February 2001

Well, Rambo has arrived in IWRG. That means we'll be seeing his feud with Villano III later in the year which I'm looking forward to revisiting. Unfortunately, that was the only really exciting thing in the bout despite a double bladejob from Dandy and Scorpio. Dandy vs Scorpio has potential but they never got out of second gear despite the blood. One of the weaker IWRG matches from this year.

Pretty average minis action. I think it's safe to say that from what we've seen of 2000-01 IWRG that it was a hotbed for minis action. It's not that often that you see a Tzuki match where he doesn't do anything spectacular. The IWRG mini division, such as it is, seems dominated by the journeymen rudos with not enough shine for the high flying tecnicos.

‘The King’ is obsessing over the previous segment where Trish Stratus was in a hot tub. Chris Jericho says that the word of the night is “extreme” and considering he’s been in steel cage matches, last man standing matches and even one of the most violent ladder matches in WWF history, he would say that he knows “extreme”. Therefore he is issuing an open challenge for the Intercontinental championship right now. As he reels off a few names wondering who might answer that challenge, out walks Tazz. Tazz notes that Jericho might be a funny guy, but next to him he knows nothing about being extreme. Yeah, this is definitely what I thought during that opening tables match.…

Kevin Kelly grabs a few last minute comments from the ‘Brothers of Destruction’. Taker says tonight he’s getting back to doing what he does best, kicking people’s asses! First blood means no strategy, no holds barred, no pinfalls, it’s all about blood and them leaving Rikishi & Haku laying in a puddle of their own. There’s no fear shown from Rikishi & Haku as they march towards the ring, this getting underway before they even make it there. Michael Cole makes a rare good point, thinking that the advantage must lie with them because it was only Monday when the Undertaker was busted open and that cut can’t be healed yet. Kane holds Rikishi as Taker grabs a …

Triple H has weaselled his way into this title match, Stephanie convincing her father to add him to it as he was rushing to leave the arena. ‘The Game’ is facing Steve Austin at No Way Out and the zero tolerance rule is in effect; neither man can touch the other until the PPV. Michael Cole mentions that the champion doesn’t have to be pinned to lose his title here, so when Angle sees the Rock and HHH starting without him he sprints down to join the action. He quickly gets despatched over the top rope to the floor by the Rock, which starts a familiar patter, as every time he re-enters the ring he’s immediately thrown back out. The Rock walks into a ‘Pedigree’, Angle pu…

Michael Cole welcomes us “to the extreme”, while Jerry Lawler says how we’re going to get “extreme”, this being a special episode of Smackdown called ‘Smackdown: Extreme’. I never picked up on it when they were plugging the show previously but I wonder if this name has anything to do with ECW dying? An early ‘Poetry in Motion’ on Bubba. Electric Chair/neckbreaker combination on Jeff, both teams having early momentum. After the ‘Wazzup’ diving headbutt, Bubba commands his brother to get the tables. Matt cuts D-Von off on the outside while Bubba sets that table up in the ring. He lays Jeff across it, heads upstairs, but Matt grabs his ankle to trap him there. Low blow …

Talk about it here.

The Christopher Street Connection are out first, dressed like a couple of gangsters, wearing big hoodies and their faces covered. “Gay-A-P” chant. Buff E. says that he might be gay, but the beating Da Hit Squad is going to get tonight is real straight. When someone in the crowd heckles him, he responds by saying how he tried to rape the lad’s father last night but he just gave it up! Fuck! DHS climb the turnbuckles on their introduction and it looks like CSC go over and cop a feel. Mack says how he knows the CSC have been wanting their asses for a few months, and as there’s a big crowd in tonight, decides to let them have what they want. The CSC strip down to their…

Rick Silver, Montoya’s manager, with the easy cheap heat , insulting the fans and calling them garbage. That wouldn’t be so bad if Reckless Youth hadn’t done the exact same thing prior to the previous match. Montoya was originally scheduled to face Dr Hurtz, but he isn’t here so the promoter put him together with Ric Blade to face Blue Dragon & Dixie. He’s not overly impressed about having to wrestler a couple of inexperienced punks, so tells the ring announcer to introduce the greenhorns so he and Blade can stretch them all over the building. Dixie and Dragon have a combined weight of 300lbs! Someone in the crowd is giving Blade grief about his receding hai…

It is cool in a small arena like this when the whole building is singing along with Sandman’s entrance. After four and a half minutes of said entrance Homicide has had enough of waiting around and goes out to get him. Sandman takes a great bump into the guard rail as Cide beats him around ringside. He sits him in a chair on the floor, ready for the tope con hilo, but as he hits the ropes he’s tripped by Da Hit Squad who’ve sneaked down to the ring. Frog splash off the top by Mack. Sandman goes after DHS and with the help of a couple of Homicide Mafia kicks they run them out of there. An inebriated Sandman doesn’t know who “those two fat bald asses are”, doesn’t even…

