November to Remember ‘98
November 1, 1998
New Orleans, LA
There’s nothing special about ECW anymore.
I wrote that last time but it’s truer than ever at this point. Unfortunately for ECW, the WWF has mastered the extreme style and ECW just doesn’t have the talent to keep up. ECW did have enough talent to run good shows though, evident by their last PPV Heatwave ’98. It was easily the best PPV in company history. The momentum from the Taz vs. Shane Douglas feud and the budding popularity of Rob Van Dam has kept ECW afloat.
November to Remember is the Wrestlemania of ECW. Can Paul E. deliver a Wrestlemania-type show?
The Card
New Jack beats the crap out of Jack Victory in a parking lot. I never really liked New Jack outside of hid feuds with the Dudleys.
New Jack gets taken away, I guess he won’t be on the show tonight.
Another good venue choice. The Lakefront Arena looks bigger than the standard ECW arena.
Terry Funk shows up with a graduation cap on. A good surprise so far.
Funk for some reason turns heel by running down Paul E. and Tommy Dreamer. What a bad way to start. I mean what the hell?
He’s apparently angry no one invited him to the show. This sucks.
Super Nova and the Blue Meanie vs. Roadkill and Danny Doring
Doring and Roadkill don’t even get an entrance.
Terry Funk wanders back out here and he’s still bitching. Who thought this was a good idea. Honestly?
Nova and Meanie have a move called the “Super Duper Double Looper”. How about that.
For some reason Terry Funk gets on the apron and slaps Meanie, and Meanie lets him have it.
Funk legdrops himself through a table. WHAT IS GOING ON?!
The Blue Meanie and Super Nova win when Meanie pinned Doring in 10:54. Really fun finish where Nova hits a Frog Splash, Meanie hits the Meaniesault, then they hit the Blue Light Special (DDT/Inverted Powerbomb) for the win. Fun little match here that got a bit screwed up from the Funk thing. Speaking of Funk, he’s back and he takes out Meanie and Nova. Just ugh.
Paul E. comes out and gets Terry away from ringside.
Tracy Smothers vs. Tommy Rogers
Chris Chetti is with Rogers and Ulf Hermann is with Smothers. So this will probably be a tag.
Smothers looks really old for some reason.
This didn’t turn into a tag but since Ulf kept getting involved, Chetti fights him on the outside.
There’s a pin where Rogers’ shoulder is CLEARLY off the mat. What the hell is this?
Tommy Rogers pins Tracy Smothers in 7:51. Tamikaze for the win. Joey Styles makes it a point to explain that the move is the most imitated move in professional wrestling, which is a shot at the WWF’s Christian as it is the same as the Unprettier. Anyway, this was boring and really sloppy.
The Full Blooded Italians tease a break-up, but then Tommy Rogers get attacked.
Suddenly Mabel of all people with a FBI shirt comes out. Huh?
Mabel and Hermann beat the crap out of Chetti before Spike Dudley shows up. Dudley takes both out with Acid Drops, and a ref counts the pin. I guess the fans reacted to Spike.
By the way, if this is the Wrestlemania of ECW, the promotion should have just given up at this point.
Lance Storm vs. Jerry Lynn
Mikey Whipwreck and Tammy Lynn Sytch are our referees.
Part of the story here is that Sytch and Storm’s valet Tammy Lynn Bytch hate one another. Bytch is the future Dawn Marie of course.
Great wrestling sequence to start.
Sytch fast counts Storm of course.
We get a really fast paced solid match…until the gimmick gets involved…
So Bytch and Sytch go at it, to which Sytch strips Bytch. Whipwreck tries to get Bytch out and eventually hits her with a Whippersnapper (which she accidentally no sells, ha!). Then Whipwreck Whippersnaps Lynn, but Storm low blows Whipwreck and shoves him out. Sytch then makes the slowest count in the world for Storm so Lynn can kick out. What a way to screw up a good match.
Lance Storm pins Jerry Lynn in 16:48. The overbooking gets worse. Sytch nails Storm with a Whippersnapper. Whipwreck nails Sytch with a botched Whippersnapper (as Styles says it, it’s because he must have thought she low blowed him earlier). Lynn rolls up Storm, but Mikey reverses it and fast counts Lynn out so Storm can win. What a mess. It was good before all of that.
And now more Terry Funk. I love Funk, but he’s been horribly misused here. He says he’s gone forever and he’s sorry for making an ass out of himself.
ECW World Tag Team Championship
The Dudley Boys© vs. Masato Tanaka and Balls Mahoney
Axl Rotten is hurt, which is why we have Tanaka.
