House of Hardcore 22 Thoughts

[Citizen Snips Has Left]

For the first time since 1999, I stepped through the doors of the ECW Arena to attend tonight's House of Hardcore show. Here's my thoughts on what was a pretty good night of nostalgia and action.

-Arrived during a Matt Striker vs a guy who looked like Doink and Damien 666 had a love child. Lot of WWE trademark spots at the end, Striker wins. Decent, I suppose.

-Next match was some young dude vs Little Guido. Young dude picks up the win, then starts rambling about Ricky Steamboat...AND THEN WHAT, THE DRAGON IS HERE?! Steamboat comes into the ring, cuts a promo about respect and lays into the young guy with some patented chops. Unreal moment.

-Six man tag between a lot of unknown people is next. At one point, the heels clean house and The Blue Meanie arrives out of nowhere to do some dancing. Heels and their lady friends beat up Meanie and some other lady that comes out...ENTER SANDMAN. Sandman is looking incredibly rough these days but the crowd goes bonkers for him.

-Next up CW Anderson vs Juventud Guerrera. Juvi is wearing the mask again. Surprisingly not awful match. Juvi gets the win, thanks everybody for helping him get his start back in the day in ECW.

-Some big dude takes on MVP. This match was awful, the only real dud of the night. Just a boring slog of an encounter.

-3way elimination match between a guy who looked like a bootleg Bam Bam Bigelow, some other dude calling himself The Big Dog and Brian Cage. Good Lord, Cage looks like he ate Jinder Mahal. Not a bad match as it turns out, some crazy spots scattered throughout. Cage wins, we go to intermission.

-Intermission ends, Dreamer and Bully Ray come out to address the rumors about their scheduled match with Broken Matt Hardy and Brother Nero being pulled. Kenny and Mikey from the Spirit Squad interrupt. Kenny is an amazing shit-heel on the mic. They run down Dreamer and his loser company...BUT STOP EVERYTHING, THE HARDYS ARE HERE! Crowd goes absolutely crazy as Matt claims no one can stop his broken brilliance and Jeff proclaims the Spirit Squad obsolete. Hardys get rid of the Squad...then tell Dreamer and Dudley they're not here just to make an appearance, but to wrestle. Dreamer and Matt start out when the "f*** him up Tommy, f*** him up! (clap clap)" chant starts. During the (clap clap), "DELETE!" chants start and the timing of the dueling chants was awesome. Fun match with all the usual spots from these dudes, Hardys eventually get the win. Heartfelt speeches from everyone after the match, loud "Thank you Hardys!" chants. An awesome moment given the setting, circumstances, characters, etc.

-Main event of Sami Callihan vs Pentagon Jr. Started slow, ended up with a ton of crazy spots, kickouts, more crazy spots, Pentagon finally gets the win. They had a big chore closing the night after the Broken tag match but they did well.

All in all, just a nice mix of a walk down ECW memory lane, decent indy wrestling and the chance to see the glory of Broken Matt and Brother Nero in person. Very fun evening.

[thegatewaydrug]

Apr 22, 2017 23:17:26 GMT -5 Citizen Snips Has Left said:

-3way elimination match between a guy who looked like a bootleg Bam Bam Bigelow, some other dude calling himself The Big Dog and Brian Cage.

Roman Reigns? Sting? Rhett Titus? Jervis Cottonbelly? The possibilities are endless.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Tommy Dreamer is still wrestling? How sad, a couple of years ago he admitted in the Steve Austin show that he has memory problems after all the brain trauma.

[The 1Watcher Experience]

Ricky Steamboat was there because they just held a huge Icons and Legends of Wrestling convention there before this show. I really wanted to go but couldn't get out of work. Responsibilities and having to be an adult sucks sometimes. I've never met Ric Flair and he and Steamboat were at the same table. I hope someone grabbed them to do a shoot interview together at some point over the weekend. I'd like to see that one.

