Harder Than Chinese Algebra - ECW Heatwave (1998)

Relive one of ECW’s most infamous pay-per-views as Bradley Palermo and Aaron Fink take you back to Heat Wave 1998 from Dayton, Ohio. From Jerry Lynn vs. Justin Credible’s opener to the chaotic Dudley Boys street fight, this episode of Grapple City Rewind covers every broken table, insane dive, chair shot, and outrageous promo that defined ECW’s extreme style. We dive into the legendary Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka showdown, the FTW Championship war between Taz and Bam Bam Bigelow, and the unforgettable tag team chaos of RVD & Sabu vs. Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki.

Along the way, Bradley and Aaron share insights on modern wrestling, WWE vs. AEW programming wars, and what made ECW so ahead of its time. Whether you’re a hardcore fan or discovering ECW’s wild history for the first time, this rewind is packed with nostalgia, controversy, and pure wrestling chaos.

This episode brought to you be Weber4Law - your tag team partner when life body-slams you out of nowhere. Call (818) 502-9200 or visit https://weber4law.com/

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Music by Bradley Palermo & The Shadow Queens.

Created by Bradley Palermo & Aaron Fink.

Transcript

00:00.22
Aaron
Hey everyone, this is Aaron Fink from Grapple City Rewind. If you like what you hear on this episode, give us a follow, leave us a review, cut a promo on us by calling 626-657-SLAM. Anything goes. It'll go a long way in helping us to be discovered by more wrestling fans like you.

00:28.90
Bradley Palermo
Today, we are rewinding to August second 1998, when ECW lit up the Hera Arena in Dayton, Ohio for Heat Wave 98.

00:39.69
Bradley Palermo
ninety eight Of course, being ECW, it was a night of many, many broken tables, insane dives, chair shots just straight to the heads, and promos so raw and raunchy they'd never make it on the air with something um today.

00:54.10
Bradley Palermo
They'd never make it on the air today. This was ECW's first live pay-per-view in Dayton. It was one of their most talked about shows. ah There's plenty of controversy and carnage to discuss later. well We'll get into every match, every botch, every chant, and the moments that cemented this card as ECW legend.

01:12.66
Bradley Palermo
I'm Bradley Palermo, here as always with Aaron Fink. And Aaron, before we get into the rewind today, did you watch Clash in Paris yesterday?

01:22.96
Aaron
I did. Yes, it was.

01:24.47
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, what'd you think on that?

01:25.94
Aaron
it was I, i guess.

01:26.93
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:28.34
Aaron
I don't know. I mean, the crowd made it more fun than I think it actually was. You know, when you when you look at the card, you're like, man, not great. I liked like Cena versus Logan Paul.

01:41.00
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

01:41.17
Aaron
thought that was pretty good. um Honestly, that was the only really good match. I feel like every match was every match besides that was just OK to not good.

01:50.86
Aaron
Like, man, Nikki Bella and and Becky Lynch was pretty disappointing.

01:51.43
Bradley Palermo
yeah right

01:55.61
Aaron
And, you know, I I don't it's not it's not I don't want to talk shit about Nikki Bella, but like she's out of practice.

02:02.58
Bradley Palermo
right

02:02.94
Aaron
And it became very clear in that match. I feel like Becky is is pretty solid, but um yeah, disappointing match. Roman versus Bronson Reed was okay. You know, again, the crowd was like excited, but um yeah, overall, I'd probably give it like a C, C plus.

02:20.52
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I didn't watch the whole thing. i think i think that the European crowds are awful. I think that...

02:26.79
Aaron
yeah They're too loud. They're too too engaged.

02:28.51
Bradley Palermo
Well, they're conformist football types, right? like They all say the same things at the same time. Nothing clever comes out of it It's just kind of like like they're at church just reading through the next song and it never shuts up.

02:43.45
Bradley Palermo
So like how can you have a pop if the whole thing is the pop, right? And they think it's about themselves.

02:47.58
Aaron
That's fair.

02:48.75
Bradley Palermo
It's like very self-absorbed. They don't let the the performance sort of have moments that happen and and elicit a reaction. It's just... I love football.

02:58.90
Bradley Palermo
I love football.

03:00.72
Aaron
Well, you know, that there there's some chants that are, that I feel like are a little unnecessary, like,

03:00.69
Bradley Palermo
Football. Football.

03:07.62
Aaron
You know, they they like to do a chant every time there's a two count because one of the French commentators that I assume all of them grew up with would always say know, one, two.

03:12.59
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

03:19.01
Aaron
Oh, you know, just two or whatever it is. And then they and then they chant it.

03:23.41
Aaron
so.

03:24.30
Bradley Palermo
God, it's stupid.

03:24.51
Aaron
so That gets annoying for sure. and And I think that chant in particular ruins pops for false finishes.

03:33.02
Bradley Palermo
Right.

03:33.12
Aaron
Like, there was really only one that I noticed where they didn't do that because they were so shocked by the fact that it wasn't a three count and it was during the Sheamus and Rusev match.

03:44.52
Bradley Palermo
Oh yeah.

03:45.32
Aaron
But, yeah, I don't know. that i i mean, I enjoy... I like that the crowd is interested, but i suppose there aren't a lot of ups and downs, which, you know, does take away in some respects.

04:00.42
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, you got to have some dynamics, I think, with any kind of art or performance. But I did notice, I mean, I was ah ah tried to get into this so long after live that I could fast forward.

04:04.24
Aaron
Yeah.

04:22.21
Bradley Palermo
this could be a match on Monday Night Raw. It's like, you know, Bronson Reed is going to lose the Roman Reigns.

04:27.19
Aaron
yeah yeah

04:28.27
Bradley Palermo
And the only way you can do anything interesting is have all those, what do they call them? The Seth Riders come in and fuck with them at the end.

04:34.74
Aaron
the vision oh the seth writers that's kind of funny actually yeah

04:36.08
Bradley Palermo
Well, yeah, but because of the Death Riders, they're now calling them the Seth Riders. Yeah.

04:41.83
Aaron
Yeah, that that was okay I mean, again, like, I don't know. i it It was the same, similar, I had a similar feeling about Roman and Bronson that I did with Cena and Logan, which is like,

04:55.50
Aaron
Okay, so the babyface is one. Not super surprising, but you could also make an argument, at least with the Cena and Logan match, that like Logan would have benefited from that win a lot.

05:08.92
Aaron
I mean, he's still you know you can still say, oh, he hung with Cena in what I think was like a 25-minute match or something, which...

05:09.34
Bradley Palermo
Right.

05:16.32
Aaron
you know, impressive for sure. And add some legitimacy to him. And, you know, Michael Cole said a similar thing about Bronson Reed at the end of roman the Roman match where he's like, well, you know, he hung with Roman.

05:28.03
Aaron
He, he should, he showed him that he could hang. And I'm like, yeah, but you know, whatever.

05:33.06
Bradley Palermo
How are we supposed to care about Roman Reigns? I don't remember him doing that much to turn babyface. It's like, I don't know how we're supposed to care. This guy was so rotten to everyone.

05:43.55
Aaron
He did do a lot of stuff on TV.

05:43.70
Bradley Palermo
Such a cheating, scummy guy.

05:46.79
Bradley Palermo
And now we're supposed to take him as like the hero, right?

05:51.78
Aaron
Well, he he's he's changed a little bit over the course of the Smackdowns and the Raws that have happened in the last month or two. you know He comes to make the save for his cousin Jay. and um I think in some promos and stuff, he's even said that You know, he made some mistakes and um he lost everything because of his arrogance.

06:13.88
Aaron
So it it there's there's a been a little bit.

06:14.09
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I've seen some of that.

06:17.63
Aaron
I mean, maybe there's more to go but I don't know. It's working. People still love him. They're still cheering. And what are you to

06:25.36
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. what do you think about on September 20th? They have a W what is it all out?

06:33.34
Aaron
her

06:35.06
Bradley Palermo
in ESPN's inaugural WWE w event, Wrestlepalooza.

