I’ve searched for my DVD of ECW hosting the first NWA World Title Tournament 1994 and apparently it’s disappeared. However, ECW ran a super highlighted version on Hardcore TV days after the tournament. It’s a pivotal episode in ECW’s history as it was the Birth of Extreme and a shotgun blast to the knee of the NWA.
In the spirit of our “First Month Fire” and “Into the Vault” reviews, it’s a special “Into the Vault” where promos are included in The Best and The Rest piles.
As our long-time readers know: I don’t include promos and non-wrestling segments in PPV reviews because…it’s the PPV and a promotion would’ve had several weeks for all the jawing and talking. It’s the big show of the month, let’s get to these matches.
This one will be a little different and might just end up being the norm for our retro wrestling TV reviews so let’s get into the August 29, 1994 episode of ECW Hardcore TV!
The Best
This show was mostly promos and highlights of matches I would’ve loved to see in full again. If you find a copy of the ECW NWA World Title Tournament 1994, all of the matches bar the 911 bouts and the opener are the sauce for that event. We’re reviewing the episode but the match of the show—highlighted on this episode—was Scorpio taking on Benoit.
On this episode of Hardcore TV, we have doing a good job of introducing a very special episode of the show. This whole thing was about reviving the National Wrestling Alliance and ECW, rapidly rising in popularity after swapping out 70s and 80s veterans for what would become 90s and 00s veterans.
So, Styles sold the importance of the tournament very well even though we know what goes down almost 30 years later.
We’ve got a few good pre-tournament promos to touch on. Everyone besides Paul Heyman stumbled a bit on the mic but 2 Cold Scorpio had a solid promo that showed off his charisma and didn’t run long. You could tell Scorpio meant for this to be a brief promo because it seemed like he was filling time towards the end.
The guy had already said what needed to be said about his involvement in the tournament so why linger, right? Paul Heyman had the best promo of the night. This guy did some heavy lifting as he laid out what the NWA title meant, the importance of crowning a new World champion, and the field ahead for his guy 911.
Oh, how Heyman hyped 911 as the savior of the NWA! Yes, the guy with the pornstache, badass vest, and the Chokeslam. When he hyped himself, it was to explain how he was tired of what wrestling had become and that something special would be taking place in this Indy promotion that was trying to keep an alliance from crumbling entirely.
Bonus points if you caught his reference to backstabbing during his promo. Shane Douglas’ promo wasn’t as good as Paul’s but it was a respectable second. Douglas had a tendency to go on for too long as well but he definitely made his point and looked like the obvious winner that ECW was backing.
The match highlights were basic with the ending moments being shown. ECW would get a lot better at match highlights and clipping as the 90s rolled on but some of these matches would’ve been great for Hardcore TV. Of course, the show had 50 minutes to work with and the aftermath from the tournament was something that needed to be capitalized on.
Our main event was shown in full and was a decent mix of everything. 2 Cold Scorpio and Shane Douglas did their sh** with no botches, the pace was wonderful for the most part, and the finish was alright if a bit anticlimactic. Normally, I really dig brawling and visiting no-man’s land but we had only the hard cam for 1994 ECW.
That meant we were only going to see what they were doing at ringside via the side facing the camera and the sides. If they went into the crowd—which they did—they might as well disappeared from the ECW Arena because you weren’t going to see what was going on.
While the finish was only so-so, Douglas had a fabulous Belly to Belly Suplex.
Douglas’ victory promo went pretty damn long but there were some things he needed to say and some things that needed to be said. We’ve all seen the moment where Shane Douglas throws down the NWA World title and elevates the ECW Heavyweight title to a World title but what he said about the NWA was pretty on the nose as that would be the state the alliance existed in until TNA joined.
Mind you, it didn’t get much better with TNA being a member but it didn’t seem like it was dormant while actually running shows all over the country.
To end the show, we have stuff from the aftermath with NWA President Dennis Coralluzzo expressing disgust with Douglas throwing down the belt. He vowed to talk with the NWA board and have Douglas stripped of both titles.
Countering that was Tod Gordon announcing that NWA: ECW was done and Extreme Championship Wrestling was here to revolutionize the business with hardcore wrestling.
The Rest
This was largely a good episode but there are three blemishes. First off, the two 911 matches. His quarter-final against Doink was fine as all he did was Chokeslam him three times and advance. This match was shown in full because it was just over a minute or so. His match against 2 Cold Scorpio was a highlight but I doubt it was that long anyway since 911 was never a lengthy match guy.
In any case, that match didn’t appear interesting in its entirety, so I’ll say that a bullet was dodged. After Doink attacked Heyman, Matt Bourne AKA OG Doink shows up and really beats 911’s ass with that steel chair.
Seriously, he was swinging that chair and popping 911 to the point that the big man had to have S-tier defense. One or two chairshots are enough but as long as 911 was on his feet he was meeting the chair. Doink is revealed to be Shane Douglas who joins Matt Bourne—soon to be Bourne Again.
Outside of that twist, this match was a skip.
Finally, we got back to the start of the episode for Dean Malenko’s promo. This was an exceptionally dry promo where he discussed the NWA’s history and that of the World title. He also showed respect for his opponents and was pretty damn humble. It was a true babyface promo minus the excitement and sizzle.
It wouldn’t be a bad promo if it didn’t feel like it went on so long that he had to be played out. Malenko was still talking when the music played before we went into 2 Cold’s promo.
ECW Hardcore TV – The NWA World Title Tournament Verdict: Silver Medal (6.25/10)
Overall, this was good episode of wrestling television. While some promos went a little long, it never felt like the show as a whole was longer than necessary. Actually, I wanted more matches! I wanted to see some of those other tournament matches!
However, time was the enemy surrounding this swerve. ECW had to get the show edited in under two days and everything was moving faster for the company now. Since this is a TV review, instead of match of the show we’ll go with segment of the episode and give it to Paul Heyman’s pre-tournament promo.
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