[ECW Newsletter] *Special Edition* Hostile City Showdown 98 RESULTS!

[ECW...@aol.com]

Hostile City Showdown 98 Results
Live from the ECW Arena
by BJ Leiby
Editor of the ECW Newsletter
(ECW Ne...@aol.com)

ECW tonight presented its 5th annual Hostile City Showdown show from the ECW
Arena in South Philly. There have been some incredible things that have
happened at past Hostile City shows...Beulah gets piledriven by Tommy
(loudest pop ever in the Arena), Sabu breaks his silence and talks on the
mic, Malenko and Guerrero feud and tons more. This show did not live up to
trend set the past four years as ECW delivered a not very spectacular show
which was full of problems and poor matches.
ECW did not promise much with this show, one match announced and very little
in the way of angles to have good matches in.
Here is the complete story on all the matches from the Arena tonight. As
usuall, all matches are out of 4 stars(****). If you would like to
subscribe to the ECW Newsletter, please e-mail "ECW NE...@AOL.COM" for a free
subscription.

FBI vs. Jerry Lynn and Chris Chetti
The FBI open the Arena show(as they always do--6 out of the last 7 shows)
taking on a new team of Lynn and Chetti. Match starts up with Lynn and
Guido. They lock up and Lynn takes the early advantage with a side headlock
and a take down. Guido back up and starts cursing out Lynn but gets nailed
everytime he has something to say. Guido gets slammed and a leg drop.
Guido gets nailed with a clothesline and then tags Smothers in. Smothers
attempts to fight back with chops but Lynn will have none of it sending
Smothers into the other corner and coming with a nice roll around into a
sunset flip like manuver but only getting two. Smothers back up but then
gets rolled up again for only two. Chetti comes in and nails a couple
punches to the side of Smothers head before taking him down for a slam and
dropping a elbow. Lynn back in then and he nails Smothers with a hard
right. He backs up and heads off the ropes but Tommy Rich pulls the top
rope down and Lynn falls to the floor. Guido on the ground nailing Lynn as
the ref is distracted by Smothers. Rich gets in on the attack as well
dropping Lynn across the guard rail. Lynn rolled back in as the FBI go to
work double teaming Lynn. Guido drops a knee to the forehead and Tracy
nails Lynn who sits up from the knee. They also nail him with a double team
shoulder block. They repeat this several times before Guido stays in Guido
rolls down his knee pad to drop a few more knees. Guido nails Lynn with a
clothesline and then tags back in Smothers. They do their classic double
chop and then the team elbow drop on Lynn. Guido spits on Chetti getting
him all fierd up but the ref holds him back. Lynn gets taken down with a
slam and then a leg drop from Smothers. Smothers gets taken down by a
huricarana and Chetti gets tagged in. Chetti takes on both of the FBI
nailing them with dropkicks then slams. Lynn back in on it as he takes
Guido to the outside. Lynn heads up top and nails Guido with a plancha to
the floor. Chetti in the ring hits the ref and takes him to the outside by
accident but then nails Smothers. He hits Smothers with the double jump
moonsault but there is no ref. Lynn back in and they both take the FBI out
and go for the pin again and this time referee Jeff Jones hits the ring and
counts 1-2-and he hurt his hand.... Lynn and Chetti go after Jones but then
from behind the FBI catch them and suplex them down. They both make covers
and Jeff Jones goes for the count but from behind here comes Tommy Rogers to
break that up. The FBI try to stop him from attacking Jones and both Tracy
and Guido get hit with Tomakazee's. Tommy Rich nailes Rogers from behind
and sets him up but Rogers reverses it and nails "The Big Don" with a
Tomakazee. Jeff Jones is the final victim and he goes down as well. The
ref is back up and Chetti and Lynn make the covers and get the win. Not a
bad match but we starting to see the "same old same old" in FBI matches with
regard to the spots and to the finishes.
Winners: Jerry Lynn and Chris Chetti(12:27)
Overall: **1/2

