C.W. Anderson: Man Who Doesn't Always Quit

C.W. Anderson has been a favorite of mine since ECW, and recently I thought his promo work with Ric Converse was his career best, and all used to build up a Career vs. Title I Quit match. The match totally delivered the goods (here's our review and a link to that match), and I loved how CW treated the I Quit stipulation as something he had never gotten over, as something that has haunted him for 15+ years. I haven't watched the Anderson/Dreamer I Quit match since it originally aired on the final ECW PPV, so I thought it would be fun to revisit. In doing so, I found that Anderson had worked a couple other I Quit matches since that first one (including a couple against Dreamer, which I sadly could not find), so of course I will be checking those out as well.


C.W. Anderson vs. Tommy Dreamer  ECW Guilty As Charged 1/7/01

ER: Boy, going back and watching this with 2018 eyes and I'm really happy that I willingly and proudly associated myself with ECW fans. I can't think of too many places that have gathered 2500 more undesirable people into one building. It's truly the trump rally of wrestling crowds. As they panned the crowd I get expecting to see a black man dressed like he was ready for a soft shoe routine to come out and yell "GET OUT!" to any women in attendance. But the match is good! CW is great in brawls and really put over everything Dreamer tried, got big height on a Sky High, though weirdly was able to use a rope break when Dreamer had him in a Boston Crab. Wait you can use weapons and gouge someone's eyes out to get them to say I Quit, but a rope break is still the rule of the land? You could use the ropes to choke someone and get them to say I Quit. This makes no sense. 

But the stuff on the floor is good, Dreamer kicking CW's arm in a chair, setting the ring bell against CW's head and hitting it with a wrench, and CW comes up bleeding. But I will say that I must not be a true ECW fan, because I don't remember Towel Boy. Was Towel Boy some skinny indy worker that found a gig as a guy taking bumps? I remember Dick Hertz but don't have any memory of Towel Boy. But Towel Boy attacks Anderson with Christmas wrapped cookie sheets so CW hits a huge delay superplex on Towel Boy. You know, Towel Boy. Towel Boy also brought Dreamer a roll of razor wire, and I get my wish when CW gives Dreamer a spinebuster on the razor wire. Dreamer also takes a suplex through two set up chairs which is hell on the kidneys. But Dreamer hits a big Death Valley Driver off the middle rope through a table, and the table explodes in a pretty spectacular way. Dreamer gets him to quit by wrapping the table banding around his eyes and tightening it. I had pretty much only remembered the finish, so the rest of the match was a treat. It wasn't as good as I remembered it, but it had blood and some good violence, a ton of scuzzy meathead fans, and built nicely. Good match.


C.W. Anderson vs. Dewey Cheatum  SCW 5/30/02

ER: I'm not sure what events happened that made it necessary to have an I Quit match, but I'm glad those events happened. Dewey Cheatum was a fun early 2000s Carolina guy with some of the absolutely worst indy wrestling fashion. He looks like Ken Rosenthal filming a parody of a 1999 Mountain Dew commercial. He's wearing baggy red parachute pants, a red mesh tank top, and one of those printed button ups that seem to be exclusively worn by fat gamers or guys who play Warhammer at comic book shops. It was the only button up a mother could get her teen son to wear to family dinner night at Outback after she peeled him away from a 13 hour marathon World of Warcraft sesh. And CW punishes him for that outfit. Cheatum is a guy with decent punches and some nice bumps, and shows here that he will bleed in a match. Anderson was never in a ton of danger, as whenever Cheatum would get any headway he would be cut off shortly after by Anderson. Anderson is a great bully, and he punches and elbows and slaps Cheatum around the ring and ringside, runs him balls first into the ringpost, grates his face over the turnbuckle bolt, and finds a hunk of sharp metal on the floor (that the guy filming adeptly zooms in on, making up for him earlier filming a nice strike exchange while being blocked by the referee's track pants) that surely won't come into play later. Cheatum fights back and throws nice punches to the mid section, but gets folded by a super quick snap German suplex. Even him setting up a superkick out of the corner gets cut off by a surely more brutal Anderson superkick. Cheatum eats chairshots and jabs a piece of bleeding metal into Cheatum's head to get the I Quit. Anderson crushes the ref with a spinebuster after the match, probably for wearing track pants.


C.W. Anderson/Jack Victory/Bar Room Brawler/David Young/Guillotine LeGrande/Ronnie Stevens vs. Dusty Rhodes/Homicide/Iceberg/Becky Bayless/J-Train/Louie Ramos  ROH Epic Encounter 4/12/03

ER: Well this was flat out great. Total chaos, tons of blood, someone who may have never wrestled before or after, giant fat dudes, small slender ladies, random one off ROH appearances by some, just a whirlwind of violence. We get some MVP performances from CW, Jack Victory, and Iceberg but really everyone adds to this as best they can. Jack Victory looks completely unathletic (and usually wrestles like that) but is a monster here pairing off and warring with Homicide, smashing through a table like the Incredible Hulk to use pieces of it as a weapon, getting launched through that table by Homicide (who then jumps on the table with Victory underneath), later he acts like a real thug and holds Becky Bayless by the hair so Ronnie Stevens/Simply Luscious can smack her, and quits for his team after getting his face and mouth forked and spiked by Homicide. This was my favorite Jack Victory performance. 

CW is expectedly great, always awesome in a brawl, has probably the best punch exchange of the match (with Homicide), smashes him with the spinebuster, and is the biggest stooge for Dusty (even taking a kick right between the uprights). Iceberg was mountainous and was not only the largest man in the match (by far) but took the craziest bumps (big drop toehold into steps on the floor, taking a nutty German suplex from David Young) and flattens Young with a BIG splash. Dusty is fun, tricks everybody by sending a fake Dusty out as the Midnight Rider (who the heck was this guy, he was taller and larger than anyone in the match other than Iceberg) and then sneaks in while the rider is miming Dusty elbows on the apron. Guillotine LeGrande is stiffing people, some juiced doof named Bar Room Brawler comes in throwing accidental stiff shots like someone who took a one day Power Plant seminar, J-Train (the future Julius Smokes) does a crazy dropkick off the apron and splats on the floor, the whole thing is just great. It was preceded by a 40 minute London/Danielson match that I'm sure is awesome, but at this point in my life I can't imagine enjoying it more than the slab of bloody sleaze that followed it.