Fond memories

So, back in January of 1998 I went to an ECW house show. While poking around the internet the other day, I found a place where the results were posted. So, for fun, I've decided to review the show and share memories, over 13 (!) years after the fact.


January 23, 1998 - ECW - Waltham, Massachusetts:

The first thing I remember is that for Christmas I'd received the Sears version of a Leatherman multi-tool and forgot to take it off my belt. Security understandably didn't want me to bring it in, but it was a long hike back to my car and it was nearly show time. The security guy agreed to hold onto it, but it was up to me to find him after the show and get it back. I was able to do so without issue.

The tickets were general admission. I ended up with a seat right by the corner ring post. There was just one guy, wearing a Stone Cold t-shirt, between me and the guard rail.





Opening match: Jerry Lynn pinned Chris Chetti.

Lynn and Chetti did a solid, traditional wresting match. Nothing traditionally Extreme happened, and to my annoyance the crowd started chanting “Boring!”. I couldn't disagree more. It was a rock solid match, better then anything you'd see on Raw or Nitro at the time. It just didn't involve stop signs or tables.







Second match: Justin Credible pinned Spike Dudley.

This was pretty much a curb stomping by Credible, and got him some good heel heat. One thing I noticed was that there was a balcony area that the crowd didn't have access to, and New Jack was using it to watch the match. Also, Chastity was Credible's escort. When the obligatory “Show your tits” chant started, she responded with a gesture for female masturbation.







Third match: John Kronus pinned Paul Diamond.

This match carries one of my fondest memories of the show. Keep in mind that Perry Saturn had signed with WCW the previous summer, ending the Eliminators tag team with Kronus.

The match was quite back and forth, and ultimately Kronus hit a big move on Diamond to set up his 450 splash finisher. Kronus stepped through the ropes to climb the turnbuckle near where I was. He couldn't have been more then 6 or 7 feet from me, when the guy in the Stone Cold t-shirt yells out:

“Saturn sucks!”

Kronus stops climbing and looks at the guy. “Yeah, Saturn does suck!”

Stone Cold Guy: “Fuck Saturn!”

Kronus: “Yeah! Fuck Saturn!”

This whole exchange took a good 10 or 15 full seconds. Meanwhile, Paul Diamond is just laying there, playing at being stunned and waiting for the 450. After finishing his conversation with the fan, Kronus hit the 450 and got the win.

I can't help but wonder what was going through Paul Diamond's head while he was waiting for that 450.






Fourth match: Al Snow pinned Roadkill.

This was right as the Head gimmick was coming into prominence. I have a clearer memory of Snow's entrance, and just how totally into it the crowd was. People were chanting “Head! Head! Head!” enough to make their throats raw.






Fifth match: Axl Rotten, Balls Mahoney, and The Sandman defeated Little Guido, Tracey Smothers, and Tommy Rich

A solid match from the FBI. I remember Tracy Smothers was doing a lot of playing to the audience in typically humorous FBI way, and Sandman's reaction was to put his Singapore cane between his legs and make a masturbation motion. Also, whenever he was tagged out, Sandman was talking with the fans at ringside.





Sixth match: The Blue Meanie pinned Jason

This is odd. I'm a pretty big fan of the Meanie and the b.W.o., and I have absolutely no recollection of this match. I don't remember Meanie even being at the show.








Seventh match: Chris Candido and Lance Storm defeated The Dudley Boys

My favorite moment of the night came from this match. Candido and Storm had recently started tagging as part of the Triple Threat, so Storm still had a bit of a “new guy” vibe to him. The pair was escorted by Francine in a tight and slinky dress, and the Dudleys with Joel Gertner in his typical tux jacket with no shirt, and neck brace.

So, as with Chastity earlier, a huge “Show your tits!” chant starts during the introductions. The difference is that this one just won't stop. I'm used to hearing these things on ECW television and then generally peter out after a minute or so. Not this time. I know that Francine realizes that this comes with the territory of being the hot chick at an ECW show, and she's heard them thousands of times before, but even she seems to be getting annoyed by how relentless this one is. It feels like everybody in the room except me and my buddy Pete are chanting.

