Tommy Dreamer vs. CW Anderson in ECW
Relive the feud between Tommy Dreamer and Cw Anderson during the dying days of Extreme Championship Wrestling!
In late 2000, CW Anderson was starting to make a name for himself in Extreme Championship Wrestling. At that point, he had been with the company for around a year, but wasn’t making any progress up the card. With ECW at a loss for star power, the promotion needed to create new stars towards the end of its existence. CW Anderson was given a chance against a guy who had been with ECW since 1994 and was the heart and soul of ECW, “The Innovator of Violence” Tommy Dreamer.
The feud started at the November To Remember on November 5th, 2000. Simon Diamond and Johnny Swinger were taunting Joel Gertner and Joey Styles until Tommy Dreamer came out to make the save for the announcers. CW Anderson ran down as well and attacked Dreamer with a spinebuster and an armbreaker.
Anderson would go on to team with Simon Diamond and Johnny Swinger on the house shows to take on Tommy Dreamer, Christian York and Joey Matthews in six-man tags. Anderson and his team were unable to score a win. However, CW would get the biggest win of his Extreme Championship Wrestling career on December 3rd, 2000.
That was the date of ECW’s PPV “Massacre on 34th Street”. On the show, CW Anderson shockingly prevailed over Tommy Dreamer after nearly seventeen minutes of action. The finish saw Anderson hit a spine buster on the legs of a table. Anderson continued to get the better of Dreamer at the last ECW Arena show on December 23rd when Anderson attacked Dreamer and cost him a six-man tag match against the Hot Commodity.
The issues between Dreamer and Anderson would come to an end at the last pay-per-view in the history of ECW, “Guilty As Charged” in 2001. In what has to be considered the last great match Dreamer has put on, the Innovator of Violence defeated CW Anderson in a brutal “I Quit” match.
Yes, the feud is incredibly short, but ECW was on it’s last legs at this time. Had the company continued, there is no doubt in my mind that the feud would have continued for several more months, which was a trend for most angles in ECW. In my opinion, CW Anderson was the next main event level heel for ECW, but he never got the chance.
To his credit, Dreamer was always willing to make a new star for ECW and the proof is with this feud. Anderson hadn’t done anything memorable up until this time with the company, and a victory over Dreamer quickly gave him a lot of heat and momentum in ECW. Even the hard to impress ECW fans were buying into Anderson’s potential.
Anderson has to be considered one of the most underrated wrestlers in ECW history, a man who never got his fair shot outside of ECW. He would be in the same category as Jerry Lynn, Simon Diamond and countless others.
It’s a quick feud that I recommend viewing. The Guilty As Charged match, the better of the two, is on dailymotion. Go check it out and enjoy.
Thanks for reading. Bob Colling of WrestlingRecaps
