ECW Extreme Reunion live report
April 28, 2012
Philadelphia, Pa.
Report by Dominic, PWTorch reader

- I attended Extreme Reunion and figured I’d provide some live notes from this disappointing show. Sabu no-showed the main event since he was reportedly rushed to a local hospital after having a bad reaction to medication he was on. We learned of this by word of mouth (I’m assuming people were on their smart phones and came across the news) and it really seemed to spread during the intermission. The mood, which wasn’t great to begin with, really worsened. No one working for Extreme Reunion addressed it before the main event.

- Shane Douglas, who looked extremely discouraged, grabbed the microphone upon hitting the ring and tried to talk about how the ECW locker room was like a fraternity (back in the mid-'90s), but the crowd really wasn’t having any of his small talk and really got aggressive. Seeing this, Shane talked about 1994 when the line was crossed and said he contacted 2 Cold Scorpio so they could re-live 1994 once again. At this point, the lights went off, 2 Cold made his way to the ring, and a good amount of the crowd made an early exit. People were chanting for refunds right after the intermission, and it got really loud with Shane was trying to explain the Sabu situation.

It was interesting that Shane made it sound like they couldn’t confirm Sabu was at a local hospital. I’m not sure if that was him trying to save face or they honestly couldn’t locate Sabu at this point during the show.

- Sandman and New Jack had very short appearances in the ring (neither match they were in had any conclusion; they just sort of stopped and everyone went to the back). Sandman spent more time getting around the crowd with his beer than actual ring time.

Raven was another interesting story. He came to the ring with a group of individuals, ranted over a muffled house mic (another big problem throughout the show was you could not hear anything on the mic), and then let his group of unknowns attack one half of the Pitbulls. Sandman interrupted the action (after a long, stumbling drunk circle around the ring through the crowd) by landing a couple cane shots while Raven watched from the ring apron. Afterward, Raven just left. He didn’t get involved in anything physically, and walked off while Sandman handpicked three members of the audience to jug beers in the ring.

- There was a bald, tattooed shirtless guy who jumped the barricade on two occasions early in the show. I guess it was supposed to look like a shoot, but no one bought it. He ended up costing Stevie Richards and The Blue Meanie their tag team match against the FBI.

- Al Snow’s match with C.W. Anderson went at snail’s pace with the longest armbar segment I’ve ever seen; honestly, Snow’s post-match confrontation against “Head” was more entertaining then the match itself.

- Axl Rotten and Balls Mahoney had an okay chairs match. But, the highlight of the show up to the main event without a doubt was Jerry Lynn. He wrestled right before the main event. I haven’t a clue who the guy was he wrestled (there were a couple new faces through the night - if the house mic wasn’t so messed up I’m sure I could’ve told you who they were), but they put on a good match. It was the only match that got a loud “ECW” chant up to that point in the show.

- It seemed like the crowd was more entertaining than the show itself, especially after fans learned of Sabu’s absence. They really gave Shane hell; I don’t know if I agree with the amount of crap they gave the man, though. Now, granted, he probably should have kicked off the show with the news of Sabu’s absence instead of waiting until the end. Had the show been better I don’t think the news would’ve been received so poorly, but being an ECW fan since 1996, I have to say this was an absolute trainwreck of a show. I’ll definitely be skipping the show at the end of June.

[Torch photo credit Wade Keller (c) PWTorch.com]

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