EVENT REVIEW: ECW When World's Collide 1994

May 14, 1994
ECW Arena, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

ECW When World's Collide 1994 Review


ECW When World's Collide was the first of two events to take place under that name in 1994. 

the name referred to a cross-promotion between Paul Heyman's ECW and World Championship Wrestling, with the two companies agreeing to exchange talent. 

Heyman wanted The Hollywood Blondes on his show but had to settle for Bobby Eaton and Arn Anderson, while the likes of Terry Funk and other ECW mainstays would find themselves on WCW programming.

Later, WCW apparently thought that "When World's Collide" was such a good name for a PPV that they used it for their presentation of AAA's first US PPV, a show that still stands up as one of this writer's favorite PPVs of all time. 

Unhappy with that, ECW sued WCW for copyright infringement, leading to an out-of-court settlement in which World Championship Wrestling once again agreed to supply Heyman's company with more talent.






So, that's the background out of the way, but was the show any good?

Let's head to Philly to find out. 

Rockin’ Rebel (w/ Jason) vs. Tommy Dreamer

After the standard ECW TV intro, we went straight into our first match as Tommy Dreamer made his return from injury after his match with Jimmy Snuka back at The Night The Line Was Crossed.

ECW When World's Collide 1994 Review - Tommy Dreamer confronts Rockin' Rebel


For the time period, this wasn’t a bad opener.

OK, so it was a little bland, but it was short and inoffensive, ending when Dreamer caught his opponent with a Thesz Press for the three.
Your Winner: Tommy Dreamer

Post match, Rockin’ Rebel got into an argument with his manager, Jason, but the two patched things up and left together.

ECW Television Championship
ECW TV Champion Mikey Whipwreck vs. 911 (w/ Paul Heyman)

The story here was that Mikey Whipwreck was a perennial loser who couldn’t win a match to save his life but had fluked his way to a recent win over then-champion The Pitbull.

ECW When World's Collide 1994 Review - Mikey Whipreck



Tonight, he would make his first title defence against 911, a man who had regularly pulverised the champion on TV.

The match was hardly a match at all, but it was a cleverly done segment in its own right.

After the match began with Paul Heyman shouting at Whipwreck, the challenger pushed his opponent into the corner then choke slammed him twice.

He was about to do it a third time but instead chose to also grab the referee and chokeslam him too.

Naturally, the battered official called for the bell.
Your Winner via DQ and Still TV Champion: Mikey Whipwreck.

That was smart booking if you ask me. The Whipwreck flukey title reign continued while 911 looked impressive despite his limited in-ring ability.

Afterward, 911 posed with the Tv title before chokeslamming the referee while a distraught Joey Styles yelled “911 does not care about this official’s soul! Who is going to pray for the souls of 911 and Paul Heyman?”

Superfly Jimmy Snuka (w/ Hunter Q. Robins) vs. Kevin Sullivan (w/ Woman)

Kevin Sullivan made this one work and saved it from being a bad match. Instead, he took Snuka on a typical ECW brawl that was good enough to watch without being overly impressive.

Towards the finish, The Sandman came down and convinced Woman to leave with him. Of course, this being early ECW, the cameraman missed the whole thing so it was hard to tell what Sullivan was distracted by.

The distraction allowed Hunter Q. Robbins to trip him up and Snuka to pin him. 
Your Winner: Jimmy Snuka 

Up next, this:

Singapore Caning Match
The Sandman & Woman vs. Tommy Cairo & Peaches

Loser revives six lashes with a Singapore Cane

With the women hanging out on the apron for the majority of the match, The Sandman and Tommy Cairo fumbled their way around the ring in a fairly sloppy and uninspired match.

As they did so, announcer Joey Styles tried to sell us on the extreme and brutal nature of ECW, promising us that this was a company like no other professional wrestling promotion on Earth.

ECW When World's Collide 1994 Review - The Sandman



I know Joey was well-respected as an announcer and all that, but he made himself sound kind of stupid here.

How was anybody supposed to take him seriously when he was making ECW sound like the wildest promotion in town while watching Sandman bumble his way into a lacklustre clothesline.

Eventually, Cairo got the better of Sandman but Women dove in to save her man from being pinned and a cat fight with Peaches inevitably ensued.

As Cairo backed Woman into a corner, Peaches pounced on a prone Sandman and won the match.
Your Winners: Tommy Cairo & Peaches

Post match, Peaches exposed her estranged husband’s bare bum and proceeded to whack him with the cane but could only manage three lashes before Woman once again came to the rescue.

A wild brawl broke out until Sandman and Woman got the better of their opponents and absolutely obliterated them with the cane.

Honestly, the post match stuff was a thousand times more entertaining than the actual match.