06:38.86
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

06:40.02
Bradley Palermo
And fuck, I'm going to GCW homecoming that night. There's a lot of wrestling on at one time.

06:46.47
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah, they're definitely trying to do that counter programming thing. And I suspect that they'll get some people to not watch one or the other. But overall, I think that stuff is A little unnecessary. i i mean, most people are going to make their choice.

07:04.20
Aaron
And the fact that there is one playing at the same time as another one probably won't impact too many people's choices. Like, I feel like people are.

07:13.55
Bradley Palermo
I mean, I'm just going to watch them both at different times.

07:16.48
Aaron
Yeah, yeah.

07:17.29
Bradley Palermo
To me, it's just a little obnoxious that you won't give me a chance, again, chance to breathe, watch the other one the next day, you know, but you're hoping that you're going to distract me and I'm never going to go back to the other one.

07:23.78
Aaron
Mm hmm.

07:28.35
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

07:28.92
Aaron
I suppose, yeah. i I guess, again, I've said it before, i understand like it's a business move, but it doesn't really... As a fan, it just kind of makes me roll my eyes and be like, okay, well, I'm obviously not going to watch them both at the same time, but I'll still watch both of them.

07:46.35
Aaron
It's just, which one am I going to watch live?

07:46.48
Bradley Palermo
right

07:48.23
Aaron
And even then, does that really make all that much of a difference? We can watch them immediately after.

07:51.60
Bradley Palermo
i mean you yeah the one that i watch well i guess i won't see either live because i'll be at gcw which has their cards are pretty good lately it's like shotzy is on the bill and matt cardona and i don't know they have like a lot of people that uh with pretty big names now but they won't be competing with aew and wwe that night of course um by any measurable account but

08:12.99
Aaron
No.

08:13.77
Bradley Palermo
i'll probably end up watching both of the major shows the next day with a fast forward you know heavy fast forward hand because i probably you know there's probably going to be something with the street profits i never watched that i'm like you know it's just a lot of stuff to skip but i feel like aw kind of delivers on the pay-per-views most of the time so

08:18.52
Aaron
Mm hmm.

08:27.71
Aaron
Yeah.

08:35.21
Aaron
Generally speaking, they do. Yeah, i there's a very I mean, I Forbidden Door a few weeks ago, to me, was just okay. It was like the first AEW pay-per-view in a while was like, meh.

08:42.22
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

08:45.08
Aaron
You know, some of these matches were pretty good, but I think it was probably either 50-50 split of stuff I liked and stuff I didn't really care for, or maybe leaning a little bit more towards the stuff I didn't care for, which doesn't happen with AEW very often.

08:45.65
Bradley Palermo
yeah

08:59.99
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I think I'm just... I don't know. Maybe it changes. It goes it does it definitely waxes and wanes. There's times where um I swear off AEW. There's times where I swear off WWE.

09:09.12
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

09:09.28
Bradley Palermo
But right now, I'm feeling like WWE is kind of not really catch keeping and holding my interest.

09:15.67
Aaron
Yep.

09:15.91
Bradley Palermo
I'm AEW. I'm like, yeah, they you know they kind of have still a little bit more of that like adult-oriented, like bloody, crazy stuff, which is... more interesting than what the Disney fide stuff is happening, doing for me right now.

09:29.62
Aaron
Yeah, I feel like, you know, when when WWE has good stories to tell, then to me, it's it's very compelling.

09:29.84
Bradley Palermo
But,

09:37.34
Aaron
I feel like right now there's maybe one or two that are really compelling and then the rest are just slightly compelling.

09:45.18
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, they don't have me hooked on any particular story right now. And I don't know. It's like I had a thing where I just wanted to see Punk get the world title and like kind of that that box is checked.

09:54.73
Aaron
hmm.

09:57.33
Bradley Palermo
Kind of doesn't, you know what i mean? Like I'm... I'm not really waiting for anyone else right now.

10:02.22
Aaron
Yeah.

10:03.04
Bradley Palermo
some but Some of my friends just want to see Randy get a title one more time. You know, I could take it or leave it, but I don't know.

10:09.42
Aaron
be down for that.

10:09.96
Bradley Palermo
It's like or before we had years of just wanting to see Cody get there. um But this Seth Rollins group, this, I don't know, all the Samoans and their...

10:19.12
Bradley Palermo
their deal with each other. It's like, I don't know. It's something's just not like catching fire for me at the moment, but it'll, all it takes is a, you know, a couple of good raws and everything could change quickly.

10:30.09
Aaron
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's it's a waiting game.

10:31.24
Bradley Palermo
Maybe Chris Jericho will come back and save it, you know?

10:34.82
Aaron
i We'll see about that. I mean, the rumor is that he's coming back and he's going to be in the Royal Rumble in January, so I'm sure he'll get a big reaction for that. But I don't think he's going to...

10:47.10
Aaron
He's not going do shit, honestly.

10:48.76
Bradley Palermo
I just put them in a couple of dream matches a couple of times a year.

10:49.49
Aaron
I don't know. Yeah,

10:52.28
Bradley Palermo
all you'd really want them for, right? I mean.

10:54.75
Aaron
yeah I don't know. I just feel like... There's more middling stuff in w WWE right now than there is good stuff. There's stuff that I'm either only very slightly interested in or I'm not really that interested in And, you know, i i I think once they do something with Bailey beyond these weird promos where she's got two other personalities talking to her at the same time, that might be interesting.

11:20.53
Aaron
Probably Becky versus Bailey. And i am curious what happens with punk next. I mean, we always love punk. But yeah, there's just there's just not a lot going on right now. I've i've been enjoying Sina. The last two Sina matches I felt like have been pretty good for a guy who's 48 years old.

11:41.14
Bradley Palermo
yeah i was kind of looking at him like during that logan paul match like it doesn't seem like it doesn't seem like you don't have more left in you but i guess you go out when you can still do it like this that's some way there's a way to something to be proud of but but don't know um should we get into the rewind

11:42.16
Aaron
So.

11:48.97
Aaron
Yeah.

11:53.12
Aaron
Mm hmm.

11:56.28
Aaron
Yeah.

12:00.30
Aaron
Let's it.

12:05.82
Aaron
all Alrighty, so this is ECW Heat Wave 1998. As Brad mentioned earlier, this was on August 2nd, 1998. This was a crowd of 4,400 people. Small but mighty, I would say.

12:17.62
Bradley Palermo
Mm-hmm.

12:18.17
Aaron
And I'll just say in general, i I enjoyed this quite a bit. I felt like in comparison to the other ECW pay-per-view that we watched, not One Night Stand, but Barely Legal 1997, this was...

12:32.36
Aaron
much more my speed. We had Joey Styles on commentary with the ECW champion Shane Douglas, who was accompanied by Francine in a very, very skimpy bikini.

12:45.18
Aaron
And I think that was the first ah show your tits chant.

12:45.21
Bradley Palermo
Oh

12:48.39
Aaron
was like the first chant of the pay-per-view. So hilarious.

12:50.74
Bradley Palermo
yeah.

12:52.51
Aaron
And we got into our first match, which was Shane Douglas, or I'm sorry, Justin Credible versus Jerry Lynn. um I thought this was, I mean, the one thing you can say about ECW and i guess what WCW stole from them is they know how to start with a hot, good wrestling match where the crowd is interested.

13:10.41
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Holy shit.

13:12.91
Aaron
i was very excited for this one. I i have not seen a Jerry Lynn match, but obviously I've heard of him and I know that he is now a producer slash agent in AEW.

13:23.76
Aaron
this, like I said, this was much more of the style of wrestling that I like where, you know, it it really felt like an AEW match, lots of high flying and, and not a lot of downtime in between, but everything sort of made sense. It was the end of a rivalry and this was, you know, billed by Joey styles as being for the bragging rights. The, the winner of this is the winner of the rivalry. So,

13:48.87
Aaron
Yeah, i I really loved it. i thought it was super fun. Did you like this one?

