This is my first time watching House of Hardcore but only are they in the old ECW arena but this is a promotion run by Tommy Dreamer so you have to feel the ECW vibe in it throughout the night. Someone on Twitter @Trav923 is on commentary with The Hurricane Shane/Gregory Helms and I believe Danny Doring under a different name. We go right into the action.
Match One: Brian Meyers vs. PJ Black
For those WWE fans scoring at home this was Curt Hawkins vs. Justin Gabriel. The fans chanted "We Want Ryder" which got a legit laugh from me. PJ Black was a surprise opponent and this was his HoH debut, as he wore his La Parka legs for the match. PJ Black won win the 450 splash but this was a match that could've been on WWE Superstars but I'm not going to bother looking it up to see if it ever was. You know how WWE likes to wish superstars their best in their future endeavors and they go off to do better things? Trent Baretta, John Morrison, Carlito, Drew McIntyre, Ezekial Jackson and others that I can't name right off the top of my head... But, yeah, Curt Hawkins aka Brian Meyers is just not one of those guys who has "it". I think he's friends with someone in the right place and that's how he got booked here.
Match Two: Matt Striker vs. Amazing Red
Matt Striker was out first in his argyle sweater vest and matching shorts. He looked like some sort of strange golfer. He was introduced as being from Boyle Heights, which is where The Temple is so that made me laugh as well. His surprise opponent was Amazing Red who was also making his HoH debut tonight. The commentators noted that Tommy Dreamer doesn't always announce all of the wrestlers performing for the night and so there are often surprises and yet they claim they had to turn away 200 people at the door in this sold out arena. Amazing Red hits a Code Red from the top rope followed by a standing shooting star press for the pin and win. I'm glad to see Red back as I liked him in the earliest days of Ring of Honor and feel as if he was greatly under-utilized while in TNA, but please get Matt Striker out of the ring. I was just finally being able to tolerate him on commentary so there is no way I'm going to be able to get behind him as a wrestler. And I watched him on compilation DVDs when he was tag partners with Robbie E. If Lucha Underground puts him in the ring it's over. Having him in the ring here was just a poor booking decision in my opinion.
Match Three: Alex Reynolds (w/ DG Haven) vs. JT Dunn
I do believe I've seen Alex Reynolds in CZW before and so when I looked him up it was confirmed that he is indeed a member of The Beaver Boys. And yet I believe it was The Hurricane who said on commentary that when he did a Google search of Alex Reynolds no results came up. Is HoH at war with CZW and the two aren't allowed to talk about each other? Was that a shot at CZW by HoH? Interesting none the less. This was also JT Dunn's HoH debut, which is odd that this is the eighth show for them and they already have this much debuting talent. Alex Reynolds ends up hitting a codebreaker and wins while holding the tights. And Alex Reynolds slowly begins to grow on me.
Match Four: Eddie Kingston vs. Rhino
Eddie Kingston is bad ass. This should have been higher up on the card, but you knew these two were going to tear the house down. Kingston attacked Rhino before the match was even started and I feel like it's strange to see Rhino live here on this show and yet also a somewhat active member of the NXT roster. Two hard hitting men and it seems only natural that Rhino would win with the gore. I know Eddie Kingston has been around for more than a minute but I feel like Rhino is the veteran in this match and maybe he should have put Kingston over, especially since Kingston can go and the reason why this match was lower on the card is only because Rhino is rather limited in the ring. I like both these guys though, I just wish it turned out differently.
