ECW’s Infamous “Mass Transit Incident”
1996-11-23 at Wonderland Greyhound Park in Revere, MA
Champions
World: Sandman
TV: Shane Douglas
Tag Team: Gangstas
– Taz is out with Bill Alfonso. Taz says that Sabu finally answered his call at the Arena last week. Crowd is riled up and that pisses off Taz. Taz says there is not a wrestler in the world that wants to fight him. Taz wants to know if anyone in the crowd is tough enough to fight him. Of course a few people think it would be a good idea to raise their hands. Taz makes fun of all of them. Alfonso questions who can stop the path of rage. Taz is such an angry little man.
GQ Quartermaine vs. Roadkill, ref John “Pee Wee” Moore
Oh man, what did the poor people of Revere do to deserve this. GQ, who is Chris Chetti, has the mask on as we are joined at the very start of the match. JT Smith is at ringside for some reason. This will likely be the most simplistic match of all time with ECW trainees involved. We get arm work then hip toss, hip toss, clothesline from Roadkill. That’s a drill we used to run when I was training. Roadkill hits the ropes and Smith trips him up. GQ with a nice spin kick. Fans beginning to shit on the match as GQ puts on a chin lock. Drop kick and back to the chin lock. GQ with an Irish whip but he ducks his head and Roadkill boots him. Clothesline and now Roadkill is in control. Suplex by Roadkill. The crowd chants “This shit sucks”. I’ll agree. Roadkill goes up top but Smith pushes him off. GQ hits a swinging neck breaker. Crowd now chanting for the b.W.o. to come out. GQ finishes things with a top rope leg drop in 6.12.
Stevie Richards (b.W.o.) vs. Mikey Whipwreck, ref Jim Molineaux
Mikey has his arm bandaged up. Wonder if he actually hurt it yesterday. Richards says Mikey is too hurt to wrestle. Chris Candido comes out and says he will help Mikey and he’s here to wrestle. Stevie hits a steviekick on Mikey. A bunch of refs come out and pull them apart as Candido hangs back and watches.
Stevie Richards (b.W.o.) vs. Chris Candido (sub for Mikey Whipwreck), ref Jim Molineaux
Richards talks about how the only thing he cares about is the b.W.o. He then does jumping jacks to mock Candido. Nice little back and forth to start off. Candido bails when Stevie goes for a steviekick. Super Nova comes in the ring and hits a dive on Candido. Back in the ring Richards with a rocker dropper. Nash elbows in the corner. Northern lights by Candido for 2. Some reversals back and forth Candido ends up clotheslining Richards. Nova tries to interfere but gets nailed with a super rana. Stevie hits a cutter but then gets crotched when he tries to go up top. Superplex gets 2. Candido goes for another one but Richards throws him down. Blue Meanie has come into the ring and catches Candido and hits a running powerslam. Richards comes off the top but Candido gets his boot up. Suplex for 2. Richards reverses a corner whip and Meanie comes in with an avalanche. Candido quickly back in control. Doctor bomb gets 2. Nova tries to break up the pin with a top rope leg drop but Candido moves and Richards gets nailed. Candido covers and Meanie comes in and goes for a leg drop but again Candido moves. Candido goes up top but misses a head butt. Richards with a power bomb for 2. Candido ducks a steviekick and nails a super kick of his own and gets the pin in 9.15. Two days with no super bomb makes me sad.
“Primetime” Brian Lee vs. Louie Spicolli, ref John “Pee Wee” Moore
JIP on this one. They are on the floor brawling. Lee takes off a turnbuckle pad. Spicolli is busted wide open. They go into the crowd. Lee is just destroying Spicolli. Spicolli throws a chair at Lee. Spicolli has blood in his eyes and can’t see. The ref is checking him and he grabs him DVDs him and covers. Lee makes a three count. Spicolli thinks he’s won but Lee hits him with a nasty choke slam covers and Paul Richards comes out to make the count. Lee wins 5.43 was filmed.