13:54.49
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, dude, this match was awesome. I um was i was probably pretty impressed right off the bat because the the last ECW pay-per-view, I think that had taken place a couple years prior to this, didn't have quite the quality.

14:05.54
Bradley Palermo
like the I'm not saying it was like super high-five by today's standards, but I could see what was going on. you know They have a so ramp built. that It looks like kind of a Jerry Springer set with like the brick walls, but like someone's broken through the brick walls.

14:13.34
Aaron
hmm.

14:18.90
Bradley Palermo
And... yeah you just i don't know you just had like enough shine to it that i could um enjoy it not just try to like squint my eyes and figure out what the hell is happening and just incredible and jerry lynn were fucking amazing in there both guys are crisp and fast moving and high flying and doing completely dangerous looking insane shit on the unpadded cement floor which ecw never had the pads out um

14:28.79
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

14:47.32
Bradley Palermo
It seems, you know, I'm still not sure on the rules on ECW because it's like you can be disqualified for not breaking in five seconds on the ropes, but you can totally just bring a chair and hit each other.

15:00.11
Aaron
Or distract someone, yeah.

15:01.51
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah. like like It's like foreign objects are not DQs, but it seems like they still have like rules. so um yeah, this ah this even this one had stairs. There was big spot where there's, don't know what you call that, a Frankensteiner, I guess, like off the ring into a chair outside of the ring.

15:17.59
Bradley Palermo
Terry Lynn to Justin Credible.

15:18.03
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

15:20.40
Bradley Palermo
It was just outside interference galore. Chastity gets tombstoned. It was, it was wild. I mean, it was, they, they came out fucking hot for those first 15 minutes.

15:29.90
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. We saw Nicole Bass, I think we had seen in a WWF pay-per-view, that very big, strong looking gal. And yeah, yeah, that was her.

15:38.41
Bradley Palermo
Oh, is that who that is? They were calling her something else here, right? Or just not her real name.

15:43.77
Aaron
No, I think they did call her Nicole Bass.

15:45.80
Bradley Palermo
Okay.

15:46.20
Bradley Palermo
Okay.

15:46.88
Aaron
And I mean, Joey Styles on commentary was like alluding to the fact that she might have been a man, which was. Yeah.

15:54.57
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, they would say, oh, she just got kicked in the balls. Like, that's got to injure.

15:57.30
Aaron
Yeah.

15:58.05
Bradley Palermo
That's got to hurt.

15:59.13
Aaron
Right.

15:59.09
Bradley Palermo
And he, like, wasn't, like, laughing.

15:59.41
Aaron
like No, he was degrading her for that, which wasn't the best.

16:01.19
Bradley Palermo
know? Yeah.

16:04.09
Aaron
But yeah, this was a super solid match. Just incredible. Got the win. The heel one or I don't really know who the heel was. It was kind of hard to tell. They were cheering for everybody.

16:14.14
Aaron
But.

16:14.56
Bradley Palermo
There's a pile driver from the middle rope, right?

16:14.95
Aaron
Yeah.

16:16.80
Bradley Palermo
That's fucking, this shit was crazy, man.

16:16.89
Aaron
Yeah.

16:19.62
Bradley Palermo
I mean, it held up right away.

16:19.84
Aaron
Yeah.

16:21.46
Bradley Palermo
I was like, all right, I'm feeling good about this.

16:23.50
Aaron
Yeah, yeah, it was a solid first match. And then the next match was super solid, too. It was Lance Storm versus Chris Candido. And this is another super solid match with a lot of technical wrestling, but a lot of crazy shit, too.

16:36.69
Aaron
And I don't think I had watched very many Chris Candido matches. Obviously, again, know about him and knew about him dying very early on in his life.

16:46.10
Aaron
I didn't know that he was dating Tammy Lynn Sitch, who we've talked about before.

16:51.92
Bradley Palermo
funny so in there's a dark side of the ring episode about chris candido and him and tammy like went through all the ranks together in like wrestling and she would uh fuck around on him with like sean michaels and stuff

16:52.56
Aaron
Yeah, Sonny from the WWF. I guess they they were high school sweethearts or something.

17:10.74
Aaron
Oh, yeah.

17:11.54
Bradley Palermo
And that's all in there. It's all like been admitted and stuff like that. so like um So there's a lot of drama there because they have like a long-term relationship, but ah other guys in the locker room and would date her.

17:17.72
Aaron
Yeah.

17:23.25
Bradley Palermo
And I don't remember exactly all the things about their tumultuous relationship, but I think it was a pretty big part of the dark side of the ring.

17:31.28
Aaron
Yeah, I remember it vaguely.

17:31.86
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

17:33.29
Aaron
I think I watched that one. There were, again, some super gnarly moves in this match. I wrote down Lance Storm. So like I think Lance Storm gave Candido a suplex over the ropes.

17:45.23
Bradley Palermo
Thank you.

17:45.88
Aaron
Lance Storm is on the apron and he suplexed him onto the floor and he landed Candido landed like really rough. And then pretty soon after that, Lance Storm did a springboard plancha off the top rope over the guardrail into the crowd where Candida was. That was also

18:02.56
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I mean, the moves are crazy. And then at one point, there's just like powder everywhere. The ref gets, it's a a powder in the ice, ref bump.

18:12.58
Aaron
Yep. Tanny gave him some Candida, some powder, and it backfired.

18:13.10
Bradley Palermo
Tammy, yeah, you got powder on Storm, powder on the ref.

18:19.77
Aaron
The ref ripped tammy's top off and she had to hide her boobs and the crowd was like, oh, boobies, you know, getting super excited.

18:26.15
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yeah.

18:27.73
Aaron
Bunch of ravenous mark, white male marks in the crowd.

18:28.03
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. It was

18:31.63
Bradley Palermo
Dude, there are fucking signs in the audience and stuff. They're just like, your mom's a slut. like it's like That's like the extent of it.

18:38.45
Aaron
Yeah, there was like, there was a got porn sign and there were some RVD for 20 signs, which, you know, it's fine.

18:38.77
Bradley Palermo
like Literally, there was a sign that said that. Yeah.

18:45.26
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.

18:46.94
Aaron
Candido had a in a crazy finisher, dude. It was like a power bomb from the top rope. I forget. He had a name for it. I forgot what they called it.

18:55.89
Aaron
But yeah, dude, that shit was wild.

18:55.86
Bradley Palermo
The blonde bombshell. Yeah.

19:00.04
Aaron
What a crazy match.

19:00.04
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah. yeah I can see now why GCW, sorry, why ECW was, um you know, popular.

19:08.43
Aaron
Influential.

19:10.17
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

19:10.29
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. it that This to me is like ECW as I feel like people talk about it. You know, i know that barely legal has a lot of like sentimental value to people because it was the first pay-per-view and you know, it it, it had a lot of culminations of storylines that unfortunately we were not privy to cause we don't watch the TV shows.

19:18.44
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

19:33.65
Aaron
We just watched the pay-per-views, but this one, It felt like everything was pretty self-contained. I mean, in reality, all of these matches had tons of buildup in over the weeks and months leading up to it. But somehow it still felt like everything that we saw made sense. And like you didn't really need to know all of that stuff. I'm sure that extra stuff might have made it more interesting.

19:56.21
Aaron
But I still enjoyed though these first two matches quite a bit.

19:59.26
Bradley Palermo
Let me get a promo, homicide style, high promo where he's out there.

20:06.80
Bradley Palermo
rowdy crowd fight vibe, Jack versus Jack victory was canceled.

20:08.70
Aaron
Oh, with new Jack.

20:13.56
Aaron
Yeah, well, New Jack was out hyping up the crowd earlier in the day, and then the Dudley boys showed up in a Cadillac and started beating up New Jack.

