My Message to WWE After First Broadcast of New ECW - June 14th, 2006 - Sledge's Wrestling Journal

By: Chris "Sledge" Douglas

A few things you need to know before reading this.

Are you ready?

Number 1:  In 2005, I saw One Night Stand and LOVED it.  As an old-school ECW-ite, I really appreciated WWE going out and making an ECW-dedicated pay per view.  I got together with some friends and enjoyed the hell out of the show.

Number 2: In 2006, I saw the second One Night Stand, and enjoyed that as well, though perhaps on a slightly lower level.  I think the novelty had worn off somewhat, but the matches were still all really good and still captured the FEEL of ECW.

Number 3: When WWE's relaunch of ECW was announced, I was stoked.  While before I would have thought something would have been amiss, with the past two ONS' being so great, all of that cynicism was completely absent.  The WWE had my trust.

And this happened:

And my hopes fell through the floor.

Don't get me wrong, I was happy that guys that I liked to watch were employed and making good money. But I... well, let's just let the me of 2006, still snugly living in Japan, explain it:

What did I just see?  Was that a joke? What the hell was that on Sci-Fi???  That was NOT ECW. Words cannot describe my utter disappointment in this show.

I've been watching ECW since 1995 and everything I thought could possibly go wrong with this show has. After the PPV, I thought that I was getting the old ECW back.  I was really hoping that at least this new ECW would at least be better than Velocity, but I was wrong. This is a second rate version of the regular WWE product.  The Sandman drinking beer amongst ten year olds is just utterly retarded.  Don't get me wrong I love Sandman but with this generic/cheesy entrance music it's just really boring. The crowd was WWE through and through.  Families?  ECW is NOT supposed to be for famillies.  WHat the hell is up with all those damn kids???? You pushed WWE guys at every point, burying those that actually have ECW roots.  

Vampires and Zombies, I'm aware of what channel I'm watching already, thanks! All the little things were done wrong and this had no "ECW" feel to it at all. 

ECW is dead before it even got a chance to be reborn. They did it all wrong from the beginning. I thought it was supposed to be shot differently and have a different feel from Raw and Smackdown? What happened to that plan? It looked just like Raw, only much worse. They should have had it in a more fitting ECW type arena. They should have used different cameras and camera angles. It needed the grittier feel of the old ECW. John Cena should have gotten booed out of the building like he did on Sunday. There was barely any reaction to him or even RVD. I wish they would just call this whole thing off immediately. I will never understand why you guys did this...

If you keep this up for very long, I won't be watching past the end of June. 

Thank you for reading.

I know that I should have been happy that they tried SOMETHING.  And, needless to say, I'm A LOT more forgiving now.  And I know that they DID try to do something slightly different at first, even though I couldn't see it at the time.  But I felt like a bit of who I was was being encroached upon.  And whether or not that was reasonable or not, that's how I felt.

Thank you for reading.

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The Ultimate Warrior, and the Start of my Wrestling Fandom - Sledge's Wrestling Journal

The above photo is a picture of the very thing that got me hardcore into wrestling. On my eighth or ninth birthday, a friend gave me that issue of WWF Wrestling Spotlight. It detailed his career from his entry into the WWF, to his surprise Intercontinental title win. through his feuds with Hercules Hernandez, the Heenan family and others.

I was aware of the WWF of course well before that. I used to catch swaths of the saturday morning cartoon, Hulk Hogan's Rock 'n Wrestling, and I was familiar with the feud between Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper. In the years that followed, I caught glimpses of the Snake Pit as I would change channels, and I would see my father coming home with a rented VHS copy of Wrestlemania 2.

I was not allowed to watch the product, even though it was incredibly family friendly. I eventually just let it be, only catching the odd glimpse of Hillbilly Jim and Ricky Steamboat matches on USA.

Until this magazine.

I read it cover to cover, back and forth until the damn thing fell apart. I brought it to school, and read it during my lunch times. My teachers noted that I would spend my time reading this one magazine issue over and over again, rather than do my school work, and it damn near got me in serious trouble.