Reckless addresses the fans saying “for the last year I’ve been...” to which someone quips “wasting your life!” which I thought was a quick, funny heckle. He hasn’t been wasting his life, he’s been down in Memphis, TN performing in the greatest wrestling city in this country. This town here in New Jersey means nothing to him and the people here aren’t worth his time. He goes on that the only good thing he ever heard coming out of New Jersey was when his good friend Christy Whitman passed a ban on extreme wrestling. That draws a “Fuck Christy Whitman” chant, to which Reckless takes offense to, what with her being a close personal friend of his, so they change it to “Fuc…

I was expecting something closer to Rasta the Voodoo Mon with Rastaman, but it’s a ‘Rastafarian’ gimmick that he’s working. I think this is probably the same Rastaman who worked IWA-PR, which means its former WCW jobber Leroy Howard. ‘Mr Technical’ Barry Horowitz gets a nice ovation, with some fans standing up and patting themselves on the back in tribute to him. For some reason Rasta points and starts laughing at Horowitz, not sure why considering he’s a far bigger star than he has ever been. When he turns around to mockingly pat himself on the back too, Horowitz nails him with a dropkick. A pair of forearms followed by an uppercut and Barry tells him “that’s what y…

The crowd are thoroughly behind Scoot here with a loud “B-N-B” chant as the bell rings to get us underway. Drop down, leap frog, shoulder tackle and both me go down. Capone whips Scoot into the turnbuckles and we get a horrible botch as he’s far too close to Scoot on the tip up and he kicks the inrushing Capone under the jaw with his ankle as he goes to vault over him. That gets a mixture of “Oooohs” and laughter from those in attendance. Nice elevation on the dropkick but it barely grazes Capone, although he sells it like caught him flush in the face and he takes a powder to the outside. A terrible looking spin kick by Capone and a scoop powerslam for a two count. …

The ‘Rugby Thug’ says that tonight is a special night; not only is it the one year anniversary of this shit hole, but it’s also the night they end the careers of Corporal Robinson and the Suicide Kid. Shadow is worried over how sharp those thumbtacks are, although Trent tells him not to worry as he’s got everything under control. Suicide proves how “hardcore” he is by taking off his shirt to wrestle this bare chested. The fights starts as the MC is announcing the participants, and unlike most other announcers he’s not stopping, giving everyone the fullest of introductions. The wrestlers pair off on either side of the arena. Suicide Kid is already bleeding (I reckon a…

Shank jumps Ian the moment he turns his back on him, trying to do better than he did a week ago. He starts acting as though he’s doing him from behind, making him his prison bitch if you want, when Ian back fists him in the jaw. The Rotten clubbing clothesline, before he tears Shank’s shirt so he can feel the full effect of his chops. Out to the floor and Ian blitzes him with a chair. He’s about to brain him again when he spots someone has brought a kitchen sink with them, so uses that instead. There’s a light tube cabin at ringside, which I was waiting for someone to go through in the previous tag match, that Ian hiptosses Shank into. Cover on the concrete is kicke…

You can clearly see the influence of the British style on Cabana’s work in the initial exchanges and trading of holds. Side headlock and as it looks as though Lynn is about to escape, Colt grabs a handful of hair to prevent him from doing so. He backs Jerry into the corner and unleashes a couple of forearm smashes to the chest. Lynn switches position and fires back with a pair of hard open hand slaps. Irish whip to the opposite corner, but as Colt comes rushing in Lynn leaps up over, hooks his arms and takes him down with a lovely sunset flip. Both men duck under lariats so Colt changes tactic, throwing a dropkick to try and catch his opponent off guard. Springboard…

Pondo and Page are dressed like they’re going to war with those daft looking helmets. The Madman talks about how they were supporting Kid Rock in front of 20,000+ fans the other night (ICP maybe?) and they were telling him about Suicide Kid using his music without paying any royalty fees. Apparently if he uses it again Rock is going to come down here, sue Suicide Kid, sue Ian Rotten and sue the sound man. Yeah, right! He says how tonight the fans have seen all kinds of action but now it’s time for four fat asses to get in the ring and get hardcore. That gets a funny “Tony’s not fat!” chant from the fans. We’ve already heard ‘Last Resort’ and ‘Bawitdaba’ tonight, Rol…

