411’s Dark Side of The Ring Report: “Enter Sandman: Legacy of a Hardcore Icon”

-ECW gets a turn this week on Dark Side and I think this is the first episode to cover mostly ECW since the one on New Jack (I may be forgetting one). Let’s get to it!

-Chris Jericho is still our narrator!

-The Producer asks Sandman to talk about his entrance and what it’s like. He takes us through his entrance and his thought process as he would go through it. I only ever got to see his entrance once and that was during WWE’s ECW when they came to Rostraver. That was the show where RVD got busted on the road heading to the next town and had to forfeit the WWE Title. Obviously, Sandman’s entrance wasn’t what it was in ECW, but it was still cool. RVD says Sandman’s entrance was a party and once that was over, he had to wrestle.

-Sandman introduces himself and it seems everyone calls him Hack. He was given that name as a kid and his parents and children all call him that. He is even Poppy Hack to his grandchildren. His introduction to wrestling was WWF on Saturday afternoons and he always wanted to be a pro-wrestler.

-Sandman talks about his first major run in with the law as he was coked up and broke into a house. He spent a night in jail and got into a fight with a friend and ended up punching a guard. He didn’t have new charges added, but was put in the hole for six months. He gets out of jail in 1984 and goes to a new club that holds 2000 people. He starts dancing with a blonde, who pulls him off the dance floor and all he can think is, “where am I going to have sex with this chick?” They go to an office upstairs and she asks him to pull his shirt off as he is thinking how he can screw her in this little office. It seems she wasn’t interested in sex, but was scouting him to be a Chippendale Stripper. He ended up leaving the club at 2 AM after snorting coke and then had an after hours party before the next club opened at 6 AM. He did the stripper job for a year and was paid $100, but got fired for soliciting. The cops wanted Sandman to roll on his boys, but he refused so he opted to quit.

-Next we meet Lori Strzelecki, ex-wife, who was known as Peaches in ECW. She tells the story of how they met and how Sandman wasn’t the type of guy she would fall for usually. He told her that he loved her quickly, and they had to rush to get married as she was pregnant and Sandman didn’t want the baby born out of wedlock. She notes Sandman was in construction at the time but a wrestling school had opened run by Joel Goodhart. He paid the guy the money and was wrestling in a ring within six months.

-Sabu mentions he first met Sandman when he was still doing the Surfer gimmick. A promoter gave him the name Sandman and Lori her Peaches name. Kelly Fullington is next and she is Sandman’s daughter. She knocks Sandman for his stupid surfer gimmick and cracks on her mom for the bodysuit she had to wear. There is some sweet old school Indie footage included here!

-Tod Gordon notes the gimmick was crap, but Sandman was good in the ring. He also introduces himself as the creator and founder of Extreme Championship Wrestling. I know there is some weird history with the promotion from Philly and how it started with Goodheart and then to Gordon before he sold to Heyman, who then sold to Vince. He says he and Sandman have been best friends since they met thirty years ago.

-Eastern Championship Wrestling was a struggling indie promotion in Philadelphia that was saved when Paul Heyman was brought into the company. Tod says Paul was the right guy because he had a great mind for the business. Sandman says Heyman is the greatest mind in the history of pro-wrestling and he would not be sitting here if it was not for him. “Creatively nobody can touch him or is even close to him.” He told Sandman the first night he saw him that the surfboard was getting broken over his head. Then Sandman forgot his boots one night and Heyman told him he didn’t care which was a light bulb moment for Sandman. “I don’t have to wear wrestling boots.” It made him realize he didn’t even need to change and could just be himself out there. His daughter knew that meant Sandman could never walk to the ring like any typical wrestler ever again.

-Commercials!

-Sandman wanted to figure what others had not done. He is the guy who loses a game of pool in a bar and tries to get into a fight. His notes that his real life was a gimmick. Hey daddy, it’s Bill Alfonso and he lets us know he is a 40 year veteran of wrestling. Sandman had ideas in his head that he thought would work in ECW and there was trial and error which was fine with Heyman.

-Raven (YES) is next, and for those who don’t know, Raven is one of the favorite wrestlers of all time. When I first started writing for 411 (which just surpassed 16 years last week) my initial reviews where titled, “From The Bowery,” because of Raven. He says part of being a good worker is getting your character over and keeping him over.

-Sandman says he came through the crowd and starts cracking up laughing before even spitting the story out. He got the idea from being in a strip club and coming in through the back with the strippers.

