ECW Arena, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
ECW Super Summer Sizzler Spectacular was the first major event promoted by ECW and was a long, long way from the kind of PPV events the company would be putting out just five-six years later.
Back in 1993, there was no way of telling that this little-promotion-that-could would eventually establish itself as one of the "Big Three," offering a viable option for those who preferred a more extreme alternative to WCW and the WWF.
OK, so may be some people - like Paul Heyman, for example - wanted it to happen, but to watch Super Summer Sizzler Spectacular you'd be forgiven for dismissing ECW as nothing more than another low-rent indie promotion with nothing much going on.
Still, that's not what we're going to today. Rather than dismiss ECW, we're going to head down to Philadelphia and see what went down at the company's first big super show.
Welcome to the Super Summer Sizzler Spectacular
We began tonight’s show outside the ECW arena where Todd Gordon and Jay Sulli stood around hyping up a small group of middle-aged men who were apparently die-hard ECW fans.
Gordon hyped one of tonight’s big matches before calling the ECW Super Summer Sizzler 93 ‘the hottest show in independent history.’
With that, we got our opening video package, a typically early ‘90s amateur-hour affair featuring early ECW stars like Jimmy Snuka and Don Muraco as well as people this writer had no idea had ever appeared for the company like British Bulldog and Jim ‘The Anvil’ Neidhart.
We then went straight to the action with Sulli being joined on commentary by the one and only Paul E. Dangerously.
Eastern Championship Wrestling Television Championship
ECW Television Champion ‘Superfly’ Jimmy Snuka vs. J.T Smith
Superfly was a heel here and aligned with Paul E.
The match wasn’t awful or anything but you really just got the impression that Snuka was simply going through the motions until he could hit the Superfly Splash and get out of there.
That happened in about six minutes, ending a pretty ‘blah’ match.
Your Winner and Still TV Champion: Jimmy Snuka.
Moving quickly on...
First Blood Rules
Larry Winters vs. Tony “Hitman” Stetson
The action wasn’t particularly special, but both Larry Winters and Tony Stetson concentrated on attacking each other’s foreheads and actually trying to make their opponent bleed right from the word go. Honestly, that’s a far better approach than many first blood matches where the two wrestlers compete in a relatively normal match and drawing blood seems like a an afterthought.
With that working in its favor then, it’s disappointing that the finish to this match was kind of dumb.
Rockin’ Rebel got involved, distracting the referee so that Stetson could pull a chain out of his pants and blast his rival with it to win the match.
Sure, that would have been a standard finish in a regular match, but it had already been announced that there were no rules besides making your opponent bleed, so why bother with the distraction?
Your Winner: Tony Stetson
Post match, Stetson and Rebel beat up on poor old Larry Winters until Winters battled back and sent them packing.
Cat Fight Humiliation Match
Miss Peaches vs. Terrible Tigra
Miss Peaches was Sandman’s wife and Terrible Tigra had been getting involved in Sandman’s matches which was a good enough reason for the two to roll around on the mat tugging at each other’s clothes in a bout that had no clearly defined way to win.
The way to win wasn’t by removing an item of your opponents' clothes because Tigra did that to Peaches in about sixty seconds and the match continued.
It could have been by regular pinfall or submission but since neither lady even attempted a cover, that’s probably not it either.
After another minute or so of nondescript rolling around, Tigra tried to leave only to be blocked at the isle by the debuting Angel, who was being presented here as a mystery woman.
Angel ordered Tigra back to the ring to roll around again for another minute before simply letting her leave. At that point, the referee called for the bell and awarded the match to Peaches.
Your Winner Via Goodness Knows What: Miss Peaches
Post-match, Peaches went to cut a promo but Rockin’ Rebel and Tony Stetson chased her off then ganged up on Angel and ripped her top off, exposing her boobage to the audience. Seriously, can you imagine any show today where two men could overpower a woman and rip her clothes off and it being allowed to air?
I’m sure there are people for whom this kind of stuff constitutes entertainment, but this fan is certainly not one of them.
Anyway, Larry Winters eventually came to the rescue and Angel’s dignity was preserved with a beach towel.
Eastern Championship Wrestling TV Championship
WCW TV Champion Superfly Jimmy Snuka (w/ Paul E. Dangerously) vs. Iron Man Tommy Cairo
This was the better of Jimmy Snuka’s two title defences on the show, but only because challenger Tommy Cairo turned up ready to go and worked his butt off.
Snuka still seemed like he didn’t want to do much of anything, so his opponent bounced around for a while before losing in the most feeble way possible.
Paul E. tripped up Cairo and Snuka pinned him with one foot barely grazing the middle rope.
Apparently, Cairo was so weak that he couldn’t kick out and the match was over.
Your Winner and Still ECW TV Champion: Jimmy Snuka
After the bell, Cairo hi-fived the fans while Terry Funk put over his main event match with ‘Hot Stuff’ Eddie Gilbert and the ring announcer put over the ECW Hotline.
