{"id":13968,"date":"2014-10-02T20:39:21","date_gmt":"2014-10-03T00:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crazymax.org\/newsite\/?p=13968"},"modified":"2014-10-02T20:39:21","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T00:39:21","slug":"the-oh-my-god-review-ecw-tv-122693-special-year-in-review-write-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crazymax.org\/newsite\/reviews\/the-oh-my-god-review-ecw-tv-122693-special-year-in-review-write-up\/","title":{"rendered":"The “OH MY GOD!” Review: ECW TV 12\/26\/93 & Special Year In Review Write-Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

TV 1993-12-28 (Matches taped Holiday Hell 1993-12-26 at ECW Arena in Philadelphia, PA)<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Champions
\nHeavyweight: Sabu
\nTV: Sabu
\nTag: Kevin Sullivan & Tazmaniac<\/strong><\/p>\n

We open with the lights being out and when they come back on Sabu is on the crowd and Shane Douglas and Sherri are in the ring.<\/p>\n

Opening video.<\/p>\n

Matty is in the House he lets us know that this week Pitbull debuts and January 7th is the next TV taping.<\/p>\n

Pitbull vs. Chad Austin, ref John Finnegan<\/strong><\/span>
\nBelly to back by Pitbull and he hits a few fist drops. Pitbull beats on Austin in the corner and hits a clothesline. Russian leg sweep and a power bomb. Pitbull not going for the pin. Suplex and he goes for the cover but pulls up Austin at 2. Leg drop and Pitbull bites Austin. Austin ducks a clothesline hits a spin kick and gets the surprise victory in 4.28. Pitbull beats on Austin afterwards. Sandman comes out to make the save. Jason comes out to distract Sandman and Pitbull attacks Sandman. A big \u201cSandman sucks\u201d chants starts. Pitbull injures Sandman\u2019s shoulder with a single arm DDT and hits him in the shoulder with a chain.<\/p>\n

We go back to Matty in the House and he runs down what we just saw and then we get some highlights from:<\/p>\n

Mr. Hughes (w\/ Jason) vs. Sandman (w\/ Peaches), ref Jim Molineaux<\/strong><\/span>
\nJoined in progress Hughes comes charging out of the corner with a clothesline and he beats on Sandman in the corner. Corner whip and Sandman hits shoulder first and goes down. Hughes putting pressure on the injured shoulder. Shoulder breaker by Hughes. Only 1.34 is shown and we don\u2019t get the finish.<\/p>\n

Jason cuts a promo and says that Sandman made the worst mistake of his life when he told him that he wouldn\u2019t let Jason manage him.<\/p>\n

We get a video package on Mike Awesome showing highlights of his debut match at Holiday Hell against Randy Starr. Awesome beat Starr with a power bomb.<\/p>\n

Rockin\u2019 Rebel vs. Don E Allen, ref John Finnegan<\/strong><\/span>
\nRebel jumps Allen before the bell and throws him to the floor. Suplex brings Allen back into the ring. Rebel with some hard chops and he throws Allen back outside. Back in Rebel with a piledriver for the win in 2.25. I choke on my water and nearly die when on commentary Tony Rumble says that Rebel has more power then Paul Orndorff used to.<\/p>\n

Back to Matty in the House and he throws it right to Joey Styles to tell us about our new ECW Champion. Why would you give away the finish of the match and then show the match?<\/p>\n

No DQ Match: TV & Heavyweight Champion Sabu (w\/ Paul E Dangerously) vs. Terry Funk (w\/ Bad Breed), ref John Finnegan<\/strong><\/span>
\nThey go to the floor right away and Saub hits Funk with a chair. Funk drops Sabu in the ring with multiple piledrivers. We jump ahead in the match and Sabu hits air sabu. We skip forward some more and Sabu lands a split legged moonsault. Funk kicks out and grabs Sabu and throws him to the floor. Funk with a crossbody off the apron. Sabu with a back drop on the concrete floor. Sabu throws Funk into a table. In the ring the table comes in and Funk goes into it a few times. Sabu throws the ref into the table and hits a springboard moonsault to the floor onto Bad Breed. Funk gets Irish whipped into the table and falls out of the ring. Funk tries to roll out of the way of a moonsault but can\u2019t in time. Paul E hits the ring and nails Funk with his phone. Shane Douglas and Sherri come down and attack Sabu. The lights go out and when they come back on Funk is on top of Sabu and Shane is dragging the ref over to make the pin. 10.31 of the match is shown. 13.46 is the announced time. We get a few clips of what happened after the match, which includes Paul E hitting Ian Rotten with his phone and Sabu diving out of the ring onto Douglas.<\/p>\n

Paul E. is backstage in the dressing room ranting about how he\u2019s not going to give any comments.<\/p>\n

New Heavyweight Champion Terry Funk is backstage with Bad Breed. Funk says he is better then all the greatest wrestlers ever and he comes from the greatest wrestling family ever. Funk tells a story about how his father was took his dog and back and shot it.<\/p>\n

A video of \u201cThe Franchise\u201d Shane Douglas set to \u201cLive and Let Die\u201d by Guns N Roses airs short clips of his match with Tommy Dreamer from Holiday Hell are shown including the finish in which Douglas hit Dreamer with a chain to get the pin. Douglas and Sherri are backstage and Shane talks about how Funk used to be great like Lou Thesz and Bruno Sammartino. Douglas says Sabu can\u2019t match up with him so he shouldn\u2019t even bother.<\/p>\n

