ECW Cyberslam 1998 2/21/1998

Written by: Arnold Furious

We join the show with the entire ECW roster coming out to the ring. Odd seeing Sandman, Droz, Al Snow and Bam Bam Bigelow in the same ring. Heyman cuts a promo about ECW. He says something along the lines of everyone who’s ever been in ECW being ECW 4 Life. Heyman dedicates the show to Louie Spicolli and we have a 10 bell salute. The rowdy ECW crowd are actually quiet throughout the 10 bells.

Jerry Lynn v Danny Doring w/Road Kill

They fight over an arm ringer in typical excellent Jerry Lynn style. Dastardly shuffle from Doring. Road Kill interferes and Lynn catches a leg drop on the back of the head. Doring misses an elbow off the buckles. Tilt-a-whirl into a headscissors from Lynn. Doring bails and Lynn hits a pescado which wipes out both Doring and Road Kill. Back inside and Lynn scores with the Minnesota Jam. Suplex from Lynn. Lynn misses a head butt. Doring throws Lynn outside so Road Kill can work him over. Nice gutwrench suplex from Doring. They all spill outside and Road Kill miscues a clothesline which sends Doring into the crowd. Lynn dropkicks Road Kill into the crowd and hits a springboard senton over the guard rail off the timekeepers table. Lynn lands on his head. Lynn scores a 2 count with a drop kick. Lynn misses a Minnesota Jam. Doring wastes time climbing the buckles and Lynn drop kicks him off. Lynn hits a plancha onto Doring and Road Kill. Chants of “Jerry”. Tiger bomb and Doring kicks out. Doring complains of an injured elbow while Road Kill nails Lynn with a top tope elbow behind the refs back. Another Dastardly shuffle from Doring. Near fall for Doring and a reversal from Lynn for another 2 count. Doring goes for a superplex and Lynn sunset flips him off the top for the 3 count at 9.59. ***. Good solid stuff before Lynn was regarded as a mat master.

Al Snow v Tracey Smothers

There are millions of mannequin heads in the crowd as part of Al’s gimmick. Smothers gets pelted with mannequin heads during his introduction. Smothers bails before the match even starts because Al is being odd. After 3 minutes of FBI stalling they ring the bell again. Ok, I’m timing the match from that point. Another minute of Al talking to the fans. After 6 minutes since the first bell we’ve had one collar and elbow tie up. Bunch of shoulder blocks from Smothers and he bails after taking a hip toss. Dear God. Smoke covers half the ring – is the ECW arena on fire? I can’t see a damn thing but I really don’t care. Guido and Rich (the rest of the FBI crew) attack Snow on the floor. Someone call the fire brigade I can’t see the ring. Snow with an Ocean Cyclone or Wheelbarrow suplex on Smothers. Snow goes for a superplex and Tommy Rich nails him with the Italian flag. Rich jumps Snow again. Yawn. Guido gets in the ring and it’s a Pisan double elbow but Snow kicks out. Smothers goes to a sleeper – are you kidding me? They haven’t barely started wrestling yet. Smothers with a russian legsweep on Snow. Smothers goes for a rana? Powerbomb from Snow. Flying back elbow from the top on Snow. Smothers offence looks like crap. I’m having trouble calling this. Snow with the world’s worst spinebuester. Powerbomb from Snow. Nice moonsault from Snow. Smothers is dumped over the ropes and Al hits a moonsault press on all the FBI. Snow chases Rich around the ring until Smothers nails him with a chair. Ref bump and the FBI all come in to attack Snow. Jeff Jones comes down to replace the ref (Jones is a crooked ref). Flag clothesline. The FBI mug for the camera and Al grabs Head and waffles all 4 guys. Snow Plow on Jeff Jones. Snow Plow on Guido. Snow Plow on Smothers but there’s no referee. Snow drops off the top rope with Head to the crotch of Smothers. It’s over, finally, at 19.05. Is my timer not working? No, it really did eat up 19 minutes of my life. *. Crap.

Doug Furnas v Chris Chetti

Furnas takes Chetti down and works him on the mat. Chetti reverses and Furnas powers out. Nice. Tilt-a-whirl into a headscissors from Chetti. Rana attempt from Chetti and he’s been powerbombed. Scoop slam. Couple of kicks to the ribs and Furnas is in control. Powerslam for a 2 count. Boston crab from Furnas but it’s more like a Liontamer. Super belly to belly suplex from Furnas. Rana from Furnas. Furnas goes for the bearhug but Chetti hits a DDT and follows up with the double jump moonsault for the pin at 4.08. You have to be kidding me – 20 minutes for Smothers but less than 5 for this? **1/2. Just not long enough to score anything better.

