Written by: Bob Colling
Extreme Championship Wrestling presents Hardcore TV
Date: 2/11/1998
From: Philadelphia, PA
Matches:
1.)Rob Van Dam & Sabu defeated Balls Mahoney & Axl Rotten by disqualification
2.)Al Snow defeated Doug Furnas
Angle Developments/Notes:
1. ECW Television Champion Taz opens the show to thank Bam-Bam Bigelow. He believes he was getting soft and becoming like everyone else. Taz thinks he was becoming a team partner. Taz is annoyed that Bigelow attacked him from behind. He is saying that Bigelow may not be the man he used to be and is now a coward for attacking him from behind. Taz talks about working his ass off while Bigelow plays golf with NFL athletes. They will be competing against each other at Living Dangerously on March 1st, 1998. Taz agrees with Shane Douglas that he is a mark for his own championship. He thinks that Douglas knows that the ECW Television Championship is the only championship that means anything. Taz is ready for Bigelow at Living Dangerously.
2. The tag match this week features to complete opposite styles. RVD and Sabu are sure to do risk taking moves while Rotten and Mahoney will just whack you with a steel chair and call it a day. Mahoney and Sabu start off the tag match. They just trade right hands until Mahoney picks Sabu up and Rotten comes off the top with a forearm drop. Sabu is being worked over as Mahoney delivers a leg drop. RVD gets the tag and drops Balls with a leaping side kick from off the top rope. Sabu jumps off RVD’s back to splash Balls and RVD follows up with a spin kick and a spinning leg drop. RVD puts a Boston Crab on Mahoney and Sabu hits a top rope leg drop. They hit a rolling thunder/slingshot leg drop combo on Balls as well. A table has been set up on the floor and Sabu nails Rotten with a chair. Sabu springboards off the top to leg drop Balls through the table on the floor! Mahoney knocks Sabu out with a superkick and RVD is double teamed for a few moments. Axl goes to use a chair but Sabu grabs his foot and RVD kicks the chair into Axl’s face (which was terrible set up and obvious). Sabu and RVD proceed to hit the Total Elimination on Balls! John Kronus comes out and attacks both men for doing his move. Kronus cleans house and plays to the crowd. (**1/2. A decent tag match here that featured a couple of fun spots. It was interesting to see Kronus come out and clean house the way he did. Is he in line for a singles push in ECW?)
3. Snow attacked Furnas before the bell and just hammered away on the WWF star. Al drops Doug gut first across the top rope as the fans are heavily behind Snow. Snow blocks a suplex and hits a neckbreaker over the top rope! Snow connects with a middle rope leg drop and has dominated the match. Later on, Snow blocks a hurricanrana and hits a sit down powerbomb. Al hits a hurricanrana of his own for a near fall. Furnas plants Al with a tombstone piledriver but Snow pops his shoulder up at two. After a brief video of Jenna Jameson during the match, Al whacks Furnas with Head and wins the match while the referee was distracted.
4. To close the show, the Sandman, Tommy Dreamer and the Dudley Boys are in the ring. Sandman has something important to say for himself and everyone backstage. He says they are a family in ECW. Sandman brings up that Dreamer’s grandfather passed away recently and says he is hurting. You can see Beulah say “Oh my God” like she can’t believe Sandman is doing this right now. Dreamer is breaking down in the corner as the fans cheer for him. Sandman notes that Dreamer’s grandfather gave him the money to attend wrestling school. The Dudley Boys are participating in the moment of silence and remove their caps. Wait a second, Justin Credible has made his way out to the ring. Credible cuts off the moment of silence! Credible says that he wished that Dreamer died instead of his worthless piece of crap grandfather! Dreamer wastes no time attacking Credible! Beulah slaps Credible on the floor while Jason holds him back and they head backstage! Wow, that was a crazy way to end the show.
Final Thoughts:
A fine edition of Hardcore TV this week. The matches were fine and didn’t drag on or anything. The Taz promo was effective and added to their story. The ending was quite shocking to me and just shows how much of a prick Justin Credible is. A shocking way to start a feud, in my opinion. But, that’s the good thing about ECW. They push the envelope and do things that the major companies wouldn’t ever think of doing. My interest in the programming in 1998 continues to increase.
Thanks for reading.