-RVD is the next ECW Legend and says they trusted Sandman even with all the alcohol he drank. Sabu and RVD said they could trust Sandman to work when he was drunk. Sabu, “You’re not drunk? I’m not wrestling you.”

-Sandman says they Singapore cane came from the Michael Fay incident. For those too young to know, he got busted in Singapore for spray painting property, vandalizing cars, and stealing road signs and his punishment was being caned four times. Heyman wanted to use it and told Sandman he would start bringing the weapon with him to each match. At first Heyman ripped a branch off a tree and told Sandman to wrap tape around it and cut a promo.

-That leads to the angle with Tommy Dreamer that made Dreamer the heart of ECW from that point forward. Great stuff! Sandman says that moment made both of their careers. Sandman talks about the Hardcore style and how he felt it was violence for a reason and not violence just for violence. He notes wrestling is entertainment and you don’t always need wrist-locks, and drop toe-holds.

-Tyler Fullington, is here, and now I feel old! That’s the little boy from ECW? Again, I’m old! He talks about his dad becoming famous and the road schedule his dad had. He thought it was cool his dad was a wrestler, but at times he would rather just have him home.

-ECW’s popularity explodes which leads to them trying even crazier angles. Sandman notes he had Nancy (listed as Benoit here) with him and that was great for his career. Raven puts over how smart Nancy was and Sandman listened to any suggestion she had. RVD talks about smarks and how they were hip to what was happening in ECW. Heyman had the idea to have Macaulay Culkin play Sandman’s son. Sandman says to just use his son, who is outside in a van, and Heyman agrees. Gordon notes that was a lie as Paul had no connection to Culkin. The producer says everyone knows that story. “He could sell you snowballs in the winter.” Tyler says he was six and his parents asked if he wanted to be part of the show. “I guess.”

-Commercials!

-Raven turns Tyler against Sandman after earlier turning Lori against him. Raven calls their feud one of the greatest in the history of the business but admits he may be biased since he was part of it. He talks about how everyone knows someone divorced and how they use their kids to get things. Lori isn’t sure how it all started and says they coached Tyler in the back. Sandman told him to make sure he never smiled and they dressed him like Raven. “Daddy, you’re a drunk and now I worship Raven.” The ECW crowd didn’t even know how to react as there was no booing or cheering. It just went dead silent as this was some deep shit. Raven says Tyler is an amazing actor who never missed a spot. Raven notes he would be drunk practicing promos and would screw them up, but Tyler would cover and always hit his lines. Looking back now Tyler knows it was pretty crazy, but at the time he was a kid.

-Lori says it turned her life upside down as they had to leave in separate cars. They would meet at gas stations to all get back together but had to make sure no fans were around. Kelly says that her mom and dad were in the spotlight, but the family did all this together. She talks about the promo Raven did at a park in New York at 2 AM because it looked great. Tyler: “I had one line and got to go back to sleep.” Lori says it got to be too much and she could not do it anymore and could not do it to her children anymore.

-Raven talks about the idea of putting Sandman on a cross to feel his pain. He knows he can’t build a cross, but Sandman says he will do it as we learned earlier, he used to be in construction. They put a barbed-wire crown on Sandman and tie him to the cross. Again, this was too much for even ECW’s crowd as they were shocked. Kelly notes he wasn’t raised to be very religious, but knew it was insane and she knew there were religious people out there watching.

-Commercials!

-Sandman thought it was great as Stevie Richards was yelling that it was messed up as he was tying Sandman to the cross. Once backstage Sandman was telling everyone it was great and Raven was wondering why people were complaining that there was too much heat on the heat. Sandman: “Everything was great except Kurt Angle had to be in the building that night.” We get audio of Angle losing his mind over the angle and telling Paul to never show his face on ECW TV with that angle. Heyman lies that he had no idea it was happening, but even a young Angle knew that as a promoter he was full of shit. Raven has to go out and make a public apology, but Sandman was heated as he felt they did nothing wrong and walked away from it.

-Life on the road and the extreme nature of ECW is taking a toll on Sandman. He talks about his various injuries including a broken neck and needing both shoulders replaced. He had an operation on his knee and came to the ECW show that night while still on crutches. Lori says she got a call that Sandman had such a severe concussion that he could not remember anything. She says that was early on in his career and there were countless times after that. She told him he would not be able to do things with his children, but it’s all wrestlers know. Sandman says you suck it up and keep moving.