[BlackoutCreature]

Ok, some actual names if anybody is interested -

The guy Little Guido fought was Alex Reynolds. He's been all over the indies for awhile, but I know him best for his really good matches against Tony Nese and Petey Williams during the early House of Hardcore shows.

Don't know who was in the six-man that Sandman ran in for but if I had to wager money on it I'd say Vik Dalishus was involved. He always seems to be involved in segments like this on House of Hardcore shows.

The "big dude" that MVP fought was Bull James, better known as NXT legend Bull Dempsey.

"Bootleg Bam Bam Bigelow" was Ben Ortiz. He's been on the indies for awhile and has also been doing things for House of Hardcore since its early days. He also had a spot in ROH's Top Prospect Tournament one year.

"The Big Dog" was apparently ROH's Rhett Titus, who I was under the impression was out injured right now.

[Can you afford to pay me, Gah]

Apr 23, 2017 1:30:16 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

Tommy Dreamer is still wrestling? How sad, a couple of years ago he admitted in the Steve Austin show that he has memory problems after all the brain trauma.

Not trying to make a joke but I wonder if he even remember saying it. I thought a couple years ago he was retiring after a scary moment after taking a chokeslam. Yet he never stopped. Dreamer love for wrestling and remodel guys like Terry Funk who is another guy who never knew the world quit or stop. Dreamer is seems to be the kind of guy that unless he can't walk, he will get in that ring. I get it is his company but I'm surprised Beuluh hasn't said more to get him to stop for there family.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Apr 23, 2017 17:49:58 GMT -5 Can you afford to pay me, Gah said:

Apr 23, 2017 1:30:16 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

Tommy Dreamer is still wrestling? How sad, a couple of years ago he admitted in the Steve Austin show that he has memory problems after all the brain trauma.

Not trying to make a joke but I wonder if he even remember saying it. I thought a couple years ago he was retiring after a scary moment after taking a chokeslam. Yet he never stopped. Dreamer love for wrestling and remodel guys like Terry Funk who is another guy who never knew the world quit or stop. Dreamer is seems to be the kind of guy that unless he can't walk, he will get in that ring. I get it is his company but I'm surprised Beuluh hasn't said more to get him to stop for there family.

Austin got legit mad at him for keeping with this bullshit garbage hardcore wrestling. He's gonna bleed and take headshots to keep living his glory days.

What a stupid f***

[Sparvid]

www.pwinsider.com/article/109205/what-happened-with-the-hardys-roh-wwe-and-house-of-hardcore-and-more-hoh-news.html?p=1

Matt and Jeff Hardy did indeed wrestle their final scheduled appearance for House of Hardcore last night, but it almost didn't happen. After signing their WWE deals, the Hardys were almost pulled from the appearance but demanded that they finish out their HOH dates. At that point, they were given permission to appear but were instructed not to wrestle.

On Friday in New Jersey, Matt Hardy was booked to be laid out by The Spirit Squad (with the idea that Vince McMahon sent them to stop Hardy from wrestling) but last night at the 2300 Arena, Bully Ray and Tommy Dreamer vs. The Hardys had not only been advertised for months before the Hardys signed but had sold out the venue.

Initially, the Hardys were not going to wrestle. Dreamer had reached out to Ring of Honor, which agreed to help him out by sending Matt and Nick Jackson, The Young Bucks, to replace the Hardys. ROH COO Joe Koff personally signed off on the idea and we are told he was happy to help Dreamer out. Given that ROH runs the same market and building, they very easily could have blown off the idea, but instead paid it forward to make sure the Philly fans wouldn't have been screwed.

Given the fact that Bucks are the hottest team in wrestling and had worked HOH early on in the company's run, it was certainly a suitable substitute. The plan was for the Hardys to appear and then run an angle that would see the Bucks replace them. Saturday morning at 6 AM EST, Dreamer received a call that one of the Bucks had taken ill and would not be able to do the flight from California or the booking. At that point, Dreamer was left without a main event or a surprise.