Rob Van Dam and Sabu vs. Balls and Axl
Interesting match up, this one sparked my interest when it was apparent that
it was going to be that match. Sabu came out taped up again around the jaw
area...Sandman must have really cracked his jaw up again at House Party 3
weeks ago. Sabu and Balls to start things off. BTW--lot more RVD fans as
the weeks go on, the WWF bit that got him so much heat is passing and fans
are starting to respect the guy again. Sabu takes down Balls with a arm
drag and then a hip toss. He tags in RVD who nails Balls with a dropkick
and a superkick. They slam Balls down. RVD sets Balls off the ropes but he
counters with a clothesline and tags in Axl. Axl nails RVD several times
and then takes him to the outside where he is whipped into the turnbuckle.
Sabu comes down to help RVD and they roll Axl back in. RVD heads up top and
nails Axl with a frog splash. He tags in Sabu and they do rolling thunder
on Axl. Balls comes in and a brawl then happens in and out of the ring.
All four men brawl about the ringside area and Sabu bridges the guardrail
and the ring with a table right in front of me. RVD throws Balls to the
outside and holds his head over the table as he nails him with punches.
Sabu in the ring vaults off the chair and puts Balls through the table with
a leg drop across his exposed head. Both men are down and hurt. Rob in the
ring nails Axl several times and Sabu and him nail Axl with rolling thunder
again. They then set up Axl standing and hit him with TOTAL ELIMINATION.
The crowd pops for it as they are really surprised and Kronus immediatly
hits the ring and attacks both men. The bell is called for on DQ as Kronus
cleans house with Sabu and Rob Van Dam. Kronus left alone in the ring to
celebrate. Decent match with some nice spots, the Kronus run in after total
elimination was a surprise and might be a nice new angle for Kronus to get
into.
Winners: Sabu and RVD by DQ(8:06)
Overall: ***

Gran Naniwa vs. Spike Dudley
Spike gets a good amount of cheers from the crowd this time around as he
takes on a guy who was a pretty big heel in his match at House Party 98.
The fans were not giving him a whole lot of heat which kinda killed the
match cause that is what they might have been betting on. "Spikes on acid"
chant goes up. This match opens up with pure wrestling as both guys go for
arm drags and counters into hammer locks. Spike rolls up Naniwa but only
gets two. Drop toe hold by Naniwa and he floats over into a headlock. Fans
start to get a little restless as this match approaches a very slow pace.
Picks up though as Spike takes down Naniwa and nails him with several
punches and kicks. He goes for a acid drop but Naniwa counters with a belly
to back suplex and rolls Spike to the outside. Spike is thrown into the
guardrail as he gets up and walks back to the ring...Naniwa is waiting on
him and nails him with a somersault plancha from the apron to the floor.
Naniwa rolls Spike back into the ring where he nails Spike with a suplex and
a splash. He says thats all and nails Spike with his finisher...a corkscrew
tigerbomb but Spike escapes at two. He puts Spike up top and trys to go for
a superplex but Spike shoves him off and nails him with a splash. He gets
Naniwa with a huricarana but can only get two as he hooked the legs on the
way down. He gives a nice back body drop to Naniwa and goes for Acid Drop
again...this time nailing it and getting the three. Not a very entertaining
match up...drew no heat from the crowd at all and was probably a little too
long for what is produced. Spike and Naniwa shake hands after the match.
Winner: Spike Dudley(9:15)
Overall: **

Justin Credible vs. Gran Hamada
Hamada takes off right away after Justin Credible nailing him with rights
and a clothesline coming out of the corner. He then goes after Jason trying
to take him down. Hamada with a scoop and slam and then a elbow drop.
Hamada hits Justin with a huricarana and goes for a cover but only gets two.
He sets up Justin Credible on the top rope and nails him with a top rope
frankinstiener and then sets him up again up top this time nailing him with
a swinging DDT. He only gets two on the pin attempt and he takes Justin up.
He nails Justin over the top rope with a clothesline and then tries to hit a
diving plancha by misses and hits the floor. Hamada gets whipped into the
guardrail and then rolled back into the ring. Justin has a chair and nails
Hamada with it in the knee. Justin Credible with the DDT and then picks him
up and nails him with Thats Incredible and gets the 3 count.
Winner: Justin Credible(4:52)
Overall: **

Joey Styles Interview
Joey hits the ring and mentions the fact that there was a bus trip from
Queens NY that came to Philly for this show(there were 40 guys that came,
took up two whole rows) and the place goes wild depending on what side of
the state line you are on. Drew a great amount of heat and I personally
love this rivalry, hopefully ECW will go somewhere with it. Joey asks the
fans to forget about where they are from and all be ECW fans tonight. Crowd
doesnt like that with such chants as "F*** that S***" and such. Joey says
"nevermind." and just asks for the loudest crowd possible to blow the roof
of the ECW Arena. He counts down and we start the show. Joey announces
that he will be the ring announcer for the main event match that will happen
right now.