Back to Paul E. and he says this isn\u2019t about titles for Sabu. Paul says Funk and Douglas just don\u2019t get it. He says it\u2019s not about winning or losing. Sabu just cares about blood. Now Sabu for the first time in his life has personal hatred and wants to kill Funk.<\/p>\n

My thoughts on the show…<\/strong><\/span>
\nThumbs up here for everything from the main event on. Both the match and the promos are worth checking out. Good way to end the year.<\/p>\n

[spacer height=”20px”][spacer height=”20px”]<\/p>\n

1993 Year in Review<\/h4>\n

1993 marked the second year of ECW but the first year they had a television deal. It certainly wasn\u2019t one of their best. With mostly local guys or former WWF guys coming in, very few stars were \u201cmade\u201d in the company. There were some bright spots, and at the end of the year a few guys came in that seemed to lift things up a bit. In no particular order, I\u2019m going to talk a little about my favorite performers, least favorite performers, best storylines, must see matches of the year and finally my all-time favorite moment of the year.<\/p>\n

Best Performers<\/strong><\/span>
\n1. Eddie Gilbert—easily the most entertaining guy in the company until the May debut of Paul E. Dangerously. Gilbert was great on the mic had a very good match with Terry Funk in January at the joint show and continued the feud with Funk until mid-year. That match was not as good as expected though. From there Gilbert went on to win the Tag Team Championships with the Dark Patriot before unfortunately leaving the company at the time of the merger with the NWA.<\/p>\n

2. Paul E. Dangerously—Week after week, Paul E. was able to be the must see segment of the show, there were even many weeks he was the only thing worth watching.<\/p>\n

3. Sabu—Sabu was introduced to us through some video packages and came in with a lot of hype. I feel he was able to live up to that hype both storyline wise, winning both the TV and Heavyweight Championships as well as with his ring work. Of course, being paired with Paul E. as a manager helps you along the way.<\/p>\n

4. \u201cThe Franchise\u201d Shane Douglas—What can I say if you\u2019ve been following my reviews from the beginning with the 1996 ones you know I\u2019m a huge Douglas mark. While Douglas was probably never the best wrestler in the world, he was the best in ECW from this period. He hyped himself as the best wrestler in the world as soon as he got to ECW and once you compared him to the rest of the roster you kinda believed it. Even with only 7 matches making it to TV by the end of the year, you can tell that Douglas is destined to make waves next year.<\/p>\n

5. Terry Funk—Funk had two really good matches this year and was always in the main event picture. As he should be.<\/p>\n

Worst Performers<\/strong><\/span>
\n1. Commentary team—Jay Sulli, Matty in the House, Stevie Wonderful and Joey Styles get a big thumbs down. Overall, I am a huge fan of Styles\u2019 commentary but his first year for ECW was god awful. His over sell of Sal Bellomo during the whole injury angle was so badly acted. Sulli and Matty are just two of the most annoying people ever, the less said the better.<\/p>\n

2. JT Smith—Smith is awful in the ring. Add to that the fact that he was on the show ALL the time and it just made it worse. Joey Styles hyping him as some great go-getter that wrestles through the pain and injuries just made it worse. He found his niche in the FBI.<\/p>\n

Best Storylines<\/strong><\/span>
\n1. Hot Stuff International & Dangerous Alliance\/The New Dangerous Alliance—An attempt at a takeover of ECW, feud with Terry Funk, fireballs, and Dark Patriot almost killing JT Smith are just some of high points of this storyline. The New Dangerous Alliance portion brought use the three way feud between Sabu, Shane Douglas and Terry Funk.<\/p>\n

2. Tag Team Turmoil—None of the matches or wrestlers involved were any good (beside Chris Candido), but the whole tag team scene in the beginning of the year was entertaining. The Suicide Blondes and Super Destroyers were the best part of the tag team wars this year.<\/p>\n

Best Matches<\/strong><\/span>
\n1. Eddie Gilbert vs. Terry Funk Texas Death Match Battle of the Belts 01-23
\n2. W*ING Junior Heavyweight Champion Masayoshi Motegi vs. \u201cJazzy\u201d JT Smith TV 09-07
\n3. Eddie Gilbert & Dark Patriot vs. Sandman & Sal Bellomo Tag Team Title Tournament 2nd Round Match TV 09-07
\n4. W*ING Tag Team Champions Headhunters vs. Miguelito Perez & Crash the Terminator, Baseball Bat Match UltraClash 09-08
\n5. Sabu vs. Tazmaniac TV 10-19 and TV 11-30
\n6. Tommy Dreamer vs. Shane Douglas TV 12-21
\n7. Sabu vs. Terry Funk TV 12-28<\/p>\n

My all-time favorite moment of the year\u2026<\/strong><\/span>
\nRockin\u2019 Rebel breaks the surfboard over Sandman\u2019s head on the 04-19 TV episode. This was easily the thing that made me mark out the hardest all year. The announcers and Sandman all sold it perfectly and it really put more hatred into an already heated feud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No DQ: Sabu vs. Terry Funk, Sandman vs. Mr. Hughes, and a special 1993 ECW year in review write-up<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":7298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[211,40],"tags":[115],"class_list":["post-13968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-omg","category-reviews","tag-ecw"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crazymax.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crazymax.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crazymax.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crazymax.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crazymax.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crazymax.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13969,"href":"https:\/\/crazymax.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13968\/revisions\/13969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crazymax.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crazymax.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crazymax.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crazymax.org\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}