[ECW] Live w/ Los Lurkers Locos - 12/7/96

[Ray Duffy]

Live w/ Los Lurkers Locos
ECW Arena, Philadephia, PA
12/7/96

Hello everyone, Rev. Ray Duffy with even yet still another stupid little
arena report chock full of my trivial observations.

In attendance for the Lurkers, Rev. Ray Duffy and "Chris and Tammy's
Neighbor" Tom Long. Also joining us the Mutants of Baltimore who are
sporting a few first timers at the Arena. Pre-show is oh so enjoyable
as we get to spend a few hours in the December Rain, which hasn't had a
song written about it because it pretty much sucks. We get inside around
6ish, 6:15 and get really good seats. Apparently the rain has scared
away part of the crowd as the building isn't really as full as it has been
in the past (no people standing behind the bleachers that I can tell.) New
merchandise at the Arena includes the new bWo shirts and foam ECW
fingers.... and as promised, it's the middle finger which is extended on
these :-) Pre-show we spot Gary Albright and that woman with the Sunny
personality, Tammy Fytch.

Match #1 : Little Guido & Davey Pisan (aka Davey Morton Tyler Jericho)
v. Buh Buh Ray & Spike Dudley : Guido comes out first and says how he was
always the brains of the FBI. He made all the decisions, but when he let
JT take one of his own, he lost a loser leaves town match for 30 days. He
says he'll kick JT's ass if he comes back and he's found a new member of the
FBI, Davey Pisan, who's from the Italian Section of Long Island City, NY.
The Dudleys come out and Davey and Guido attack them, of course, it takes
Buh Buh a minute or two to realize that Guido is hitting him... Dudleys take
control, Spike stays in the ring for almost all of the match, mostly
because if Buh Buh comes in, all he really has to do is fall on them as he
almost outweighs them both by himself. Spike works a decent match, there's
one or two flubs, but he shows a lot of potential. He takes a fair ammount
of the beat down, including a face first whip into a chair that was quite
evil. Kid, it's ok to put your hands up. We were pretty sure that Spike
might have broken his nose from that shot. Dudley's get control again,
Spike got in his Kidman run up the ropes turnaround bulldog spot in, he
missed it once (it turned into more of a side headlock turnover when he
bulldogged the guy into his hip). Buh Buh got in the Buh Buh Cutter (a flap
jack where you shoot the guy up into the air and diamond cutter them on the
way down) on both guys, Dudleys then hit the Dudley-ville Rocket Launcher
where Spike jumps off of Buh Buh Ray's shoulders while Buh Buh's sitting on
the top rope for the pin. This was a good match. There's room for
improvement, but both Dudley's are really trying and have potential to get
over again. Post match they hold up a "Diamond Dallas Who?" sign. I got two
words for Buh Buh Ray : Kimberly F'n Paige, OK!

Match #2 : Dangerous Devon Storm (w/ Bad Crew) v. Balls Mahoney : As
the referee comes out to the ring, I comment "Boy, it's a real dumpy looking
referee" to wence Natster exclaims : "Oh my god, it's Jeff Jones!"
That's right, the MEWF/ECW talent exchange is in full effect as Jeff Jones
is now reffing in ECW. We give Jeff a warm welcome to the ECW Arena. Now,
onto Balls Mahoney. When we see him come down the aisle, we recognize him
immediately as Boo Bradley and chant "Boo!" at him. Then they announce
him as Balls Mahoney and we're all totally confused. Apparently, they're
given him a sort of gay or mastocistic gimmick... it was quite disturbing...
especially if you know what Boo Bradley looks like :-) Boo shows off a
few of his moves including the leg lariat over the top rope and a turn
around plancha onto Storm and Bad Crew (their only reason for being at
ringside I suppose). Of the disturbing moves, Boo hit Devon with a Hernia
Exam while doing his best Gene Simmons impersonation. Boo finishes him off
with a tombstone piledriver, where he gives Devon a suggestion on what he
could do while in that positon. I dunno, Devon might want to file date rape
charges. Booballs gets the win and we're all very very frightened....
why couldn't he have been Boo Bradley or Abuddah Singh? Well, at least he
wasn't Xanta Claus.

Match #3 : "Bounty Hunter" Rick Rage v. Gary Albright : This is a total
squash. Albright takes Rage right down and gets in him a ground cross
leg lock before Rage gets to the ropes. Gary gets him up, gives him a few
knee strikes, then gives him an evil back suplex and then quickly puts him
away with a dragon suplex and the pin. I'm interested to see Gary work, but
I'm fearful of how his style will go over. Some idiots where already
chanting boring and the match didn't go more than 2 and half minutes.

