From the “I sure never remember that happening” file, someone sent me this match of Stan Hansen in ECW. I mean, it makes sense – Stan wouldn’t have been under contract to WCW as he was mostly working Japan at the time, thus if he was around it would have been an easy payday for him to head to Philly for a bit. Still, it’s weird as I have zero recollection of it but here it is on record as he’s in a handicap match against the team of Twisted Steel & Sex Appeal.
Ah, the chyron helps tell the story – this was pre-Extreme, back in its original incarnation of EASTERN Championship Wrestling. Not gonna lie, until Shane threw the belt down and got everyone into a tizzy, I was not following the group at all. You can have all the Don Muraco and Jimmy Snuka matches you want, but by 1993 that wasn’t something setting the world on fire.
But Stan Hansen pummeling geeks? THAT I am onboard for, and he immediately just start beating these two mercilessly.
A short biel throw is followed by one of these fools daring to hit Stan with a drop kick. I love it that he doesn’t even bother to sell it, instead just bulldozing the poor ham and egger and tossing him out of the ring.
The cool thing about Hansen (well, ONE of the cool things) is how he could make any move look brutal. You wouldn’t think an elbow smash would ever look different, but this one looks like he took the poor bloke’s head clean off.
And this is less a suplex than a THROW. Dude appears to have been split in half upon landing.
But Stan ain’t being paid by the hour, so he murderizes him to end things with the lariat. Say it with me kids – STAN HANSEN IS AWESOME.
And just to put an exclamation point on things, he ties up the other guy to the ring post and attempts to strangulate him. A quick glance into the crowd shows the straw hat guy. No wonder he stuck around until the bitter end of this company – he was probably waiting for Stan to come back for more destruction. His time in ECW may have been brief, but rest assured the Lariat will return to SQUASH of the WEEK for years to come!