The Furious Flashbacks – 3PW A Night for the Flyboy

The Furious Flashbacks – 3PW A Night for the Flyboy

Sabu goes for the gold in a tribute show for Ted Petty

On the day of 3PW’s last show Ted Petty died. He had a heart attack while driving to 3PW’s This One’s For You. He was slated to challenge “Pitbull” Gary Wolfe for the 3PW title. Seeing as he never made it to the show 3PW ran a hasty fill in match where Wolfe faced as masked man and beat him quickly. The tragic death cast a shadow over proceedings. Worst still, in retrospect, as 3PW foolishly called the masked replacement “Dead Man Walking” and gave him a mask that had X’s for eyes. Of course they weren’t to know but it ended up looking like a dick move by the company. But no one disliked Ted Petty; he was just one of those guys. Which is why there’s a Ted Petty Invitational in IWA-MS and Ted Petty tribute shows ran after his death. 3PW felt they owed Ted Petty a night of tribute. So here it is.

October 19th 2002. We’re in Philadelphia at Viking Hall.

We open with everyone in the ring and the crowd chanting “Rocco”. Tod Gordon gets the mic and talks about how respected and loved Ted Petty was. I like how Sabu manages to stay in character while being respectful. Johnny Grunge looks really upset. He gets a chance to speak and says Ted never would have wanted to miss this because he loved the ECW Arena. Grunge himself passed away in 2006 at the tragically young age of 39.

Joey Matthews v Josh Daniels

Its real hard to follow that. The best thing to do is just get into it. Daniels brings his personality-void and slick moves. Joey can’t help himself and heels it up like a schmuck. Crowd are not wanting that tonight and he should know better. Daniels brings the Benoit-esque intensity, which would be better without the exact moveset. They totally blow the nip up spot out of the corner and you know that Philly crowd isn’t going to forgive that. If you told me Joey Matthews was totally fucked up on drugs on this show I wouldn’t be even remotely surprised. Daniels wows the crowd with a 15 second delayed vertical suplex. Joey forgets to sell it. Jackass. Joey blows a clothesline and the only things he’s landing are super-stiff. He can’t find that middle ground. Daniels is quite happy to get violent and pops off a bunch of suplexes. Daniels tries to set stuff up and Joey is having none of it. Inverted DDT finishes for Matthews. *. I feel bad for Daniels who couldn’t get going with Joey being such an ass. I’ve seen him heel it up pretty good on previous shows but here his antics were totally out of place and he was too messed up to notice.

Rob Eckos v White Lotus

Lotus kinda reminds me of a tame Low Ki. Eckos shows ass as the heel, literally. The match is generally Eckos trying to make Lotus’ offence look better than it is. Lotus throws stuff into the match with no real rhyme or reason to it. Its like he’s seen a bunch of cool Indy spots and wants to try them out one after another. Eckos, by comparison, has a tonne of charisma and its enough for the crowd to not shit all over the match. Eckos is fast, good looking and he’s jerk. Which is perfect heel material. Tod Gordon must know it too because Eckos goes over blocking the sunset flip with two handfuls of rope. *1/2. Lotus needs greater intensity or he’s going nowhere. Also a name change would be a benefit. Eckos looks like a star in the making and I’m almost surprised he hasn’t caught on with the WWE. He only had one match there as a jobber. But now he’s caught on in TNA maybe that’ll help him get to the next level. On this showing he looks capable but inexperienced.

Jason Knight v Del Tsunami

Del is one of Jason’s trainees from Assault Championship Wrestling, which was his promotion at the time. I’m not sure I trust anyone who Jason trained. The commentators put over Jason’s excellent psychical condition. Yeah, he sure looks the part until he tries to wrestle. It doesn’t help that Del is so inexperienced. Seems Jason just wanted someone he could throw around. Jason treats him like a jobber and spends most of the match popping off suplexes and no selling stuff. The majority of Del’s moves involve him avoiding something. Knight wins with a Texas Cloverleaf, which he puts on sideways to make it look different. ¼*. A squash match to showcase Jason Knight, which is not something I ever thought I’d type. Oddly enough it even delivered with Jason looking impressive, for the most part, and it was enough to get him hired. He came back to face both Gary Wolfe & Blue Meanie on later shows.

