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Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews ECW Guilty as Charged ’99

Guilty as Charged ‘99
January 10, 1999
Kissimmee, FL

There are two last hopes for ECW at this point: Taz and Rob Van Dam.

Guilty as Charged ’99 is Taz’s shot at the top title. After teasing this title match for about 18 months (back when Taz beat Douglas for the TV title in 1997) we’re finally getting the payoff.

There’s not much else to say. As I’ve written for two PPVs in a row there’s nothing special about ECW anymore. It doesn’t have the best storylines, the best angles and definitely not the best matches. The best hardcore matches are in the WWF with Stone Coldand Mankind. The best wrestling is in WCW with the Cruisers, Benoit, Malenko and Guerrero.

But that’s no excuse for ECW. All they have to do is put on consistently good shows. November to Remember was really bad and there was no reason for it. ECW has shown me two good PPVs since they began running PPVs. Otherwise it’s been mediocre to really bad. 1999 could be the year ECW comes together if Paul Heyman plays his cards right and busts out some decent shows. He definitely has the talent to do so, even if some of them are leaving (like Bam Bam Bigelow).

The Card

Paul Heyman tells us right at the outset that Masato Tanaka is not coming in as previously advertised and Jerry Lynn is still injured. I do like that he does this, but I mean people already bought the show, no?

The FBI vs. Danny Doring and Roadkill

The FBI has Big Sal and Big Guido at this point.

While the FBI matches usually aren’t good, I do get a good kick out of Tracy Smothers and Little Guido doing the FBI gimmick.

A random guy in the crowd busts out a camera and Danny Doring poses for him on cue. I’m a bit of a Doring fan and wished he and Roadkill had an ECW ’06 run.

For some reason the Chair Swingin’ Freaks, Balls Mahoney and Axl Rotten, come out mid Doring strut and this turns into a Three Way Dance.

Axl Rotten calls this match in the ring a homosexual dance party. Gay jokes were par for the course in 1999 as the crowd erupts.

Guido impales himself on the guardrail when he misses a dive. Match really picked up when Rotten and Mahoney came in.

Joey Styles says Axl Rotten is the most underrated wrestler in professional wrestling. Hyperbole Joey. Hyperbole.

Mahoney flies off the top rope into a crowd of wrestlers. Didn’t expect that there and it got a great reaction.

“You love sheep!” Quite the chant towards Roadkill there.

Doring with a front Russian Legsweep. Probably the best one I’ve seen. A hell of a lot better than Jeff Jarrett’s.

Double Fisherman’s Suplex by the FBI takes out Doring. Nice move.

Sick belly to back suplex by Mahoney on Guido! Really liking this.

The Chair Swingin’ Freaks win by double pin in 10:43. Nutcraker Suite and Aerial Skullcrusher gets the win. Really fun brawl here and a good start to the show. Axl and Mahoney take out Big Guido and Big Sal too.

Yikes, we’re still doing this Terry Funk heel deal on Tommy Dreamer. Promo is interesting at least, about a jackass kicking his dad in the nuts and the dad got revenge. Funk’s upset that Tommy picked Jake Roberts at November to Remember as his mystery partner. I don’t remember a match to conclude this though.

Super Crazy vs. Yoshihiro Tajiri

This was when Tajiri was sane, had no beard and didn’t wear the Great Muta pants.

Joey Styles points out that Crazy wrestled in the WWF before…but doesn’t mention the same for Tajiri (who wrestled there a little bit in 1997 as well).

Fast paced start that leads to a Tornado DDT from Crazy!

Tajiri works on the knees with his kicks. Great psychology here as the idea is if Crazy’s knees are out, he can’t fly around. And Joey Styles says this too. It’s nice when the announcer’s tell the story of the match.

Tajiri’s Asai Moonsault has always been awesome.

Super Crazy just shows total disregard for his body and hits a suicide somersault plancha to the outside. He follows that with a moonsault off the guardrail. Everything is crisp from both men.

Great surfboard into a dragon sleeper spot from Crazy!

Corkscrew tope from Crazy. Great high flying spots everywhere in this one.

Sky Twister Press misses from Crazy! Wow!

Tajiri wins by pin in 11:37. Dragon Suplex gets the win. Spotfests can be awesome and this was a prime example of that. Sure the psychology early on was forgotten, but who really cares here. Really fun and really good. If ECW just got some more talent they could have rivaled WCW’s Cruiserweight Division. Unfortunately we’d just get these two and Little Guido for the next few years…although Tajiri’s gimmick change would get a short main event run in the summer.

John Kronus comes out. Judge Jeff Jones comes out (the judge deal is a new gimmick) and he’s here to get revenge on Kronus. Jeff Jones was a referee that Kronus beat up. Admittedly, this is a cool payoff early on to this.

John Kronus vs. Sid Vicious

Sid is a pretty good surprise here, a hell of a lot better than Mabel two months ago.

Two seconds in and Sid chokeslams Kronus over the top rope through a table.

Sid pins Kronus in 1:31. Some chair shots and a Powerbomb wins it for Sid. Bringing in Sid as an ass kicker who chokeslams and powerbombs people would be awesome. Leave it to Heyman to book Sid better than the WWF and WCW did and would. Of course, as soon as one of the Big Two saw that Sid had something in the tank he didn’t stay in ECW much longer. He was in WCW by the summer.

By the way, ECW fans would spend all their time mocking the Sids and Hogan’s of the world, but Sid shows up in an ECW ring and he gets one of the biggest reactions in the history of the promotion. Can’t help but laugh at that one.

We see what happened at November to Remember ’98. I don’t like that they are already building up Sabu as a title contender even though we haven’t done Douglas vs. Taz yet. Apparently Taz broke Sabu’s neck as revenge for stealing the pin on Douglas at November to Remember. Then Taz let Sabu pin him to win the FTW Title, making the point that he only wants the ECW World Championship at this point.

The Dudley Boyz have made an “unscheduled” appearance. Open challenge is made. Of course, New Jack answers.

The Dudley Boyz vs. New Jack and Spike Dudley

When I was younger I enjoyed these New Jack brawls, but looking at them now this has to be the worst aged thing in the entire promotion. It’s just New Jack and Spike hitting the Dudleys with random weapons and that’s it. There’s nothing of substance in these things.

Bubba throws Spike into the crowd and Spike bodysurfs for a little bit. This is always a cool spot, although it was cooler when Bam Bam did it to Spike.

Bubba throws Spike into the crowd again. Aren’t ECW quite lucky fans never got hurt in these spots?

Joey had to throw in some dick jokes for Big Dick Dudley.

3D on the ramp is totally botched. New Jack’s whole torso landed on Bubba.