Match #4 : Bulldozer Brian Lee v. Louie Spicolli : After reading several
ECW house reports, this is pretty much the match that they've been having
on other cards. Lee pulls out a spike (either that or one of those Pen's
filled up with a shreaded Ten Thousand Dollars) and jabs Louie in the head,
Louie blades and bleeds a lot. Primetime brawls with him around the Arena.
Louie's bleeding pretty bad and Pee Wee Moore checks to see if Louie's OK.
Louie gives Pee Wee the Death Valley Driver. Apparently Pee Wee's body is
very dense so at his size he still feels he's Brian's weight. Lee thinks
he's got this all sewn up... until Louie gives him the DVD. Meanwhile,
Shane Douglas and Chris Candido head down to ringside. Shane whips the
shirt off of Pee Wee Moore and puts it on (Pee Wee always will give you the
shirt off his back, that's why he wears them so big he can get lost in
them.) and plays hurt while Candido takes the DVD. And then Lee takes
another. Louie goes for the pin on Lee, Shane makes the count. Louie
thinks he's won. But Shane won't raise his hand. Louie realizes it's Shane
and does what any red blooded American would do... attempts to dump him on
his fat head. Well, he gets him up for the DVD, but Lee grabs him by the
throat and gets in the Prime Time Slam. Triple team for a little bit, Louie
gets laid out, Pee Wee recovers and counts the pin. Post match, the trio...
hey, trio... Triple Threat.... ya think... continues to beat down Louie
until Pitbull #2 runs in to make the save, but 2 falls victim to the 3 on
one odds too, but eventually the triple threat beat it. Louie calls out for
Candido. Overall thoughts : more of a match to get over an angle. Lee,
Candido and Shane should be an interesting pairing (though I would rather
them have them turn on shane and add a heel Louie, but that's just me....).
The being blinded part was really the only reason to have Louie blade in the
match, quite frankly, I think they could have gone without it. Louie's a
talented guy, he doesn't need to be blading just yet. I guess Lee's not on
the way out as has been rumored.

Match #5 : Taz (w/ Bill Alfonso & Team Taz) v. Rob Van Dam : One of the
signs in the crowd : Taz Fears the bWo, but they do the wise thing and not
show up after Mr. Taz had a little talk with them on this week's tv show.
This was a pretty good match, things whent back and forth a bit with Taz
working more of a regular match, a little less of the shoot style stuff he's
been using lately. Van Dam got in a crazy sommersault plancha over the post
onto Taz down the aisle. They do a lot of back and forth, Van Dam gets in
a few evil chair throwing spots on Taz which has us wondering if Taz legit
got hit a few times because he looked like he was gonna kill Rob once or
twice. Eventually Taz gets in the Tazmission, but Rob does his best to
fight it. He tries several things to break it, but Taz won't let go. Van
Dam almost pins Taz with a Bret Reversal, but Taz gets the shoulder up. Taz
keeps the hold on and evnetually gets Van Dam out. I think this played out
well because it built up Van Dam for fighting the hold and it also built up
the Tazmission as tough to break (no one had really ever fought it before).
Of course, Van Dam probably would have broken it if he went for a low
blow...

