The Rise + Fall of ECW: The Review

2009-01-17T02:46:00.000-08:00

I remember the first time I saw ECW. It was from a poorly dubbed hard camera tape of one of the first shows. The highlight was the headhunters throwing someone through the wall of the ECW arena. It kills me that I can’t remember who it was but it was hard to make out what was going on and I had no clue who half of the wrestlers were to begin with. Yet, I did know that I was watching something that was slowly going to change how I viewed professional wrestling. And I, as a young teenager, had already viewed far too much.

Years went by. ECW got picked up by Sportschannel and I would come across it again when my friend Ryan taped an episode with a particularly brutal Sabu/RVD match. I watched that tape and was forever a changed virgin male. Soon after, my mom would have to set tapes for me to make sure I would not miss ECW in its 2am time slot on Friday nights. To be honest, I can only remember one time that I was out late enough to not be there myself, sitting Indian style with my heart beating like a sped up clock, but it’s testament to how amazing a women she was. Momma Chern not only let her seventeen year old son stay out past two in the morning but I also had a perfect VHS of that nights episode waiting for me to watch when I came home half drunk and reeking of stale cigarettes. But, I will say, she did not edit out the commercial breaks and that’s a blessing because half the fun was those shit promos for homemade t-shirts.

I eventually got to see ECW shows in person. In Queens and in Cleveland. Pivotal moments shine in my minds eye; New Jack doing a huge balcony dive at the Elks Lodge, Spike Dudley matching that at the Agora in Cle off an even sicker height. My mom and I getting hipped by the security in New York as to when Tommy Dreamer was going to jump the guard rail right in from of us thirty seconds before it happened and getting lip from Francine as I tried to take photos of her tits.

ECW changed my life as a man-child, a wrestling fan and a future professional. It is something I will never forget. Something that I will forever look at as a quintessential (stud muffin) part of my becoming whatever the fuck I am today (and forever more). ECW fans were truly a part of the show. They were part of a movement that formed so many lives and probably destroyed half as many. God bless and thank God for The Rise + Fall DVD.

So, shit, this thing came out ages ago. I’ve probably made every male friend I have truly cared about watch while drunk after trying to score chicks at the bar went awry (I, to this point, have never forced a girl to watch this with me but my future wife will one day know it line by line). That crucial little bit of life lesson aside; I thought this would be a prefect first review for Wrestlebore.

I’ll start with something no other wrestling review has begun with as far as my research can assume. Ready… okay. This DVD rips. It rips as hard as anything Vince McMahon has ever done. And, as you know, that is saying a shit load.

Just looking at the chapter list alone makes my mind want to explode in an orgasm of high spot memories. So many names, angles and new headlines stare me in the face. It’s akin to diving into a box of old Pro Wrestling Torch back issues with your face glued to the third or fourth page that was reserved for the “Dub”.

There’s the early days with the Eastern Championship title meaning nothing other than the late, great Eddie Gilbert once battles for it in front of cheese steak eating morons. Man, I wish I was one of them. Slowly and magnificently we are re-introduced to our heroes (another thing I will never tell a girl until she lets me ruin her life by putting a ring on her finger). Cactus, Sandman, Tommy and Mikey. Sabu walks the line, Shane throws down the NWA strap and Raven quotes shit poetry.

From Malenko and that smuck Benoit. Lucha to the BWO. This DVD is so rich in the history of the ultimate, FUCK YOU, promotion that even re-telling it here seems so pointless. You know the story but hearing it from every one that was there (that was employed post-ECW/WCW) is like hearing how your parents met or how you, yourself, were born.

The end is sad but we know that because, as fans, we lived it too. TNN, Cyrus, bad angles and some sub-par Indy guys. The WCW mole situation is glanced over but it never really led to anything to begin with. I guess it all came down to Mike Awesome, Tazz and RVD. Those guys made leaps and who could blame them? Still, watching Tazz beat Awesome for the title in an unheard of triple promotional screw job… its shit like that makes it worth the ridicule to love this sport of sports.

Highlights for me, in this history of absurdness, are Lawler and Cornett coming in and spilling their hearts. They really hated this stuff and it shows in their promos. I wish WWE would have dug out some more of the Lawler stuff. “Extremely Crappy Wrestling’. I still hear that in my sleep, giving me nightmares, I wanted to kill that man.

The extras are good, not great. Pitbulls against Stevie Richards and Raven? I might have left that out. 2 Cold against Sabu? An amazing match up; that was a dream match in 1996 but is it truly a showing of what this promotion did best? I would rather have had the Dreamer/Brian Lee scaffold match where Lee falls through a battalion of tables as we hear “Your winner on the ledge: Tommy Dreamer!”

This collection could have only been made better by the inclusion of more weird promos from the syndicated show and a third disc of more classic moments. I didn’t even need matches; half of my memories are tied up in the interviews set in the stoic an ugly Philly background.

I’ve said it and I will say it once more; ECW changed this world of wrestling for not only the better but for the rest of time as us nerds know it. This documentary is the perfect time capsule for our memories of what will, without doubt, go down as the true punk-rock, guerilla promotion. Chant it loud and chant it proud, “E-C-DUB, E-C-DUB, E-C-DUB!”

-Matthew Chernus

Let’s Get Ready To Bore You

2008-07-15T19:38:00.000-07:00

When I thought of this blog it was with the idea to make people laugh and rmember how ridicoulous wrestling is and how much it means to us. I’m not a super mark or a fan boy, I have a job, I play in bands and I have sex often (well, not often). I’m also a wrestling fan. I have a poorly dubbed VHS of four hours of Georgia Championship Wrestling episodes. I own a Jushin Thunder Liger stuffed doll and a NJPW jacket. I even have a copy of WrestleWar ’89 in it’s orginal package… that’s where the genius came. WrestleBore. It’s a part of the world now.

Unfortunetly I don’t read many news sites and I don’t follow TV too closely, I don’t have cable. But I have the memories, man. Funk/Flair in the Cleveland Convention Center. Watching RVD smoke weed out of his hotel room on Euclid Avenue as I waited to talk to Al Snow about his school in Lima, Ohio. Bored yet? That’s the point. If you aren’t picking scabs or on your way to myspace, then I want to hang out with you. I can pick up the twelve pack if you bring over the tape player. Then we can share our stories here.

Feel free to send them in.

-Matthew Chernus
AKA The Future of America Matt Wroth
www.angelfire.com/wrestling/mattwroth

It's Time To Bore!!

The Rise + Fall of ECW: The Review

Let’s Get Ready To Bore You