-Sandman never took pills, but the pain got to be too much, so he took a couple which lead to a couple more. Then you need xanax to sleep and cocaine to get yourself back up. His daughter knew what was in his fanny pack. His son just knew it as pain meds and his dad needed it for his back and to keep working.

-Gordon had a joke that if you could pass a piss test, you couldn’t work for ECW. Ha! Sandman says they had three doctors they would see in Philly and each month would get 270 oxy, 300 somas, and 300 percs. His kids saw the drug problem getting worse as they got older. His daughter knew what the pills were and she knew what the bag of coke was. That’s sad she had to see her father like that. RVD tells a story of getting mushrooms from a friend, but he never got them as Sandman ate the entire bag.

-Fonzie notes that Sandman should be dead. He and Raven tell a road story about stopping in a bathroom and shooting themselves up with drugs. Sandman tries it for the first time and shoots up the same amount as Raven, who is used to it. Sandman’s starts having trouble breathing and his lips are turning blue. Raven laughs, “holy shit, he’s overdosing.”

-Commercials!

-Commercial for The Rock’s 4 Part Event on The Death of WCW. Can’t wait! It premieres on June 4th at 10 and by the preview they have Bischoff, Booker T, DDP, Goldberg, Russo, and Nash. Well, at least they are getting the main people involved. I assume no Hogan!

-Sandman is taken by ambulance and given a shot of adrenaline. He wakes up 4 AM and rips the stuff out of his arms and went to a hotel. He loved the feeling off the drug, but knew he could never do it again. He never told his wife, but she found out when the hospital bill came in the mail.

-We are moving towards the ending days of ECW and Sandman gets the call from WCW. Sandman is making five times as much as he did in ECW. He wanted to get bigger and started on steroids and growth hormones. He only did it because WCW as the land of the giants. RVD laughs as Sandman got jacked for the first time ever. The roids also have an effect on his personality and made Sandman an abuser to Lori. She notes she had her hair pulled and a pillow put over her face. She says the mental abuse was harder than the physical.

-We get a story of Sandman pouring a beer on his wife’s head. Fonzie says it would not have happened had he not been on the gas. She got revenge by dumping his $10,000 shipment of roids down the drain. Tyler says it sucked and it hurt, but he didn’t know how to help or what to do. Sandman admits he put Lori through hell and if he had his shit together, they might still be together. Lori says she stayed too long, but finally made a decision and didn’t want to live like that anymore. Sandman again says it was all his fault and Lori was an angel.

-Commercials!

-Season Finale next week: Black Saturday!

-ECW closes in 2001 and WWE buys the assets. Sandman gets his chance in the WWE, and Raven notes it was watered down but society had changed. We will always have his entrance at One Night Stand. Tyler notes that was not the ECW the fans knew and not the ECW he knew. Sandman did get his one WrestleMania moment at least.

-Sandman is out of a job and his career is basically over. Kelly gets a phone call at work that her dad had been arrested. Her and Tyler drove to New York to find a lawyer, and saw their dad, who looked physically hurt. “What happened?” Sandman says 30 Long Island Ice Teas happened. It led to a fight with the owner of the bar and a bottle hitting him in the head. The kids had to run around to ATM’s all over the place to get $10,000 for bail and they were able to get him out at 3 AM. To her credit, Kelly bitched her father out and says no kid should have to do that. Sandman breaks down a bit talking about his kids having to do that.

-Lori wants Sandman to move on and she hopes that all of them can let everything go. Sandman admits he has had personal destruction and it hits him now that he is older. Tyler wants his dad to note that even through the bad, his dad put in hard work and is self-made. He lived his life dream and there has to be an ending. Kelly says there will never be another Sandman and she hopes her dad can move forward.

-Raven puts over that we will never see anyone get over with drinking, smoking, and wrestling in sweatpants. Sandman says his legacy is the first person to do a lot of shit like bleeding before his match, smoking on his way to the ring and entering through the crowd.

-This was a solid episode that was lighter than some of the recent ones. It was a familiar story with drugs and steroids leading to family issues. The talking heads were all great, but I found Raven to be the most engaging. Any ECW fan will likely enjoy this one, but there wasn’t too much new ground covered. Some of this was covered on the Rise and Fall of ECW DVD, but that’s bound to happen when the subject matter is similar. It seems like his kids are doing well which is good to see, and Sandman sounds like he is taking accountability for his actions. His wife was a saint for dealing with all his crap, and she was justified in leaving him obviously. Overall, a solid episode that had a few moments of levity thanks to the way some of the talking heads would tell the stories. Thanks for reading!