The Dudley Boyz pin Spike in 10:01. 3D for the win. A really messy brawl that was a lot less fun than the opener. Not much else to say about this…but New Jack would be attacking the Dudleys all the way through the end of the Dudleys tenure in ECW. Dudleys beat the hell out of New Jack at the end.

Joey Styles tells us we’ll get a replacement for Masato Tanaka in the upcoming ECW TV Title match. We get some RVD highlights to hype us up for that.

ECW TV Championship
Rob Van Dam© vs. Lance Storm

Storm gets some mic time first. Still a bit wooden, but not too bad at all.

Storm says he’s not the whole F’N show, just the best damn part of it. I like that line.

RVD goes for a springboard moonsault, but Storm dropkicks him off the top rope and he goes flying into the guardrail.

Unfortunately, the crowd is more interested in chanting things at Tammy Lynn Bytch.

As RVD crawls back to the ring after getting hit with a reverse DDT on the floor, he has a whole conversation with the camera/crowd. It’s perfect for the RVD character too.

Second surfboard of the night!

Referee eats a Van Daminator!

Storm hits a superkick into the chair into RVD’s face…but the ref is out afterall…

Rob Van Dam pins Lance Storm in 18:50. Great wrestling sequence ends with RVD hitting a bridging German Suplex for the win. I really like that being the finish as sometimes it’s pretty cool to see something that’s merely a good move and not a finisher end the match (you never see this today). While it was a bit sloppy, I enjoyed this for the most part. Great athleticism from both guys and I really liked how cocky RVD was in this one too.

Stairway to Hell Match
Tommy Dreamer vs. Justin Credible

I’m sorry but Nicole Bass doesn’t need to be here. What was the point? The WWF didn’t learn from this either.

Some back and forth brawling with some spots using the ladder. Nothing great but nothing bad either.

Nice flip from Justin Credible after hitting the ladder. Say what you want about Credible, but he did try.

Jazz, who I think is making her debut here, actually suplexes Dreamer.

Justin uses a ladder to dump Dreamer through a table, which I find to be a creative if not unnecessary spot.

Dreamer hits a Diamond Cutter off the middle of the ladders. While the first half of this was merely okay, this did pick up.

Justin Credible pins Tommy Dreamer in 18:45. Ok, this finish sucks and ruins the entire point of the match. Dreamer gets the Singapore Cane and hits Credible with a DDT. After he fails to tie Credible up in the ropes, he goes to hit Credible with the Cane for the big finish. Only Terry Funk shows up and nails Dreamer in the head with a garbage can. Credible hits Dreamer once with the cane then hits That’s Incredible for the win. Despite the whole point of the match being getting the cane (which is a lame weapon here even if it fits the story. At least Sandman-Sabu got barbed wire in theirs), the guy who gets it never uses it and the weapon itself is used once. While the match did pick up, I wouldn’t call it good or anything. This was merely okay and a bit long with a bullshit finish. Funk beats down Dreamer for good measure. I did not like this Terry Funk heel turn…and once again I don’t think this ever paid off with a match either.

Quick Taz promo that’s nothing new (Beat Me if you can…). Douglas has a promo too where he randomly calls out Sid and tells him its easier up north or down south to win the World Title…then botches the Immoveable object vs. irresistible force line (he says indestructible force). Not the best promo from either man.

ECW World Championship
Shane Douglas© vs. Taz

This had a real big match feel to it. This really was about 16, 17 months in the making.

Early on Taz hits a belly to belly and Douglas rolls to the outside. For some reason, the ref starts a count like he’s going to count Douglas out. I’m sure that was going to be the ECW PPV main event finish.

They fight all over the arena now, but to be fair that’s pretty boring. This whole thing has been pretty boring so far.

We get our first exciting moment where Taz hits an overhead belly to belly over a railing onto a platform. Other than that, this has been awful so far.

Taz finally gets a Taz-plex through a table in the ring. After the two count we get Sabu’s music. Sabu runs n and takes out both guys.

Sabu botches his springboard dive to the outside and turns it into a moonsault…but he only gets Taz and Douglas sells it anyway.

Sabu drives Douglas through a table!

Taz is next as Sabu drives him through a table too!

Douglas calls for the Triple Threat…even though the group had been disbanded as Bam Bam Bigelow left the company. Chris Candido and Tammy Lynn Sytch show up though and Tammy and Francine have a cat fight in the middle of this World Title match. Candido turns on Douglas as well, knocking him down with a punch.

Taz wins the title when Douglas passed out in 22:15. With Douglas calling out to Candido, Taz locks in the Taz-mission and Douglas passes out. This was absolutely terrible and an embarrassing main event. The most action packed part of the match involved Sabu. The crowd segment was boring and took up nearly half the match. We had a silly run in with Tammy and Candido. Taz didn’t even get a good win as Douglas had been beaten up by both Sabu and Candido. Absolutely terrible. Why couldn’t this just have been Taz beating the crap out of Douglas for 10 minutes? Why all the stupid stuff? The focus was barely on Taz!

The show wasn’t too bad overall, but an atrocious main event ruined that. Shane Douglas had been quite a letdown as champion in big match main events, citing back to the match with Al Snow and the six man back in November. The world title main events would get better throughout 1999 for sure.

I’ll give some credit for the solid undercard. But ECW still showed to be in a lot of trouble

Final Grade: C

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews ECW November to Remember ’98

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

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews ECW Heatwave ’98

Heatwave ‘98
August 2, 1998
Dayton, OH

There’s nothing special about ECW anymore.

Okay, that’s not exactly true, but with WWF Attitude changing the landscape of wrestling suddenly ECW looks bush-league. If anyone randomly caught ECW at 2 AM or whenever they were on, they would probably think it was a WWF rip off show. While it wasn’t their worst year, or even a bad year, 1998 was the year ECW lost its unique place in wrestling and ultimately the year where ECW stopped changing the business and just purely survived.

It didn’t help that quality wise, ECW was lacking. While still having many great performers, a terrible PPV back in May was something ECW could ill-afford. I assume Paul Heyman knew it too, because new talent was brought in for Heatwave ’98. There’s no random Bam Bam Bigelow vs. New Jack match here (what was Paul E. thinking with that one?) ECW still could survive at this point, it just needed to show it could put on a show at the level of the big leagues.

The Card

The Hara Arena looks pretty big for an ECW arena, which is a pretty good look.

ECW World Champion Shane Douglas is hurt, so he’s doing color commentary with Joey. Douglas being hurt for most of 1998 was another strange dynamic. The 1998 Triple H look in yellow isn’t doing Douglas any favors.