So, the match is about to begin, and the audience is STILL chanting. Lance Storm goes to lock up with D-Von Dudley, when D-Von suddenly holds out his hands in a “Wait a minute” gesture. Storm looks confused, but backs off.

D-Von then motions for Joel Gertner to enter the ring, and Joel does so, and has this really nervous look on his face. The chants continue. After three or four more iterations of the chant, Gertner suddenly pulls his tux jacket open, flashing his man-boobs.

The audience goes dead quiet. From deafening “Show your tits!” chant to so quiet you could hear a pin drop, in the space of half a second.

When it first seemed that the match was going to start, Francine had moved to an area that was out of the line of sight for most of the crowd, but where I could still clearly see her. When Joel flashed the audience I saw her hold her hand to her mouth to cover her laugh, but her body was visibly shaking from the force of her laughter.

The match itself was quite good, but couldn't top its opening.








Main Event: Television Champion, Taz, defeated Rob Van Dam.

This one was just crazy. Several big spots like you'd typically see on TV. At one point I narrowly avoided getting crushed by a flying Taz and took him to the lap instead. There were a lot of run-ins, enough that would be criticized as an over-booked finish these days, but was just the typical ECW craziness at the time.

The climax was when the Dudleys ran in and started attacking Taz. A few moments later Spike Dudley and New Jack ran in, each holding one end of a catering tray, presumably from back stage. They whacked Buh Buh Ray from behind, carrot sticks, broccoli, dip, and pastries going everywhere.

Ultimately, the face interference overpowered the heel interference and Taz won the match.






After the event was over, the exits got quite crowded. Since I was right by ringside, I knew it would be a while before I could get out, so I just stayed put. A moment later I noticed Spike Dudley return to ringside, so I complimented him on his match. He walked over to me and we started discussing the show. A moment later he noticed a brownie from the catering tray had landed on a nearby chair. He picked it up, broke it in half and gave me part while he munched on his and continued to talk. It was kind of neat, because he was talking to me as Matt Hyson, not Spike Dudley.

Eventually things had cleared out enough for me to leave, so Spike and I said our goodbyes and I headed out. Entering the main foyer of the venue, I saw a number of wrestlers leaving. What caught my eye was the Great Sasuke. I admit I was slightly puzzled, as I was aware of him touring with ECW at the time, but he hadn't performed during the show.


Overall? Absolutely wonderful time. In my time I have been to a WWF house show in the late 80s, the Raw in 2001 where Austin and the Rock sang Margaritaville together, a WCW house show two days before the Wolf Pac debuted on Nitro, an NCW show last year, and more local NECW shows then I can count.

This ECW show was by far the most fun of any of those shows.

Last night's D&D session

So, in my D&D 4e game I play a Dragonborn (humanoid dragon, basically) fighter named Koloth. The other characters are:

Veeks - Elf barbarian (yes, seriously)
Froderick - Halfling sorcerer
Sariel - Eladrin (high elf) wizard
Xander - Elf cleric
Khait - Elf thief and Xander's half-sister.

And having just typed that, I only just realized how many damn elves we have.

Okay, a little bit of game mechanics, so that this story will make sense: In the current version of D&D, the highest possible character level is 30, and they divide the levels into 3 tiers. 1-10 is Heroic, where you're considered to be just a typical adventurer. 11-20 is Paragon, where your characters are more of a big deal and some of the higher powers are starting to notice you. 21-30 is Epic, where your characters pretty much become demigods.

I once summed up the tiers as regular guy --> Batman --> Superman.

When you hit Paragon, you get to choose something called a Paragon Path, which gives your character a few additional abilities. In my case I selected Scion of Arkhosia, a Dragonborn-specific path which gave me wings that allow for short distance flight, and more control over my breath powers.

When you hit Epic, you get to select an Epic Destiny, which is like a Paragon Path, just more powerful.