Match Five: Ben Ortiz (w/ DG Haven) / Hale Collins (w/ Patricia Bateman) / Vik Dalishus (w/ The Duprees) vs. Team Tremendous / Tony Nese
While I recognize Team Tremendous from CZW, which the commentators here failed to mention, I don't know any of these other guys except for Anthony "Tony" Nese, if only by name. Sadly, Vik Dalishus came out with a bunch of women and The Duprees had nothing to do with Rene Dupree. Before the match, Team Tremendous busted the ref with what the commentators said was aregano and as such they brought out Mikey Whipwreck as a special guest referee. There was an announcement of some sort of Mikey Whipwreck tribute here tonight. As the teams fought, eventually most everyone ended up outside the ring and Mikey Whipwreck flew out there as well, at the crowd's urging. Bill Carr, who is the bigger of the two men in Team Tremendous, pinned Vik Dalishus with the Canadian Destroyer for the win. It was a really impressive spot and I'm on the Team Tremendous bandwagon now.
Up next was the tribute to Mikey Whipwreck and a lot of the wrestlers he trained were in the ring after a video and the crowd chanting "Thank You Mikey".
Match Six: Lance Archer vs. Carlito vs. Matt Hardy
This was billed as being some kind of hardcore match. No mention of WWC for Carlito, who was sometimes referred to by his real name, but they did note Lance Archer's accomplishments in New Japan. Some weapons came into play but mostly ladders as Matt Hardy hit a move onto a ladder for him to get the pin on Carlito. I haven't said this since his WWE days, but Carlito deserves better than this. Archer is a monster but what Matt Hardy have to gain by winning this match?
After intermission, Justin Roberts was in the ring. The fans hated him and shat all over him trying to speak. Justin Roberts had this "shoot" style promo talking about how when he was in WWE there was a talented roster sitting in the back watching the same thing week in and week out and he was tired of the fans having to suffer for it... blah blah blah. Look, I know this was live and the episode of Impact that aired the night before was taped, but Drew Galloway cut all too similar a promo the night before this. I really don't want to see Justin Roberts EVER unless this leads to him being put through a table. To show you how the fans felt about this, someone had a young child up on their shoulders and the kid was flipping the double bird to Justin Roberts. The crowd was bowing to the kid and chanting "He's Hardcore", which eventually distracted Roberts enough that the camera man also went over to see the kid. So, basically, someone who was probably under the age of ten just got put over at the expense of Justin Roberts. Think about that next time you decide to book Justin Roberts I say to you, Mr. Dreamer. Maybe Roberts should have just written an angry blog.
Match Seven: Christopher Daniels / Frankie Kazarian vs. Team 3D
There were Dudleys chants but they were never called that by name. Also, Kaz and Daniels were never referred to as "Bad Influence" or "The Addiction" which was kind of odd they couldn't at least be "The Addiction". (Where's the love, ROH?) Daniels and Kaz were in control for most of the match but when Team 3D began to take control back, Trinidad (?) came down to support Daniels and Kaz. This lead to Bully Ray's girlfriend in Velvet Sky coming out and we have a catfight that was acceptable in 1997 but now is just sort of... lame. They did that "wazzzup" spot on Trinidad and Devon made the motions of performing oral sex on her. I can only assume this is all happening while Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian are off wondering why they signed up for this stupid bit. In the original days of ECW I still might have cringed at this a little but in 2015 this just made me wonder why I was watching this to begin with. Is this really what someone thinks wrestling fans want to see? After the match, were Devon's comments about it "cool"? The whole thing just made me embarrassed to be a fan of professional wrestling and the best part is it came AFTER a promo from a former WWE guy saying how lame WWE was. If you want to call out WWE on their antics that's fine but I'm going to call you out on how much creativity that spot lacked. 3D on the Fallen Angel for the win. Let's move on.
Match Eight: Eric Young vs. Tommy Dreamer *Street Fight*
These two have had some issues going on in TNA and the fact that they had to spill over here into House of Hardcore just goes to show you how many ideas Tommy Dreamer has. There really wasn't anyone better that could've been in this match? I'll always remember Eric Young as being in Team Canada and the "Don't Fire Eric" bit, but I've never taken him seriously. In fact, when this match started my wife asked me what happened to Eric Young. I replied with the following.
Dixie Carter: Do you want to be TNA Champion, Eric?
Eric Young: Yeah, all right.