We get an f-bomb from Douglas right away. He hypes up the Taz vs. Bigelow rematch. Taz of course was chasing Douglas at this point.

Joey gets his face rubbed on Francine’s chest. Sure why not.

Justin Credible vs. Jerry Lynn

Jerry Lynn had put over Justin Credible for the better part of 1997 and most of 1998. I always felt the Credible-Lynn series did a good job elevating both guys to bigger things: Credible to the ECW main event and Lynn to the RVD feud. Joey hypes this as the rubber match to this feud, which means while Credible won all the house shows, Lynn and Credible must have split the big show matches.

Credible has an interesting group with him: Chasity, Nicole Bass and Jason.

Slight timing error for Lynn, but Lynn makes up for it with a nice twisting crossbody.

It’s hard not to notice how many ripoff characters we have here. Credible is a poor man’s X-Pac, Bass is a poor man’s Chyna and Jason is a poor man’s Buff Bagwell…and maybe a stretch but Chasity is a poor man’s Luna Vachon.

This match is pretty good so far though. A very good back and forth.

Pretty nice Bossman Slam from Credible.

Hurricanrana from the top rope through a table on the floor by Jerry Lynn? Nice!

Credible’s band of freaks gets owned by Lynn when they saved Credible. Bass gets a low blow and a chair shot, and Chasity gets Tombstoned.

Justin Credible pins Jerry Lynn in 14:36. That’s Incredible Piledriver from the top rope ends Jerry Lynn for the pin. Great finish to a very good opener. Heatwave is off to a great start. I think Lynn carried things here…but Credible did hold up his end of the bargain, and that’s all you need.

They also sell the finish like death for Lynn too, as they should, it being a tombstone off the top and all.

We must have skipped something on the Network because we go straight to the next match.

Chris Candido vs. Lance Storm

A well booked feud here. Storm tried to join the Triple Threat, but was double crossed by Candido. The only thing that really kept Storm and Candido from destroying one another was the fact they were tag team champions. They lost those belts (well, Candido and replacement partner Douglas) to RVD and Sabu. So now all that’s left is for them to go one on one.

Tammy Lynn Sytch is here with Candido too. Remember, at Living Dangerously Storm thought it was a good idea for Sytch to be his mystery partner. So that plays into this too. I assume Sytch had been fired from the WWF at this point.

Storm’s non-extreme style was perfect for him as a heel later.

Chris Candido has to be up there with most underrated wrestlers ever.

Suplex on Candido to the floor from the apron just looks like it hurts bad with the concrete floor in play.

Chris Candido pinned Lance Storm in 11:00. Sytch provocatively shoves Storm on the top rope and crotches him. Ref gets involved and accidentally pulls Sytch’s top off, which gets a big reaction. Blonde Bombshell finishes Storm, which is an awesome finish. Another really good match here.

Apparently The Dudley Boys and Jack Victory beat the crap out of New Jack in the parking lot earlier. That should tell you how that match is ending later.

Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka

AKA: the match that proved Paul E. needed to go into a new direction and did so.

RVD sneezing ”Hakushi” for some reason was hilarious to me when referring to Jinsei Shinzaki for some reason.

If seeing these two stiff the hell out of one another is what you want, this match is for you.

Tanaka no sells a release German where he landed on his head. Tanaka always seemed to do stuff like that and truthfully I never got it.

When someone the size of Mike Awesome does a springboard axehandle smash into the crowd, it’s hard not to be impressed, even if the landing wasn’t the great.

Tanaka no sells some chair shots. Again, I never really got it. It’s also quite cringe worthy today.

Tanaka drops Awesome right on his head through a table on the concrete floor from the ring. Sometimes I’m amazed I loved this stuff once. To me now it’s just scary.

Masato Tanaka pins Mike Awesome in 11:49. Tornado DDT on two chairs wins it. Very good brawl and the match of the night so far. I can’t stand Tanaka’s no-selling (it’s part of his character, not something he does maliciously) and Awesome seems to half-ass any moves that doesn’t involve killing his opponent (like clotheslines, big boots), but everything else was stiff as hell and it made a very good match. 3/3 for Heatwave so far! This was the future of ECW, believe it or not.

Taz was money on the mic in ECW and I’m surprised that didn’t translate to the WWF.

ECW World Tag Team Championship
Rob Van Dam and Sabu© vs. Jinsei Shinzaki and Hayabusa

Heyman brought in Tanaka, Awesome, Shinzaki and Hayabusa to draw for Heatwave (Well Tanaka and Awesome were there earlier) after the disaster that was Wrestlepalooza. And it worked, this match has a huge match feel for it and I’m surprised it didn’t main event.

Real sloppy start from RVD and Hayabusa. Two early botches, one off a roll up and the other off a springboard clothesline by Hayabusa.

There are some really smart spots in this one too. RVD with a cocky backflip to dropkick when Hayabusa was trapped in the Camel Clutch…but when he played to the crowd Shinzaki took him out with a springboard dropkick of his own.

Beautiful Asai Moonsault from Hayabusa!

Bow and Arrow by RVD on Shinzaki…then Sabu comes off the top with a chair!

Awesome twisting splash from RVD! The camera angle made it seem like he flew out of nowhere!

Perfect 450 from Hayabusa!

Van Daminator when Hayabusa was straddled on the top rope. Funny enough, Hayabusa no sells it.

RVD and Sabu when Sabu pinned Shinzaki pin at 20:51. It gets messy at the end, but Sabu and RVD drive Shinzaki and Hayabusa through a table and get the win. Sabu shoves RVD away for the pin, which a great little nod to their story. I know a lot don’t like this match because it boils down to such a spotfest…but it’s a damn fun spotfest and I loved most of it. I’d say it’s a great match, but it was quite sloppy at many points and some of the spots don’t quite hit the mark. But fun is fun.

FTW World Championship
Taz© vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

The FTW World Title is the title Taz said meant he was the real World Champ because he couldn’t get to Douglas.

In Taz’s big monster push, Bigelow was the only man to beat him…at Living Dangerously when he put Taz through the ring. Bigelow is Douglas’ right hand.

I’m surprised this isn’t main eventing either.

We’re told that this is Falls Count Anywhere, which kinda gives away the finish.

Taz just no sells an immediately hard powerbomb from Bigelow which is whatever to me. That’s not a move that should be no sold.

We’re already brawling on the outside and Taz gets a kick that knocks Bigelow off the ramp into the crowd, which seems pretty dangerous for the fans.

This has been 70% in the crowd. This was the wrong way to go about this match.

Taz with a tornado DDT through the rampway, and this time I think it’s overdone. It was just done to go one step further from the finish at Living Dangerously.