Match #6 : Axl Rotten & D-Von Dudley v. The Gangstas : How bad does ECW
need a few more tag teams? The fact they're defending against D-Von and
Axl give you a clue? Pre-match, D-Von gets the microphone and chews out
someone in the audience (I'm assuming it was a writer for the Lariat or some
other sheet). When D-Von finishes having his fun, the bWo theme music
comes over the PA and the bWo (Big Stevie Cool, Da Blue Guy, Hollywood Nova
and their new camera man 3 1/2 (who I'm pretty sure was Rob Feinstein))
enters through the front door, throwing out Bingo Cards to the fans. They
also say they've got $3 to buy the place. Big Stevie Cool pulls out a bWo
t-shirt and reminds us all to : "BUYTHISSHIRT!BUYTHISSHIRT!BUYTHISSHIRT!"
Stevie then says "Hey everybody, it's Ian Rotten!" while pointing at Axl.
Stevie tells Axl they'll give him a call if the bWo needs someone with an
ass wider than Da Blue Guy's. Well, by this time, D-Von's had enough of the
bWo... so he goes after them with a chair. Axl and D-Von pound on the bWo
until the Gangstas charge the ring with the usual garbage can full of
weapons. Pretty standard Gangstas match. Lots of brawling and weapons
used. Jack uses the the fork on a rope as a weapon, however, a few of the
Mutants of Baltimore are pulling for a Pope on a Rope as a weapon. Axl,
New Jack and D-Von all bleed during the match... and when I blade, I wanna
do it in a ring filled with the contents of a garbage can. Axl did the
blade job for D-Von (and it was pretty obvious. He walks over to check on
D-Von and just cuts him open. Axl and Mustafa fight in the ring while Jack
and D-Von fight by the stage. New Jack does a psycho dive from the upper
stage all the way down the floor (possibly to put D-Von through a table, I
couldn't see) Stevie runs in at one point and Stevie kicks either Axl or
D-Von and calls New Jack to get in the ring, the Gangastas come back and
land the 187 powerslam/top rope chair shot to get the win. Apparently,
having his manager Jeff Jones (who looked THRILLED to be reffing this match)
as the referee didn't help Axl's cause. Post match, New Jack puts on a bWo
shirt and Mustafa pays homage to it. I see the Gangstas in the bWo all
of.... 10 seconds before they beat the hell out of Stevie, Meanie, Nova and
Feinstein :-) Jack throws his noose and shirt out to people in the crowd.
ECW is sort of in a tough posistion right now, they need another team to
challenge the Gangstas to a match, the problem is that the Gangstas have
just been doing wild brawling every match since they came back last year.
This means that ECW has to either get a team that can brawl with them or
have them actually try to wrestle a little more. Unfortunately, we could
only come up with a small list of people who can brawl with them, and most
of them work else where (namely, PE, the Nasties (if motivated), The Head
Hunters, the Bruise Brothers and maybe the Moondogs)

Intermission to clean up the mess from the previous match.

Match #7 : Shane Douglas & Francine v. Tommy Dreamer & Beulah : Needless
to say, I was usually distracted from most of the goings on in this match
due to other things :-) I think somebody got word to Dreamer that he
really should try to wrestle every now and then because Tommy's been
throwing a few more technical moves in his matches. For this one he pulls
out a Mutoh leg grapevine with a bridged chin lock. The match is mostly
Shane and Tommy as Beulah to my knowledge really has no wrestling training
and Francine was trained by JT Smith. Francine gets involved a few times
during the match a takes a few bumps and discovers she might have wanted
to have wrestled in the gym with this outfit beforehand because a couple of
time's she's BUSTing out all over. Oh what the hell am I saying, I'm glad
she didn't test this out beforehand :-) At anyrate, eventually, the
fighting between Shane and Tommy goes out to the floor and into the crowd.
While out on the floor, something happened to Shane which I didn't see. I
was told someone whacked Shane in the face with a chair. End results is
Shane starts fighting the guy. Now, I didn't see who hit him, but this this
sort of sets Shane on a rampage, I dunno if he went after a different guy or
the same guy but he's clearing a path through the crowd before Dreamer
forcably drags him back into the ring before it gets any worse. They do a
brief cat fight bit (you know, hair pulling, rolling around on the mat, etc)
but break that up quickly. At one point Francine takes an EVIL bump on the
railing. They did the partner gets whipped into you, you get knocked off
the apron spot. Well, Francine went flying into the railing. I dunno how
but she got up. Beulah helped Tommy get back in control by clawing at
Shane's eyes. Tommy gets him in a figure four on Shane, Beulah's berating
Shane with her back to Francine, who nails her in the back of the head off
the top with a cookie sheet. Francine in control, but Dreamer knocks down
Shane for a bit sets Francine up for a piledriver.... and she's BUSTing out
all over again. I think we have a prime candidate for Extreme Warfare Vol.
3. Tommy picks her up and gives her a back breaker and goes as if he's
going up for a moonsault... but Beulah stops him and then pushes him... oh
please don't let her turn and join Shane.... if she does, I'm suplexing
every girl I meet before eventually they'll end up with you... But wait! My
acts of violence against women is put on hold as Beulah's not turning, no,
she's going for the moonsault. Well, she gets up there... and it takes her
a while... to set it up... I will say this, she's more enjoyable to look at
posing herself for a moonsault than the Meanie is... and she does the
moonsault. Unfortunately, she lands on Francine's knee which I'm sure
didn't help her after her earlier bump. Beulah and Tommy pose for the
camera, Shane slugs Tommy with a change and takes his place. Beulah turns
around and is put on the receiving end of a belly-to-belly suplex. 1-2-3,
Shane pins a 115 pound girl. It's no wonder he's the tv champ. Francine
need to be helped back to the locker room after the match and I wouldn't
be surprised if she got legit hurt after the railing bump or the moonsault
to her leg. Overall, aside from the unfortunate incident on the floor, it
was a pretty good match. Francine's really insane about taking bumps.
She takes some spots that I think would make Sherri Martel wince. Dunno
if it's such a hot idea, I still think she should cut back a bit before
she gets seriously hurt (if she's not already).