Joey Styles is in the ring to do the intro for Cyberslam. Isn’t he a bit late. We already had 3 matches. He talks about Living Dangerously (which I’ve already reviewed). Joey shills for a few minutes and out comes the Triple Threat (Shane Douglas/Chris Candido/Bam Bam Bigelow/Francine/Sunny). Shane cuts a promo about nothing much in particular. Excellent chant of “Francine will suck dick for crack, doo-dah, doo-dah”. Candido gets all riled up about Storm cracking onto Sunny. Sunny knows who the mystery partner is but won’t tell Candido. Francine and Sunny nearly get in a fight.

Lance Storm v Chris Candido

Storm starts out fast and hits a superkick. Candido goes outside and gets the baseball slide and the slingshot pescado. Back inside Storm gets a 2 count. Chops. Candido ducks a forearm and turns it into a release flapjack into the turnbuckles. Storm escapes the vertical suplex but gets caught with a swinging neckbreaker. Release powerslam from Candido. Storm comes firing back with a spinning heel kick and a sweet looking drop kick. Cartwheel splash. Storm goes for a leap onto the buckles but Candido pushes him and he lands on the ringpost. Ouch. Side superplex from Candido. Northern lights suplex from Candido which gets a 2 count. Storm escapes a powerbomb and hits another spin kick. Top rope rana from Candido. Storm steals Candido’s finisher and hits the top rope powerbomb for the pin and the (upset) win at 8.43. ***. Lots of good stuff. Candido would have made it big if it weren’t for his crack smoking fiance.

ECW TV title Taz (c) v Brakkus w/Lance Wright/Droz

Brakkus was this giant German guy that the WWF signed but he only ever appeared in the Brawl for All and got knocked out in the first round. Taz tries to break Brakkus’s nose with arms across the face. Brakkus with a powerbomb. Droz brings in a table for Brakkus to use. Another powerbomb. Table propped up in the corner. T-bone Tazplex through the table. Taz escapes a press slam and hits a release German Tazplex. Tazmission. Brakkus is choked out at 2.37. **. Nothing much doing except another Taz squash.

First blood match – Tommy Dreamer v Justin Credible w/Jason/Nicole Bass

My tape is clipped so I join it with Credible getting nailed with a trashcan lid. Dreamer uses various drinks to try and bust open Justin. Dreamer slingshots Justin into a Beulah chair shot. Dreamer takes it into the crowd. They fight all the way up to the top and all the way back down. Back inside Justin misses a drop kick. Justin comes back with an inverted DDT. Chair over Dreamer’s face and Justin drops a leg. Chair set up in the corner and Dreamer is whipped into it. Dreamer gets set up on a chair and Justin drop kicks him in the face. Justin suplexes Dreamer onto a chair. This is the first time I’ve seen Justin wrestle in a t-shirt. Dreamer with a cool neckbreaker off the turnbuckles. Jason interferes and Dreamer is outnumbered here. Beulah accidentally nails the ref with a road sign. Spicolli Driver from Dreamer. Chants of “Louie” break out. “Ecf**kinW” – Dreamer. DDT and it’s over surely. Dreamer drags in a length of barbed wire and wraps it around himself. Dreamer frog splashes Credible while being wrapped in barbed wire. RVD does a run in and hits the leaping sidekick on Dreamer while Tommy was carrying a trash can. RVD opens Dreamer up with the barbed wire. Trashcan shot from Justin into the barbed wire wrapped head of Dreamer. That’s Incredible on Beulah. Dreamer shoves barbed wire into Justin’s mouth. The ref calls it as he sees it though and awards the match to Justin Credible at 11.24. ***. It was ok but the run in from RVD took the heat out of the match. After the match Dreamer opens up Jason and strangles him with barbed wire.

