BRM Reviews 3PW Return of the Dream

[Big Red Machine]

3PW Return of the Dream (11/23/2002)- Philadelphia, PA

MATT STRIKER vs. CROWBAR- 5/10

THE BLUE MEANIE vs. WHITE LOTUS- 4/10

THREE WAY ELIMINATION MATCH: Joey Matthews vs. Rob Eckos vs. Josh Daniels- 5.5/10
Did a good job making Daniels look strong.

JASMIN ST CLAIRE INTRODUCES HER NEW MAN- At the last show, Jasmine turned on the Meanie and said that she would replace him with someone better. Meanie is over as a babyface, and Jasmin will get tons of heat because she turned on him, so this would be a great spot to have Jasmin bring in a young guy to try to elevate him by having him feud with the Meanie. Of course, because this is 3PW and they are stuck in the past, they squander this opportunity by putting Jasmin with JASON KNIGHT.

“PITBULL” GARY WOLFE vs. JASON KNIGHT (w/Jasmin St. Claire)- 4/10
An unremarkable match with horrible aftermath. Towards the end of the match, the Meanie comes out and heads straight for Jasmin… then just yells at her a bit He doesn’t even do anything when she slaps him. She betrayed you and hit you in the balls, Meanie! You should be pissed as hell!
The Pitbull wins with two Death Valley Drivers and Jasmin jumps in the ring to check on him. For some reason the Meanie only now decides to try to get Jasmin, and the second he does Jason is back up, attacking the Meanie, rather than selling Pitbull’s finish! Meanie and Jason then start putting the boots to the Meanie until a referee shirt and a long-haired blue wig comes out. For some reason, the heels decide to leave now. The blue-wig ref checks on Meanie then cuts a promo claiming to be the most sought-after ring announcer in wresting. He says that he has come to 3PW because he had a dream. He started rambling on about great tag team managers (if you want a good indication of little the crowd cared about what this guy was saying, he named-dropped Jim Cornette, Captain Lou Albano, and Paul E. Dangerously and got no reaction whatsoever), and somehow this means that this guy wants to manage the Meanie as a singles wrestler. Meanie thinks this guy is nuts. Anyway, this segment was just plain horrible.

KID KASH vs. RON “THE TRUTH” KILLINGS- 3/10
They do some normal wrestling, then spill onto the outside, make their way up to the crow’s nest where they do a big powerbomb spot through two tables, then stagger back to the ring… and go right back to normal wrestling again! WTF?! If they had just stayed in the ring and wrestled the whole time I would have given this a MUCH higher rating


THE ROCKIN’ REBEL vs. ROADKILL- 2/10
One of the announcers described Roadkill as “one of the all-time greats here at Viking Hall.” Now I like Roadkill, but calling him “one of the all-time greats” at the ECW Arena is more than a bit of a stretch. With less than a minute, I can probably come up with at least twenty guys more over at the Arena than Roadkill. It is statements like this that make your announcers lose all credibility.
Anyway, they do some stuff, then the Rebel gets his pants pulled down and Roadkill chops his butt, which apparently passes for humor. Then the match ends when Rebel hits Roadkill with a fireball. The execution on the fireball was actually good, but almost everything else wasn’t.

NAUGHTIE NIGHTIE CONTEST- Joey Matthews names himself judge. He judges a winner and tries to convince her to kiss him. She won’t, so he grabs her hair and is about to force the kiss when someone makes the save. You would expect a babyface to make the save, but because this is 3PW and nothing here makes sense, sleaze-ball heel Tod Gordon and his monster heel enforcer Annihilation come out and make the save. At least Joey Matthews is a good enough worker to make on of Annihilations crappy chokeslams look decent.

TEXAS BULLROPE MATCH: Dusty Rhodes vs. Kevin Sullivan- DUD!
Sully pulls out a spike and starts stabbing Dusty, then just beats the sh*t out of him until Dusty just started no-selling (no hulking up or anything... he just stopped selling), then hit Dusty with the cowbell a few times and pins him for the win.

3PW HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Sabu(c) vs. Syxx-Pac-7.75/10
Best match 3PW has put on so far.

Another bad show from 3PW, but at least it had a great match on it and they finally learned not to put the pointless, crappy old guys match on BEFORE the Heavyweight Title match.