20:21.97
Aaron
And then Jack Victory came out because I guess New Jack and Jack Victory had been having a feud. They were supposed to have a weapons match, like you said. And because they basically assaulted New Jack in the parking lot, Joey Styles was like, well, I'm sorry to have to tell you that the that the weapons match was canceled.

20:37.89
Bradley Palermo
Have you ever played WWE 2K25 with Nujak in a non-disqualification match?

20:46.13
Aaron
Not yet.

20:46.74
Bradley Palermo
like Okay, so you've heard about it though?

20:48.99
Aaron
No, i know that he's in the game and they added him recently, but I haven't played with them or heard about what happens.

20:53.17
Bradley Palermo
So if you play with him, don't play a regular match. You gotta play ah Extreme Rules or or regular one-on-one and turn off DQ.

21:02.47
Aaron
Because he brings out the shopping cart.

21:02.81
Bradley Palermo
is Yes, because it brings out, I don't think, i think it's a trash can full of weapons, weapons that normally aren't in the game.

21:12.57
Aaron
Oh, that's fun.

21:12.78
Bradley Palermo
and And the music plays the entire match. Because for those are the of you that don't know, when New Jack matches happened, he his theme song continued to loop the entire time, which is like the only wrestler that really does that.

21:16.50
Aaron
That's great.

21:28.22
Bradley Palermo
It's kind of cool, though. I mean, it makes it kind of like a music video.

21:31.22
Aaron
Yeah, well, and AEW tried to do it.

21:31.89
Bradley Palermo
so I did that last night for the first time and I was like I'm kind of getting tired I did new Jack versus Mick Foley in an extreme rules match and then uh new Jack I had uh Shaquille O'Neal as my manager and and uh Mick Foley had uh Dusty Rhodes as his manager and uh I was out there just fucking you know the music's playing you got the hockey sticks and shit it was great man but

21:48.76
Aaron
Oh my gosh.

21:55.84
Aaron
Yeah, it sad it sounds like it was fun.

21:57.81
Bradley Palermo
So I was hoping that this wasn't true, that the new Jack, Jack victory match was canceled. Cause I just wanted to see new Jack, um, I guess we'll find out later, but um RVD and Sabu had a promo with Bill Alfonso, the fucking whistle, the whistle tip guy.

22:15.50
Aaron
Yeah, Mr.

22:15.52
Bradley Palermo
Oh man.

22:16.80
Aaron
Whistler.

22:17.72
Bradley Palermo
Oh, Mr. Fucking Whistler.

22:19.48
Aaron
did, yeah.

22:19.53
Bradley Palermo
But, But yeah, we're going to see rob Van Dam and Sabu tag together in this thing. So i was i was I was getting hyped for that. But the next match was actually Mike Awesome versus Masato Tanaka, if I said that correct.

22:32.82
Aaron
you did yeah

22:33.87
Bradley Palermo
Wow.

22:34.32
Aaron
Another super solid match. And, you know, i'm sure you remember this. We saw this match seven years in the future at ECW One Night Stand 2005. This was the crazy, crazy match.

22:45.61
Bradley Palermo
Oh.

22:46.86
Aaron
And it, and you know, it was kind of similar to this one. I would say this one was pretty much on par with the one night stand match. Maybe I give the edge to the one night stand match just a little bit because of the production and the crowd and you know, all that stuff, but man, Mike awesome for like a six foot six, 300 300 pound dude.

23:00.96
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

23:07.59
Aaron
He moves so well, like,

23:10.60
Bradley Palermo
I mean, he does like suicide dives to the outside. 300 fucking pounds

23:13.56
Aaron
Yeah, and he jumps off the top rope, jumps over the rope from the apron, just a lot of things that you would never expect a guy his size to do. And I mean, again, similar to the one night stand match, Masato Tanaka takes these insane chair shots to the head, like the chair bent so much.

23:32.27
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

23:34.80
Aaron
i was like, my God, that's like a guaranteed concussion right there.

23:37.73
Bradley Palermo
At one point, they were sword fighting with the chairs. So it's just like like almost like like the like ah like ah Star Wars style.

23:40.34
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

23:44.55
Aaron
Yeah.

23:44.93
Bradley Palermo
and alex You guys are getting crazy with those chairs. But I was a little disappointed when this match started because for some reason, I thought I was going to see Mike Awesome versus Tatanka.

23:54.71
Bradley Palermo
And instead I got Tanaka. I was like, fucking Tatanka went to ECW?

23:57.14
Aaron
Yeah.

24:00.45
Aaron
That would have been funny.

24:00.76
Bradley Palermo
Like, that is hilarious.

24:02.99
Aaron
Yeah, that would have been real funny.

24:03.91
Bradley Palermo
and like

24:04.83
Aaron
Oh my God.

24:05.07
Bradley Palermo
I couldn't see a fit. But...

24:07.01
Aaron
Nope. that's There's a reason why you couldn't see it fit because it would never have happened.

24:07.26
Bradley Palermo
but

24:12.07
Aaron
I think one of the craziest bumps of the whole thing was Tanaka had Mike awesome over his shoulder.

24:12.38
Bradley Palermo
but

24:16.92
Aaron
He threw him over the top rope and he landed and awesome landed on a table, but like almost very nearly landed on his head. Like he he had to, I saw him tucking his chin right at the end, but wow, that, that was a scary one and something they replicated in one night stand, but the other way around.

24:30.72
Bradley Palermo
yeah

24:34.59
Bradley Palermo
yes that was a crazy move um yeah he i mean i would say he kind of like pop power bombed awesome over the rope through the table onto the concrete right and that got a real like holy holy but

24:42.85
Aaron
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

24:47.04
Bradley Palermo
hold your shit but

24:47.14
Aaron
yeah

24:48.58
Bradley Palermo
I don't know, man. no There can't be much room for error with shit like that. Like, it's just like people, I guess, I don't know if people understand.

24:53.57
Aaron
Yeah.

24:55.39
Bradley Palermo
I think it's obvious that if you do them directly to the cement from the ring, um you'd, you know, you'd break body parts.

25:04.11
Bradley Palermo
So the chair, I mean, the table is there to break the fall out there to like make it hurt more or whatever.

25:08.87
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

25:11.60
Aaron
Right.

25:12.53
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, but on so you got to make sure you hit that fucking table.

25:13.78
Aaron
Yeah.

25:16.89
Bradley Palermo
There was a Taz.

25:16.83
Aaron
he And they did.

25:18.17
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, he did. Barely, though. There was a Taz after this. Did we already say? Yeah. Do we already talk about the finish on that one?

25:25.09
Aaron
The finish? No. Tanaka got the win, I believe. What did he do? he hit I think he hit him with like a tornado.

25:30.95
Bradley Palermo
Tornado DDT.

25:32.26
Aaron
Yeah, tornado DDT on on some chairs for the win.

25:34.85
Bradley Palermo
yeah yeah yeah so um it was a nice little 12 minutes so far this thing has got all the steam and it doesn't really doesn't really it's not really slowing down um taz gets on there and does a promo it's funny because i i just think of taz as this older man who who is a commentary on aew and

25:44.07
Aaron
Mm-hmm.

25:51.46
Aaron
Does commentary.

25:53.87
Bradley Palermo
And when I hear him being like young, some young fucking Brooklyn guy, I'm a hard ass. Like in my mind, I'm like, dude, you're just ah ah you're just the jerk behind the commentary thing.

26:03.76
Bradley Palermo
Like, you're not that tough.

26:04.30
Aaron
Yeah.

26:05.10
Bradley Palermo
But it's because I'm seeing it backwards. I'm I learned I i kind of know Taz more from modern times. um So, yeah, as he he has the Fuck the World Championship, which is a self-declared belt that he made for himself May 14, 1998.

26:21.06
Aaron
In the last few months, I think, right?

26:22.10
Bradley Palermo
nineteen ninety eight Yeah.

26:23.20
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.

26:24.07
Bradley Palermo
In Queens, he unveiled it. And it was because... ah This other dude who's the championship, what's his name?

