Hak vs. Raven vs. Bam Bam Bigelow - Falls Count Anywhere Triangle match - WCW Uncensored (1999)
Three guys who made a name for themselves in the extreme promotion known as ECW going head to head to head in a WCW style hardcore match. As an early precursor to WCW's Hardcore title division (a cheap imitation of the hardcore wrestling that had become popular through WWF), all it really was was taking the weapon-oriented style that ECW was using (but not limited to) and cranking it up to 11. So, as you can see from the video above, this match is more about how many things Hak (Sandman), Raven, and Bam Bam Bigelow can hit each other with than it is about being hardcore. Granted, these guys are/were hardcore at one point or another, the match is still just one big mess.
Many people call the backyard wrestling, ultraviolent, sleazy hardcore wresting of today "trash" wrestling, but this match literally looked like trash wrestling with all the crap that littered the ring.
PS: sorry for the sketchy video... it was the best I could find just of this match in its entirety.
Sabu vs. Sandman - Stairway To Hell match - ECW House Party (1998)
Even ECW had their own variation to a simple ladder match going in the late 90's to early 00's. The match was called a "Stairway To Hell" match and was much more like a pole match than a ladder match as the object was to retrieve a weapon hanging above the ring for use, but the retrieval did not end the match. The weapon of choice, of course, was a big ball of barbed wire.
This is ECW's first Stairway To Hell featuring the cane wielding, beer drinking, cigarette smoking, Sandman versus the homicidal, genocidal, and incredibility suicidal, Sabu.
It has come to my attention today that New Jack has retired from wrestling. I guess there's one less liability to worry about.
Rather than posting his retirement match (against Necro Butcher at this years' PWS Super Card), I've decided to just post this match instead for no reason other than I didn't want to post his notorious scaffold match with Vic Grimes yet or any match where he tries to stab his opponent to death.
That's New Jack's thing. Stabbing people to death.
New Jack vs. Sandman - Finals for the Hard 10 championship - NWA:TNA (2003)
Back in '03, TNA decided to add a little hardcore to their menu. So what better way to do this then by making a tournament revolving around a few ECW alumni mixed in with some guys who wrestled a couple times for ECW (Devon Storm, Vampire Warrior, Wolfie D) along with Mike Sanders and Sonny Siaki from WCW's Power Plant. But here's the catch - because this is TNA remember: there's got to be a catch on top of a catch - there was a point system.
A hardcore point system!
Apparently the way to win a match in this tournament was to get 10 points by using the weapons that were strategically placed around the ringside area and held by fans. The weapons that the competitors brought to the ring themselves did not count, however. Also, using a table was 5 big ones alone. So basically this tournament was just an excuse to see wrestlers get hit with random objects for five minutes like WWF's hardcore division circa 2000.
But it had a hardcore point system!
New Jack and Sandman, the two people hardcore enough to make it to the finals, battled it out in a back and forth struggle for points using the weapons they could find just laying around. Towards the end of the match, everyone loses count of the points and New Jack and Sandman make their way to the nearest balcony for New Jack to fall off of.. I mean get pushed off of.
Classic New Jack.
All that's missing is "Natural Born Killaz" being played on repeat throughout the duration of the match.
