The Hardcore Championship is looked back on fondly by fans of the Attitude Era and Hardcore fans alike. It set out to be a way to display some of the more violent action found in the late 90’s, and ended up getting swept up in the revolutionary concept of the 24/7 rule. A rule that meant the championship was on the line anytime and anywhere a referee was present, a rule that would later be revived in a championship that shared its name, the 24/7 championship. Many colorful characters were involved in the 24/7 madness that surrounded the Hardcore Championship back in that time, but none thrived more in that environment than Crash Holly.
Crash Holly Enters The Hardcore Division
In February 2000, after a little over a year of playing second fiddle to his cousin Hardcore Holly, Crash would make his debut on the WWF Hardcore Championship scene. Backstage, Hardcore would question his little cousin's motivations with challenging current Hardcore Champion Test to match for the belt on Raw. Crash assured Hardcore that he was setting out to prove he too was hardcore, more so than Bob Holly could ever be. He then shoved his bigger cousin over their bags in the locker room and stormed out for his match. It would end up being a chair shot aimed at Crash from a lurking Hardcore that would connect with Test’s skull and lead to a victory for the littlest Holly. This was the start of something beautiful, and the first of twenty-two times Crash would become champion.
Crash more than thrived in the 24/7 hardcore era as he played a big part in getting the concept over in general. Whether it was being attacked in a children’s arcade by the Headbangers and escaping via the ball pit, or sneaking around with referees in attempts to pin sleeping champions in the back area, Crash was able to successfully inject the hardcore division with a helping of comedy. Just as much as he was able to pull off a lot of 24/7 outside-of-the-ring interactions that sounded ridiculous on paper. Somehow Crash found the correct formula to play the perfect paranoid Hardcore Champion and no matter what the odd circumstances, seemed to make it work.
During Crash's illustrious 22 Hardcore Championship reigns, Crash had the honor to defeat a who’s who of the Attitude era. He had victories over Tazz, Matt Hardy, Davey Boy Smith, Gerald Brisco, Pat Patterson, Steve Blackman, one of Godfather’s ladies of the night, and his cousin Hardcore Holly. He would even defeat K-Kwik for the title two different times on the same house show, and K-Kwik would go on twenty years later to be one of the greatest 24/7 champions of all time in Ron "The Truth" Killings aka R Truth.
His list of defeats is almost as impressive as his victories in the hardcore title scene, doing the honors for Raven, Perry Saturn, Raven Again, Perry Saturn again, and nearly everyone else listed above as somebody Crash had beat for the title, including one Godfather’s women after interference from D'Lo Brown during a match scheduled to be against Godfather.
Crash Holly: The Houdini of Hardcore
More than any wins or losses, Crash became synonymous with escaping situations in which he was being ambushed in an attempt at taking his title, and was quickly dubbed the Houdini of Hardcore. Shane McMahon's Connecticut goon squad, The Mean Street Posse, would unsuccessfully and very often go to great lengths to blindside Crash when he had his guard down. They would pretend to be room service and attack an unsuspecting Crash in his hotel room when he was relaxing in his robe, stake out a New Jersey Airport to attack him at baggage claim, and even posed as clowns in an attempt to use Crash’s love of carnivals against him. Crash even once defended the belt in an impromptu match that started in a bounce house against the "Man of a Thousand Holds" Dean Malenko.
Whether he was being attacked during a massage by Ivory, paying the APA for protection that his mom would later tell him was insufficient, or eating the nunchucks of the "Lethal Weapon" Steve Blackman, Crash's Hardcore Title reigns not only show off how versatile Crash was a wrestler and entertainer but put him in a category all his own when talking about the now-defunct championship’s lineage. Crash remains the greatest “comedic” champion the WWE has ever seen and definitely goes down as one of the most memorable characters to ever hold the belt. Without Crash’s success on the 24/7 side of the Hardcore title, fans might never get the current version of the 24/7 title. Whether that is a good thing or not is a different story, but Crash was the blueprint.