26:30.83
Aaron
Shane Douglas.

26:31.49
Bradley Palermo
Shane Douglas is the champion, but is too is injured and can't fight him. So he said, well, if you can't fight me and I'm the number one contender, then fuck you. I'm the real champion.

26:41.37
Aaron
Yeah.

26:41.49
Bradley Palermo
And so he decides to carry his own belt around and defend it and defend it, which is, you know.

26:48.06
Aaron
And it still exists to the actually they retired it now, but it it was prominently featured in a W for several years.

26:56.17
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, his son, no, his son Hook.

26:58.69
Aaron
Hook. Yeah.

27:00.69
Bradley Palermo
Hook had it for a while. I think Jungle Boy maybe had it for a minute.

27:04.50
Aaron
Ricky Starks had it for a minute.

27:04.95
Bradley Palermo
Hmm.

27:06.87
Aaron
Yeah, I mean, it was, you know, it it was kind of silly, even in AEW, just because it was like, well, he's the FTW champion, but it's not recognized by any wrestling association.

27:07.78
Bradley Palermo
Hmm.

27:17.04
Bradley Palermo
well

27:17.22
Aaron
It's like, well, then why are you using it and Like, I don't know, you're just delegitimizing it

27:19.22
Bradley Palermo
anyway How do the belts change hands? and It seems like, well, we'll get into this later, but there's there is an FTW championship match on this bill.

27:28.91
Bradley Palermo
And I wonder what the rules are. that It seems like that's false count anywhere when it's FTW, right?

27:34.59
Aaron
I don't know if it's always, but certainly for that match it was.

27:37.74
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

27:38.72
Bradley Palermo
All right.

27:39.30
Aaron
So after that Taz promo, we had another promo with the Dudleys. Good old Bubba talking some smack. I guess he had put Beulah through a table with Devon few weeks prior. Beulah McGillicuddy being Tommy's

27:55.41
Aaron
on-screen romance, who I think he's now married to and has kids with.

27:59.86
Aaron
So yeah, all the Dudleys were were gathered around, and Joel Gertner, our old pal, gave little bit of an intro, Bubba did some talking, Devon yelled testify, and then we got out of there.

28:11.45
Bradley Palermo
Bubba had a interesting line. He said ah to Tommy Dreamer or, you know, to the television at try Tommy Dreamer, you can give your soul to Jesus, but your ass belongs to the Dudley boys.

28:25.22
Aaron
so

28:26.12
Bradley Palermo
I thought that was really something. and Oh,

28:28.44
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah. They're talking about crucifying him and all that good stuff.

28:31.44
Bradley Palermo
yeah.

28:32.78
Aaron
Yeah. And, you know, Dudley's doing what they do best in ECW, which is just talking shit and getting heat, which we will see later for like 10 minutes or something.

28:42.76
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

28:45.45
Aaron
So yeah.

28:45.49
Bradley Palermo
lot of mic.

28:48.07
Aaron
After the Dudley promo, we got the tag team championship match RVD and Sabu versus Hayabusa and Jinsei Shinzaki.

28:59.73
Bradley Palermo
Glad I didn't have to say that one.

29:01.39
Aaron
Yes. My God, i wanted to punch Bill Alfonso in the fucking face every time something happens in the ring.

29:10.72
Aaron
He's blowing that stupid goddamn whistle.

29:12.60
Bradley Palermo
i mean it's way beyond annoying it's just constantly every time there's anything it's the whistle you can hear it way up in the mix i think uh joey style said he that that uh bill alfonso chokes on that whistle or swallows the whistle something to that effect i fucking turned it down i watched this thing on mute

29:12.67
Aaron
I'm like, bro. Yeah.

29:20.59
Aaron
So obnoxious.

29:30.22
Aaron
Mm hmm. Yeah, I wish.

29:34.42
Aaron
It was so annoying.

29:35.38
Bradley Palermo
i i did it for like two minutes and i realized it wasn't gonna stop and it was a great fucking match but but i had to watch it on mute i was so pissed

29:36.06
Aaron
i couldn't.

29:42.02
Aaron
Yeah.

29:44.90
Aaron
Yeah, lots of high flying stuff. I think it was Shinzaki had some really like his entire body was covered with Japanese like characters.

29:54.88
Bradley Palermo
like vertical tag yeah

29:57.17
Aaron
Yeah, letters like ah like they were tattoos. I did some Googling and realized that they weren't actual tattoos, which was little disappointing, but they looked really good. Like they were accurately drawn.

30:06.69
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yeah. I had no idea they weren't tattoos. It was like henna or something.

30:12.00
Aaron
Maybe i don't know.

30:12.05
Bradley Palermo
Like stays on for a period.

30:13.60
Aaron
I'm not sure who did it, if it was him that did it or maybe Hayabusa did it for him, but like they look so good. I was like, man, this guy's intimidating looking. He did kind of look like Raiden from Mortal Kombat when he came out, though, and I'm pretty sure I saw a Mortal Kombat sign in the crowd, too.

30:21.72
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

30:25.20
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it's kind of like

30:28.82
Bradley Palermo
ver it's it's like vertical text all on his down up and down his body of like whatever sort of Japanese characters but it's his face his chest his shoulders his arms it's like it's just completely you know all text that I was like what does it say I wonder it's

30:37.02
Aaron
Yeah. His back.

30:44.86
Bradley Palermo
but it's It's really better for him that he doesn't have to look like, i mean, he's got a bald head and the textile on that.

30:49.52
Aaron
Yeah.

30:50.28
Bradley Palermo
And like, he doesn't have to go around now at like 60 years old, like just, you know, fucking people scared of you all the time and stuff.

30:50.76
Aaron
Yeah.

30:57.84
Aaron
Didn't pull a Bam Bam and just get actual like he Bam Bam tattooing a hairline on his bald head with flames that still to this day.

30:58.10
Bradley Palermo
Kids crying.

31:05.38
Bradley Palermo
yeah.

31:06.91
Aaron
I'm like, What were you doing, man? That's crazy. I guess he was a bounty hunter in real life or something before i kind of tracks.

31:14.48
Bradley Palermo
um Okay, okay.

31:15.69
Aaron
Anyway, so the RVD and Sabu ah tag match, ah it it was fun. it was high flying. i didn't watch it on mute. So even though I had to listen to the annoying whistle, I did get to hear the crowd and the crowd was into it. There was, I guess, a story going on, which we didn't have the benefit of knowing about where RVD and Sabu are kind of in at odds with each other you know i mean sabu is supposed to be a crazy person anyway but like um rvd in that promo was being kind of snooty and seeming like he was better than sabu and so there's a little bit of disagreement yeah they're calling him mr monday night i guess

31:47.99
Bradley Palermo
Right. Kind of... Yeah, he's kind of hogging the spotlight, but

31:55.84
Aaron
I don't know when RVD makes the jump to WWF, but I feel like it's pretty soon, maybe next, like the beginning of 1999 or so.

32:06.49
Bradley Palermo
So they said that, yeah, WCW and WW, I mean, ECW and WWF at this point had a working relationship and RVD was, well, yeah, but I mean, RVD was showing up on Monday Night Raw and had several times.

32:17.21
Aaron
That we didn't know about.

32:18.74
Aaron
did we?

32:21.18
Aaron
Oh, OK, OK.

32:23.07
Bradley Palermo
So, yeah, yeah, that's what I looked it up and found that, yeah.

32:23.64
Aaron
Okay. So that's why they were calling him Mr. Monday night. Interesting.

32:29.06
Aaron
Gotcha. Yeah. So, uh, lots of crazy stuff, uh, lots of tables and chairs. liked the finish of the match. Both of the Japanese guys were lying on opposite ends of a single table and Sabu and Van Damme were on opposite corners of the ring and they both hit them with like leg drops.

32:47.19
Aaron
It was a fun match. You know, I wasn't surprised by the ending.