The Pit Bull (w/ Jason) vs. The Tazmaniac

Prior to the match, 911 came out and chokeslammed the referee again, much to the delight of the ECW faithful.

The match then began with a wild and entertaining brawl around the arena before making it to the ring where The Pitbull began systematically wearing down his opponent.

It made for a decent -though hardly spectacular contest- that came to and when The Tazmaniac made a comeback and busted out a barrage of suplexes.

He even suplexed Jason over the ropes but this distraction allowed The Pit Bulk to take his opponent down and win this good-by-1994-ECW-standards contest.
Your Winner: The Pit Bull

Before the next match, The Franchise Shane Douglas informed us that his rival, Road Warrior Hawk had injured his knee and wouldn’t be getting involved tonight.

ECW When World's Collide 1994 Review - Shane Douglas



The ECW Champion then said something about Ric Flair, but loud music was playing so it was impossible to hear him because early-ECW’s production values were atrocious.

Handicap 4 vs. 3 Elimination Match
ECW World Heavyweight Champion The Franchise Shane Douglas, Mr: Hughes, and The Public Enemy (Flyboy Rocco Rock & Johnny Grunge) vs. J.T. Smith and The Bruise Brothers (Ron & Don Harris)

With Road Warrior Hawk no longer able to compete in this match, it became a handicap match.

The bout started slow but soon developed into a gripping contest.

The heels spent most of the time kicking J.T. Smith’s leg out of his leg but the valiant babyface refused to quit.

Although this dragged at parts, it was mostly compelling.

The only real complaint was that the camera man once again missed an important moment as Douglas, Mr. Hughes, and The Bruise Brothers all started brawling on the outside.

The first we became aware of it was when the camera cut awkwardly to the four brawling in the stands as the referee counted them all out for a mass elimination.

Back in the ring, The Public Enemy continued their assault on Smith’s dodgy wheel, but the youngster caught each one with a quick roll-up and miraculously emerged as the sole survivor of the match.
Your Winner: J.T. Smith

Honestly, I’m surprised at how good that was, but not as surprised as Public Enemy were about losing.

Naturally, the two attacked Smith after the bell and left him down and out.

Sabu & Beautiful Bobby Eaton (w/ Paul E. Dangerousy and 911) vs. Terry Funk & Arn Anderson

Before the match could commence, Paul E. Dangerously took to the microphone to rile up the crowd and put his men over.

Terry Funk and Arn Anderson then made their way out and engaged in the best match of the night and the most enjoyable ECW match I’ve seen since I first started reviewing the company’s early shows.

In true extreme fashion, this was wild and out of control in the best possible sense.

At one point halfway through the match it was also pretty funny.

Arn Anderson called his former tag team partner Bobby Eaton into the ring to fight him, but Terry Funk ruined his partner’s plans by attacking Eaton on the outside. It was so typically Funk that I couldn’t help but chuckle.

Even funnier was Joey Styles listing Bobby Eaton’s credentials.

“And he was in the Midnight Express with Stan Lane who is now…well I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing, but he shouldn’t be doing it!”

I don’t know why but that was so funny and redeemed Styles from trying to convince us that the piss poor Singapore cane match was extreme wrestling at its finest.

Stan Lane was, of course, commentating for the WWF at the time.

Enough about him though, this was a hugely entertaining brawl which came to an end following an attack on Terry Funk by The Public Enemy.

Anderson saw off Rock and Grunge the way nu-metal would a few years later, only to turn on his partner and attack him with a chair.

Sabu then applied a half crab and this one was done.
Your Winner via submission: Sabu & Arn Anderson

Backstage after the match, Paul E. paid off Public Enemy for their run-in and then cut a brilliant promo questioning why on earth Terry Funk would want to get involved in a match with The Public Enemy.

ECW When World's Collide 1994 Review - Paul E. Dangerously w/ The Public Enemy



Though this would have made more sense if we’d actually seen Funk challenging Flyboy and Johnny to a match against he and his brother, Heyman’s promo was absolutely incredible.

Offering a response, Terry Funk ended When Worlds Collide with a single, solemn line:

ECW When World's Collide 1994 Review - Terry Funk



“Who are we? We’re the Funk Brothers.”







/——-

Watching the evolution of ECW from their early 1993 shows onwards has been absolutely fascinating.

Those first few shows that I watched sucked, and while this one was hardly perfect, you can see the company get better and better with every show as they continue to morph into the game-changing extreme revolutionaries they would go down in history as.

The main event was awesome and the elimination match was better than anticipated, but there was also some boring stuff here like the Singapore cane match.

ECW still had a long way to go then, but they were clearly getting there.

Still, if you really must watch an event of this name, watch AAA/WCW When World’s Collide because not only was it far superior to this event, it was one of the greatest Pay Per Views of all time.


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