More than one person who had worked with Dreamer going back to ECW noted that yesterday was the angriest they had seen Dreamer since ECW closed in 2001. Given that Dreamer had built the HOH promotion under the mantra of "No Politics, No BS, just wrestling", he was furious that on his 25th show in front of his home building, he was now dealing with politics from another company changing his plans - plans that had been set way before the Hardys signed. He was also looking at going in front of fans in Philly and having to explain to them that he was not only giving them what he advertised, but didn't have anything to replace it with.

Dreamer finally reached out to WWE via email late Saturday afternoon, explaining the situation and how he had been completely left in the lurch by the company pulling the Hardys. We are told that some in WWE claimed they didn't even know the Hardys were supposed to wrestle on the show, which just sounds silly. What made the Hardys being pulled completely ironic to begin with was that just two hours away, Drew McIntyre was finishing up his dates with EVOLVE in NYC and that in the past, WWE has always been adamant about talents finishing up the right way.

We are told that the situation went all the way to the top of the chain within WWE with Vince McMahon and Triple H making the final call to let the Hardys wrestle. WWE obviously warned all involved to be careful as they didn't want Matt and Jeff to be injured.

Dreamer and Bully Ray came out for a "State of the Union" address where he teased that politics had hurt his company. The Spirit Squad came out to announce the Hardys wouldn't be there and ripped Dreamer and Bully apart on the mic. Finally, the Hardys showed up and Matt claimed that even though they had been told they could not wrestle tonight, that was not good enough and they would wrestle even if it meant they were getting fired on Monday. Obviously, they were not going to get fired, but the idea they were going rogue on WWE got a big reaction.

After the match with the Hardys, Dreamer specifically thanked ROH and Joe Koff as well as WWE, Triple H and Vince McMahon, saying that as far as he was concerned, House of Hardcore all owes them one. We will see what that means, if anything in the future.

In the end, the entire thing came together and gave the Hardys a nice farewell in Philadelphia and a great moment for HOH.

[wrestlingrecap]

I was also at the show, which as House of Hardcore 25, not 22, just for the record. I thought it was a fun show with Bull James vs. MVP being the only real lackluster match. I really thought the Hardy Boys weren't going to show, but i was pleasantly surprised. I'd make the trip back to the arena from Syracuse for sure.

[Deleted]

Apr 23, 2017 18:41:58 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

Apr 23, 2017 17:49:58 GMT -5 Can you afford to pay me, Gah said:

Not trying to make a joke but I wonder if he even remember saying it. I thought a couple years ago he was retiring after a scary moment after taking a chokeslam. Yet he never stopped. Dreamer love for wrestling and remodel guys like Terry Funk who is another guy who never knew the world quit or stop. Dreamer is seems to be the kind of guy that unless he can't walk, he will get in that ring. I get it is his company but I'm surprised Beuluh hasn't said more to get him to stop for there family.

Austin got legit mad at him for keeping with this bullshit garbage hardcore wrestling. He's gonna bleed and take headshots to keep living his glory days.

What a stupid f***

Tommy Dreamer is running one of the most successful United States based wrestling companies currently, and providing for himself and his family with the revenue generated by his profitable business. He's far from a stupid f***.

[OVO 40 hunched over like he 80]

Apr 26, 2017 1:53:39 GMT -5 @kudohdriver said:

Apr 23, 2017 18:41:58 GMT -5 OVO 40 hunched over like he 80 said:

Austin got legit mad at him for keeping with this bullshit garbage hardcore wrestling. He's gonna bleed and take headshots to keep living his glory days.

What a stupid f***

Tommy Dreamer is running one of the most successful United States based wrestling companies currently, and providing for himself and his family with the revenue generated by his profitable business. He's far from a stupid f***.

And that justifies getting permanent brain damage and eventually CTE if he hasn't already?

I think not. If he's such a good promoter then he should depend on other guys and not keep killing himself.

[Deleted]

He's not killing himself. He's having regular wrestling matches. Nobody's bashing his head in with a steel chair in 2017.