I was a wrestling fan, yet I had NEVER seen an entire match all the way through, much LESS a whole wrestling show.

It was shortly after my tenth birthday in 1990 when everything changed. My little eyes caught a glimpse of the advertising for Wrestlemania VI. Seeing Hulk Hogan and this guy that I had only read about for almost 2 years advertised as going up against each other REALLY piqued my interest BIG TIME. Finally, the dual combo of seeing Warrior as champ, and Hogan being attacked by Earthquake on the Brother Love show was the straw the broke this fat camel's back, and I've been watching ever since.

Warrior the person since then has turned out to be something of a... well... nutjob according to most accounts. He was ultra right wing, with his catch phrase seemingly swithing between "Always Believe" and "queering don't make the world work." I also moved on, becoming more interested in Hogan's carreer, and later in more obscure stuff. Nonetheless, I was always impressed with no matter how intense he was in the ring, he was just as intense in his personal life.

And while I do not respect his beliefs, and NO ONE has to respect this garbage even if the man has died...

... I still am grateful for him ramping up my interest in this industry.

And it all started with a single magazine.

- Chris "Sledge" Douglas

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How It All Began For Me: Japanese Pro-Wrestling, Part 2 - Cactus Jack vs W*NG Kanemura - Sledge's Wrestling Journal

Having just gotten into Japanese pro-wrestling with the Small Town Street Fight, I was in a death match frenzy.  ECW was still on the air Friday nights at 2a.m. on MSG during this time, and was often the closest thing.  But I wanted to see more of the insane Japanese variety of weaponized puroresu.

I knew of Cactus Jack from seeing fleeting clips of WCW, and having seen some of the many evem then classic ECW clips for the tapes they were advertising every week on ECW TV.  So when I saw that there was this crazy Japanese match with a US wrestler I had started to become familiar with, I wanted to see it.



UPDATE:  The video has been removed by the uploader.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

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How It All Began For Me: Japanese Pro-Wrestling, Part 1 - The Small Town Street Fight (BJW) - Sledge's Wrestling Journal

It's unbelievable looking back at this match, and realizing that THIS was my FIRST exposure to Japanese Pro-Wrestling... EVER!

Let me put it this way. This is how I thought MOST puroresu was!

Just amazing how much things can change! Still, this is an amazingly nostalgic match!

Here is a blurb from TheWrestlingMania that I think says it all:

Kendo Nagasaki Vs. Bruiser Okamoto Vs. Seiji Yamakawa Vs. Yosuke Kobayashi Vs. Yuichi Taniguchi (July 1, 1995) BJW Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan 5-Way Elimination Grocery Store Death Match A fridge, a toaster, a toy dispenser, a fishing net, a broom, bags of rice, cardboard, beer bottles and crates, an avocado, a bicycle, raw ham, cash registers, water melons, a large fish, and the most useful of the offensive weapons, whipped cream. If these are all items you desire to be used as weapons in a pro-wrestling contest, then this is for you. When Kendo Nagasaki gets tired of watching two youngsters fight in a make shift ring in the middle of a shopping complex in Japan, all Hell breaks loose. With hilarious production sound effects and music. An array of bemused, confused, and scared onlookers watching on. This is a death match that could only happen in Japan. Nevermind your Steve Austin and Booker T supermarket tussle, this has it all. Not to be down played by the humour though, this is brutal

Honestly, my favorite part of the match has to be a tie between the three-piece band and the cheerleaders!

...

Ok, it was the cheerleaders.

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My Trip to the Eagle Sawai Retirement Show, May, 2007 - Sledge's Wrestling Journal

Originally posted on Sledgecorp Productions.

By: Chris "Sledge" Douglas

You know that Eagle Sawai Retirement Event?

Well, I decided to go. It was my first joshi show here...

AND IT TOOK ME TWO YEARS OF BEING HERE TO F'CKIN' DO IT! Unbelievable that it took me that long.

Anyway, I got alot to write, but since I just got back from that very event, I am COMPLETELY beat, so I'll write up a full, well, write up of my trip.

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