Christian York v Roadkill

York goes a different way about getting cheap heat as he runs down Roadkill, his inability to speak and Philly in general so Roadkill belts him with the mic. The speed vs power battle is an easy story to tell. Especially with the heel being the quick guy. Every time Roadkill floors him its an easy pop. York tries to be Rob Van Dam and even goes after Hat Guy. If anything its Roadkill that disappoints. His offence isn’t sharp enough and his striking looks weak. I’m used to seeing him more on point. They fuck up another spot on the ropes and then re-do it. This is just the most obvious case of the bad chemistry they have. It could look worse if it wasn’t following such a bad opening trio of matches but as it stands Roadkill’s name is getting him his pops rather than the strategy. York tries to switch tactics and ground the big man. Remember York beat Ted Petty and took a place in the 3PW title tournament finals. He has a history of success in this company. During this match he does seem determined to work in RVD spots as if he wants to be this companies high-flying superstar in the long term. Unfortunately for York he blew his ankle ligaments the following month and practically retired. Roadkill blows a powerslam and they repeat the spot. Roadkill doesn’t look like he knows what he’s doing at times. Joey runs in and Roadkill mistimed that too as the heels collide. York rips off the Van Daminator for 2 and the bell is rung. Oops, they fucked up! If the intent was the get the crowd to chant “you fucked up” a lot during this match its sure working. Joey runs in again and this time Roadkill powerbombs him on York and adds a top rope splash for the win. *. Weak match with a litany of errors. Roadkill looked rusty as fuck, which I know isn’t true because I saw him work the month before. York was inconsistent but the majority of the big errors in the match were down to Roadkill.

Syxx-Pac v Ron “The Truth” Killings

Killings comes in as the NWA champion but the crowd hate him. Pac’s claim is that Killings has been ducking him in TNA and wants to prove himself in this match, which sets up a tidy storyline and shows the Indy love for TNA in the early days. Killings stalls forever and Pac grabs the mic again to point out no one came to see stalling. Killings is a little absorbed in his character and that isn’t good news for what could have been a solid match. Pac tries to embarrass him as the crowd mockingly chant “let’s get ROW-DAH”. Then they’re trading on the educated feet and Killings looks great…when he’s not arguing with the crowd. Or the ref. Or Waltman. Or anyone else within earshot. Ron is clearly intent on not looking like a sucker though and hiptosses Pac over the top and follows with a dive. High-flying Killings looks like he could even win the crowd over but Pac is intent on throwing kicks to get ahead. He actually looks limited, like he did against Sabu, but the crowd are happy to side with him against Killings. They wisely run a counter spot on the Broncobuster with Truth flipping out of the way. Awesome spot. Truth keeps flipping though and gets caught with the X-Factor for his troubles. Sabu runs in but miscues and Arabian facebusters Truth by mistake. Pac weakly chair shots him out of the ring and Killings, double finishered, is counted down. **1/4. Certainly a high spot during the night. They’re looking to further a Sabu-Waltman feud, which is simmering nicely, and Killings looked pretty cool here even though he lost. Although I think this was a fine example of how superior the TNA product is to 3PW, which is worrying.

Blue Meanie/Jasmine St. Claire v Rockin’ Rebel/Missy Hyatt

Oh no, I forgot they set this up on the last show. Rebel has been booked as a joke in this company and this match doesn’t do anything to correct that. Seeing as Meanie loves comedy that works ok. It helps that Meanie works Rebel in comedy spots rather than letting Jasmine & Missy catfight…but the crowd wants to see the opposite. Then they change their mind as the ladies crappy wrestling shames the business. Meanie sets up a comedy spit-roast spot with Missy as the victim. They even book Jasmine over Rebel on the pin although Rebel’s leg is on the rope and his arm is under it. DUD. This match really was a horror show of what’s wrong with wrestling. For starters the ladies looked like they’d never trained for anything. Secondly this whole concept is just there to put over the people who own the company, which is pure vanity booking. Thirdly nobody involved in this angle is feeling it. Jasmine looks worried she might fuck it up, Meanie looks like he’s worried he’s taking on too much and Rebel & Missy look like they don’t care.

POST MATCH Jasmine goes to strip but Meanie doesn’t like it. Tod Gordon sends his boy, Annihilation, out there to chokeslam him and Jasmine turns heel to leave with Gordon. To be honest I don’t give a shit about this angle or anyone involved in it. But hey, its their company. Jasmine’s insistence that she’s going to bring in her own star to battle for her honour is the only point of interest.

