ECW Hardcore TV 6/14/1997

Written by: Bob Colling

Extreme Championship Wrestling presents Hardcore TV
Date: 6/14/1997
From: Philadelphia, PA

Matches:
1.) Tommy Dreamer defeated Raven
2.) Sabu defeated Taz
3.) Taz defeated ECW Television Champion Shane Douglas to win the title

Angle Developments/Notes:
1.) The matches this week are all from the Wrestlepalooza event, which has been reviewed prior on the website. So, for the match reviews head over to that review. I’ll be touching on interviews or any other segments.

2.) Lance Wright interviewed the ECW Tag Team Champions the Eliminators. Saturn’s left leg is completely destroyed. He tore his ACL and cracked his tibia. Saturn says it doesn’t matter if one or both of them are in the ring. Kronus laughs and says they are still the best.

3.) Joel Gertner and the Dudley Boys cut a promo on the Eliminators. D-Von says he has compassion for Saturn risking his limb in their quest to put the Dudley Boys in Total Elimination. Bubba chimes in and says that they can’t hit their finishing move now. Bubba thinks Saturn is useless now and they are going to take their tag titles back for a second time.

4.) I probably should note that after the Dreamer/Raven match, Jerry Lawler made his ECW debut attacking Dreamer and aligning himself with Sabu and Rob Van Dam. Sandman tried to save Dreamer but was taken out by Sabu, too. It was quite an effective debut and huge moment for ECW in ’97.

5.) Following his loss, Taz choked out everyone leading to a match with Shane Douglas. The stipulation was that if Douglas were to win than Taz was gone from ECW for 45 days. The odds were against Taz since he said he could beat Douglas in under three minutes. Suffice to say, Taz won the match in less than five minutes.

Final Thoughts:
It’s considered by Pau;l Heyman himself to be his favorite and best hour of Hardcore TV that he ever produced. It’s a strong episode and used the biggest matches from the event for TV. Can’t complain about that.

Thanks for reading.