Background: Getting ready for Terry Gordy & “Dr. Death” Steve Williams, The Eliminators decided to challenge The Gangstas for the ECW Tag Team Championship to make a dream match into a golden one.
Hardcore TV
Philadelphia, PA
October 5, 1996
The Gangstas vs. The Eliminators
The champs came running in with plunder, but it was the challengers who took advantage of the insanity by rushing the entering Gangstas to put them on the mat. Rather than ending this one early after hitting a pair of ace crushers, Perry Saturn decided to mock The Gangstas. This allowed both New Jack and Mustafa to get up and bash both challengers with a ladder clothesline. With garbage taking up a large section of the ring’s middle, The Gangstas made sure to give their challengers some painful landings whenever they knocked them down. Saturn was the first to recover and swing the momentum in the challengers’ favor; leading to a fistfight between all four men. Grabbing a crutch, New Jack put Saturn in the front row to execute a diving clothesline topped by a fan assisted chair shot. The fight was spilling into the blood thirsty crowd chanting, “E-C-Dub!” By the time the action returned inside, John Kronus was going wild for no apparent reason.
There was a strange edit that went from Kronus cursing at the fans to New Jack’s bloody forehead being shown front & center. On the other side of the ring was Saturn getting low blowed with a nightstick. Another edit happened leading to Mustafa slamming Kronus – who was just pummeling Jack before the scene cut – in position for his partner’s diving chair drop that gave New Jack the pin for his team.
Winner: The Gangstas (5:33)
Is It A Classic: It was announced that the match went eleven minutes, but with all of the cuts (most likely to fit TV time) the viewing audience only got half of the match. Hard to judge the quality on that merit alone, but for what was shown it turned out to be a typical Gangstas match featuring a bunch of plunder and brawling.
