Some things worked great.

Some things didn’t.

If you had to break down Extreme Reunion on April 28 at the Pennsylvania National Guard Armory in the simplest terms, that would be the way to describe it. The event, which drew more than 2,000 people, had more than its share of action.

Led by Stevie Richards, who looked to be in the best shape of his life, the B.W.O. put on a great match with the FBI. Axl Rotten and Balls Mahoney had their typical ECW-style match with blood, guts and chairs. Al Snow and C.W. Anderson put on a very good mat-based wrestling match. And Shane Douglas and 2 Cold Scorpio put on a very solid main event. Douglas was still able to get people to hate him and Scorpio flew around the building like it was 1997. Those were all good to great, but the show stealer was a classic between Jerry Lynn and Devon Storm. Those two guys did things inside the ring and outside the ring that haven’t been seen on TV since ECW was on Sports Channel Philadelphia in the late 1990s.

Take those matches and combine it with a solid opening match featuring the Dramatcics against Blk Out, and you had a pretty good night of wrestling. I never heard of either of these teams before this night, but both did a great job and now I want to see more of them.

Those things worked.

Some things didn’t work.

Raven was lazy, Justin Credible was reportedly asked to leave by the promotion and Sabu was unable to wrestle because he was in the hospital.

Those were huge negatives.

And now here’s the best news if you’re a fan of this brand of wrestling, which is now known as Extreme Rising. The federation has listened to the fans and when they come back with their next round of shows, it appears they’re building off the positives.

On June 29, Extreme Rising makes its New York debut when a show headlined by Jerry Lynn versus Matt Hardy and Devon Storm versus Homicide takes place in Corona, N.Y.

Then the next night, Extreme Rising returns home to Northeast Philly for its second show at the armory.

There, Jerry Lynn will meet Homicide, and in follow ups to April’s show, Stevie Richards will face Luke Hawx and the Gangstas will meet Blk Out.

April’s show wasn’t perfect, but it was good. June’s shows should be better, but more importantly, it’s laying the ground work for the future.

And while the first show was listed as a reunion, this is no longer a one-time deal. This is the start of something new and Matt Hardy’s signing reminds me a lot of the old ECW.

Hardy can be one of the top guys going today, but he fell off track.

Back in the old ECW, guys like Bam Bam Bigelow, Terry “Bam Bam” Gordy, Chris Candito, Raven and Al Snow came to Philadelphia when things fell off track, and soon they were better than ever. Hardy could easily do the same with his career, and at the same time, make Extreme Rising can’t miss wrestling.

The wrestling will be fun, but it might be even better to witness history and see the beginning stages of a promotion that makes wrestling a little more fun.

The promotion obviously learns from mistakes and they’re trying to be successful. To do that, they understand they have to make fans happy.

And that only means good things for fans.

For ticket information or more on the shows, visit www.extremereunion.net