Shane Douglas, Chris Candido and Lance Storm vs. Taz and Bam Bam Bigelow
Joey also mentions that this is the first time all four title belts will be
in the same match. The Triple Threat hits the ring first with Francine who
sticks Joey's head right on her chest and Joey falls down. The Triple
Threat surround the ring and Candido talks to Storm saying if they win, he
joins he Triple Threat. Bam Bam comes down next and he is yelling at the
entire TT. Taz then hits the ring and they make the announcements for the
match up. Its Lance Storm and Bam Bam to start things off. Lance tries to
get at Bigelow but Bam Bam is too strong and he just gets torn apart.
Series of headbutts to open things up and then Lance is sent off the ropes
and Lance goes way up in the air for a back body drop...but he almost landed
wrong and would have easily broken his neck if he had done so. It was a
scary moment for a second. Bam Bam then throws Lance all the way across the
ring into the corner of the TT with a hip toss. Candido quickly leaves the
corner to "check his boots" as Lance asks for a tag. Shane reluctantly tags
in but then curses out Taz so that Bam Bam tags in the TV Champ. Shane goes
for a lock up but Taz quickly goes behind. Shane counters with a go behind
but Taz takes him down with a drop toe hold. Taz slaps on a submission but
Shane gets to the ropes quickly. Back to his feet, the world champion locks
back up with Taz and gets a thumb to the eye. He sets him up for a suplex
but Taz counters with the T-Bone. Candido in the ring but he gets a belly
to back Tazplex. Lance Storm goes down with a German Tazplex but stays in
the ring unlike the other members who were on the outside. Bam Bam fixes
that clotheslining him out and he falls through part of the time keepers
table.. Taz stomps on Shane who is on the outside and quickly runs over and
grabs his belt and nails Shane with it. Taz holds his belt high and then
puts it down behind him as he curses out Shane. Bam Bam picks up the belt
looking at it...and NAILS TAZ WITH IT!!!! The TT hit the ring then and all
four men stomp Taz. Taz takes a powerbomb and gets layed out. Lance doesnt
know his fate right away but Chris quickly informs him of it nailing him as
well and taking him out. Both men are left laying in the ring. Lance is
streachered out and Taz is helped to the back after 5 minutes of moving
about the ring in a dazed state. Bam Bam has rejoined the Triple Threat!
Good match, short but it was all for the sake of the angle.
Winners: No Contest
Overall: ***

Intermission
The "10" minute intermission was uneventful but after it happened, Bob
Artese got on the mic and asked everyone if they wanted some head? And with
that...thoses boxes of heads came flying out to the ring by the ring crew
and attendents. Once again, hundreds of heads filled the Arena as the fans
were all crazy again. Everyone was going crazy with it all and once again
the head thing started.

Doug Furnas vs. Al Snow
Furnas hit the ring with Lance Wright who made jokes about the fans and drew
some good heat. Al Snow came to the ring and chased both men away. The
match opened up with Al nails Furnas repeatedly with punches and then knee
shots as the crowd chanted "Head" to each of the shots. Furnas was sent off
the ropes but he countered with a great clothesline that took Snow down.
Snow was sent off the ropes again and nailed with a beautiful frankinstiener
that took down Snow. Snow thrown into the turnbuckle where he was then
nailed with several punches. Furnas out of the corner with a clothesline on
the other side. He nails Snow with a shoulderblock and Snow tries to crawl
towards the head. Furnas goes for a tombstone piledriver but Snow attempts
to flip over and reverse the move. Snow cant support Furnas' weight and
they both fall over which gets the crowd going with "You F'd up" They lay
there for a minute trying to organize the match again, they were never able
to. Al pulled Furnas up and nailed him with some punches and Furnas fought
back. Snow attemted a suplex but it was blocked but then Snow just hit
Furnas with a right and took him down. It looked pretty bad. Snow then hit
Furnas with the snow plow and got the pin. Lance Wright got thrown into the
ring and got hit with a snow plow as well. Fans began to throw the heads in
on Lance who was pretty much covered as the match up ended.
Winner: Al Snow
Overall: *

Dudley Boys vs. Sandman and Tommy Dreamer vs. New Jack and Kronus vs. Sabu
and RVD(4 way dance)
This match up was originally just Dudleys against Sandman and Dreamer but
becomes a 4 way dance later in the show. Joel hits the ring first followed
by the Dudley Boys. He intros Sign Guy and Big Dick then himself. Here is
what he said:

Joel Gertner: "Next, it is I myself, the QSM Joel 'Bigger then the Titanic
because only 400 women went down on the Titanic' Gertner"
I swear they get funnier everytime! He intros the Dudley Boys. Including
D-Von who is now dropped to 186lbs. and Buh Buh Ray who is the president of
Dudleyville now who spends his time in the "Oval Oriface" I mean "Oral
Office" I mean "Oval Office" LOL.

