of ECW's most prestigious brethren a voice on the disc, which was cool to hear. I'm sure being there I would have thought this was a great show, but only watching it and combined with the production of the disc, it was good, not great.

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