Legends of the Arena - 6/27/09

This is show #324 in a series of ECW reunion shows and was probably the worst one of all. Let’s go down the checklist shall we? Drunk Sandman? Check. Wrestlers shooting on the mic? Check. Required appearances by Tod Gordon and Blue Meanie? Check. Shane Douglas no-showing? Check. Great … everything’s there. First off, however, allow me to offer a disclaimer. Francine promoted this show as a benefit for cancer research because her father and her sister passed away from cancer last fall within four days of each other. Now, I can not fault her cause, as my aunt is a cancer survivor, but I can and will fault any and all of the following … lazy ring work, out-of-shape wrestlers, drunkeness, botched and/or completely blown spots, ridiculous in-ring segments, dance-offs, general stupid shit, etc. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get extreme!

1. Too Cold Scorpio vs. C.W. Anderson – 5
2. Bilvis Wesley vs. The Musketeer – 0
3. Chris Hamrick vs. “Crowbar” Devon Storm – 3
4. Rhino vs. Jamie Dundee vs. Scotty Anton Riggs – 1
5. Balls Mahoney & Axl Rotten vs. The Baldies (Devito, Angel, & H.C. Loc) (Philadelphia Street Fight) – 2
6. The Blue Meanie & Nova vs. Little Guido & Big Sal – 0
7. Al Snow vs. Jerry Lynn – 3
8. The Sandman & Sabu vs. Justin Credible & Raven (Special ref: Terry Funk) (Anything Goes Match) – 1

Before the first match, Joel Gertner comes out and does his regular routine of jokes and such to commence the evening’s activities. Scorpio and C.W. had a very good match. It was very fluid and both guys took their time to work a good pace. Scorpio's high-flying moves at the end were very nice and looked crisp and clean. Anderson was in good shape and looked a hell of a lot better than he did when he had his brief spurt in WWE in '06. Nobody tried to rush anything and your initial thought is “Wow, this will be a good show”, but that theory was quickly put to rest once the next match started. You get two guys who didn’t amount to anything more than a cum stain on Tammy Sytch’s clothes after the boys were done nailing her in the back. Of course, I’m talking about Bilvis Wesley and the jolly old Musketeer. Wesley came out to an old Elvis song and nobody even knew who he was. Musketeer was flabby and looked like shit. I remember exactly one … count ‘em ONE skit on television he was involved with, and his involvement in that was about 15 seconds. Anyway, New Jack’s music mistakenly played throughout the arena yet he never appeared. Bilvis got the win and totally did not give a shit. Next up was Hamrick and Crowbar. This had potential but that was all flushed down the shitter when Crowbar started shooting on Taz before the match. Hamrick was totally expressionless and was just going through the motions. Crowbar tried to do a plancha on a prone Hamrick who was laying across a gaurdrail but lost his grip on the ropes and fell on his ass in a moment that left Brian and I laughing so hard that we re-watched it a few times. Afterwards, Crowbar proceeded with his plancha and missed totally. And yes, that was the high point of the entire match and the only reason it got that score.

The three way match was only a few minutes long. Dundee did his usual schtick by berating the crowd with slurs and insults. Anton looked awful, like a bloated toad, with some ridiculous goatee. Oh yeah, he still had the clap. Following the brief three-way, there was some sort of a hall of fame ceremony that featured Tod Gordon and his kids, a drunk Sandman, Bill Alfonso, and the dude who apparently now owns the (ECW) Arena. This went on for way too long with Sandman talking shit about Raven, who came through the crowd and told Sandman “I’m signing autographs over here. Fuck you.” The valuable lesson to be learned from this would be to never, ever give Sandman a case of Coors and a live mic because you will regret that decision later, much like that decision to get those four sliders and chicken rings at White Castle at two in the morning. Next bout saw Balls and Axl re-unite after many years and go up against The Baldies. After about 90 seconds, the referee (H.C. Loc) joins the baldies with no explaination what-so-ever. All five proceeded to stumble around while flinging chairs at each other. For the next bout … I’ll give you a chance as to guess what happened … hint, it happens in every fucking Blue Meanie match … time’s up. If you said a dance-off, you would be correct. I’m not even going to bother recapping it because you know what happens. Nova cut a promo afterwards about how he sells the Simon System for a living now and … oh, wait, wrong character.

I was looking forward to the Jerry Lynn bout, mainly because somebody online had nominated it for “Indy Match of the Year”. Not sure why said person would do such a thing as this was unacceptable, even for Al Snow’s standards. It was like they were going in slow motion with no real direction. They tried the lights out trick to introduce Lynn but it was only to a lukewarm reaction. I was just so disappointed in this. Finally, the main event … really sucked. Francine, who looked like she was about to pop, did a promo beforehand thanking everyone for coming out to the show. Sabu thinned down and shaved off all his hair. I guess he was going for that “cancer patient” look, since the show was a cancer benefit and all. Sandman was still tanked from the bullshit earlier with Tod Gordon. Actually, the only one who was even remotely trying was Credible. He took some good litte bumps and actually was the reason the match didn’t get a “0”. There was a sad table bump at the end with Sabu that was pretty pathetic. Funk was immobile as shit and could barely get down to mat to make the counts. Raven got on the mic and proclaimed that he’d rather be at home watching Golden Girls then wrestling in the match. Don’t really agree with Raven on his choice of television viewing but I’d rather watch whales fuck on the Discovery channel than have to watch this show again.