32:48.07
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

32:50.85
Aaron
I guess this was the first one where I didn't really know who was going or where I where I did know who was going to win because the previous three I was like, who could be anybody, you know?

32:57.88
Bradley Palermo
Yeah,

33:00.55
Aaron
They

33:01.01
Bradley Palermo
yeah those stereo flying lake drops that RVD and Sabu did, i that was so awesome. I mean, and I...

33:07.06
Aaron
look good. Yeah, I mean, those guys are great.

33:09.78
Bradley Palermo
And as far as just like crazy shit, jumping off the fucking ropes in insane ways and like doing things in stereo and um in and out of the crowd. And like, I mean, there wasn't really any tagging happening.

33:21.04
Bradley Palermo
But as far as that kind of match, like this was...

33:21.87
Aaron
No. Yeah.

33:25.02
Bradley Palermo
This was fucking incredible. I mean, I think Sabu, I mean, I've seen him do a, I've seen him now only like a handful of times. It wasn't like I was watching this promotion at this time very much, but, um this is like the craziest I've seen him.

33:34.87
Aaron
yeah

33:37.66
Bradley Palermo
Like I've seen him do some wild shit, but this was like, they were, they were like not slowing down for anything. These guys were all four of them were just fucking incredible in this match.

33:44.24
Aaron
now

33:47.12
Bradley Palermo
I don't, I don't know.

33:47.76
Aaron
Yeah.

33:47.100
Bradley Palermo
I don't think I could oversell it. It's just, it was really good.

33:49.97
Aaron
No, Hayabusa and Shinzaki were both really good.

33:50.20
Bradley Palermo
and

33:54.35
Aaron
I'm surprised that... I guess Shinzaki, I think, was in... he in WCW or was it Hayabusa? One of the two of them, I think, was in WWF for a little while.

34:05.94
Aaron
I can't remember who. But yeah, they were both really good.

34:07.52
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

34:09.52
Aaron
they were they were both a part of Michinoku Pro Wrestling, our our old pal, Takamishinoku.

34:13.94
Bradley Palermo
Okay. Yeah, I'm starting to understand more about these 90s Japanese guys.

34:20.78
Aaron
Yeah, i read I've been reading a book that I found on Amazon or on Kindle Unlimited that

34:20.84
Bradley Palermo
don't know.

34:27.32
Aaron
is all about kayfabe and sort of like the history of wrestling. It's not like the greatest book ever. It's, you know, probably written by a guy who's not a well-known author, but it was pretty exhaustive in terms of like taking you from the beginning of wrestling in the late 1800s all the way to now.

34:43.54
Aaron
And they spent probably like 100 to 150 pages just on Japan. So I learned a lot more.

34:49.10
Bradley Palermo
or

34:49.73
Aaron
It was really interesting how many promotions there were and how they, a lot of them just like, fizzled out after a year or two because you know, some of them had deals with the TV networks and others didn't. And then there was this weird thing where like, think it was Inoki and Baba, you know, I'm, you I'm sure you know, both of those guys.

35:09.99
Bradley Palermo
hu

35:10.54
Aaron
they both had they both had deals with TV networks, like for them specifically. So for their matches, they they were like only going to be on this channel or that channel.

35:21.76
Aaron
And around this time in the 90s, there were a lot of interesting promotions that popped up. A lot of them were trying to be, you know, more shoot style or like incorporating and MMA elements.

35:34.54
Aaron
I'm pretty sure that Masato Tanaka and Mike Awesome both were... had wrestled, uh, in, in one of them as well. Uh, frontier martial arts wrestling is where Masato Tanaka, is best known from FMW. I definitely read about that in the book and, you know, another like short lived thing where they were, they hit each other pretty hard. They did a lot of what we now consider to be more of like the Kurt angle style of wrestling where it sort of fuses real amateur wrestling with pro wrestling.

36:06.72
Aaron
So, yeah, that this was a great match. It's definitely the more I see Japanese guys from the 90s make appearances in the American stuff, the more I want to try to find some stuff that we could watch there as well, because I think it would be interesting. Obviously, ah not all of it's going to be that good, but there's a I'm sure there's a lot of cool stuff to see.

36:27.84
Bradley Palermo
We could watch that clash in Korea or whatever sometime too. That'd be kind of cool.

36:31.65
Aaron
Oh, the North Korea thing where they had like 400,000 people or something ridiculous.

36:33.34
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I think it's, think that exists somewhere online.

36:39.01
Aaron
It's got to be somewhere. Yeah, because it was WCW before it's it's like think Bischoff helped do it. So it must have been early 90s WCW. I don't know.

36:48.84
Bradley Palermo
Interesting. So then we had a FTW championship where Taz was defending against Bam Bam Bigelow and a false count anywhere.

36:58.58
Bradley Palermo
i guess this was specifically labeled false count anywhere. Right.

37:01.33
Aaron
Yeah.

37:02.33
Bradley Palermo
They take their brawl into the crowd instantly.

37:04.96
Aaron
Yeah, they do. Yeah.

37:06.57
Bradley Palermo
You know, this thing is, this thing is just fucking all through this, all through the goddamn stadium, just right away.

37:12.64
Aaron
Yeah, it's a wild one.

37:13.65
Bradley Palermo
Kind of like a real fucking blood feud they got going on. its It felt like, I mean, I don't know the backstory, but yeah, we did.

37:18.15
Aaron
Yeah. Well, so they showed you in the lead up, they did.

37:21.78
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

37:21.97
Aaron
They actually did a nice little package that was narrated by Paul Heyman. we saw the very famous moment where I think at the pay-per-view, like three or four months prior, they had a match and Taz had Bam Bam and his submission and Bam Bam like dropped him on the canvas, but there was a hole in the canvas and they fell through.

37:42.57
Aaron
And, and then I think he pinned him.

37:43.51
Bradley Palermo
Yup.

37:45.21
Aaron
That was

37:45.28
Bradley Palermo
Two big old dudes falling through the canvas. Yeah. Through the ring.

37:47.96
Aaron
Yeah, I feel like i so I don't remember where I saw it. Maybe I think there was a dark side about Bam Bam recently, wasn't there?

37:56.36
Bradley Palermo
There was.

37:57.22
Aaron
Yeah, and I think they talked about it there and how like they were really nervous because they only made the hole so small.

37:57.29
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

38:02.50
Aaron
And they're like, what if they fucking hit their heads or something?

38:03.17
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

38:05.42
Aaron
But it it was it was perfect.

38:05.54
Bradley Palermo
Ramp. Yeah.

38:07.04
Aaron
And they did something similar here after all of this crazy fighting in the crowd. and And finally getting back in the ring and you know like hitting each other real hard, they they started fighting on the stage.

38:19.09
Aaron
And i think Bam Bam was going to try to press slam Taz like into the crowd and Taz reversed it for a DDT and they went through the the ramp.

38:27.48
Bradley Palermo
ramp

38:28.21
Aaron
Yeah, that was pretty cool.

38:28.44
Bradley Palermo
yeah Yeah, I was like, you know, at this point and youc w you have to wonder, like, what kind of contractors you're working with. If these wrestlers are going to go through your fucking ring, now they're going through your ramp.

38:43.57
Bradley Palermo
It's like, you know, kayfabe land, you're like, dude, you guys got to get some more. got to get these Mickey Mouse guys off the job, you know?

38:49.50
Aaron
make some sturdier stuff in kayfabe land yeah that's true but in in real life you're like hey that's actually like pretty cool that they were able to make adjustments to it on the fly so that it was ready for that move and that everybody was safe like

38:52.40
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

39:05.23
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah. it's It's a pretty cool spot. And it makes sense because it's two huge motherfuckers. And then, you know, when all that force comes down, they fly through things. um I guess the the night that Bam Bam went to the ring, I haven't seen this, but it's called, it was called ECW living dangerously 98.

39:22.86
Aaron
Mm hmm.

