Features:
Description:
This anthology of wrestling mayhem from Extreme Championship Wrestling promises an "emotional barbed wire hell," and it delivers. In one gory match, Terry Funk, whose specialty is taking more punishment than any sane person could stand, meets the evil and vicious Sabu in a ring surrounded with barbed wire. In their battle for the ECW World Heavyweight championship, it doesn't take long for them to be smeared with blood, beating the hell out of each other while hopelessly entangled in strands of wire. It eventually takes several men with tools to cut them free as the announcer proclaims that the action just witnessed is too brutal to ever be shown on television. In another match Steve Austin, before he became "Stone Cold" and attained primetime stardom, battles in a "three-way dance" with other notorious bad asses Mikey Whipwreck and the Sandman. And Mick Foley, in his "Cactus Jack" persona, tangles with Terry Funk and gets burned (literally). Bonus footage includes an "aerial war" between Japanese and Mexican wrestlers that provides some diversion from the usual hardcore brutality, and in what's billed as the "Original Catfight," bad girls Beulah McGillicuddy and Francine drive the crowd wild by shedding all civility along with most of their clothing. While the production of this DVD is reasonably professional, that doesn't detract from the decidedly gnarly and low-rent feel ECW fans adore. Fans of more tame and cartoonish wrestling should be warned that the blood does flow freely in some of these matches. --Robert J. McNamara
| 