Taz wins by submission in 13:21. Bigelow emerges from the hole…but so does Taz! Taz locks in the Tazmission and Bigelow seemingly reaches for the ropes, which is considered a tap out. Uh…even that was pretty terrible, since it seemed clear he was reaching for the ropes. I thought this match absolutely sucked. This should have been Taz suplexing Bigelow around the ring for 10 minutes and choking him out clean. And what’s the deal with two straight Bigelow matches on PPV that did a tour of the arena? Why are we wasting Bam Bam Bigelow here?

Dudleyville Streetfight
Bubba Ray, D-Von and Big Dick Dudley vs. Tommy Dreamer, The Sandman and Spike Dudley

I loved the feud. The Dudleyz hit Beulah McGillicutty with 3D when Tommy Dreamer was handcuffed to the ropes. Beulah never came back. To say I bought the hatred Dreamer had for the Dudleys would be an understatement.

We get about 20 minutes of Bubba Ray and Joel Gertner promos/intros, followed by the Sandman, Spike and Dreamer’s entrance. I’m sorry, but that was a huge waste of time there.

Surprisingly good wrestling sequence with D-Von and Dreamer that doesn’t make any sense within the context of the story, but I’ll take it.

We actually get a bit of a wrestling match for the first half of this. Bubba throwing around Spike is always fun.

Once the Sandman got in there, all wrestling ended. It’s now a pier six.

Spike Dudley comes off a huge ladder in the ring and flies into many on the floor! Cool moment for Spike!

Somersault senton by the Sandman on the ladder. Some interesting ladder spots for 1998, messy as they are.

Bubba hits his own 2nd rope senton with Dreamer under a ladder. Bubba was huge then!

Somehow we get Judge Jeff Jones piledriving a blow up doll to mock Beulah. Dreamer spikes him for that.

Dreamer, Sandman and Spike win when Dreamer pins Bubba Ray in 14:26. DDT on a ladder gets it done. Jack Victory shows up and takes out Dreamer…and here comes New Jack of course! The Dudleys get the crap kicked out of them to end the show. Anyway, it’s just garbage wrestling, but I had no problem with any of this. An ugly old fashioned street fight where Tommy Dreamer got his revenge and some Dudleys got beat up. That’s ECW in a nutshell, isn’t it? There’s also a really cool visual at the end with Jack, Spike, Dreamer and Sandman all on ladders with their hands raised.

ECW needed a good PPV badly, and they delivered. The next step, Douglas vs. Taz, was set up. Dreamer can move on now (not sure if he does though), RVD and Sabu teased their eventually break-up. Credible and Lynn helped one another. Awesome and Tanaka injected some much needed new blood. This is easily the best ECW PPV so far.

I can’t put it in the A range, Bigelow vs. Taz was a mess and the time between that and the Dudleyville Street fight was absolutely wasted, killing the flow the show had. Why not give Candido and Storm a little more time?

But it was close and the right step for ECW.

Final Grade: B+

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews WWECW One Night Stand

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ECW One Night Stand
June 12, 2005
New York, NY
March 2, 2014

Background: I had mentioned in the December to Dismember review that the 2004 Rise and Fall Documentary was the first step in the revival of ECW. This was step two. The documentary was a huge success. Rob Van Dam reportedly continually pitched the idea of a ECW Pay-Per-View. And here it is.

There was a lot of doubt in regards to how good this show would actually be. Would Vince McMahon ruin it? The InVasion was still kinda fresh in some people’s heads. Would Vince throw out a watered down product? A LOT of people thought this was going to be a failure. Like somehow JBL would be the last man standing or something.

Storyline wise, Paul Heyman wanted to bring ECW back for a One Night Stand, and Eric Bischoff, arguably the most hated man in ECW history, didn’t want it to happen. There was a lot of real life animosity between Bischoff and Heyman due to how Bischoff would raid ECW’s talent roster in the mid-90s. Of course Bischoff was very defensive about how some actually thought there were times when ECW was the #2 promotion in the world (something Bischoff even provides in the documentary). Nonetheless, Bischoff is the perfect heel for this scenario. On the Smackdown side, JBL was also against the show for the standard reason Jerry Lawler was against ECW in 1997. He didn’t think they were in his league and deserved any TV or PPV time the WWE could provide. Both Raw and Smackdown had threatened to invade One Night Stand.

The Card

The crowd is electric early on! ECW! ECW! ECW!

Here comes Joey Styles!

Everyone just seems so happy to be there.

“OH MY GOD!”

Mick Foley is going to be Joey’s commentating partner tonight. Awesome. A lot better than Schiavone and Hudson.

The new ECW intro video package at first doesn’t feel like what ECW is about…but then you realize if ECW ever made it big time this is exactly what it would look like.

Lance Storm vs. Chris Jericho

Storm of course has the beautiful Dawn Marie with him.

I believe Storm had recently retired. Of course, an ECW reunion show with a match vs. Jericho I’m sure was an easy sell. Styles and Foley actually state this this is intended to be Storm’s last match.

Impact Players are talked about from Styles and Foley. Will we see Justin Credible later?

Jericho comes out dressed as Lionheart Chris Jericho, but has the Y2J music. Good thing that theme owns anyway.

Storm and Jericho shake. These guys are best friends afterall.

Amazing chain wrestling to start. Favorite was a Jericho monkey flip being countered into a cartwheel from Storm.

Dawn gets the “she’s a crack whore” chant.

Jericho does a dropkick from the first rope. That just looked cool.

Lionheart chant. ECW crowds were great.

Lance Storm probably had the best dropkick in the business.

Storm even makes a delayed vertical suplex look amazing.

Storm jumps to the top rope, when he jumps back (which makes no sense, but whatever), Jericho dropkicks him in the back of the head! No one cares when spots make no sense when they were amazing.

Chris Candido chant. He had passed away like a week before this and was Storm’s partner in ECW.

Fuck John Cena chant. Because why not.

The Calgary Crab! Or the Straight Shooter, whatever you want to call it.

Justin Credible and Jason are here! Jericho fights them off.

Lance Storm pins Chris Jericho in 7:22. Jericho rolls up Storm, but Storm kicks out and Credible cracks Jericho right in the face! Storm gets the win! Styles says “what a crappy way to win your last match” Match was excellent. I wish it was longer.

We get a Gary Wolfe interview…time to reflect on a lot of ECW wrestlers who had passed.

Rocco Rock, Bam Bam Terry Gordy, Mike Lockwood (Crash Holly), The Original Sheik, Mike Lozansky, Pitbull Anthony Durante, Big Dick Dudley, Chris Candido all honored. Great video.