39:23.13
Bradley Palermo
So can watch that sometime too. But you know, it's, it's not a long match. You get the big, big spot, right. And then tags locks in the Taz mission and Bam Bam taps.

39:33.33
Bradley Palermo
And I mean, at least I think he did Joey styles or somebody, somebody at the commentary was saying he was saying, Oh, right.

39:33.90
Aaron
Mm hmm.

39:38.43
Aaron
Shane Douglas was yelling. Yeah, he was he's reaching for the ropes.

39:41.77
Bradley Palermo
Right. I think he tapped. Yeah.

39:43.79
Aaron
I think he tapped too. I mean, it was, you could, it was a little vague. ah ah Yeah.

39:47.63
Bradley Palermo
yeah

39:48.30
Aaron
Shane Douglas and Bam Bam were in a group. I think they were called the triple threat. And I don't remember who the third member was of the triple threat, but ah that's why he was like, no, he didn't tap out. He was reaching for the ropes.

40:00.35
Bradley Palermo
All right, so let's see. Then we had street fight.

40:04.41
Aaron
Yeah, it was the main event, the Dudley boys, Bubba Ray, Devon and Big Dick Dudley ah with Joel Gertner, Sign Guy Dudley and someone named Jeff Jones.

40:15.16
Aaron
don't know who the hell that guy is against the heroes of ECW, Tommy Dreamer, the Sandman and Spike Dudley.

40:16.97
Bradley Palermo
A

40:21.33
Aaron
But before the match, as as we mentioned previously, the Dudleys came out and Bubba just talked a bunch of shit for like 10 minutes and you know handed the mic along to other people and

40:28.69
Bradley Palermo
long time. Who was that slimy, weird, like like perverted guy who's like, I'm going to make, we're going to make your panties wet.

40:39.80
Bradley Palermo
He's going on and on about all this nasty shit. um but I'm the sexiest man. know, the Dudleys had like a spokesperson and it was like, um let me look at one short.

40:45.02
Aaron
I don't remember. Maybe it was... Was it Joel Gertner Or it was either Joel Gertner or Jeff Jones, I think, because Sign Guy Dudley just holds up signs.

40:56.13
Bradley Palermo
Let's see. Yes, Joel Gertner. Yeah, he was saying all kinds of weird shit.

40:58.84
Aaron
Yeah.

41:00.64
Bradley Palermo
It was just like, I mean, after Baba Ray Dudley carries on for 10 minutes, Joel Gertner gets the mic for like another eight minutes.

41:05.91
Aaron
Yeah.

41:09.26
Bradley Palermo
And I mean, I don't even know what he's trying to say, but it's all just gross. Everything everything he says is like, oh, anyways.

41:15.12
Aaron
I guess it wouldn't be ECW without Joel Gertner. He was at Barely Legal, giving them some kind of intro in the first match. He was at One Night Stand ah in a ah neck, a cervical collar, and he was trying use begging Eric Bischoff for a job, if you remember, and they were like laughing all the all the w WWE wrestlers were laughing at him.

41:39.62
Bradley Palermo
I'm the man your mother's worried warned you about. make your panties moist, hotter than a heat wave and harder than Chinese algebra.

41:44.93
Aaron
Oh, God. Oh, Jesus.

41:47.51
Bradley Palermo
And I always leave them sore yet that keep coming back for more.

41:51.73
Aaron
Oh, my God. He's the the M word.

41:54.90
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, i called Bedula McGillicuddy the trashiest prostitute.

41:58.86
Aaron
Beulah.

42:00.36
Bradley Palermo
What is it?

42:00.69
Aaron
Yeah.

42:00.78
Bradley Palermo
Beulah McGillicuddy, the trashiest prostitute in wrestling. They brought out like a doll of Beulah McGillicuddy, but they called her Beulah McGillicuddy. Yeah, so it's crazy, crazy raunch, you know.

42:17.40
Aaron
Yep, and just all meant to rile up the crowd and get get some heel heat, which I assume that they did successfully. I mean, you know, they not a lot of people really got crazy. I mean, the the Dudleys got heat for sure, but I kind of feel like it was like, like, shut up kind of heat, not like, I hate you, I want you, I want to see you get beaten heat.

42:39.47
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I think and the ECW fans fucking love the Dudley boys and yeah on the other side.

42:44.50
Aaron
Yeah, they're in on it.

42:46.00
Bradley Palermo
what's tell me, riddle me this. Is Spike do Dudley? Shouldn't he be on the Dudley side?

42:51.65
Aaron
Yeah, i I didn't look it up, but i'm I just have to assume that the the the Dudleys must have betrayed him or kicked him out at some point, and and the falling out led him to become babyface, I suppose.

42:59.19
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

43:01.88
Bradley Palermo
Right.

43:04.99
Bradley Palermo
Okay. that's That's what I assumed. but i Yeah, okay.

43:07.33
Aaron
Yeah. I haven't seen anything. I haven't seen the proof of that, but I'm, that's gotta to be what it was. It's just, uh,

43:13.78
Bradley Palermo
It's got to be, because he's dressed like the Dudleys and stuff too, with the sort of overalls and tie-dyed shirts.

43:16.08
Aaron
Yeah, yeah, he was he was definitely a part of the Dudleys for a while. I feel like I've seen pretty famous clips of him. like love like Bubba throwing him at somebody like press slamming him and throwing it throwing

43:31.13
Aaron
Yeah, ah this match, probably my least favorite, but it sort of fits ECW.

43:36.28
Bradley Palermo
Agreed.

43:38.58
Aaron
It's like the car crash. all the weapons, everyone's fighting at the same time, lots of blood and violence, ladders, tables, chairs.

43:44.04
Bradley Palermo
Ladders. Blood before it even starts. Beer before it even starts. you know Was that music piped in Was it supposed to be Inner Sandman?

43:49.56
Aaron
Yeah, i

43:53.07
Aaron
yeah, all the music was piped in except for a few things, as usual, ruining ruining a piece of history because they don't want to pay for music rights, which, she you know, I guess I understand they they weren't paying for the rights to the music when they used it originally, so.

43:56.44
Bradley Palermo
Oh, God.

43:58.52
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

44:08.13
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. You know, Sandman gives me like a weird vibe. And I think I figured out what it is. Like in the 90s, late 90s around this time, i used to work at Denny's and he kind of reminds me of like a drunken like Denny's manager after hours.

44:13.41
Aaron
Oh yeah.

44:22.26
Bradley Palermo
You know, like you go out with your kind of old, kind of creepier managers like... you know he's like 30 or whatever and you're like 18 and he he gets out of control and like white t-shirt tucked into his like denny's pants that he never changed after work and stuff but then he's like you know slamming beers on his head and may bleeding everywhere but he he didn't really he's got the big gut he doesn't like he's got little arms he doesn't feel like a wrestler at all yeah

44:29.51
Aaron
Yeah. You're like, why is this guy still working at Denny's?

44:48.97
Aaron
Yeah, I think that was kind of the point is that he was he was a beer swilling cigarette smoking.

44:55.76
Bradley Palermo
Denny's manager.

44:57.31
Aaron
hes manager he was one of he was he was one of the fans, you know, I.

45:02.49
Bradley Palermo
But he did a flip and I was like, okay, that's more than I thought you could do. he off the top rope, he did do like a flip.

45:06.27
Aaron
Yeah.

45:07.65
Bradley Palermo
What do you call that? Like a swan time?

45:08.84
Aaron
Like a Frankensteiner or a Huracanrana off the top.

45:09.95
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

45:12.44
Bradley Palermo
Like, yeah, but he did.

45:13.71
Aaron
to to To Bubba, right?

45:15.61
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I mean, he did a move. Everything else was just punch or be punched. But I was like, all right, that's more than I could do. For a minute there, I thought it was just any old drunk could pull it off. But I was like, all right.

45:25.21
Aaron
Yeah. I, you know, I'll probably get crucified online for saying this.

45:26.50
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

45:29.56
Aaron
I just don't, I don't see the appeal. I'm clearly it's because I was not watching. i was not a fan at the time. He's just a terrible wrestler in the ring.

