10 Best Matches In ECW History
1. Dean Malenko Vs. Eddie Guerrero - Hostile City Showdown 1995
Up until this point, 1995's Hostile City Showdown had been a wash of a show. Axl and Ian Rotten had taken part in an utterly pointless Barbed Wire Baseball Bat match that showcased everything that was wrong with ECW and its audience at the time, Tommy Dreamer gave Beulah a piledriver to the joy of ECW's woman hating crowd and Tony Stetson and Tsubo Genjin had a match that everyone had forgotten before it had even began.
Out of this filth strode two of the greatest professional wrestlers ever to lace up the boots, for their first match against each other on US soil. Eddie Guerrero was the ECW TV Champion at the time, and Dean Malenko was the challenger here. What follows is as close to a technical masterpiece as you could hope for at the time.
In front of a crowd that wants blood and violence, Malenko and Guerrero proceed to twist and turn each other into various unnatural shapes, trading counters and turning the crowd from confused to enraptured, all within 30 minutes. The match ends with a time-limit draw, a whole host of false finishes dotting out the final few moments.
If you are ever confused as to why Eddie Guerrero and Dean Malenko were held in such high regard, go back and watch that. Then take into account the crowd and the show, and the quality of it truly does stand out. This is akin to Fiona Apple playing in the middle of your local metal festival, an example of beauty and poetry surrounded by frustration and anger.
It is the best match ECW ever put on.