Yoshihiro Tajiri vs. Super Crazy vs. Little Guido

Tajiri has Mikey Whipwreck and The Sinister Minister with him.

We are reminded that this is an elimination match.

I totally forgot Guido comes out with the whole FBI. JT Smith, Tony Mamaluke, Tracy Smothers, Big Guido. Just awesome.

Never understood how Super Crazy was never a bigger deal.

Tilt-a-whirl into an armbreaker from Guido to Tajiri, nice. They go into a chain wrestling sequence.

The way Super Crazy would nip-up from everything was great.

Crazy and Guido end up in the crowd.

O DIOS MIOS!

Super Crazy does a balcony moonsault onto the FBI! I’m pretty sure that was the moment fans realized this was going to really an ECW show and not a watered down show.

FBI interference everywhere. Tajiri mists Guido! Guido gets Whippersnappered from the top! Tajiri pins Guido! It is hard to keep up.

Double springboard moonsault!

Super Crazy wins when he pins Tajiri in 6:12. Crazy gets the top rope moonsault for the win! Can’t believe that was only 6 minutes. It was an amazing 6 minutes.

We get some ECW memories.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Psicosis

Psicosis takes off the mask to honor the ECW fans. Although the fans actually don’t appreciate it.

Rey’s theme does not fit here.

They both kinda start off slow, with a small botch in there. Still, it’s good chain wrestling though.

I remember people thinking Psicosis was wrestling for a job with the slow downed pace.

Suddenly the match kicks into high gear with Rey on the railing and getting hit by a Psycho Guillotine!

Psicosis misses a dropkick into the corner and does a violent flip into the mat. Psicosis was so good, shame he also never really got the big push in the WCW Cruiserweight division.

Rey does a seated senton into the crowd and Psicosis!

619 did not get a good response.

Rey Mysterio Jr. pinned Psicosis in 6:22. Rey hits the West Coast Pop for the win. You can kinda tell that Rey’s style changed a lot since becoming a WWE guy. The match wasn’t bad, it was still pretty good for the most part, but it was missing the flow you’d expect from both of these guys. It didn’t help that the previous two matches were a lot better.

Here come the Smackdown Invaders! JBL, Orlando Jordan and Kurt Angle are the leaders here.

We get a you suck dick chance. Angle will own them later. Now we get fuck you Smackdown.

JBL: “I got a ticket you little Mexican”!

Some more ECW memories.

Joel Gertner!

Kurt Angle and JBL embarrass Gertner. Good heel heat.

Angle cuts a promo.

ECW fans: You suck dick. Angle: Your mother taught me how!

JBL talks about how Madison Square Garden sells out with his name on the marquee. I like JBL, but that’s a stretch.

I do think this is one of JBL’s best promos. He buries the ECW fans pretty badly. It’s great.

Here comes Rob Van Dam and Bill Alfonso to shut JBL up!

RVD is megaover…obviously.

RVD points out that he will be shooting from the heart.

“Remember when RVD had a vocabulary?” This is RVD’s best ever promo as well.

RVD basically explains how much better he was used in ECW than WWE. He’s 100% right.

He tells the crowd the idea of an ECW PPV was his.

RVD talks about how crushed he was that he injured his leg how it won’t let him wrestle on the show.

RVD says the line that missing ONS sucks worse than missing Wrestlemania. I’m sure he means that 100% too.

It’s RHYNO!

Lights go out…it’s SABU! Great moment! Impromptu match!

Rhyno vs. Sabu

You got fired chant. Rhyno was fired a few weeks before this show.

Sabu with the springboard dive to the outside!

Nobody threw a chair into someone’s face like Sabu.

Air Sabu in the corner!

Triple Jump Moonsault blocked as Rhyno sends Sabu face first into the chair!

Ref gets GORED!

RVD is back in, nails Rhyno with the chair.

Skateboard! Dropkicks the chair in Rhyno’s face!

Sabu pinned Rhyno in 6:30. RVD puts Rhyno face first on the table….Arabian Skullcrusher through the table! Fun little brawl, great finish!

Foley and Styles steal one another’s lines, which was pretty awesome too.

Al Snow and Head promo! Snow blames Head for inviting the Invaders. Lol.

More ECW memories.

Here comes RAW!

“Oh no there’s Coach now I’m scared”. Lol.

Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero

Eddie plays rudo. While he’s great at it, I wish for this show he didn’t.

There’s an early sequence where Benoit accidentally breaks Eddie’s nose, which I think is the reason this match doesn’t live up to expecations.

Let’s go Benoit…Let’s go Eddie…Let’s go Eddie etc….

This match is surprisingly slow, and while it isn’t necessarily bad, it’s disappointing so far.

Eddie hits Benoit with a pretty nice chairshot to the back.

Very nice top rope superplex by Eddie.

Chris Benoit def. Eddie Guerrero by submission in 10:52. Benoit hits a Diving Headbutt, then makes Eddie tap to the Crossface. It was a hard hitting bout and by no means bad, but like Rey-Psicosis there was just something missing in it. Still though, it was good.

Gertner’s back!

Gertner asks something of Bischoff that he says everyone of ECW has been begging to ask him…”Can I please have a job?!” Hilarious!

Masato Tanaka vs. Mike Awesome

The best part of this match is Joey Styles trashing Awesome…and JBL rooting him on…because of his betrayal of ECW in 2000.

Crazy over the top rope suicide dive from Awesome. Unfortunately Joey Styles utters a line on commentary that became awkward when Awesome committed suicide 18 months later. (It’s a shame he didn’t succeed in taking his own life!)

AWESOME BOMB FROM THE APRON THROUGH A TABLE. I think Tanaka is dead. My god!

Big top rope splash from Mike Awesome. What hangtime!

Absolutely sickening chairshots! Tanaka no sells the first couple, but the third takes him down!

Tornado DDT on two chairs by Tanaka! This match is stiff and violent.

God damn Tanaka slams a chair on another chair on Awesome’s face…then does the same from the top rope!

Top rope chair shot!

Awesome is grabbing a table. Top rope Tornado DDT by Tanaka through the table!

Awesome Bomb from the top through the rest of the table! Tanaka kicks out! For sure thought it was over there!

Mike Awesome pinned Masato Tanaka in 9:52. Awesome hits Tanaka with another Awesome Bomb….from the ring through a table on the floor! Awesome adds a suicide dive over the top and the ref makes the count on the floor! Holy shit what a match. Some of the shots make me cringe, but god damn a great match is a great match. Awesome Awesome Bombs a ref at the end.

Here comes Heyman. Some more shootin’ comin’ up.

He isn’t crying, he just was smoking a joint with Van Dam!