Triple Threat 9 man tag. The Dudleys (Buh Buh Ray/D-Von/Big Dick) v Axl Rotten/Balls Mahoney/The Sandman v Kronus/New Jack/Spike Dudley

Tonight Gertner delivers more package than UPN. He’s more over than he should be as a heel announcer. Originally this is a 3 on 3 but when did ECW ever stick to the line up? Buh Buh asks to ‘wrestle’ Sandman so Sandman clocks him with the kendo stick. Big Dick gets caned but doesn’t go down. Chokeslam from Big Dick on Sandman. Buh Buh Ray bites Balls Mahoney on the nose. Sandman looks like a sloppy drunken bitch, as per usual. Balls in the ring and he’s superkicked Buh Buh. Buh Buh with a superplex on Balls. Cheese grater on Axl Rotten. The brawl is all over the place but we still have nothing that resembles a match. Balls gets laid out on a table and Buh Buh goes for a balcony dive. New Jack gets upset and this is now a 3 way dance. New Jack does the balcony dive in the place of Buh Buh. Kronus and Spike are in the ring with baking sheets and road signs. The sound on my tape just went from bad to worse so I can’t tell if the crowd like this or not. In the ring Spike hits a couple of drop kicks on Sandman. Rana from Spike. Kronus is busted wide open. Balls is busted wide open. This isn’t pretty. Early version of the Wassup headbutt on New Jack. We have a table in the ring. Sandman throws it in and then throws Spike in. Kronus is bleeding so badly his face is just blood. Balls puts Spike on the table but Spike fights back. Tornado DDT through the table from Spike. Inverted brainbuster on Spike from Axl. Awesome. Spike is pinned and sent to hospital at 16.30 now turn off that damn music. The original 2 teams are back against each other. There is a pool of blood in the ring – probably belonging to Kronus. Sandman hot shots Buh Buh into the ropes and Balls helps out with a chair shot. Sandman pins and his team win at 17.56. **. Mostly just garbage wrestling. Interesting to note that the worst matches have gone on the longest.

Shane Douglas/Bam Bam Bigelow v Rob Van Dam/Sabu

It takes 2 minutes to get Sabu out of the ring. RVD and Shane start out. RVD hits an early spin kick and goes to an armbar which Shane reverses. Van Daminator without the chair from RVD and Sabu tags in. Camel clutch. Springboard clothesline, slingshot legdrop and another. Back to the camel clutch. RVD tags back in and Shane is caught in the wrong part of town. I’m begging someone to take Fonzie’s whistle away. Suplex from RVD. Slingshot into Sabu and Sabu drops the leg to come back in. Sabu with the camel clutch and RVD with a spin kick to the face of the Franchise. Flair impression from RVD – split legged moonsault and Bigelow tags in for the first time after 9 minutes. Lots of power on RVD including a big suplex. DDT from Bigelow. Double underhook bomb from Bigelow and a diving headbutt. Shane tags back in and starts working the neck of RVD. Sabu tags in but it’s RVD who does the damage by drop kicking Shane in the head and then nailing him with a chair. Sabu gets caught and suplexed by Shane and both teams make tags. Bigelow goes for Greetings from Asbury Park but Sabu chair shots him. Sabu with a triple jump plancha onto Shane. RVD with kicks to Bigelow. Leaping rana from RVD. Shane hot shots Sabu on the guard rail. The Triple Threat set up a table on the outside. RVD goes for a headscissors on Bigelow off the guard rail but Bigelow just throws him into the crowd. RVD with a guillotine leg drop over the guard rail which the camera misses. Air Sabu onto Shane. Sabu and RVD hit some tandem offence on Bigelow. RVD crotches himself on a leaping sidekick. Bigelow throws Sabu at him and knocks him off. Shane follows over they finally break through the table at ringside which I’m pretty sure RVD was meant to break. Sabu has a table but Shane hits him in the head with a trash can. Bigelow sets a table up in the ring. Bigelow with a big ass powerbomb on RVD. Sabu comes off the ropes and bulldogs Bigelow through the table. Cool. Van Daminator on Shane and Sabu covers but Shane kicks out. Rolling splash and slingshot splash combo. Shane kicks out. They set up a table which Sabu dislikes and destroys. Second table in the corner and we have a double bulldog into it. Ouch. Bigelow interupts the count with a diving headbutt. Sabu arabian facebusters RVD by mistake. RVD blocks the belly to belly from Shane. Greetings from asbury park and a belly to belly and the heels win it at 23.12. ***1/2. It got better as it went on but it was never going to be great after a really slow start.

Best matches –
3. Justin Credible v Tommy Dreamer. If not for anything else but Beulah getting tombstoned. Very funny.
2. Lance Storm v Chris Candido. I would have liked to have seen this feud go a little longer. They always entertained and it was the best feud Candido ever had (IMO). Psychologically strong and Storm lifted Candido’s finisher.
1. Bam Bam Bigelow/Shane Douglas v Rob Van Dam/Sabu. Slow to get going and not the standard of excellence that Rob Van Dam had during most of his ECW run but still the best match on the card.

Overall PPV rating – C+
Nothing spectacular and the long matches (apart from the main event) sucked.