One of these cartoon gimmicks that was prominently featured on WWF Raw during the fall of 95 was "Dean" Douglas. Former ECW World Champion Shane Douglas was getting a pretty good little push with plenty of TV time as the evil school teacher with the "Board of Education" wooden paddle he would use in matches.
Douglas would go on to capture the WWF Intercontinental Championship at the In Your House 4: The Great White North pay per view. Shawn Michaels was attacked by a group of Marines prior to the pay per view, and could not compete in a scheduled match against Douglas. Douglas won the title by forfeit, and turned around and lost it a few minutes later in a match against Razor Ramon. Also at the October 22nd Great White North pay per view, Diesel defended the WWF championship against the British Bulldog(DQ).
Meanwhile, over in WCW, they were really putting up a nice competition for the WWF right from the start with the first 8 episodes of Monday Nitro. WWF Raw was full of squash matches and DQ finishes while Nitro was putting on matches like Ric Flair vs Brian Pillman on September 8th, Eddie Guerrero vs Dean Malenko on October 2nd, Arn Anderson vs Ric Flair steel cage match on October 9th, Eddie Guerrero vs Chris Benoit on October 16th, and Eddie Guerrero & Jerry Lynn(Mr. JL) vs Benoit & Malenko on October 23rd. Also prominently featured in WCW during this time was ECW's most loved figure at the time, Sabu. Sabu had a series of matches in WCW against a masked Jerry Lynn leading up to the October 29th Halloween Havoc pay per view where they wrestled each other for 5 minutes. The launch of Nitro was like the beginning of a new era for WCW. It's interesting to note that what was the end of an era for ECW was the beginning of one for WCW, with numerous wrestlers from ECW filling out the undercard of Nitro(Sabu, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Benoit, and soon, Public Enemy).
While the undercards of Nitro were where the action was, the main even scene was still cluttered with the terrible Dungeon of Doom storyline. The Dungeon of Doom was a strait up blast from the past, and chocked full of the older WWF transplanted superstars. The Dungeon of Doom feuded with Hogan and Savage, with Lex Luger pulling a double cross to join the Dungeon. The Dungeon of Doom storyline rolled on as WCW made their way to the October 29th Halloween Havoc pay per view. Hogan headlined the show by facing off with The Giant. Hogan's match against the Giant at Halloween Havoc was an eventful contest to say the least.
Not only did Hogan and The Gaint hook up in the ring at Halloween Havoc, they hooked it up Monster Truck style!
In traditional WCW tomfoolery, Halloween Havoc 95 took the wrestlecrap to a new level with an epic sumo style battle between two monster trucks that represented Hogan and The Giant. Not all of Halloween Havoc was bad though. The Four Horseman were reborn when Ric Flair turned on Sting in a tag match against ArnAnderson and Brian Pillman. Flair, Anderson, Pillman, and later Chris Benoit brought the legendary heel stable back to life to show the Dungeon how it was done.
While all of this malarkey was going down in the WWF and WCW Rey Mysterio and Psicosis were tearing it up in ECW. The two men made their ECW debut's at Gangsta's Paradise, and would go on to wrestle one of the match of the year candidates on the October 7th "South Philly Jam" show in a 2 out of 3 Falls Match. The 2 out of 3 falls match is one of the best matches in ECW history, and is included in the bonus features of the Rise and Fall of ECW DVD. Also going on in ECW was the ongoing blood feud between Tommy Dreamer and Raven. The feud had exploded by now to include multiple different storylines going at once. The primary storyline involved was the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commissioner Bill Alphonso's attempt to take the extreme out of ECW. Alphonso sided with Raven in an attempt to eliminate the ECW fans favorite wrestler Tommy Dreamer. Cactus Jack turned on Dreamer to align himself with Alphonso during the Summer. Cactus sided with Raven, and would cut some of the best promos in wrestling history in a pretty deep little storyline where he blames the fans for pushing wrestlers like Ray Stevens and Dynamite Kid too far. Cactus told the fans that he was through with the hardcore wrestling, and that he was going to punish them by not giving them their money's worth. Not only that, but Cactus was trying to convince Tommy Dreamer to do the same, and to go to WCW with him.
While all of this malarkey was going down in the WWF and WCW Rey Mysterio and Psicosis were tearing it up in ECW. The two men made their ECW debut's at Gangsta's Paradise, and would go on to wrestle one of the match of the year candidates on the October 7th "South Philly Jam" show in a 2 out of 3 Falls Match. The 2 out of 3 falls match is one of the best matches in ECW history, and is included in the bonus features of the Rise and Fall of ECW DVD. Also going on in ECW was the ongoing blood feud between Tommy Dreamer and Raven. The feud had exploded by now to include multiple different storylines going at once. The primary storyline involved was the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commissioner Bill Alphonso's attempt to take the extreme out of ECW. Alphonso sided with Raven in an attempt to eliminate the ECW fans favorite wrestler Tommy Dreamer. Cactus Jack turned on Dreamer to align himself with Alphonso during the Summer. Cactus sided with Raven, and would cut some of the best promos in wrestling history in a pretty deep little storyline where he blames the fans for pushing wrestlers like Ray Stevens and Dynamite Kid too far. Cactus told the fans that he was through with the hardcore wrestling, and that he was going to punish them by not giving them their money's worth. Not only that, but Cactus was trying to convince Tommy Dreamer to do the same, and to go to WCW with him.
Austin made his first in ring appearance in ECW on September 28th in Middleton, NY. Austin came out before a match between Sandman and Mikey Whipreck, and cut a foul mouthed promo talking about how much of a shithole ECW was, and bad mouthing the Sandman for being a fat, out of shape, beer drinking champion. Austin called Mikey a sorry piece of shit that didn't deserve to be in the ring. Right from his very first night in ECW, Austin was "Stone Cold". His promos in ECW resembled nothing at all the "Ringmaster" or "Stunning Steve" stuff. Heyman gave Austin the freedom to go out there, and develop this character, and a legend was born. Austin would cut another promo on Hardcore TV going into details about how he was mishandled in WCW, even talking about ideas he had mentioned to Eric Bischoff & Dusty Rhodes that were shot down. Austin talked about how much of a shithole ECW was, and how it was "Just a bunch of Violent CRAP!" in the promo. The "Just a bunch of violent crap" promo reminds me a lot of the Shane Douglas "Evolution of a Franchise" promo that I took a look at earlier in this project where Shane pretty much just did a shoot on his beef with Ric Flair. So much of what I've looked at from ECW in 1995 has been very "Shooty". From Terry Funk and Cactus Jack's "Charlatan" feud earlier in the year, to Shane's shooting on Flair, to Cactus' heel turn and the "Cane Dewey" promos, to this Steve Austin stuff. It was all shooty, but it had a distinct style to it that was different from(and much better than) the Vince Russo WCW train wreck shit.
The next four shows I will be taking a look at are the Oct. 24th, Oct. 31st, Nov. 7th, and Nov. 14th episodes of Hardcore TV from 1995. It's the build up to the November To Remember show, which is probably one of the best ECW shows of all time. Lets take a look at ECW's weekly show, and see how it compares to Nitro and Raw from this time.
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