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/wrestling /ECW on TNN /8 October 1999 |
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/wrestling /ECW on TNN /8 October 1999 |
ECW on TNN by Chris Palacios |
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In an age where the women of the professional wrestling business are treated
like child actors, ECW brings you an expose on the wrestling business from
a woman's perspective by interviewing the woman formerly known as Sunny in
the World Wrestling Federation...an interview with Tammy Lynn Sytch this
week on ECW! After the opening credits roll, Joey Styles and Joel Gertner tease the rest of the show to us, including the impact Lance Storm has had on Jerry Lynn's career, a match featuring Yoshihiro Tajiri, and the aforementioned Sytch interview on a "historic" ECW broadcast. Meanwhile, the first 5 minutes of the show have already featured clips of the various big name valets that have appeared in ECW...Sytch, Woman, Kimona, Beulah, Dawn Marie, etc. Throw in a random shot from the ECW Arena of Sytch and Dawn Marie in a catfight where Dawn ends up stripped down to a bra and panties. Insert November To Remember PPV ad and Hardcore Hotline ad here. (Bigger than Hall and Nash...bigger than Jericho...learn about the biggest talent raid in the history of the Monday night wars!) We return to see clips of Tammy Lynn in various states of "barely dressed" and get another reminder from Joey about the interview later in the show. Joey then tosses us to a match from the Anarchy Rulz PPV, to which Joel says something about Cyrus joining Joey in the broadcast booth before saying "insert wise crack remark here". Hmmmm... We join Yoshihiro Tajiri, Super Crazy, and Little Guido in a three way dance already in progress. Crazy hits an early crossbody on Guido, but Tajiri takes advantage and hits kicks to both of his opponents. Tajiri blocks a Guido reversal attempt and tosses Guido face first to the rampway. Tajiri then hits a tilt-a-whirl head scissors on Crazy, but Crazy responds with a springboard dropkick. Before Crazy can take advantage, Guido hits a springboard crossbody and locks on a camel clutch. Tajiri seizes the opportunity and hits a dropkick to Crazy's face while still in Guido's clutch, then hits Guido with a dropkick to break the hold. In a nice spot, Tajiri monkey flips Crazy, who lands on his feet only to be met with a Guido clothesline. Both Crazy and Guido end up on the outside, and Tajiri takes advantage with an Asai moonsault as we head to commercial. We return to find Crazy hitting a top rope Asai moonsault that is truly worthy of a 1wrestling.com Extreme Replay. After the full-screen replay, we see Sal E. Graziano falling through a ringside table (huh?). As Tajiri is standing on the ring apron, he attempts to sunset flip Crazy, who is inside of the ring, but in mid-move, Tajiri turns it into the Tarantula in a nice spot broken up by a Guido dropkick to Crazy's face. Crazy recovers and locks Tajiri in a rolling bow-and-arrow, then stops and turns it into a variation of the Dragon sleeper. Tajiri then ends up on the wrong end of a combination camel clutch from Crazy and a Sicilian crab from Guido that showcases Tajiri's ridiculous flexibility. Guido follows with a Tomikaze on Crazy, and Tajiri lands a standing side kick on Guido. Tajiri then sets up and hits Guido with the tree of woe sliding kick to the face. Crazy follows with a moonsault and gets the pin on Guido, leaving Crazy and Tajiri to finish the match. Crazy gets the early advantage with an apron-to-middle rope moonsault for a 2 count before taking Tajiri to the corner and landing 10 punches, which the Chicago crowd happily counts in Spanish. Tajiri recovers and hits a handspring elbow, but Crazy responds with a spinning sit-out powerbomb. A second powerbomb attempt turns into a Tajiri tornado DDT, but Crazy responds with an inverted tornado DDT. Crazy then tries his "three moonsaults" spot, but after hitting the bottom rope moonsault, Tajiri gets the knees up for the middle rope moonsault. Tajiri follows with a few of his patented nasty kicks and a brainbuster to get the pin. Joey and Joel get a quick Storm/Lynn and Sytch plug before the break. Insert Hardcore Hotline ad here. (WCW sex scandal that you won't hear about! 