[2000-03-12-ECW-Living Dangerously] Dusty Rhodes vs Steve Corino (Bullrope)

[Superstar Sleeze]

Dusty Rhodes vs Steve Corino - ECW Living Dangerously 2000

 

ECW's presentation at this point was abysmal. "Quit being a heel" "Oh try to put the heat on me" Everything was a shoot and this horrible fucking Network angle. Before this match, Corino goes a tirade against Sandman's wife calling her a whore and saying that he was the only guy she hadn't put over. Then he manhandles her into the ring. His boys Rhino & Jack Victory are in the ring. Sandman saves, but Rhino GORES Sandman's wife through a table. He does not take it easy on her. Thank God wrestling has advanced beyond these horrible, tasteless man on woman violence angles.

 

Corino calls himself the New American Dream and here comes the Real American Dream. Lots of slow crowd brawling. I will say there is lots of blood and they carve each other pretty good. It is 2000 so Dusty was not exactly in the best condition. I didn't think Corino did enough to carry this. The finish was good with a Bionic Elbow to the cowbell taped onto Corino's head.

 

ECW sucked in 2000.

 

 

[soup23]

This starts off with Corino running down Lori Fullington with a berating promo calling her a whore. She slaps Corino and gets into the ring. Sandman rushes out but gets beaten down by Corino, Victory and Rhino. Lori takes a gore through the table and the crowd chants E C Dub. Dusty comes out and we have the match proper. The match isn’t bad but certainly not great IMO with a heavy dose of cowbell shots and brawling around the building. The blood helped to add some drama to everything. I really didn’t like the finish as the taping of the cowbell on top of Corino’s head looked way too contrived and required a lot of assistance from the referee. **3/4

[Loss]

The pre-match promo from Corino is good heeling, but I really hate the angle, both because it's beyond tasteless and also because Lori Fullington's facial expressions are like second-rate Diana Hart Smith. This is a different type of brawl than you usually get in ECW, which is probably why I liked it a lot more than the crowd. More slow-paced and driven by psychology and hate. Good for Dusty pulling out matches like this here and there in his 50s with an opponent that could make him look good. Not a great match or anything, but everything it needed to be. ***

[GSR]

Steve Corino insults the crowd then notices the Sandman’s wife, Lori Fullington, amongst them. He says how she’s a ‘hardcore icon’ in the ECW dressing room and that she’s had more of the wrestlers than Dusty Rhodes has had matches! He claims that Raven, the guy she left her husband for, was no ‘angle’, then calls Tyler a ‘bastard’ saying that Sandman isn’t even his real dad. Noting that Lori hasn’t ‘put him over’, he wants her to put him over on the PPV and refers to her as a ‘whore’. Lori slaps him, then Corino grabs her and throws her into the ring. Rhino is out and he and Jack Victory hold her while it looks like Corino is planning to sexually assault her on live TV. Sandman makes the save but Rhino cuts him off with a clothesline, piledrives him and gores Lori through a table. A bunch of security and officials head out to try and calm the situation while Sandman tends to his wife.

 

Corino is back and says “one whore down, on to go”, and he’s not waiting for later. He tells Dusty Rhodes that he’s the new American Dream around here and he’s going to kick his fat ass! The Dream is out and Corino is reluctant to get tied to the bullrope so Dusty with a bionic elbow and the referee is finally able to attach it to his wrist. Joey Styles points out that the official is H.C. Loc, who Corino and Victory bludgeoned in Milwaukee sending him to the hospital where he needed 53 stitches in his head. They establish that there is no escaping from your opponent as Corino attempts to roll out the ring but Dusty just yanks him back in. The Dream clocks him with the cow bell a couple of times then pulls Corino to the outside. For the next few minutes they head around the building and into the crowd hitting each other with the cow bell, with both ending up bloodied. When they return to ringside Victory attacks Dusty to give Corino the advantage. He digs the cow bell into his cut and then lays the Dream’s head across a steel chair that Victory had passed to him. Corino climbs the turnbuckles but is too slow, and Dusty uses the bullrope to pull him down and he goes crashing face first into the chair. The Dream uses the cow bell to rip at Corino’s upper arm, clocks him again in the head and Victory is up on the apron pleading that his man has had enough. Corino manages to fight back and wedges the chair between the turnbuckles. As he goes to ram Dusty into it, the Dream gets in there first. Victory throws Corino some tape but he drops it and Dusty picks it up. Bionic elbows for Victory and Corino, then with the officials help, they tape the cow bell to Corino’s forehead. Chair shot to the head, Loc gives Corino the finger and Dusty drops the elbow for the win.

 

Didn’t care for any of this. Corino’s promo felt desperate with the combination of ‘insider remarks’ and the use of words like bastard and whore. Then we have man on woman violence which is something I could do without too. For what it’s worth, that was one heck of a bump Lori took and looked like it could have easily broken her in half. The match itself wasn’t much either. The old ECW trope of fighting into the crowd ‘because that’s what you do in ECW in a gimmick match’, and both men bleed a fair bit. Finish was awful with the referee getting involved, even though Styles claimed it was payback for what they did to him in Milwaukee. It looked bad for starters and if Loc was going to involve himself, why didn’t he do anything earlier to counter Victory’s interference? Liked the start where they got over that there is no way to escape when you are tied to the bullrope, and Dusty ripping at the arm with the cow bell but that was it.

[Stiva]

It's been years since I've seen this and my fondness for it has diminished. Largely down to my weariness with brawling through the crowd but, to be fair, it was kept fairly short here but the match still does have it's pluses; Corino makes everything look great and getting that cowbell and tape out of his hair must have fucking sucked later on. Dusty is elder Dusty but he manages to make everything that should matter, matter but there's just something missing.

 

And yeesh, that opening angle. Terrible insider remarks topped off by really uncomfortably harsh man on woman violence. What a shitty time.