Match of the Day - The king of extreme triangle hardcore match

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.

Match of the Day - ECW's barbed wire TLC match

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.

Theme Results

TLC: All of 'em.

Match of the Day - The final Mike Awesome/Masato Tanaka encounter

Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka - ECW One Night Stand (2005)

It's my birthday, so here's one of my favorite matches.

The Mike Awesome/Masato Tanaka match from ECW's One Night Stand show in 2005 is not the two's first outing together. These two had been fighting each other for the sake of fighting since the early/mid 90's from ECW to FMW in Japan with little to no remorse for each others well being. What makes this particular encounter so special is really pretty much random other than the fact that the crowd was red hot for them and the atmosphere that night was incredible. The two just go out to the ring and continue where they left off from their last match like it was still Heat Wave 1998. There's unprotected chair shots, a brutal Awesome bomb from the apron to a slanted table, an almost 300 pound man continually diving to the outside like this was a PWG All-Star Weekend, and, of course, Joey Styles' nonstop bad-mouthing of Mike Awesome on commentary.

This match might be remembered most for Joey Styles "shoot" on Awesome for being a terrible human being business-wise and the line after Awesome completed his first suicide dive to the outside, "...and it's unfortunate he did not succeed in taking his own life"; a foreshadowing of Awesome's demise as he would actually take his life 2 years later. That's not what makes this match special to me, but it is something that always gets brought up.

Regardless of all Joey Styles stuff, this match and the whole Awesome/Tanaka feud is really a sight to see from their days in FMW to this final battle at One Night Stand. These two put on simple yet brutal matches together that required little to no explanation. Destroying each other was just what they did.

Match of the Day - America's Dream vs. wrestling's original worst nightmare

Steve Corino vs. Dusty Rhodes  - Bullrope Match - ECW Living Dangerously (2000)

In one of ECW's last hooray's, a rising star named Steve Corino came on board much like CM Punk had with WWECW and quickly began making a name for himself during a time when Extreme Championship Wrestling was on its last leg and had lost most of its original talent. Corino, a wrestler who often criticized hardcore wrestling and called himself "The King of Old School", would find himself in a surprising feud with a true old school competitor in the one and only... "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes.

Steve Corino and Dusty Rhodes's feud for "who's the most old school" would eventually be contested at Living Dangerously 2000 in one of Dusty Rhodes's signature matches: the unforgiving Bullrope match. A match that can be called one of, if not thee best matches of TV-era ECW.

In good fashion while getting into the part, Steve Corino would rock the jean plus cowboy boot look that Dusty Rhodes would often sport when going into such a brutal environment whether it be a street fight, a Bullrope match, or any match after the 90's.

Corino may not have won this match after falling victim to The Dream's killer Bionic Elbow, but his feud with Dusty Rhodes that we see displayed here is really what got him over in ECW and eventually led him to Extreme gold.

Their feud would resume once more in 2004 when they faced off in a one on one match for the Japanese promotion, HUSTLE.

Theme results:

Jeans: Dusty Rhodes and Steve Corino