They announce that Joey's going to do an interview, but he never makes it
down to ringside as Joel Gertner comes out and says he's silenced the
Voice of ECW. My guess is that Joel took out Joey on the aisle (I couldn't
see). Oh boy, just what I've been waiting for : Joey and Joel in the
ring. Maybe they'll settle this like men... with Karate Fighters.

Match #8 : Sabu v. Perry Saturn : This match promised to be very good.
Unfortunatley, it was not to be. Sabu seemed to be off tonight, there were
more than a couple blown spots and the crowd REALLY turned on him. I mean,
give the guy a break. His style is one that can either be really
spectacular or pretty bad if he's missing stuff. Saturn on the other hand
was very much on and look spectacular in the match. He had some great
looking kicks, some super flying moves and I think pulled out a second rope
piledriver. One of the problems which plagued the match was the fact the
tables they were setting up for spots were really weak. They were bending
and breaking before Sabu could go for his spot which resulted it being set
up again... so the table could break before he went for the spot. They try
to finish with Sabu doing a triple jump DDT, unfortunately, it doesn't land
right. Sabu grabs a chair does a quick arabian facebuster to end the match.
Post match, Kronos runs in and starts beating on Sabu. Elims beat on Sabu,
giving him a variation of Total Elimination (Kronos with a high turning kick
to the face as Saturn hit a low kick to the back of Sabu's leg) and then hit
TE on him. Van Dam runs out in a neckbrace, Elims work him over. Gary
Albright hits the ring and the Elims get out. Taz runs down to get at Sabu,
but the Elims try to hold him back. Gary challenges Taz to get in the ring.
We do a "tease Sabu and Taz" spot, which ends with Sabu attempting a plancha
onto all three guys, but Taz being it down the aisle first. Paul E. REALLY
has to get these guys in the ring soon, be it in a 6 man or a tag match.
Just get them in the ring, because teasing this match constantly is a)
going to make the fans restless b) cause you to have to live up to
something that might not be humanly possible to live up to. Post match,
some fan was yelling at Sabu... and Sabu took a swing at him.... it's
fan appriciation here at the ECW arena....

With that match, it brings us to the main event. A no rope barbed wire
match. We watch as the crew tries to put the barbed wire up. This shows
what a well thought out process this was. I ask Natster if he thinks
we're out of wire distance, he suggests that we just cover our necks to
be safe.

Match #9 : Barbed Wire Match : Raven v. The Sandman : Raven comes out
first with Lori and Tyler, but Todd Gordon and the referees immediatley
force them back to the locker room. Sandman rips the leg of his pants
sliding in the ring. They go back and forth, but Sandman ends up being
the first one to end up against the wire. Things go back and forth a bit,
Raven's shirt ends up getting ripped off and stuck on the wire. Sandman
does an over the wire cane shot to the floor. They cut off a one side of
the wire and use it as a weapon. Raven got whipped with the wire. Sandman
wraps the wire around his body, knocks Raven out on the floor and attempts
to splash him through a table (I think he landed on him). Things go back
to the ring, Raven gets control. They try to do the piledriver on the
table spot, but once again, the table breaks too soon. Raven gives Sandman
a DDT on the table, folds it over on top of and gets the pin. And just like
that, Raven wins the belt back.... with a clean pinfall no less... I
can'tremember the last time I've seen Raven with a match without outside
interference.

Overall thoughts : it was a pretty solid card. Nothing too spectacular,
but nothing horrible. I enjoyed all of the matches (I don't think any were
DUDS), so all and all, a good time.

Well, that looks like all the shows I'm doing for 1996.

So till next year, this is Rev. Ray Duffy saying....

This Note's For You.

--
Rev. Ray Duffy is man of few titles... but too many for this sig file.
"What I used to think was me is just a fading memory,
I looked him right in the eye and said goodbye" - NIN
home page : http://shell.idt.net/~fender : It's newer and funkier!

--
Ray Duffy, MiSTy #38729, Rev. of ULC, Internet F**khead, As Seen On TV
"You're not cool enough to be my friends"- Steve Richards on Los Lurkers
Locos
"I've had enough of you, Todd Pettingil!" - Sandman to Joey Styles - ECW TV
http://shell.idt.net/~fender/lllad.html The Los Lurkers Locos Adventure
page!