Technically, by the rulebook, you get your Path/Destiny as soon as  you hit the appropriate level, the GM wants to incorporate them into the story. Therefore we don't gain them until a thematically or dramatically appropriate time. In Koloth's case, I didn't get my Paragon Path until nearly to level 12, and its sometimes taken longer for other characters.

The only other game mechanic thing I can think of that is important is the concepts of Short Rests and Extended Rests. Short rests are a quick breather that allow you to regain some of your spent abilities, and heal a little. Extended Rests are basically a full night's sleep and let you fully recover everything. Also, if you've gained enough experience to level up, it does not occur until you next have an Extended Rest.


Xander is a cleric following the Raven Queen, who serves as the goddess of death. An important plot point from about a real-life year ago is that Koloth was killed in battle, but the Raven Queen came to him and returned him to life as a Revenant and tasked him to destroy her enemies.

About six real-life months ago, as part of our ongoing plot, the Raven Queen was apparently killed, and her position usurped by Kelemvor, the previous god of death. We later learned that the Raven Queen wasn't quite dead, but severely injured and weakened.

With the exception of Khait, all of us have recently hit level 21.

Xander's player and I have chosen similar Epic Destinies. He chose Avatar of Death, and I chose Avatar of Io. In Xander's case this means he will become either the direct representative of, or the embodiment of the Raven Queen.

Mine does the same, but the catch is that within the setting, Io is a long dead god. When Io was slain, his body was cut in two, and each half became one of the two dragon gods: Bahamut and the 5-headed Tiamat.

A short time ago (the last time we were in a city), Koloth was attacked by what looked to be a 5-headed Dragonborn, surely a sign of Tiamat. The odd thing was that nobody else could see it, or interact with it (such as attacking where it seemed to be), but they could see wounds appear on Koloth when he was hit. After a short fight, the thing left.

I think that's all the backstory you need to know for the rest to make any sense (the campaign is going on 3 years now, so there's a lot that is tied together)


Currently, we're trying to recover a hammer that was stolen from a demon blacksmith called the Breaker. The Breaker has important information we need, and will trade it for his hammer. We'd tracked it down to a particular location, and had already eliminated most of the opposition, but had one room left to check. This is where we picked up last night...

The party was pretty run down after the series of battles we'd had the previous session, so Sariel used a ritual that allowed us to take an extended rest, but only eat up an hour of time. Thus, everyone except Khait officially hit level 21.

Rested, Khait used an ability to examine the next room without having to enter it. What she saw was the demons we expected, a hammer and anvil, and a 5-headed creature fighting the demons.

We were up a staircase, so we went down it to the door and entered. In the time this took, the 5-headed creature had finished off the demons. Sure enough, it was the Dragonborn thing that had attacked me earlier. Now that I could get a better look at it, I recognized it as a rival Dragonborn from much earlier in the campaign, who was a follower of Tiamat and generally quite the scum bag.

The interesting part was that directly behind the Rival (who's name we'd never learned) was a ghostly image of a 5 headed dragon. Apparently Tiamat herself! O_O And she appeared to be directing energies into the Rival! Zounds!

I guessed, correctly, that the Rival had become an avatar of Tiamat. As I was guessing this, I heard a woman's voice (the Raven Queen), say (in the form of a note passed to me) "You must lose to prevent a new conflict, but it must be you and only you to battle her chosen."

So, Koloth pointed at the Rival and stated "In the name of the Raven Queen, I challenge you to single combat!". The rest of the party was surprised by this, but backed off. One of them even turned to leave, only to find that directly behind the party was a ghostly image of Bahamut!

So, the Rival and I started trading blows. I decided to start off fighting for real, and that I'd throw it later on. I figured I should at least make it look good. I ended up doing better then I expected. Rival was starting to look rather ragged, so I chose to taunt him instead of attacking and offer him a free hit.