Masato Tanaka hits a nice plancha off of Balls’ back.
Balls heads to the top…then botches the spot by falling off. Mahoney needs to stick to just crawling and fighting.
Bubba Ray Dudley is doing planchas now. Cool I guess.
We get a huge chair showdown, to which Mahoney and Tanaka no sell some chair shots. The Dudleys telegraph the reversal as well and take Roaring Elbows into the chairs into their faces (which looks terrible). Referee Jeff Jones though fakes an injury and doesn’t count the Dudleys out. More overbooked garbage.
Tanaka survives 3D. Shame that spot is wasted here.
D-Von actually botches getting a table into the ring as he brings a wire with it. That was hilarious.
Tanaka and Mahoney win the title in 15:01 via double pin.RVD and Sabu come in and drive the Dudleys through a pair of tables. Man these finishes are a mess. Match was drawn out and bad. Another run-in finish. Just not good all around. Masato Tanaka is pretty much wasted here. They would hold the belts for like a week I believe.
For some reason we get the battle of the Triple Threat promo video a little early, as we have one more match before it. To be fair, Six Man Tag or not, the main event does feel like a big deal.
Justin Credible and Jack Victory vs. Tommy Dreamer and a Mystery Partner
And that mystery is Jake Roberts. In 1998. Yikes.
Jake didn’t even try with his attire. He looks like he’s about to go golfing or something.
We get a decent Dreamer vs. Credible match, then for some reason Credible tags in Jason. Jason isn’t a participant in this match.
Rod Price and One Man Gang run-in! What’s a match on this PPV without some kind of bullshit run in now?
Here we go with New Jack…we get John Kronus too. Usually clusterfuck commences.
Kronus hits the 450 Splash…and the ref was about to count Credible out there. The refs don’t even know what’s going on.
I wonder if Jake looked at all this and wondered what the hell happened to his career.
Mr. Wright flips in and botches the landing. Jake takes him out anyway.
Now we have Nicole Bass in there. Jake drops her with a DDT.
Tommy Dreamer and Jake Roberts win when both pin Credible in 12:26. Jake drops Credible with a DDT on the ladder for the finish. What a mess. What a damn mess. That’s all there is to say really.
God it’s Terry Funk again. He’s mad Dreamer picked Jake Roberts and not him. Awful. Dreamer turns his back on Funk and Funk lays him out. This absolutely sucks.
RVD really wasn’t that bad of a promo guy in ECW.
Taz, Sabu and Rob Van Dam vs. Shane Douglas, Bam Bam Bigelow and Chris Candido
The main part of this story is Taz’s 15 month chase of the ECW World Title held by Douglas. Douglas has been hurt for months and is somehow still the champ. As a side note, RVD, Sabu and Taz have all had their problems.
This definitely was the top three faces against the top heel faction. As I said before, if it delivers it will be a worthy main event.
The Dudleys attack RVD and Sabu on the ramp. I can’t take this anymore. At least it made sense since RVD and Sabu attacked them earlier.
For some reason, Sabu spends the entire match as the face in peril. I have a few issues with this. One, this is a waste of Sabu. We don’t wait for Sabu in the main event to get beat down by three heels in a wrestling manner. Two, Taz is the one who has the real issue with the Triple Threat and the heat should be on him.
RVD makes the tag I think (so much for the hot Taz tag), but then after some brawling Sabu’s getting beat down again. For some reason Chris Candido puts Taz through a table on the outside but we don’t see it.
There are tons of botches here too. Sabu misses a slingshot legdrop that’s supposed to hit. RVD whips Douglas into the corner and Douglas expects to be hit with something and instead RVD attacks Bigelow. There’s a weird rolling spot where Douglas turns before RVD. Tons of bad stuff.
The crowd is dead for when Taz finally gets Douglas in the ring, and then RVD steals the crowd with a flip into the crowd.
Sabu, Rob Van Dam and Taz win when Sabu pinned Douglas in 12:57. Even the finish is botched. Taz locks Douglas in the Taz-Mission, but Sabu comes off the top with the Arabian Facecrusher (and really only hits Taz). He pins Douglas for the win. What a bad main event. Nothing clicked and it was full of botches. The booking set up Taz vs. Sabu in the future, but we haven’t even done Taz vs. Douglas yet. Which by the way, the crowd seems sick of Douglas overall at this point.
That’s the flagship PPV for ECW? Yikes. The Terry Funk stuff was embarrassing. Jake Roberts looked like he didn’t really care to be there. Mabel? Storm vs. Lynn and the opener is just enough to get me away from F. Barely.
Final Grade: D