BRM Reviews ECW Hostile City Showdown '95

[Big Red Machine]

ECW Hostile City Showdown ‘95 (4/15/1995)- Philadelphia, PA

MIKEY WHIPWRECK vs. STEVIE RICHARDS (w/Raven)- 4/10
Raven interferes early on, so Mikey goes to get Hack Myers to counter Raven on the outside. Mikey and Stevie did some stuff, but there really wasn’t much of a story at all. Raven jumps Mikey after the match but Hack Myers quickly jumps in and makes the save. The Pit Bulls come out and attack Hack, so the Public Enemy make the save.

TONY STETSON vs. TSUBO GENJIN- DUD.
All we saw was about a fifty second clip of the end of the match. The continued to brawl afterwards, but we quickly cut away from that, too. I have no idea what the point of even showing this was.

DEATH MATCH: Axl Rotten vs. Ian Rotten- 2/10
This started off with Axl cutting a promo asking the fans which weapons in his trash can full of weapons they wanted to see used in tonight’s match. The fans, of course, were eating this up. The ECW crowd loved nothing more than the promise of violence. Ian came out and jumped Axl from behind, officially starting the match. The match itself was fairly standard for these two: they hit and stab each other with things, with no psychology at all.

STEVIE RICHARDS PROMO- just plain fun.

TOMMY DREAMER vs. RAVEN (w/Stevie Richards & Beulah McGillicutty)- 5/10
Raven and Dreamer are brawling near the crowd, and the ECW Arena Faithful… are not paying any attention and instead chanting “SHOW YOUR TITS!” at Beulah. They brawl around for a bit, then get into the ring. The DDT on the floor spot was good continuity and was built up to well by Stevie’s promo. Tommy eventually gets DQed for DDTing the ref because he didn’t like the fact that the ref didn’t stop Stevie from breaking up a pin. After the match Tommy gives Beulah that famous Piledriver and the crowd goes nuts. This is often cited as the moment the ECW crowd finally truly accepted Tommy, but to be honest, it seemed pretty innocuous.

ECW TV TITLE MATCH: Eddie Guerrero(c) vs. Dean Malenko- 8.5/10
An utterly fantastic athletic contest. There were times when I had to pause the DVD and rewind just to fully understand the mechanics of what they did. How the hell do you counter a powerbomb with an arm drag? Eddie found a way. They showed the Arena crown things they had never seen before, and the crowd loved it. Eddie stopped selling his knee at the end, but otherwise a half hour of awesome wrestling.

ECW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Shane Douglas(c) (w/Woman) vs. The Sandman- 5/10
Babyface Sandman jumps the heel from behind to start the match. They do some standard stuff until we get an extremely crappy finish in which Shane has Sandman in a rear naked choke but woman hits him in the back of the knee, causing him to fall backwards with his shoulders to the match and Sandman gets the pin. Maybe the problem here was the execution, as Shane didn’t look like he was trying to get his shoulders up at all, and Sandman was acting like he was stuck in the submission the whole time. Then Woman and Sandman celebrate while Douglas is so angry that he overturns a table at ringside, then goes to put on a Monday Night Raw t-shirt that a fan had brought for him. Shane says he is going to go somewhere where he can wrestle and he walks out of the building.
Also, Shane just got double crossed by his heel manager. Shouldn’t this have been a double turn with Shane now the babyface?

ECW WORLD TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: The Public Enemy(c) vs. The Pit Bulls (w/Stevie Richards)-7/10
Great brawl

RON SIMMONS vs. 911 (w/Paul E. Dangerously)- DUD!
All we saw was the finish, which really pissed me off. If you’re not going to show the whole match, DON’T ADVERTISE IT AS SUCH ON THE DVD

TERRY FUNK vs. CACTUS JACK- 5.75/10
Yet another wild brawl with a lot of weapon use. Most importantly, a fan in the front row holds up a sign that says “Cane Dewey.” Remember that. That will be important later. Sandman attacks Cactus after the match and Terry Funk sets Cactus on fire.

A complete and total one match show. Aside from being easily the best match on the card, Guerrero vs. Malenko really stands out here because it is the only match on the card aside from the opener that isn’t a wild brawl. By the time we got up to the main event, I was sick of seeing weapons already.

STUPID ANNOUNCER QUOTES:
1. Joey Styles (after Stevie interferes, breaking up Tommy’s pin of Raven)- “Where’s the disqualification?!”
Joey, they’ve been hitting each other with weapons all match! This is ECW. When has someone ever been DQed for interfering in a match?