Remember that?
Philly Street Fight
The Sandman vs. Rockin’ Rebel
After his awful double-murder suicide killing his wife and then himself in 2018, Rockin’ Rebel now recives the Krispin Wah treatment on WWE Network which captions this match only as ‘Sandman Competes in a Philly Street Fight.
Much as I do with Benoit matches on this blog, the best way I can think to approach this is to focus purely on the quality of the match out of respect for their opponent and leave my own personal feelings about the crimes committed out of the equation.
The match was easily the most entertaining thing on the show so far but to be honest, given the lacklustre quality of this event that’s not the huge compliment it might first seem.
The Sandman wasn’t yet fully ‘The Sandman’ as fans would later get to know him as. Instead, he was somewhere between the beer-swilling hardcore icon and the surfer dude he had started his career as.
Whatever his gimmick was, Sandman wasn’t a great wrestler here but could swing a chair around with the best of them and did so with gusto until another mystery woman (Tammy Sytch) entered the ring and sprayed him in the eyes with something.
That allowed Rebel to get the win via roll-up.
Your Winner: Rockin’ Rebel
Afterwards, Tony Stetson (who had put in a cameo in the match) helped Tammy to the back but thankfully saw no reason to rip her clothes off.
Dark Patriot II (w/ Paul E. Dangerously) vs. Dick Murdoch
Dick Murdoch didn’t care. He was here to make his ECW debut and was only interested in kicking some butt.
He did that pretty effectively in an inoffensive but largely bland match that was typical of your average low-rung indie show.
Like I say, it wasn’t awful or anything, just not that entertaining.
Murdoch won with a roll-up.
Your Winner: Dick Murdoch
Ready for some more?
Six-Man Tag Challenge
Wildman Sal Bellomo, Super Destroyer #1, and Stevie Wonderful vs. Hunter Q Robins III & ECW Tag Team Champions The Suicide Blondes (Sir Jonathan Hotbody & Sir Richard Michaels)
Speaking of fun, that’s exactly what this match was, at least compared to the bland bag of meh that the rest of this show had been.
Played partly for laughs and partly as a straight match, this still came across as the kind of thing you’d only find on an indie show, but since that’s exactly what this was, I can hardly complain.
After some decent action, Wildman Sal Bellomo splashed the crap out of Richard Michaels to earn the win.
Your Winners: Sal Bellomo, Super Destroyer, and Stevie Wonderful.
Finally, with just shy of 25 minutes left on the clock, it was time for our main event.
Joey Styles left the announce booth to be replaced by Todd Gordon, delighting nobody but Gordon himself.
King of Philadelphia Texas Chain Match Massacre
Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert vs. Terry Funk
This was your standard ‘touch four corners’ strap match using a chain instead of a strap with the winner claiming the title of ‘King of Philadelphia.’
Though it certainly wasn’t a technical classic, it was a compelling and bloody brawl that captured the attention and held it from start to finish.
Both men busted each other open as they brawled in the ring, around the ring, and later up in the crowd.
At one point, referee John Finnegan got squashed in the corner and was replaced by Kevin Christian.
At first, this seemed like a random and pointless move but later it proved to be important to the finish.
Terry Funk touched all four corners only to discover that Christian had been distracted by Paul E. and didn’t see it.
As Funk argued with the official, Gilbert waffled him with a chair, hit him with a piledriver and then touched all four corners to win the match, and the crown.
Your Winner and King of Philadelphia: Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert
Afterwards, Paul E. Dangerously revealed that he and Kevin Christian had been in cahoots the whole time. He also cut an excitable promo but the quality of this video is so poor that it’s impossible to make out what he said.
Finally, things ended with Todd Gordon firing Christian, who pushed the boss man down and wandered off arm in arm with Dangerously while Gilbert got sent packing by Funk.
The Funkster then placed the King of Philadelphia crown atop Gordon’s head as the ECW Super Summer Sizzler 1993 event came to a close.
If all you had to go off was this one event, you’d never in a million years be able to guess that ECW would become one of the hottest wrestling promotions in the world.
The Super Summer Sizzler Spectacular came off as a low-rent indie show filled with mediocre performances, a gang rape spot and only the occasional flash of genuine entertainment.
Things would get better -much better- over the course of ECW’s existence, but their first major event wasn’t much to get excited about.
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Other ECW Reviews:
Other 1993 Event Reviews:
- WWF Royal Rumble 1993
- WWF Wrestlemania 9
- SMW Bluegrass Brawl 1993
- WWF Wrestlemania - The Album Review
- WWF King of the Ring 1993 - Preshow report
- WWF King of the Ring 1993
- WWF Summerslam 1993
- SMW Fire on the Mountain 1993
- WWF Survivor Series 1993
- SMW - Thanksgiving Thunder
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1 Comments
What a terrible title to the show they had. Super Summer Sizzler! Lol
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