My plan was that unless the Rival outright missed, I'd drop after he hit me, no matter what sort of damage it did. Well, coincidentally, the blow put me at exactly 0 hit points. Mechanically, that means your character is knocked out and dying, but they're not dead-dead until their HP drops to half their total HP below 0. In my case that would be -78, but the kicker is that because I'm a Revenant, I don't fall unconscious at 0, I can just keep fighting but all the other related penalties (which I'm glossing over) still apply.

The party was shocked. A few reminded me, out of character,  that I don't drop and 0, and I told them I knew that. The Rival continued to attack.

Froderick did some rolling for Insight, and realized there was no way that blow could have dropped me, and that I must be up to something. So everyone held back. Everyone except Veeks the Barbarian, who just saw his compatriot fall. He charged in and whacked the Rival, despite an image in his head of the Raven Queen telling him not to (He later explained that A) He doesn't follow the Raven Queen, so it was just some woman to him, and B) He figured it was a mage trying to mess with his head.)

At this point a second image of the Rival appeared. It pointed at Veeks and the first Rival, and made a slashing motion with its arm. Then it pointed at Koloth and itself, made another slashing motion, and attacked Koloth once before vanishing. Translation: You interfered once, so I get to interfere once.

Now Xander received a whisper from the Raven Queen, and he was able to hold back Veeks. Now unopposed, the Rival continued his attack on Koloth, finishing me off. (Far past -78).

So, Koloth is dead and the Rival looks pleased with himself. He turns to leave, when Koloth's body floats in the air. Rival sees this and attacks again, knocking Koloth to the floor once more.

Koloth floats again. This time he speaks, and its with both the voice of Koloth and the Raven Queen. It explains something that Koloth already knew, but that the rest didn't: When the Raven Queen turned Koloth into a Revenant, she stored a part of her essence within him to do it. Since her apparent death she's been resting, but now it is time to retake her role from Kelemvor. As she spoke, energies swirled around Koloth's body, in particular a dark patch. Said dark energies lashed out at the Rival and leeched energies from him. Tiamat looked concerned by this, since she had been powering the Rival.

Over the course of a few seconds, the Rival rapidly aged, until it was just a skeleton, and then just dust, which blew away. That done, the dark energy left Koloth's body and headed out a window, but not before flying through Xander. Her voice told them that if he abandons his prideful ways (Xander has an inflated ego, which is a sin to the Raven Queen's teachings) that he would grow in power as her representative. And thus Xander gained his Epic Destiny!

Koloth stopped floating, falling gently onto his feet. Apparently as a reward for carrying her essence for about a year, the Raven Queen restored Koloth to full life. He is no longer a Revenant.

Then the Raven Queen did one last thing. She shoved the images of Tiamat and Bahamut from behind. They didn't expect this, and ended up colliding, with Koloth between them. Tiamat and Bahamut are now dead, and Io shall be reborn. Koloth gains his Epic Destiny!

The Raven Queen's final words before departing were to task us with raising an army to oppose Asmodius' forces. We know that he controls an army of spirits. Thus, Koloth took the hammer from the nearby anvil, and the group returned to the Breaker.

The Breaker kept his end of the deal, telling us the information about Asmodius we needed. He'd also agreed to forge each of us a powerful item. Except for Koloth. Instead of forging something for him, he will instead teach Koloth (who has a background in smithing) the ways of the so-called Soul Metal. Soul Metal is a magical metal in our campaign. It looks like silver, but is infused with souls, and has unique properties. The most notable is that a weapon edged with Soul Metal can harm spirits as if they were flesh.

Teaching Koloth will take time. A month, in-game. The party has agreed that Koloth will stay with the Breaker and learn, while the rest explore some of our options in gathering allies. We already have some that will likely help, as well as the various Raven Queen followers (Xander is basically the RQ pope, so he can probably amass something via preaching), and we have some enemies who hate Asmodius more then they hate us, so that might be an option. They're also going to see what the new status quo is with the followers of Tiamat and Bahamut is, since those gods are suddenly no more.

In next week's session, we're going to pick up a month later and go from there. Also, the experience gained pushed Khait to level 21 as well.