Sandman and Dreamer come down with Beulah and put away a whole bunch of
beers.
They get in the ring and Sandman has a announcement he wants to make. He
tells of Tommy Dreamers grandfather (who recently died) and that when he is
hurting, the whole family of ECW is hurting. He tells of how much Tommy's
gradfather meant to him and how he got him in wrestling school. Tommy is
broken down crying on this. They ring the bells 10 times but on ring 6
Justin Credible hits the ring and talks about how he is sorry about his loss
on behalf of the whole locker room. He then says "I only wish it was you
that died instead of your no good grandfather" which gets Tommy going and he
nails Justin. Sandman, and all the Dudleys hold him back as Justin is
dragged out by Jason. Mikey who was on stage during the incident got up and
had to be restrained by Paul up there as he felt that the angle was in very
poor taste and Justin was an idiot for agreeing to do something like that.
Paul calms him down and Mikey sits back down but the general feeling was
that was not a good angle to run and IMO it was complete trash. You dont do
anything like that for any reason. Buh Buh gets on the mic and tells
Dreamer to calm down because Justin Credible is Justin Asshole and you
shouldnt listen to him. He then tells them that he wants to have a
wrestling match tonight and not brawling. So they start the match. Sandman
and Buh Buh Ray. Sandman with a hip toss and a go behind into a hammer
lock. Buh Buh reverses it and takes down Sandman. Tag into D-Von who nails
Sandman with a diving headbutt after a suplex by Buh Buh. D-Von works over
Sandman but Sandman nails D-Von with a clothesline. Tommy Dreamer gets
tagged in and he nails D-Von with a slam. Joel Gertner up in the ring
distracting the referee and Big Dick in to nail both Tommy and Sandman with
chokeslams. New Jack's music hits and he and Kronus hit the ring with the
weapons. Crutch to the back of D-Von and the action spills to the outside
and this is where I miss parts because I was damn near getting killed a
bunch of times. Kronus nails Buh Buh with a cookie sheet and Big Dick gets
a piece of siding to the head. D-Von on the outside now gets whipped HARD
into the guardrail I was on, dented it big time!! Tommy continues to work
over him. Sandman with Big Dick and New Jack nailing both of them. Tommy
rolls back in as Kronus works over on the outside. Tommy Dreamer and New
Jack begin to nail each other and seem to the like the pain they are killing
each other with. They then start to double team the Dudleys doing several
double team manuver, elbows and such. Buh Buh goes after Kronus but Kronus
gives him a thumb to the eye and then grabs the head that I was holding and
nails Buh Buh with it. I luckly caught the head again and had a nice bloody
souvenier (or so I thought). New Jack comes over as Kronus leaves about a
minute later and he grabs my head and nails D-Von with it and it falls away
from me. Oh well. Kronus gets put through a table by Big Dick and a
chokeslam. Kronus back in with D-Von and he nails him with a lariat and a
spin kick. Sabu and RVD then hit the ring and jump Kronus for jumping them
earlier in the show. They then go after everyone else and a huge brawl
ensues in the ring. Buh Buh nails Rob and then Rob does his somersault
plancha to the outside but then falls into the crowd. Several more
wrestlers converge to the middle of that side. Buh Buh runs and nails them
all with a plancha off the top. In the ring Big Dick with a chokeslam on
Kronus and D-Von makes a cover and gets the three count. That is when the
fans at the Arena become aware that this is actually a 4 way dance not a
regular match. Tommy and Sandman both nailed on the outside and taken down.
D-Von and Tommy both put on a table inside the ring and Sabu and RVD get up
in oppisite corners and and put both men through a table with a top rope
rolling thunder. A cover on the Dudleys and gets the three count. Sabu and
RVD celebrate but Sandman and Tommy nail them from behind. They nail both
men with a double DDT and go for a cover. Then Justin Credible gets on the
mic on the stage and berates Tommy Dreamer. Tommy leaves the ring and nails
Justin Credible up on stage. Sandman is left alone with Sabu and RVD and he
gets nails with a springboard triple team chair shot to the face. Sandman
then gets nailed with rolling thunder but still only gets two. Sabu then
hits a arabian face buster from the top and gets the 3 count. Decent match
but Im not sure where they are going with it. Lots of brawling but not a
whole lot of excitment. You can check me out on TV in this match up (the
guy with the ECW Newsletter 3:16 shirt on in the front row getting his head
used by Kronus). A decent way to end the show.
Winners: Rob Van Dam and Sabu
Overall: ***

Show thoughts
This show had some pretty weak matches in it and not enough good matches to
make it up. The three good matches had only mostly brawling with the
exception of FBI vs. Lynn and Chetti which was good wrestling. The crowd
wasnt into it as much as the Intermission hurt the momentum of the show(as
Paul always says it does)and the Al Snow match afterwards couldnt get the
crowd back into it. Hostile City did not live up to its predecessors and
was overall a dissapointment.
Overall: **
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