Hardcore Heaven (1998)

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Hardcore Heaven 1998 was the second Hardcore Heaven event produced by Extreme Championship Wrestling which took place on 8th February 1998

## Background

The main match heading into the show is Raven defending his ECW Heaviweight Championship against Tommy Dreamer. This has been THE feud that defined ECW and it goes all the way back to 1995 with Raven and Superstar Austin teaming up against Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman as Raven first started to try a cult and get Sandman in there, Dreamer wanted to end this cult as soon as possible but he kept failing to pin Raven, even when him and Sandman won matches it was always Sandman who got the winning pin. He got an ECW TV Championship match against him at Hardcore Heaven 1996 but yet again failed to beat him after Sandman faked being Raven's disciple just because Sandman wanted the TV title himself which he got by defeating Raven on a later date, Dreamer was pissed and was suspended for attacking both men, they had a threeway dance at A Matter of Respect where Dreamer was close to pinning and eliminating Raven but Sandman threw Dreamer out of the ring and eliminated him himself, Dreamer won the TV title by eliminating Sandman but lost it 2 months later to Raven yet again. Dreamer wanted one last match against Raven to prove he could beat him and he got the match by defeating The Eliminators, but a stipulation was added that if Dreamer failed to defeat Raven, he would be forced to join Raven's Cult and that's exactly what happened at The Culmination 1996. Dreamer spent a year of his career being forced to do Raven's dirty business and work as a heel while he hoped the crowd would still be by his side, he took this year as a chance to learn Raven's moves and tricks. Dreamer defeated Lance Storm at Wrestlepalooza 1997(something Raven couldn't do) and started hatching a plan with ECW Heaviweight champion Meng where Meng would hype up Dreamer and give him wins so that Raven could be completely pissed about it, Dreamer was scheduled to face Meng for the title at December to Dismember but he was attacked by an unknown man(who was then revealed to be Raven) and Raven took his spot saying it was okay and he would win the title for Raven's Cult, Raven won the title at the show after Dreamer chairshotted Meng a lot of times in the head(but this was all part of the plan for Raven to think Dreamer is completely on his side), as Raven and Dreamer celebrated his title win, Dreamer turned on Raven when he least expected it, Raven said he had ownership of Dreamer's contract so he fired him but Dreamer had a preposition: IF he loses against Raven again, he's fired from ECW but Raven should first prove why he's a worthy champion by beating the man he's beaten every single time. Raven accepted, Dreamer said he has trained with Raven for a year and the only way for Raven to win is if he cheats and that would prove he sucks as a champion, he has promised he will not let his fans down again

At December to Dismember, Jerry Lynn finally ended Taz's 1 year TV championship reign and undefeated streak with help from the returning Rob Van Dam, Taz was pissed and kept targeting Lynn and RVD who were now focused on launching the New Breed of ECW as they were tired of guys like Taz, Sandman, Sabu and Tama, they helped Lynn and RVD against Taz but quickly turned on them as they wanna fight for their spot in ECW, there will be another match between Taz and Lynn here tonight

Rising Speed defeated Dudley Boyz at December to Dismember but Dudley Boys managed to win a NO1 contendership match to the tag titles, Rising Speed didn't feel like that was fair as they should be the credible challenges and Impact Players decided they wanted both of them in a threeway dance

Mike Awesome started trying to get a tag team partner to do something of noteworthy in ECW, he introduced Masato Tanaka and after 2 matches where they showed they had great chemistry together, Awesome turned heel on Tanaka and said the awesome era had begun. Awesome ended up winning the TV Championship and Tanaka returned, he didn't want that title YET, all he wanted was to get revenge on Awesome so he accepted a non title match tonight

During Chris Candido and Sunny's forced marriage, the priest said he objected as he speared Candido in half. He introduced himself as Rhino and said before he became a wrestler, he was the backstage person who made the contracts so when Candido signed the contract for his match against Moadib, it didn't say "If Candido wins, he's the only one who gets to keep Sunny forever" it said "Only Candido or RHINO can get Sunny" so Rhino challenged him tonight

## Results

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 5

## Details

* Awesome undervalues Tanaka and loses because of this as he's rightfully pissed
* Lynn vs Taz breaks into chaos between The OGs and New Breed but New Breed are only 2 so they lose
* During Rhino vs Candido, Sunny comes out with a mic announcing that WWF has signed her so they can both go fuck themselves because she ain't got no man and is about to make more in a day than they do in a month, people chant whore at her
* Dreamer has learned a lot from being with Raven and he gets closer than ever to beating Raven but he resorts to a rollup to end Dreamer's career, everyone is pissed including Dreamer as Raven immediatly gets out of there