2 former World champs return to action at November To Remember!) After some clips of Tammy Lynn Sytch's early days in Smoky Mountain Wrestling, we have part one of the interview with Ms. Sytch. She was "on top of the world" during her SMW days, and after jumping to the WWF, she became a pinup star. Turns out someone out there made a website dedicated to her feet. She then admits that the pressure of being in the limelight led to her abuse of soma, a prescription muscle relaxant. Sytch says soma use is widespread in the locker rooms of wrestlers, going so far as to mention details of the death of Louie Spicolli. Already, this interview is making me very uneasy. Joey and Joel then toss us back to Anarchy Rulz, where Lance Storm faced Jerry Lynn. We even get ring introductions and the entire match without commercials on this one! The match starts with some nice chain wrestling and reversals. Lynn has taped ribs, selling the attack at the ECW Arena by the Impact Players (Storm and Justin Credible) that aired on TNN a few weeks ago. Lynn starts the offense with a tilt-a-whirl head scissors followed by a headlock takeover. Storm pulls out the Flair flip after a whip to the corner, but Lynn ducks Storm's clothesline from the apron, and Storm ducks Lynn's clothesline attempt only to catch a dropkick by Lynn off of the middle turnbuckle. Lynn hits a baseball slide, then uses the opportunity to toss Storm into the railing on the outside. Back in the ring, Lynn turns his crucifix attempt into a sunset flip, then follows with another headlock takeover. Storm attempts a belly-to-back suplex, but Lynn floats over only to be met with a hot shot by Storm. Lynn takes a sweet dropkick from Storm, who follows with a cartwheel clothesline into the corner. Storm then runs towards Lynn in the corner, but Lynn lifts himself up and spins into a sunset flip for a 2 count. Storm, who is now on the outside, gets hit with a Lynn plancha from the top turnbuckle...worthy of a replay in my book. Hey! The replay is on half of the screen, and the match is live in a box on the same screen! Lynn grazes Storm with a missile dropkick for a 2 count. Lynn then leads into the spot of the night...a cradle piledriver turns into a Storm backdrop, then turns into a Lynn rollup, and the two men counter into about 15 different pinning predicaments that leads to a Lynn German suplex for a 2 count. At this point, the fans in Chicago erupt in a standing ovation for a brilliant sequence. Storm lands a superkick, then turns a Lynn suplex into a reverse inverted DDT. Dawn Marie slides a chair into the ring, and Storm wedges it between the top and middle turnbuckles, but an attempt to whip Lynn to the corner is reversed, sending Storm into the chair. Lynn then hits a top rope sunset flip into a powerbomb with a bridge for a sweet false finish. Storm attempts to powerbomb Lynn on a second chair lying in the middle of the ring, but Lynn counters with a reverse DDT onto the chair. Dawn Marie places Storm's foot on the rope to break the count, and Storm uses the second chance to send Lynn into the corner with the wedged chair. Lynn sees the chair and slides so he won't hit it, only to slide rib-first into the ringpost. Storm then hits Lynn with a backbreaker, holding Lynn's back across his knee to work over the ribs. Lynn punches his way out, then turns a Storm tilt-a-whirl into a Stunner. Lynn then heads up to the top rope and leaps onto Storm with a hurracanrana. Then, out of nowhere, Storm lands a kick to Lynn's ribs and quickly puts Lynn in a nifty cradle to land the surprise pin. Gertner runs down some house show dates and quickly mentions Storm facing Chris Candido on next week's show. Joel then plugs the website, magazine, and the Sytch interview. Insert TWO November To Remember ads here. Remember last week when I said they were bush league for doing that? I guess that "insert here" comment that Joel made earlier had nothing to do with my column after all. We return to the Sytch interview, where Tammy reveals that she was considered "old" by the wrestling biz in 1997, when she was only 24 years old. She resents being termed a "Kliq chick"...so what if she was friends with that group and made their hotel reservations? Tammy would rather be pushed on her talents instead of who she knows in the biz. After her departure from the WWF, she felt a weight lifted off her shoulders. She could spend some time at home, start a family, relax a little bit. Unfortunately, Tammy took too much advantage of her free time, and when the pills ran out, she hit the bottle for the first time. At this point, it's hard to feel sorry for her, but at least she's being honest about her inner demons. Broadcasting this on TV though? Seems a bit muddy even for ECW. That's when the interview turns...Sytch admits that there were times when she didn't want to wake up after the deaths of her father and her niece. Her niece was 16 years old and on life support when she died. Tammy reveals that her niece's hands went cold while in Tammy's hands, and now the salt from Tammy's tears are leaving tracks on her somber face. Something about this interview is JUST PLAIN WRONG...I got the same feeling when I saw Melanie Pillman on RAW the night after her husband died. The thought going through my mind then was "why put this on television?", and I have a bad feeling ECW is putting this on TV for a reason. Finally, Sytch closes with a statement that she will once again set the standard for women in the wrestling busines... "...because I'm ALIVE...and I'm back." But at what price? Christopher G. Palacios [slash] wrestling Mail the Author |
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