Written by: Bob Colling
Extreme Championship Wrestling presents Hardcore TV
Date: 12/4/1998
From: Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Matches:
1.) ECW Television Champion Rob Van Dam defeated Mike Lozansky to retain the title
2.) ECW World Tag Team Champions Dudley Boys & Big Dick Dudley defeated Masato Tanaka, Balls Mahoney & Hack Myers
3.) Sabu defeated Roadkill
Angle Developments:
1.) Lozansky starts the match with a kick to Van Dam’s head and a spinning heel kick. Lozansky continues with a clothesline and a standing dropkick. Lozansky drops Van Dam with a brain buster and taunts the fans instead of following up on his offense. They go into the crowd where Lozansky crotches Van Dam on the railing and clotheslines RVD over to the ringside area. Van Dam backdrops Lozansky onto the stage where Lozansky hits a cross body. Back in the ring, Lozansky keeps control of the match but is kicked off the top by Van Dam. Van Dam sends Lozansky into the railing and plays to the crowd. Van Dam leaps off the stage to kick a chair into Mike’s face while he was crotched on the railing. Van Dam follows up with a cross body off the railing into the crowd. Van Dam leaps off the apron to hit a spinning leg drop across the railing.
Back in the ring, Lozansky drives Van Dam face first onto a chair but only gets a near fall. Van Dam hits the rolling thunder! Lozansky plants Van Dam with a piledriver for a two count. Lozansky hits a slingshot cross body to take Van Dam out on the floor. Van Dam suplexs Lozansky on the wooden stage and hits a leg drop. RVD comes off the top and hits the frog splash but Lozansky gets his boot on the bottom rope. Van Dam crotches Mike on the top rope and kicks a chair into his face. Van Dam hits the split legged moonsault and that’s good enough for the win. (**1/2. Actually not a bad match but Lozansky probably got way too much offense and getting out of the frog splash didn’t seem to be the right thing to do in the match.)
2.) Backstage, Danny Doring and Roadkill cut a promo about Sabu coming back after one week since his neck injury. Roadkill is going to take Sabu out tonight.
3.) The six man tag match starts with everyone brawling in the ring. Of course, this has been clipped rather heavily. The Dudley’s won after pinning Myers but they attacks Balls Mahoney with a chair. Axl Rotten comes in with a barbed wire bat and attacks Bubba and D-Von with it. The Dudley Boys leave the ring busted wide open but are still the tag champions, which is all that matters.
4.) The main event this week is rather basic as Sabu wins the match following a top rope leg drop through a table to put Roadkill away. During the match, FTW Champion Taz and ECW World Champion Shane Douglas were seen watching the match in the crowd. Douglas is worried but Taz isn’t worried at all.
5.) To close the show, Taz is in the ring with a laid out John Kronus with Shane Douglas rooting on Taz. Taz hits an overhead suplex and is yelling at Kronus that he wants him to be hurt. Several people enter the ring to put Kronus on a table to bring him to the backstage aerea. Douglas is trying to calm Taz down. That doesn’t work as Taz goes after Kronus again.
Final Thoughts:
There wasn’t much going on here this week, but I’m liking that Taz has snapped. Plus, the RVD match was better than I was expecting, so it’s not a bad week by any means.
Thanks for reading.