Dixie Carter: Can you grow a big beard?
Eric Young: Yeah, sure, whatever.
Dixie Carter: Do that, and a champion you shall be!
So with shenanigans with the referee and all Eric Young managed to get the win. Ethan Carter III actually had a cameo in this match and it was about the only thing that made it worthwhile. I also tweeted to EC3 to ask him about the shirt he wore when he appeared and he tweeted me back to point me to a link for it. It was the old "EC F'N W" style shirt only it said "EC F'N 3". So one good thing came of this match: EC3 replied to one of my tweets. Oh yeah, and Rey Mysterio came out and hit a double 619 on both EC3 and EY. Mysterio said something about how when he first came to the United States his first home was in ECW and Tommy Dreamer said he'd always be family. Touching, but that could have been an in ring promo instead of the blow off on a feud no one probably cares about because it's not like people are actually watching Impact other than those writing and complaining about it, right? So I'm saying that if you have seen the Tommy Dreamer-EY thing play out on television you probably aren't a fan of it and don't want to see it here. Maybe it's just me.
Match Nine: Austin Aries / Bobby Roode vs. Young Bucks
As this match starts, and I didn't read spoilers because who cares (I watched it after it aired, yes) I realize that the Young Bucks are going to win because they are a tag team and Austin Aries and Bobby Roode are just being strung together tonight for what might even be their first time teaming together. They are the epitome of a makeshift tag team so this is pretty terrible as far as main event matches go. And I STILL don't like the Young Bucks. I didn't really care about their match at the ROH 13th Anniversary show but at least they were facing an actual tag team in reDRagon. There were quite a few "Bullet Club" chants here and I'm wondering if maybe that's why so many people like the Young Bucks. Is it because they're in the Bullet Club? Because that's not a good enough reason to like them. So on a scale of one to ten, ten being the highest, I'd say that the Young Bucks vs. reDRagon at the ROH PPV was about a five. When they fought O!4K at the CZW 16 show it was a 10. And this is just a big fat zero. Sorry, Austin Aries. You never should have signed up for this. And, yes, it's funny that the crowd had dueling chants of "Bullet Club" and "Austin Aries" because that must have made Bobby Roode feel great about his life choices. There was also a crowd chant of "Tag Team Wrestling" but I must disagree as, um, AUSTIN ARIES AND BOBBY ROODE ARE NOT AN ACTUAL TAG TEAM. I was kind of surprised when the Team 3D match didn't go on last, but when I saw it I realized why. The fact that this closed out the show left Young Bucks fans happy but it just felt too predictable for me and I wonder why this wasn't buried somewhere in the midcard.
As this was my first time watching House of Hardcore in full (I had previously only watched the clip where Alberto El Patron appeared with Ricardo Rodriguez) I must say that I was not impressed. Was I going into this with too high of hopes? (Someone was high, but it wasn't me) Is there other wrestling out there that is just that much better than this and that's why it's suffering? What was it about this card that just left me feeling so disappointed? I guess it was because the show was all right for the first half, up to intermission, because I can forgive the in ring presence of Matt Striker in the face of what happened after that. I was really amped up with the idea that anything can happen and this would be so exciting but then it just took such a boring, pointless and often times head scratching turn after intermission. If you got up and left during intermission you probably would've seen a much better show than I did by watching the whole thing. I've been a big believer in the fact that wrestling shows should build and the matches should just outdo each other throughout the night, but what did those last three matches outdo? Put aside the unnecessary sexual spot in the Team 3D match. Put aside the TNA connection in the Tommy Dreamer match. Put aside the fact that I still don't get why people like the Young Bucks. But how did ANYONE in their right mind go into the main event thinking anything other than what happened would be the end? You can't have an established tag team versus a makeshift tag team as your main event. That just doesn't work for me. Maybe someone else out there feels differently, and maybe you'll watch this and see something good that I didn't (EC3 saved the show for me) but if you waste your money on this one don't blame me. You have been warned.
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