20 YEARS AGO – ECW LIVE EVENT REPORT: Big Show vs. Sabu in the main event, plus Al Snow, Balls Mahoney, Stevie Richards, Sandman, Tommy Dreamer, Test, CM Punk

PWTorch features unmatched archives of live wrestling reports (not just results, but match details, context, and analysis). The following is a report originally published here 20 years ago this week…

ECW house show report
September 2, 2006
Spartanburgh, S.C.
Report by Jeremy Maes, PWTorch.com Contributor

I had front row seats for the ECW house show last night in Spartanburg. Here are some results. I’ll be touching more on this show in my Specialists column and the audio later this week.

(1) Al Snow defeated Rene Dupree. Al won after hitting Dupree with head. Crowd was hot for this match. Dupree is a heat machine this night at least. One thing my wife pointed out, um, Renee was smuggling some sausage in his trunks. After she pointed out, yes, she was correct. So, congrats Renee. Side note , the crowd chanted “You’re a faggot ” at Renee Dupree for some reason. I mention this for a later purpose.

(2) Kevin Thorn (w/Aerial) defeated Balls Mahoney (w/Francine). Actually a pretty good match. Thorn has a good look as he stood out from the entire group of wrestlers on the card. Balls called out Francine since he said, over the house mic, that “that thing” (pointing at Aerial) cost him his match on ECW TV. Crowd was happy to see Francine but didn’t get a large pop. End came when Aerial and Francine had the mandatory catfight. Balls climbed the middle rope for some reason to watch and Thorn hit him with the crucifix bomb. After the match, Thorn hilariously carried out Aerial as if she was dead.

(3) FBI defeated Ryan O’Reiley & Derrick Neikirk. Crowd hated O’Reiley and Neikirk at first but warmed up as the near falls came at the end. O’Reiley and Neikirk came out to Kendrick and London’s music which really screwed with some of the people, myself included. Match was fine but it dragged out much too long. They lost the crowd after the referee missing the tag spot. Seriously long match that had no business going this long with wrestlers no one had heard of. Although it made me believe these may be the guys they use under the security outfits. Who knows where they are going with it now that The Bashams have been outed.

(4) C.W. Anderson defeated Stevie Richards. Crowd actually cheered for both men, which confused me. People do realize C.W. is not one of the Andersons, right? Anyway, bad match here. The crowd kept themselves busy by chanting “BWO.” Stevie acknowledged it but that was about all he did. C.W. won out of the blue and no one really cared.

(5) Sandman & Tommy Dreamer defeated Test & Mike Knox (w/Kelly Kelly). Right before the intermission we get the first ECW Extreme rules match. Dreamer came out first and ass kissed the audience by mentioning the history of the building in Spartanburg. My wife was quick to point out that the Greenville Auditorium held more shows than Spartanburg. Anyway, he then introduced Sandman who went thought he crowd with his beers. He downed about three or four before pushing an older lady and her two kids out of the way to get in the ring. Test and Knox came out next. Crowd chanted “You do steroids” at Test who shrugged it off and said “So.” Another decent match with everyone bumping like crazy both in and out of the ring. End came when Dreamer hit the DDT on Knox and Sandman did the White Russian legsweep on test. After the match Dreamer gave his shirt to a little girl sitting next to me as Sandman hopped the guardrail in front of me and posed for the crowd before going in to the crowd again for another beer. This is only interesting because there was a specific section of kids on the opposite side. As he made his way he stopped here and there. Well, you guessed it; he stopped right in the middle of the kids’ section and hit some beer. There was a part of me that smiled as the parents looked on in horror.

Intermission time. Nothing really happened until Kelly Kelly came out and did her fake stripping. Mike Knox came out in a towel and made her leave. Knox tried playing it as if he was naked under the towel and he did get a laugh. Give the guy another year or two and he’ll be pretty good.

ARTICLE CONTINUED BELOW…

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(6) C.M. Punk defeated Shannon “The Reject” Moore. People chanted for both men but no one really knew who was the heel or face. Moore finally played against the crowd but the kids still chanted Reject.” Interesting. Good ten to twelve minute match but too distracting up close with Moore’s hair. I asked y wife how someone’s hair could stand like that after sweating and getting tossed around and she said it’s a whole lot of gel. So there, the mystery is solved. Punk won after the Anaconda Vice. Crowd liked Punk and he even pulled out “It’s clobberin time.”

(7) RVD defeated Bob Holly. This was the same match that has happened at every ECW house show but the crowd still ate It up. RVD was very over as expected. End came after RVD missed the frogsplash and then reversed the Alabama Slam in to a small package for the three count. Crowd was hot for the match but totally let down when they realized they were not going see him hit the frogsplash. Holly was rather hated and even told the father of the little girl to “F— off.” Gotta love that.

Before the last match, Paul Heyman came out and said he didn’t care about the history of the building. He said Big Show is the most dominant, yadda, yadda. Most of the crowd chanted “You sold out” and he seemed to enjoy it. I guess the grand idea is getting over and people are playing in to storylines, well, more on that Wednesday.

(8) Big Show defeated Sabu. Unfortunately no mic work by Sabu. Crowd chanted, “You can’t wrestle at Big Show.” After he dominated Sabu for some time he grabbed the mic and said, ” I don’t have to.” Crowd cheered and laughed at that. It was pretty funny. Big Show grabbed the mic again and said that he was glad he moved out of South Carolina and went to a real city like New York. Crowd crapped on that one and didn’t react at all. End came when Holly and RVD interfered and fought to the back. Sabu jumped off a table and Big Show caught him. He then chokeslammed him through the table for the easy pin. Big Show immediately got out of the ring and went to the back as Sabu rested on his back. He finally got up and pointed to the sky.

Notes: Over all a rather entertaining show. The crowd was your typical ECW crowd as it was filled with chant monkeys. They cheered for whom they were supposed to and booed when prompted. The wife liked it better than the raw show a few years back so as a fan who no longer watches at least she had a good time. One disturbing thing though was the amount of young kids. I’m talking 9-11 year olds. It did make for some entertaining scenery when Francine kept flashing her tail and Kelly Kelly started stripping. Just about everything a parent doesn’t want their young ones to see well, it was there. Like I said, I’ll have more on the show in my Column and on the “Dusty & Jeremy Audio Experience.”

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