I’ve never seen the ‘House of Hardcore’ so full. It looks like standing room only tonight, so maybe Ian wasn’t lying on the last show when he talked about 400 people being in the crowd for this. Wolf responds to Morton calling him a “pussy”, although forgets to hold the microphone close to his mouth so we don’t hear his comeback. The fans find it amusing so it must’ve been a good ‘un. One thing I’ve noticed recently is how many wrestlers are incapable of throwing a decent looking punch. Add Mark Wolf to that list. The two take it in turns to punch each other before swinging hell for leather. Wolf does drop him, but then immediately falls to the mat himself. After t…

No Harry Palmer with Tracey tonight, instead he’s got Chris Hero seconding him. A big ovation for Guido who is announced as coming to them from Extreme Championship Wrestling. Tracey gets a “Freddy Joe” chant which leads him to telling the fans to “shut the fuck up”, and how he’ll come out there and slap someone if he hears any “Tracey sucks” chants, his usual stuff that always gets a fair bit of heat. Any “Where’s my pizza?” chants though and he’s committing mass homicide! He puts over Guido as one of the rising stars in the sport today, but tonight he’s going to give him the wrestling lesson of his life. A feeling out process from the former tag team partners, Trac…

Sandman’s entrance last a good five minutes, lowlighted by pouring beer into the mouth and down the chest of a woman who’s a good bit older than him and who is old enough to know better. So much for Da Hit Squad’s talk of it just being the two of them from now on after their manager turned on them in the match against The Moondogs, as they’ve got someone called Johnny D in their corner here. The Sandman’s first move is to crack Mafia over the head with his cane twice before tossing him to the floor and whipping him into the guard rail. Homicide whips Mack into the turnbuckles, Sandman slams a ladder against him and they then whip Mafia into the ladder and his own partn…

Reckless cuts a brief promo on ECW and the ECW Arena (where this event is being held) to establish himself as the heel. Blade is accompanied by Rick Silver and Berk, the Jersey All Pro Light Heavyweight champion, is seconded by a valet called Poison; both seem pretty generic on first look. The expected ‘triple stand off/show of respect’ to end the opening portion. Berk pulls out what can be best described as a side frankensteiner on Blade, although I absolutely loathe the repeated ‘leg trip/cover/roll off’ spot they do which just looks shit. Blade and Reckless drop Berk with a double clothesline and Reckless then gives the orders, telling him to “kick him”. RF is rig…

Dave Prazak doesn’t think the people showed the proper respect to the ‘Year 2000 Wrestler of the Year’, despite the plaque that he’s carrying saying something slightly different. He believes everyone in MAW is running scared of CM Punk and Punk backs that up, claiming everyone in the locker room is afraid of ‘the alpha male of Mid-American Wrestling’. A fan wanders past the camera giving Punk the bird and his response is to call him a “child raper” because of the fact he’s got a moustache! It sounds like Billy Joe Eaton no showed as Punk tells them to “bring somebody out here so I can put on a show for all you dickheads”. Frankie DeFalco is out but not dressed for wre…

The official MCW debut of Derrick King after his previous ‘unscheduled’ appearances during the Power Pro/Memphis Championship Wrestling feud. Rocker lands on his feet from a hip toss, headscissors take down by King, a couple of dropkicks and finally a clothesline for a one count in what are selected highlights from a super-fast paced opening. Whip to the corner is reversed, however Rocker runs into a big boot only to then drop King with a clothesline of his own. Running high knee to the face before he chokes DK over the middle rope. Back elbow smash, lateral press, although King is able to roll a shoulder at two. Rocker misses the ‘Swanton bomb’ and King starts to fi…

Our first look at the former Rodney of the Mean Street Posse, now styling himself after Jesse Ventura and going by the name Rodrageous. A boot to the mid-section as opposed to a conventional lock up catches Rodney off guard, although he quickly gathers himself, ducking under a swinging right hand and retaliating with a bunch of his own. Hip toss, arm drag, a dropkick and I don’t think Bradley was expecting this as he takes to the floor to have a quiet word with Victoria about what he should do next. She leans into the ring under the bottom rope, distracting Rodney, which allows Bradley to sneak attack him from behind. He telegraphs the backdrop though and a flying for…

Lance is backstage with Randy Hales and he doesn’t see his name on the booking sheet for today’s show. Randy confirms that he hasn’t got a match and while he’s okay with that, tells him that he’s got business to take care of with ‘the Kliq’ and that’s starting today. Later in the show we return from a commercial break to see the American Dragon laid out in the dressing room with Cade standing over him and holding aloft his mask saying “one down, three to go”. Jason Sensation, Shooter Schultz and an unmasked American Dragon enter the ring with a message for Lance Cade. Jason describes Dragon as a ‘hazardous weapon’, having seen him chop and kick holes in other men, …