ECW Hardcore TV 1/7/1998

Written by: Bob Colling

Extreme Championship Wrestling presents Hardcore TV
Date: 1/7/1998
From: Queens, NY

Matches:
1.)The Great Sasuke defeated Tiger Mask
2.)ECW Television Champion Tazz, Tommy Dreamer, Sandman & Al Snow defeated Sabu, Rob Van Dam, Phil LaFon & Doug Furnas

Angle Development/Notes:
1.We open the show with clips of a Great Sasuke vs Tiger Mask match. Sasuke hit a cartwheel dive over the top to the floor. Justin Credible and Jason make their way down to the ring to distract Sasuke. Credible runs away when Sasuke takes Jason out with a dive on the floor. That distraction allowed Tiger Mask to hit a suicide dive on Sasuke. Tiger Mask runs into a spinning heel kick. Sasuke wins the match after a power bomb. For the clips they showed, that match was surely a fun match to watch.

2.We hear from New Jack in the ring with Spike Dudley saying they are going to take care of the Dudleys tonight. They keep on going back and forth from various clips from the show it seems like.

3.The fans do not like Pablo Marquez. Jason calls out a few women to come out to the ring to be by Credible’s side, I guess. Personally, none of them are exactly good looking, but whatever. I’m assuming standards were lower in ’98. Jason introduces the sexiest woman on earth… Nicole Bass. You’ve got to be kidding me! Nicole Bass actually power bombs Marquez after he tries to punch Jason. I think Credible issued an open challenge but its rather hard to hear the microphone.

4.Somewhere in the building, Bubba Dudley is destroying Spike Dudley. Bubba tosses Spike into the fans off of a balcony. D-Von hits a top rope leg drop on New Jack back in the ring. Jack is double teamed in the ring while Spike was dealing with Big Dick Dudley. This is just a wild brawl, which has to be expected. John Kronus comes out to even the odds. After the opening video, we don’t even go back to that match, though.

5.Instead, we see Brakkus in the ring with his manager. Brakkus has been brought into the company by Vince McMahon, so they say. Brakkus competed in action against a jobber. Brakkus won the match in five seconds with a full nelson. After the match, they put a WWF banner over the jobber. ECW Television Champion Tazz makes his way out to the ring. Jeff Jones warns Tazz about entering the ring. He says things could be bad for him. Jones slaps Tazz and that was not a good idea. Tazz hits a t-bone suplex! Tazz has a showdown with Brakkus now. Wait, here comes Sabu and Rob Van Dam for the cheap attack on Tazz. Double springboard kick to knock Tazz off his feet! The Sandman comes out with a kendo stick but Phil LaFon and Doug Furnas come out to allow the beat down to continue. Tommy Dreamer and Al Snow come out! Snow uses his mannequin head to hit everyone and make the save! Seriously, Al Snow has never gotten quite the ovation he got when he was in ECW. That’s for sure.

6.It looks like Dreamer and the other guys want an eight man tag match or something. Tazz tells Dreamer that if he wants to be there then he will, but he does whatever he wants to do!

7.All eight men begin to brawl on the floor. This is going to be nearly impossible to truly dictate what happened. Tazz worked with Sabu in the ring while everyone else was on the floor. RVD hammers away on RVD in the ring now and hits a top rope hurricanrana! Sandman hit a slingshot leg drop from the apron back into the ring. RVD nails Sandman with a leaping side kick from the top rope but Dreamer enters to drop him with a side Russian leg sweep. Dreamer puts RVD in the tree of woe and dropkicks a chair in his face. Furnas drops Dreamer with a over head belly to belly suplex. Sabu is hitting everyone with a chair. Sabu springboards off the top rope to leg drop Sandman through a table on the floor! Sabu also takes Dreamer out in the crowd with a dive off the top. The heels have kept complete control now for several minutes. Sandman is taking most of the punishment in the ring. Tazz gets legally tagged in the match so he can clean house. I didn’t think tags needed to happen in this one, but apparently they do. Sabu misses a triple jump moonsault and Tazz has the Tazz Mission on Sabu! He lets go when Brakkus comes in. He tackles Brakkus and security tries to pull them apart. Um, Bill Alfonso and Beulah begin to fight. Sabu knocks her out with a clothesline. Snow hits Furnas and LaFon with Head and he rolls LaFon up to win the match.

Final Thoughts:
There seemed to be a lack of organization in this show. Seriously, they kept on switching back and forth from segments that had happened earlier in the program to the point that it got rather confusing and annoying. The main event/final segment was enjoyable, as was the first match. But, I’ll just give this a thumbs in the middle. The constant changes between segments really bugged me.

Thanks for reading.