He tells Bischoff that it’s not him at a WCW PPV, that he’s in ECW’s house!

Hide your wives, it’s Edge!

Matt Freak’in Hardy!…which actually seems to legitimately surprise Edge.

To JBL: The only reason you were WWE Champion for a year was because HHH didn’t want to work Tuesdays!

This stuff actually may seem tame for someone watching this for the first time in 2014, but at the time, a shoot like this on PPV was a big deal. Remember, this is pre-youtube and pre-twitter. In 2005, this was a great and revolutionary segment.

The Dudley Boyz vs. Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman

I know WWE Network has blocked out some violent spots in this one. If I remember them I’ll mention them.

Oddly, this would be the Dudley Boyz last WWE match.

Tommy Dreamer seems so happy to be there.

Of course no Enter Sandman on the Network. The entrance is still cool though. Sandman is horribly out of shape…but he would be in amazing shape one year later.

The Dudleyz dance to Enter Sandman in the ring. It was a pretty cool vision just overall.

IT’S THE BWO!

Stevie kick to the Sandman!

It’s Kid Kash. He hilariously dumps himself over the top rope.

Balls Mahoney and Axl Rotten!

Poor Nova gets double chairshotted: “That’s more painful than being Simon Dean on TV!”

Kid Kash somersault dives into everyone over the top rope to the outside!

Match begins.

We get some cheese grater action. Which I thought was edited out, but it’s not!

Of course, Dreamer is a bloody mess.

Dreamer wears a ladder and does the spinning ladder spot Terry Funk made famous.

Now Bubba Dudley gets the cheese grater!

The steel tray shots look stiff as fuck.

Bubba just dented a chair over Sandman’s head!

Holy shit is right.

Double Figure Fours is a funny spot here. You know, since the rest of the match had no wrestling whatsoever.

Storm and Credible are back!

That’s Incredible to the Sandman on Barbed Wire!

Francine is here and she low blows Dreamer!

Catfight with Francine and Beulah!

Dreamer and Beulah double DDT the Dudleyz!

Dreamer mocks the WWEDudleyz “WHAT’S UP” gimmick and makes sure D-Von isn’t having kids.

Sandman is powerbombed through a table.

3D to Dreamer!

Here comes Spike Dudley!

Spike is the key to getting a table on fire!

The Dudleyz win when Bubba pins Dreamer in 10:52. FLAMING TABLE! Dreamer gets powerbombed though and Bubba gets the pin. Wow. So violent but amazing match! Poor Dreamer!

Dudleyz threaten Beulah, but Sandman makes the save…and calls for a beer!

Here comes Stone Cold Steve Austin! Huge pop of course.

He’s wearing a XFL jersey. Lol.

Austin calls for the rest of ECW to come out for a show ending party.

Austin holds off on the beer. Austin challenges the Invaders to a fight!

We get a We Want Taz chant…and here he comes!

Angle vs. Taz showdown…

We have a brawl! Taz chokes out Angle!

Unfortunately this is where JBL stiffs The Blue Meanie. You can see the Dudleyz pull JBL to safety.

Mick Foley brings Eric Bischoff in.

Strategically, only WWE guys actually get a hand on Bischoff. First the 3D, then a Benoit flying headbutt, a Rey 619.

Bischoff lets out a fuck ECW!

Stone Cold Stunner to Bischoff!

The Dudleyz dump Bischoff somewhere outside the arena.

The ring full of ECW alumni celebrate as the show goes off the air!

Last Thoughts

What a show, what a fucking show.

Every match at minimum would be considered good. Jericho vs. Storm? Excellent. International Three Way Dance? Excellent. Rey vs. Psicosis, alright to good. Sabu vs. Rhyno? Good. Benoit vs. Eddie, alright to good. Awesome vs. Tanaka? Amazing, arguable Match of the Year Candidate. Dudleyz vs. Dreamer/Sandman, great.

Everything on this show connected. The history of ECW. The shoots. Even Austin being the man to challenge the Invaders gave ECW legitimacy.

Maybe if you didn’t grow up with ECW you don’t understand a lot of this. Afterall, ECW closed its doors 13 years ago and really hadn’t been all that great since 1999. Even so, you’d have to admit this was a very fun and very good show.

But if you grew up with ECW, well then, damnit, this show was perfect. It’s a shame 18 months later ECW as we knew it would be dead.

This show is great. One of the best Pay-Per-Views ever.

Final Grade: A+

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews ECW November to Remember ’97

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ECW November to Remember ‘97
November 30, 1997
Monaca, PA

Shane Douglas was the man Paul Heyman was putting his top heel money on. Douglas was…an okay choice. They could have been a lot worse (I assume he really wanted to use Raven). Douglas had some time in the WWF and WCW, so him as the top heel was a legitimate draw for ECW’s level at that point.

Top face? You got me. Taz wasn’t ready quite yet, but he was clearly the one they would go with. Terry Funk was a nice nostalgia run. Sabu will always be an attraction (and I think was heel at this point anyway). Rob Van Dam was still coming along (and was still heel here too). The short term answer? Bam Bam Bigelow was still a name in wrestling, only two and a half years removed from main eventing Wrestlemania. I’ll hand it to Paul Heyman, big name wise, these two seem to be the right guys for the main event.

As for the rest of the card, there is a mix of making new stars (RVD, Taz), just putting current ones wherever (Sandman, Dreamer, Sabu) or a lot of what the hell is going on (we’ll get there).

But hey, wrestling was getting hot, to be fair ECW was pretty hot at this time as well. This is ECW’s 3rd PPV, let’s see how it goes.

The Card

Largest crowd in ECW history. My research says 4,600 fans. I think that’s not bad?

Chris Candido vs. Tommy Rogers

I’ll admit, I don’t even know who Tommy Rogers is.

He’s Bobby Eaton’s old partner. I did know that, weird I didn’t make that connections.

I was thinking this match was boring…then we got a “boring” chant.

Tommy Rogers looks like he’s running at 80% speed.

Rogers suplexing Candido to the floor looked cool.

Seriously match is boring. It’s not even bad, it’s just a bunch of spots.

Lance Storm is out here and he attacks Tommy Rogers.

Now Jerry Lynn is here. And we have a tag match?

Ref makes it a tag match. Sure why not. The singles match sucked.

Hey, at least it got more exciting when Lynn and Storm got added.

Rogers does the nicest Unprettier I’ve ever seen.

Chris Candido and Lance Storm win when Candido pins Rogers in 16:42. Northern Lights Suplex wins it. Match picked up when it became a tag for sure. Storm and Candido would continue the Triple Threat storyline and even win the Tag Belts in the future.