45:39.43
Aaron
Like,

45:39.81
Bradley Palermo
Who's a terrible wrestler?

45:41.02
Aaron
Sandman, he's terrible.

45:41.71
Bradley Palermo
Okay. I needed that for the clip, you know?

45:43.67
Aaron
Yeah.

45:43.77
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

45:44.62
Aaron
I mean, goddamn, like i and I get it, right? Like it was counterculture. It was like, oh, he just hits people with fucking Kendo sticks and smashes beer cans on his head.

45:55.95
Aaron
It's like a novelty. But to me right now, he's my like he's my least favorite of anybody that we've seen on this entire card in terms of like entertaining me in the ring.

46:03.40
Bradley Palermo
yeah

46:06.04
Aaron
He did a couple of fun things. He did that move to Bubba. You know, he slammed some people into ladders. He hit people with ladders and chairs and canes and whatever. But I don't know.

46:15.94
Aaron
It's just.

46:16.46
Bradley Palermo
he's he's a He's an entrance, and it's he's quite an entrance.

46:20.51
Aaron
Yes, right.

46:21.23
Aaron
And we don't get to ever experience that entrance on any of these things because they they overdub enter Sandman.

46:26.34
Bradley Palermo
Right. If, you know, i hope it happens someday. You know, I know he still comes out on the indies and doesn't really wrestle, but he does that entrance.

46:35.30
Aaron
hmm.

46:35.36
Bradley Palermo
And it'd be cool if I could be at a show where he came out and did that because the whole crowd chanced Inter-Sandman together. And it's it's really a sight to behold.

46:41.71
Aaron
Yeah. yeah

46:43.56
Bradley Palermo
But, you know,

46:44.54
Aaron
It's fun. I mean, the one thing I will say about this car crash of a match is like there was there did seem to be a lot of story and a lot of buildup. The excuse me, the pay-per-view Wikipedia page did like explain what had happened prior to this, the story buildup. And it seems like these guys had all been feuding for weeks and weeks and weeks back and forth. So there was definitely some precedent.

47:08.44
Aaron
in terms of like why they were fighting each other so violently, you know?

47:13.15
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

47:13.99
Aaron
And, uh,

47:13.98
Bradley Palermo
I mean, I like that Bubba and his entrance like called out. I hope I had anyone from the WCW, the WWF, or anyone in this crowd.

47:20.87
Aaron
yeah, he did like to say that.

47:22.92
Bradley Palermo
i know I know. Yeah, I was like, damn, you're lucky no one crossed over the rails because you just asked them to.

47:29.37
Aaron
I mean, he used to get, I've seen clips of him get up in people's faces and like, do some fucking do something, you know, like, and obviously no one's ever going to, cause there's security guards right around.

47:34.01
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

47:37.42
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

47:41.27
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

47:41.53
Aaron
So like, if they actually did, they get knocked the fuck out and he would probably knock them out too.

47:44.15
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

47:45.37
Aaron
But, um, it ended with a pinfall by Tommy dreamer. I think he DDT'd somebody Bubba on the ladder, i think.

47:54.80
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.

47:55.78
Aaron
And, uh,

47:56.44
Bradley Palermo
On the ladder through the table.

47:58.40
Aaron
And I thought that was the end, but after the match, Jack Victory came out and hit ah Tommy, I think with a chair, or I'm sorry, with a guitar that was loaded with white powder.

48:10.31
Bradley Palermo
Hmm.

48:11.11
Aaron
And then pretty soon after that, here comes New Jack with his shopping cart full of weapons. So we did kind of get to see a little bit of what what I assume would have been ah ah similar situation in the New Jack jack victory match.

48:26.58
Aaron
Good guys attacking the heels with all kinds of weapons, I'm pretty sure. Jack Victory was on the mat, had a stop sign on his chest, and then knew Jack slammed a golf club into the stop sign.

48:38.34
Aaron
That That probably didn't feel good, especially for the people holding the stop sign.

48:39.92
Bradley Palermo
Jeez.

48:42.36
Bradley Palermo
Yes. So should we get into the grapple grade?

48:45.32
Aaron
Let's do it.

48:46.05
Bradley Palermo
All right. So for the grapple grade, we have a rating system of Fast forward, being the lowest play, being pretty good, but not a must-watch and rewind being our top rating. that It was fucking awesome, and we suggest you go and see it right away.

49:02.79
Bradley Palermo
I think that this thing was... All killer, no filler. It's the best thing that I've seen, which isn't a lot, mind you, of ECW. um Had the stars I wanted to see, and all the matches were just fucking balls to the wall.

49:16.94
Bradley Palermo
So I've got nothing bad to say about it. I mean, maybe I could find a couple moments that were annoying, like the the ah whistle.

49:26.26
Bradley Palermo
don't love Joey Styles on commentary, but I mean, really I'm really picking... i'm really um' really struggling to find anything that I didn't love about this. So let's go rewind on it. What you say you, Aaron?

49:39.61
Aaron
say that besides the obvious annoyance that I have as an audio person of all of these great moments being ruined by not allowing us to hear the original music I agree with you wholeheartedly this was miles above a barely legal 97.

49:57.17
Aaron
i feel like it was pretty much what I always felt like the essence of ECW was. So it's a rewind for me. I had a lot of fun. There was never a moment where I wanted to get up and go get something from the kitchen or fast forward, ah maybe a little bit of that 15 minutes of the Dudleys talking shit. But but other than that,

50:18.28
Aaron
Every match was great. it It gave me everything I wanted. it It made me feel like I was watching an AEW show in 2019. You know, just like all killer.

50:26.66
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it was awesome. So this was your this was your selection this week, so I guess I should be picking one for following episode.

50:32.17
Aaron
Mm hmm.

50:35.78
Bradley Palermo
I'm going to go with something from September 1996. of ninety ninety six It's w WWF In Your House Mind Games 96. So we have some cool matches. Jake Roberts versus Triple H. Psycho Sid versus Vader. Baruch versus Mark Merrill.

51:02.55
Aaron
nice

51:04.63
Bradley Palermo
Undertaker versus Goldust. Mark Henry versus Lawler. oh and Hart and the British Bulldog versus the Smoking Guns. I mean, there's Jim Cornette wrestles in this thing.

51:11.80
Aaron
wow oh wow oh yeah

51:13.02
Bradley Palermo
I mean, this is like... It looks like a really good card. So I'm kind of excited to check it out. That's some that's called... in your house, 10 mind games. So we'll watch that.

51:24.46
Bradley Palermo
See what we think. If you guys want to call in, let's let us know what you think about any of these topics we're discussing. You can call 626-657-SLAM. six five seven <unk>mb

51:37.96
Bradley Palermo
That's 626-657-SLAM. You can cut a promo on us. Give it to us straight. Tell us tell us what we should watch next. Whatever you want to do. But we're we're not going to picking up that phone.

51:49.56
Bradley Palermo
We're not going answering the phone, so don't worry. like it's just ah ah It's just a fucking voicemail. You just call. Leave your message. We'll plug it right in to the show if we get around to it.

51:59.53
Bradley Palermo
Also, if you want to drop us a line on email, we are... grapple city pod at gmail.com you can also find us at grapple city pod on x or tiktok but we're mostly on instagram more than anything else that's it for this week we will see you again soon i do have a i do have someone cut a promo on us here that i'm gonna just let play out at the end it was kind of mean.

52:27.47
Bradley Palermo
So I don't really want to hear it again. I'm just going to play it and and then going to walk out, you know, but, yeah, thank you guys so much. Thanks, Aaron. It's always, always a blast talking, watching wrestling.

52:35.76
Aaron
Yeah.

52:36.84
Bradley Palermo
We will, uh, we'll catch you guys next time.

53:33.54
Bradley Palermo
All right.

53:45.73
Aaron
Bye.

53:49.54
Bradley Palermo
right