[1995-12-12-ECW-TV] Steve Austin vs Mikey Whipwreck vs The Sandman

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

This starts with Austin/Mikey. Austin has cut his hair now and is starting to look like a star, despite getting heckled over it by the crowd. The crowd is bored by it, but I enjoy the chain wrestling with Austin and Mikey early on. They're having a pretty good match, then the Sandman's music starts, and I worry that the match is going to go to hell from here, but it doesn't! Sandman's drunken brawling is pretty fun and he and Austin go after each other pretty aggressively. From here, the match is Austin/Sandman with Mikey as a spoiler, which works. There are some pretty creative spots here -- a little hokey, but still fun. This was lots of fun -- totally blows away the more heralded 4-way from Heat Wave '96, which is a horrible match in every way I know how to express.

[Tim Evans]

Sandman looked out of it even before he got in the ring. Interesting to see the champ eliminated first. I didn't enjoy it as much as Loss but it was a good match. You can see shades of Stone Cold in Austin.

[DR Ackermann]

This matched turned out a lot better than I thought it would. Its sloppy but I think its tremendously fun and you've got some really interesting, somewhat inadvertent themes going on. You've got Austin wrestling two different types of matches here which mirrors Austin's style change over the years. The technical 'mechanic' as he calls himself going against Whipwreck early on and then the later brawling Austin going against Sandman. Its funny that people used to always compare Austin and the Sandman's gimmicks because the mirror theme continues as Austin and Sandman keep hitting each other with the same move at the same time and get hit simultaneously over and over by Mikey. Then Austin mocks Sandman by drinking beer and then the finish is Sandman and Austin mirroring each other once again using brass knuckles and ropebreaks but with separate results. Mirror madness!

[PeteF3]

Austin is now in full Ringmaster mode. Mikey has some great spots here, and is by far the best guy in the match. Sandman's overly slow entrance almost kills this, but they do some creative three-way spots back when this stip still felt fresh. Mikey hitting a cross body on Sandman while also enzuigiri-ing Austin was a cool spot. That said, the match suffers when Mikey gets eliminated. There's some okay brawling but also a lot of meandering. Austin foreshadowing his future persona by mocking Sandman was really fun in hindsight. Woman does her beer-revival trick on Sandman, then we get some bullshit involving a bumped referee and brass knucks that I don't think was really necessary. The little nod to O'Connor-Rogers with the ropes at the finish was clever enough, I guess. Sandman regains the ECW title and Woman now has all the gold in ECW. This isn't a classic, but it sure beats the fuck out of the Night the Line Was Crossed.