We get images of Mikey Whipwreck beating Steve Austin and Justin Credible beating the Great Sasuke. Take that WWF!

Justin Credible vs. Mikey Whipwreck

Mikey Whipwreck: the only ECW Triple Crown Winner in ECW history. In all honesty, a stat like that is what was wrong with ECW (I also thought Sabu had done this).

My best memory of Credible’s manager Jason is Jazz crushing his balls at Heatwave ’99 (we’ll get there).

Credible was doing his X-Pac (or Syxx at this time) impression at this point. I think Credible was a little underrated at this point.

Sunset flip powerbomb was nice.

Mikey Whipwreck pins Justin Credible in 7:15. Whippersnapper for the win! Jason gets involved, but Whipwreck counters and actually uses Jason to get in position for the Whippersnapper. I will say that the result makes no sense whatsoever though. Credible was supposed to be pushed as a top ECW guy, no? I mean Whipwreck sure as hell wasn’t.

Joey Styles says that in the locker room Al Snow is getting Head. A lot funnier in 1997, and if I was 15, I guess. Snow makes the segment work though, and it’s pretty cutting edge to be fair, which Snow saying things like “get this guy over, and get this guy over” and doing the “J-O-B”.

Joey Styles is hilarious sometimes.

Sandman-Sabu promo…nope. Weird technical difficulties I guess.

ECW Television Championship
Taz© vs. Pitbull #2

Pitbulls turned heel at some point. The Pitbulls were two guys who just couldn’t do anything but brawl, and on PPV there just couldn’t be that much of ECW style brawling.

Paul E. Dangerously is in the commentary booth…and they take shots at RAW.

Pitbull #2 has Pitbull #1 and Mr. Wright at ringside.

Pitbull #2 totally misses a spinning heel kick that Taz sells.

Well, that was quick.

Taz makes Pitbull #2 submit in 1:29. A few suplexes, then the Tazmission ends it. Makes sense. Taz looked like a killer in his run up to the ECW World Title.

Taz calls out Brakkus, who is at ringside. Good thing that was never on PPV.

Taz makes fun of a security guard, who gets in Taz’s face. Taz bitchslaps him then chokes him out. Weird. Paul E was worried about lawsuits and calls for something else. Somehow he did this stuff better than Russo.

We get highlights of Bam Bam throwing Spike Dudley into the crowd. One of the things that made me an ECW fan for the record. I wrote about this in an earlier review.

Now we get highlights of Bigelow winning the World Title from Shane Douglas in New York a few weeks ago.

ECW World Tag Team Championship
The FBI© vs. The Gangstanantors vs. The Dudley Boyz vs. The Chair Swinging Freaks

We get some racist remarks from Tommy Rich to D-Von Dudley.

Joel Gertner is pretty incredible.

The Chair Swinging Freaks just come in and hit everyone with chairs. New Jack and Kronus have yet to show up.

Here comes New Jack! Only took 4 minutes.

Just how many times did New Jack do the run in and weapons thing? Jeez.

The Gangstanators is the result of Perry Saturn going to WCW…and Mustafa doing…something.

I don’t know what the hell is going on…although it looks like Jack and Kronus got killed here.

Big Dick Dudley misses a big moonsault…but he chokeslams Kronus anyway.

Kronus 450s Big Dick and tries to pin him, but he’s not in the match. I’m shocked the ref has still kept track.

Bubba Ray Dudley over the top rope plancha was not something I expected to see. Wow.

Tommy Rich takes a guitar to the head from an off the top rope New Jack!

Bubba eliminates Kronus with a Bubba Cutter. Fans aren’t happy.

Bubba Ray throws Little Guido into the top turnbuckle in a pretty sick way. Wow. That was better than Nash and Mysterio.

What the fuck? They did the powder in the eyes and Bubba 3Ds D-Von by accident spot. I thought that was just something stupid TNA came up with in that Fish Market Match. Dudleys are gone.

Evil referee! Evil referee! What else will this match have?

The FBI retain when Guido pins Mahoney in 14:32. Judge Jeff Jones kicks Mahoney low, and Guido rolls up Mahoney. Fast count and its over! Wow. I feel like I just watched 4 matches in one or something. I can’t remember a overbooked clusterfuck quite like that…but…I admit I was quite entertained and enjoyed it. It was fun, even if it was all over the place.

Rob Van Dam vs. Tommy Dreamer

RVD was still pro-WWF here. Amazing how he did this as a heel gimmick and still became the most popular wrestler in ECW history.

This is a flag match. How about that.

Bill Alfonso is the Vice President of Senior Affairs for the WWF or something. At least that was the gimmick.

1997 was a huge year for RVD. He looked a bit sloppy at Barely Legal. Here, he’s nearly the Whole Fuckin’ Show.

Not sure if he was the first, but the way RVD would jump on guardrails and do kicks and stuff (this one, Alfonso held a chair near Dreamer’s face and RVD double jumped on the guardrail and superkicked it) was just breathtaking at the time.

Nice DDT counter from RVD.

RVD does a split on the top rope as a tauntlike counter…but Dreamer sees it and kicks RVD in the middle, and then DDTs him off the top! Only 2!

Dreamer with the most obvious Van Daminator counter…he hits RVD with the chair.

Jeff Jones again! Horrible Dreamer Van Dreaminator there.

We get a referee match in the middle of this, but Beulah low blows Jones and the two refs DDT Jones. Fonzie takes out the refs, Beulah takes out Fonize.

RVD’s famous selling of Dreamer’s piledriver by popping up 4 feet (seriously) in the air.

Doug Furnas and Phil Lafon are out here! Then Stevie Richards comes back! Short WCW stint there.

Five Star Frog Splash on the garbage can!

No Contest in 14:32. Not sure how 14:32 was the original time, as we don’t get a real finish. Dreamer is out from the Furnas, Lafon, Richards, RVD beatdown. We have no more refs. This was a pretty good match actually, but the finish hurt it a lot, really because we didn’t have one.

We got Dreamer on a table and Sabu is out here. They wrap Dreamer in the WWF flag..but Sabu comes off the top and punches Beulah in the face! Wow I didn’t see that coming! Here comes the Sandman!

Tables and Ladders Match
The Sandman vs. Sabu

I like how Sandman just takes his time here with his normal entrance despite the fact that Dreamer was in trouble.

Sabu dives into Sandman’s kidney through the ropes. That seemed dangerous.

Sandman throws a ladder at Sabu’s head that could easily have hit a fan. Looked great though.

Sandman pretty much legdrops himself through a table on the floor but kinda gets Sabu. Really sloppy match, but it looks sick when the spots actually hit.

The match is literally spot after spot. It’s like a rehearsal.