Curt Hennig v Jerry Lawler

Another wrestling tragedy; Mr Perfect. He died the following year. This is a continuation of 3PW’s aim of trying to mix up young talent with veterans. Booking the veterans pleases a certain section of the audience. So far most of the veterans have been a disappointment though. Lawler hates ECW so that gives us a storyline even though he wrestles quasi-babyface (which I totally don’t get). He’s back working WWE at the time but he’s an announcer so they don’t really care if he wrestles in his spare time. Both guys excel at selling but that means neither one wants to take the lead. Its like watching two really polite guys and an open door and they’re both standing back. “After you, dear sir”. “Oh no, I insist”. Which is funny because Hennig would quite happily go after Brock Lesnar on a plane but doesn’t want to go after Jerry Lawler in this shithole. Lawler busts out the STUNNER of all things for 2. It kinda makes sense because Hennig had a mini-feud with Austin during his recent WWE run. They switch focus with Hennig going down injured and Lawler taking the knee apart. Both guys are trying like hell to put the other one over. They would have been better off paired up with two guys who wanted to put on a showcase. Like say these two tagging against Rob Eckos & Josh Daniels. The veterans as the faces. Daniels showing more respect and then when he falls out with Eckos the pay-off match has heat on it, which they’re not really doing with their opening acts right now. Hennig lifts the piledriver and they are having fun out there. Hennig then moves on to the logical next step of working the neck. Lawler starts no selling and THE STRAP COMES DOWN! Hennig steals the win by getting the corner pin with his feet on the ropes, which is about right for a match between these two. The ref takes the word of Hat Guy over Hennig, which is brilliant and the match is re-started. Lawler promptly gets a roll up for the win. **. Some fun stuff in there but Hennig was too deteriorated for it to get to a higher gear. And yet by enjoying themselves and working within their limitations they had a better match than most of the undercard guys who were busting their asses and not getting anywhere.

3PW title – Gary Wolfe (c) v Sabu

Tod Gordon is in Sabu’s corner along with his bodyguard Annihilation. Wolfe’s title run has been a bust thanks to the untimely death of Ted Petty the previous month. Had Wolfe had the chance to defend his title before this it would have solidified his run. Gordon’s plan was clearly to put the belt on Sabu sooner or later. They try and find a way of combining Wolfe’s power and Sabu’s insanity. They opt for a chair duel but there’s no pay-off. No one takes a chair shot. This isn’t Awesome Vs Tanaka. Brawling on the floor seems to be the only way to get both guys into the match. When they’re in the ring they’re going for different shit. Sabu works in the Triple Jump Plancha and Wolfe blades on the floor. They try and one-up that spot with Wolfe DDTing Sabu through a table up on the stage. They’re so incapable of telling a story in the ring that Wolfe just throws Sabu back out when they finally make it back in. Sabu has a benefit of corner people to set up tables for him. Which prevents him wasting time setting stuff up and making all his spots convoluted. Triple Jump Moonsault scores and Sabu is getting his spots in. Wolfe does a great job of countering another one by pulling the chair away and whacking Sabu in the back with it.

This has actually been a serviceable match because they’ve gone all out for high spots. Wolfe up’s the ante again by powerbombing Sabu through that table that was set up. The best thing I can say about this match is that I can buy Wolfe winning it, which before the match I thought was too unlikely. Wolfe then breaks out the BURNING HAMMER but Gordon pulls Wolfe off the cover. It looked like Wolfe just decided to switch up his DVD at the last second. The good thing about this match is it is elevating the desperately poor 3PW title by having it defended in such circumstances. Wolfe seems to have the better of the match when he’s able to grab Sabu and throw him around. But this isn’t a straight up match or an environment where that’ll happen. However they’re starting to show the signs of a hard fought battle and they blow a DDT. Crowd is really polite and don’t even rag on them for it. Mainly because they know Sabu is intending to throw himself around the ring some more. Wolfe falling off a table draws their ire though and the follow up Arabian facebuster through a table is a mess. And sadly that’s the finish. **1/2. Had they known where to draw the line this would have worked out fine but they didn’t and they had to carry on until they ran into trouble. Both guys made huge mistakes during the supposed ‘hot streak’ at the end of the match where almost everything was blown. It wrecked their hard work leading up to that point and Sabu can be so frustrating when he has a spot in mind for the finish and can’t do it properly. Wolfe didn’t exactly help matters and the end of the match is rubbish.

The 411: While I’m sure Ted Petty would have appreciated the sentiment of putting on a show to honour his life and career this isn’t a good show. Wolfe & Sabu tried like hell to put on a great main event but only managed half of one. The match needed better structure and planning. They should have worked up towards the big spots and told a lucid story from that. The rest of the card is forgettable with Ron Killings the stand-out guy from the undercard and even he wasted half his match arguing with the fans. 3PW hasn’t really mastered the run-on booking and layered feuds that Paul Heyman masterminded in ECW and has opted to try and mimic the style of matches instead using many of the same talents. Sometimes it works but most of the time it does not.

Final Score:  4.5   [ Poor ]