ECW: CYBERSLAM 1996

Staying in February of 96, just switching promotions. On a totally unrelated note, February was not a great month for anyone but Brian Pillman.

2/17/1996

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Commentary: Joey Styles

Bad Crew/Dredd v Sendoff/Allen/ Dirt Bike Kid

A complete and total waste of fucking time that the crowd shat on immediately. I’m not looking these dudes up. 0-1

Winners: Dredd and the Crew after a Doomsday Device.

• The Sandman ran everyone off with his cane and yelled extreme. Yep. Way to kick it off with style Paulie.

El Puerto Riqueno v Spiros Greco

How do you follow up a banger like that? With a dude with zero charisma doing 1980s stuff in front of a crowd that doesn’t care. The highlight of the match? This dude in the front row. Forgive the graininess of the photo I had to zoom in on this hero.

Regardless, even this absolute god among men couldn’t get this shit a point. 0-2

Winner: The Greek guy with a who gives a shit bomb.

• Fonzie makes sure we remember him prior to the match.

Taz (w/Fonzie) v Joel Hartgood

Man, you just knew old Joel was screwed. I will never, ever get tired of watching Taz suplex fools on their heads. 1-3. By the way we are only 13 minutes into this damn show. Keep it moving.

Winner: Taz via the katahajime.

• The stretcher comes out for Joel but Taz dumps it like a bastard. The three losers from earlier try to make the save but get suplexed to hell instead. Mikey does a little better with his save attempt but gets choked out as well.

• Joey welcomes us in the ring. The lights go out…

• Brian Pillman makes his legendary debut. Last seen walking out on his Superbrawl match a few days before. He kills it and says anything he wants to the delight and then hatred of the crowd. Then he threatens to piss in the ring before security stops him. He calls Paul Bookerman to get that in on television twice within a week. It was definitely ahead of it’s time and ECW was the best place for him to get it over. My favorite part was him attacking haircut guy from earlier with a fork before Shane Douglas makes the save.
• Shane Douglas wants him gone or he’s going to sit in the ring for the rest of the night. A bunch of security then drags him out the door.

Mr. Hughes v Buh Buh Ray Dudley (w/Family)

That’s a lot of obscure Dudleys…and Big Dick. Nothing to this one either. Hughes gets into it with Dick and that seals his fate. 1-4

Winner: Buh Buh after a top rope splash.

• Mustafa comes out alone because New Jack is in jail. He cuts a promo showing why New Jack did all the talking. Then Damien Kane and Lady Alexandra after Mustafa says he will take them alone. Kane says some racist shit and Mustafa whips his ass in response until the Headhunters arrive. They kick the shit out of him until dumb ass Kane does the open challenge deal. Which leads to…

Headhunters (w/Kane and Alexandra) v Bruise Brothers

Above was the camera angle for most of this garbage. Just a bunch of walking and weak brawling we could barely see. It has two of my least favorite teams of all time in it so I’m not mad. Big ole nope. 1-5

Winners: The team with the Nazi tattoos after really not much.

• Joey is back again. Tommy Dreamer joins him this time with Beulah. They barely discuss his injury before Raven, Kimona, Meanie and Stevie arrive. Shane Douglas and the Bruise Brothers appear to arrive as backup but they side with Raven and the BBs take out Tommy’s junk.

J.T. Smith v Axl Rotten

Smith had turned on Axl not long before to set this up. Pretty much just walking around the ring hitting one another with stuff again. The ending where Smith pretended to fall if the ropes was kinda clever just not clever enough for a point. 1-6

Winner: Smith gets the win after a chairshot.

• He continues the disrespect after the match until Hack Myers arrives then he attacks him instead. Hack eventually runs him off. This was a thing.

6 Person Dog Collar: The Eliminators/Stevie Richards v The Pitbulls/Francine

This was another one of those matches where they wonder around the arena hitting sloppy looking shit on one another. At least it wasn’t boring though. Stevie Richards died for his art at the finish (which had one of those weird ECW cuts where the screen goes fuzzy) honestly me not being bored was a threshold I’ve crossed. Give it a point. 2-7

Winner: Francine gets the win for her team by pinning Stevie following a Pitbull superplex/powerbomb deal.

• After the match the Pitbulls both take Total Elimination while trying to save Francine. Didn’t help. She took it anyway.

ECW World Television Championship: (C) 2 Cold Scorpio v Sabu

This was a match where I feel like they were shooting for an epic but just had to settle for good. Sabu had no regard for his own well being but that sometimes led to him just straight up being sloppy. He did hit some cool dives but most of the actual wrestling was carried by Scorpio. Like I said, not the classic Joey made it out to be but definitely a bright spot in this show so far. 3-8

Winner: Time limit draw.

Shane Douglas v Cactus Jack

Another walk around brawl but this was at least well executed and made it into the ring. Mick showed up in his wedding clothes with an Eric Bischoff shirt underneath to really get this crowd to hate him. I enjoyed this and the ending with Mick pleading for Mikey to save him set up his exit from the company really well. Not too shabby. 4-9

Winner: Douglas got the win after handcuffing Foley, trapping him in the Figure Four and Mikey smashing his face with a chair. So essentially a clean finish for this show.

ECW World Championship: (C) Raven (w/Kimona, Stevie and Meanie) v The Sandman (w/Missy Hyatt)

So they had a cat fight, tons of interference and a wild brawl in the crowd and still couldn’t make a long Sandman match watchable. I like the dude in small bursts but I just can’t deal with anything above 5 minutes. Garbage. 5-10

Winner: Raven retained after lots of shenanigans and an Evenflow on a chair.

• After the match Sandman ran off the heels with his cane and hung out with Missy.

Final Tally? 5-10. This show had some really fun moments to be sure. Mostly in the second half of the show.  Be aware that the stuff that was bad was really, really bad. Pick and choose with this.

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