[1997-01-18-ECW-TV] Raven vs The Sandman

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Joined in progress with the BWO coming out. Sandman spits beer in Raven's eyes. He can't see. He starts attacking BWO guys then Stevie helps him see. Raven shoves Stevie and Stevie shoves him back. He finally works up the courage to stand up for himself, but Raven ducks and Sandman eats a superkick. They play it ambiguously at this point which side the BWO is on. Stevie does end up superkicking Raven, which pops the crowd in a big way. I don't know much about '97 ECW angles, but Raven/Richards is a feud I could get into.

 

The match continues after the run in, with Raven eating cane shots to the face while tied up in the ropes. The match just sort of ends, and Sandman takes Raven's belt with him.

 

Once again, I'm surprised at how much I enjoyed all of this.

[WingedEagle]

For a parody angle, they got quite a lot out of the BWO and I honestly thought they could've gone further with it. After including Stevie in the triangle match at Barely Legal it kind of fell off the map even though it seemed to have more steam behind it.

[CaptCabana]

I'm pretty sure they did have some big plans for Stevie, but then he injured his neck in a 4-way match at Buffalo Invasion when Terry Funk suplexed a guard rail on him. (Not sure if that's on this set or not). By the time he was healed up, both Raven and Richards were WCW-bound.

[WingedEagle]

That sounds pretty familiar as I definitely remember him being sidelined with a neck injury for longer than what it initially sounded like. And then he really never did anything in WCW, likely due to his condition.

[soup23]

We start with the BWO coming out and the crowd is hot as hell. The interplay between Stevie and Raven was good here with it not being clear who Stevies main targets were with both of his superkicks. The superkick to Raven got a huge pop. Stevie presents a BWO shirt to Sandman and then they bail. Sandman chokes Raven with the shirt. The action again isnt terribly interesting to me between Raven vs. sandman but the crowd is rabid and Joey makes a wise decision by laying low with the cane shots for full effect. Match ends with Sandman taking the belt.

[Kevin Ridge]

Big BWO chants from the crowd. Stevie was over with the ECW fans. Richards gets into it with Raven. He missed a superkick and hits Sandman but later nails Raven with one. Stevie awards Sandman with a BWO shirt but he ends up just leaving it in the ring. Did not feel like an official match since there was no referee.

[PeteF3]

Not really a match, sort of a re-do of the Webster Hall angle for the ECW Arena audience. This time the BWO stuff comes in the ring and it's a little more clear what they're teasing. Richards superkicks both Sandman and Raven and both times it looks like he might be aiming for the other. He offers Sandman a BWO t-shirt, which Sandman looks at quizzically before using it to choke Raven out. This ends with Raven tied in the ropes and beaten into unconsciousness with the Singapore cane and Sandman leaves with the belt, though not the champion. Crowd is really itching to get behind a full-fledged babyface Richards, and the clueless putz standing up for himself and becoming a "serious" wrestler is a pretty compelling angle that sadly wouldn't really see a payoff.

[KB8]

Most of this stuff is new to me so I was surprised to see how over the bWo/Stevie turn was with the crowd. The "who was he aiming for???" shtick felt a bit hokey, probably because Styles always comes across as corny to me on commentary, but folks in the live audience sure ate it up. I probably wouldn't go looking for this in its entirety, but it's obviously a hot angle. Also liked Sandman looking at the shirt like "what the fuck am I supposed to do with this?" before choking Raven with it. About as good a use as any, I guess.