Pitbull 2 vs. Rob Van Dam, ref Paul Richards
Pitbull tries to use his power while Van Dam uses his speed and agility. They are pretty much at a stand still until Pitbull nails a clothesline. A second one sends them both spilling to the floor. They fight on the floor and Van Dam hits a moonsault off the guardrail and an awesome dive over the top rope to the floor. Van Dam goes for a moonsault in the ring Pitbull tries to catch him but the fall over but Van Dam still kind of looks like he gets tombstoned. Pitbull with a press into a tombstone! Canadian back breaker applied by Pitbull but he eventually just throws Van Dam to the mat. Van Dam comes back and hits a rolling thunder leg drop. Van Dam slams a chair into the head of Pitbull. Van Dam with a running dropkick with the chair. Pitbull comes back with another press into a tombstone. It looks so awesome. Double undertook power bomb but Van Dam is thrown high above Pitbull’s head in an awesome display of power. They go into the crowd again for some more brawling. Back in the ring Pitbull hits the super fall away slam but Van Dam is able to kick out. Pitbull misses a spin kick in the corner and flies over the top tope and crashes through a table. TV Champion “The Franchise” Shane Douglas shows up and hits Pitbull with the belt. This might be the first time I’m sad to see Douglas. Van Dam hits a somersault dive onto him. “Primetime” Brian Lee shows up to help out. The locker rooms empty but again for some reason no one seems to help Pitbull and they just hold Van Dam back. Everyone just dicks around in the ring for another few minutes with not much happening. Match is a no contest with it breaking down around 15 minutes. A surprisingly enjoyable match even with the obvious clash in style the messed well together and had me entertained.
Tag Team Champions The Gangstas vs. D-Von Dudley & Mass Transit
And here it is.. the reason we all put this DVD on. Time for me to hate New Jack even more. You can read about the specifics of this match here on the Wikipedia page so I’m not going to get into it here. I’m confused because there’s not even a ref around. New Jack and D-Von go into the crowd to start, D-Von gets laid out. New Jack then uses a pizza cutter on Transit and you can hear the moment when he blades him as the kid shrieks. Blood just starts to squirt out of his head as you hear his father yelling that “he’s 17”. New Jack comes off the top with the 187 steel chair dive into Transit’s face. Again, with no ref Jack makes his own 3 count and the EMTs rush the ring to help out Transit. The mat and his outfit are COVERED in blood as it continues to pour out. So here’s my thoughts on the situation if you care. New Jack is a piece of shit. Mass Transit lied about his age to get onto a wrestling show. He asked New Jack to blade him because he had never done it before. Based on the amount and the way he bled, New Jack clearly took the blade and dug it into the kids head and ripped it across his face. Getting color for someone and doing what Jack did are two wildly different things. Chaotic scene in the ring as Transit is attended to.
Dudley Boys (w/ Sign Guy Dudley) vs. Eliminators, ref Jim Molineaux
Buh Buh Ray Dudley and Saturn start off but not much at all happens. Buh Buh tags Spike Dudley but he gets kicked a bunch by Saturn. Kronus comes in and they hit some double team kicks. Buh Buh comes in but Kronus takes him down and hits a nice standing moonsault. They brawl to the floor and we get a cut to everyone back in the ring. Then we cut to the next match. Hmmm. Only a couple of minutes shown???
TV Champion “The Franchise” Shane Douglas (w/ Francine) vs. Tommy Dreamer (w/ Beulah), ref Paul Richards
This match is joined in progress and we seem to be pretty far into it. Douglas with a pile driver on a chair then goes after the leg of Dreamer. Shane jumps on the knee. Francine wants a turn so she does it. That’s dumb since Shane weighs more then Francine. Tommy reaches up and grabs Francine by the snatch. What the FUCK! Shane nails him to get him off. Back to the leg. Shane comes of the top but Dreamer hits him with a chair. Powerslam gets 2 but Shane gets out. Dreamer with a couple of near falls. Francine and Beulah go at it. Dreamer nails Francine with a piledriver. Dreamer celebrates but Shane nails him with a single arm DDT for the win. 8.48 was filmed. Shane locks in the full nelson after the match but Pitbull makes the save.
Dog Collar Match: World Champion Sandman vs. Raven (Lori Fullington & b.W.o.), ref Jim Molineaux
b.W.o. promo before the match, can’t hear a single word they say. Raven jumps Sandman at ringside and we are off to the same exact match as yesterday just with a dog collar. Sandman busted open. Sandman is gushing, but at least he did it to himself. Raven goes for a back drop but Sandman hits a DDT. Raven with a piledriver through through a table. They brawl all over ringside. Back in the ring the ref sorta gets hit with a chair. He goes down VERY slowly. Raven just decides it would be best to hit him again just to make sure. Chair to the back of Sandman. Stevie Richards and Blue Meanie actually hit their super kick and moonsault through a table on Sandman! Ref is back up now but Sandman kicks out. Sandman hits a DDT out of no where to end this garbage in 10.11.
My thoughts on the show…
Kinda garbage show. Terrible opening match, bad main event, two matches that were heavily edited. Oh yeah, New Jack is a scum bag. Richards/Candido and Pitbull/Van Dam were good matches. I was confused why Brian Lee destroyed Spicolli so much. This is an easy pass unless you’re determined to watch the “incident”. Another show that just felt like they threw out whatever because it was a new town.