10 Best Matches In ECW History
Strip away the flaming tables and hardcore spots and you'll find some classic ECW bouts.
With the tragic passing of Balls Mahoney earlier in the week, Extreme Championship Wrestling has received renewed focus from wrestling fans worldwide. Eulogies pour out in the shape of nostalgic run-throughs of old shows, revisiting classics we remember and rediscovering some we forgot.
ECW closed its doors in 2001, and no wrestling company in history is mourned in the same way. It still incites rabid passion from fans today, which leads to seemingly annual reunion shows and angles in various promotions. In an industry where everything is striving to be unique, ECW and its memory truly stands out.
Of course, large portions of those memories involve tables on fire, thumb-tacks strewn on the canvas and chair shot after chair shot after chair shot. The promotion wasn't called 'Extreme' without good reason, and to this day hardcore spots worldwide are often accompanied with an 'E-C-DUB' chant.
Because of this (chair shots can lead to viewer memory loss too I guess) the sheer quality of a lot of the actual wrestling is forgotten. Sure, ECW gave us violence, but it also gave us luchadores and puroresu in the United States, Dean Malenko/Eddie Guerrero classics and a whole lot more.
ECW had some absolute classic matches in its storied history. Here are 10 of the best...
10. Yoshihiro Tajiri Vs. Super Crazy - Guilty As Charged 1999
As mentioned in the introduction, ECW was responsible for properly introducing American audiences to the glory of professional wrestling from Mexico and Japan. My memory may be fuzzy, but I cannot think of a better combination of the two than the great matches put on by Yoshihiro Tajiri and Super Crazy.
For a short while, the two seemed to redefine what 'opening match' meant. They took the knowledge that they had to get the crowd hot and took it to new heights, working a frantic pace every time with matches that harked back to previous battles with impressive subtlety.
The match the two had at 1999's Guilty As Charged is most likely their best. What it lacks in psychology it more than makes up for in athleticism and speed, with sequence after sequence flowing as smooth as you like, an example of two professionals whose chemistry could not be improved.
Tajiri was still fairly new to the audience at the time, and he was able to pick up the win via a wicked Dragon Suplex. Excellent stuff.