Sabu and Sandman fall over on one spot, which leads to Sandman comically rolling over the ladder.

Fans aren’t buying it.

If I were to guess by that somersault senton through the table, I’d say Sandman is drunk.

We get a screwed up fireball by Sabu.

Sabu pinned The Sandman in 20:55. Atomic Arabian Facebuster with a Ladder for the win. Pretty horrible, but not the worst match of all time. They didn’t even try. It was literally set up spot, do spot, maybe hit spot. At least some of the spots look cool, like the javelin ladder. And we got some violence. Crowd seemed to hate it though. Or not care.

Taz is here for commentary! Actually he just challenges Bigelow to a match at Living Dangerously…4 months from now.

ECW World Championship
Bam Bam Bigelow© vs. Shane Douglas

Random personal thing: I always disliked Bigelow’s grey color scheme, I just thought the orange and red flames were better.

We are near Douglas’ hometown, so he gets the cheers. Bigelow though was kinda a bad ass face, so it works anyway. He doesn’t care.

This is all Bigelow. While Bigelow’s offense looks good, Douglas as the hometown face in peril, considering his character at the time, just doesn’t work.

Douglas tries an over the top rope hurricanrana and gets powerbombed through a table. That was real believable.

The Triple Threat run down, even though they are banned, and Bigelow tosses Douglas over the top rope and wipes them out. Bigelow is putting on a typical Bigelow performance here, and that’s not a bad thing.

Shane Douglas wins the ECW Title in 25:02. Douglas gets a belly to belly through a half table propped up by a chair (the hell?) and gets the three. Douglas just doesn’t cut it as hometown face in peril and the match suffers greatly. This is the kind of match Bam Bam and Bret Hart would have owned with four years prior. Crowd popped huge. I’ll call it decent.

Second ECW PPV in a row where Douglas wins the World Title. He would hold it through 1999 because of injuries, allowing ECW to become the Taz and RVD show.

Nothing on this show barring Sabu and Sandman is horrible. I’d even go as far to say I liked the show. But we aren’t getting into B territory with the crap finishes to the tag title and Dreamer-RVD match. Nevermind Sabu vs. Sandman’s blatant spotfest.

Historically, well, Taz and RVD looked great, no?

Final Grade: C+

Pro Wrestling

RDT Reviews ECW Barely Legal

Barelylegal97

ECW Barely Legal
April 13, 1997
Philadelphia, PA
Reviewed on March 11, 2014

Background: This was it. ECW for years had tried their damnest to get on Pay-Per-View. Companies thought they were too violent. Companies thought they were real. ECW actually got on the PPV schedule for 1997, but the Lesbian Kiss angle, SandmanCrucifixion and most importantly, the Mass Transit incident got them kicked off. ECW found a way back on though. Amazingly if not sadly, things wouldn’t be that great for ECW much longer. Their talent rosters had already been raided (mostly by WCW) and the more notable they got, the more that would happen. Nonetheless, this is a big moment for ECW, so let’s dive into it.

The Card

Joey Styles runs down the card…but The Dudley Boyz show up.

Dudleyz cut a promo. They weren’t ridiculously offensive yet, but still riot inducing heels.

We get the ECW Opening Video. Weird order of things.

Joel Gertner with his limericks!

ECW World Tag Team Championship
The Dudley Boyz© vs. The Eliminators (John Kronus and Perry Saturn)

Sign Guy Dudley “attacks” the Eliminators…and gets hit with Total Elimination!

This is more of a Texas Tornado match early on.

Springboard backflip from Saturn into a double dropkick. Nice.

Saturn would be in WCW in September of 97.

Double Feliner (that’s all I know it as, damn Cat) from the Eliminators!

Double twisting top rope splashes. This is all Eliminators.

Kronus catapults Saturn in a backflip/moonsault from the ring to both Dudleyz on the outside.

Space Flying Kronus Drop!

Totally forgot that Saturn once had one of the best top rope elbow drops in the business.

Double jump springboard moonsault from Saturn. Really a shame he tore his ACL a couple months from this.

Kronus with a nice 450 splash!

The Eliminators win the title when Kronus pinned Buh Buh Ray Dudley in 6:11. They double kick Buh Buh, then hit Total Elimination for the win. Match was 95% Eliminators. It works because ECW was trying to be different, and this was. How many total six minute ass kickings did you see on the WWF and WCW at the time? Also, great idea to start the show with a title change, makes the show feel important right out of the gate. As for the wrestling, it is a bit sloppy, but some of the spots you just didn’t see on a national stage in the US at the time. Perfectly good way to start the show. I’d even bet this match is how Saturn got signed away to WCW.

Joel Gertner states that in his scoring system, the Dudleyz win 86-83 and they are still the champs. He also gets Total Elimination…which led to the broken neck cast for his career (he even uses it at One Night Stand!)

Sandman hype video. He was the #2 guy behind Raven over the past year.

Lance Storm vs. Rob Van Dam

This match has some historical significance. Chris Candido, fresh off being Skip, got injured and was supposed to face Storm. RVD replaced him. RVD was legitimately upset over this as he felt he was overlooked. Smartly, Paul Heyman took advantage of this, first convincing RVD to stay, then running with the Mr. Monday Night gimmick and how everyone wants RVD. Of course, RVD is the biggest star to ever come out of ECW.

Surprisingly, neither of these guys would get a WWF or WCW deal until 2000 (Storm).

Some okay chain wrestling early.

RVD always had a great leaping somersault plancha.

Storm jumps to the top rope cleanly and hits a back elbow.

Storm goes SPLAT.

RVD with a moonsault off the railing!

RVD has the arrogance thing going on.

Sell-out chants for RVD. You know, Paul Heyman knew how to do the REALITY thing.

Frog Splash from RVD. Kick out from Storm. It wasn’t his finisher yet.

Storm with a nice last second splash off a cartwheel.

Storm gets the floatover Crab, but it wasn’t clean.

Storm with the weakest chair shot of all time…but when a very nice powerbomb on a chair. How confusing.

Storm tries to hit a top rope guillotine legdrop on RVD and an open chair, but it doesn’t quite work.

RVD botches one of my favorite moves. He crotches Storm on the top rope (not a corner) then goes for the springboard flying back kick…but he falls and only hits an elbow.

Rob Van Dam pins Lance Storm in 10:10. WEAK chair shots. But…RVD punishes Storm with a Van Daminator (the coolest move in the industry in my opinion at the time). Match was designed to get all of RVD and Storm’s spots in to show them off on a national stage. But, the match was pretty damn sloppy and some stuff was just botched. You don’t hear this match as one of those where RVD stole the show. Nonetheless, RVD does a “No Respect” promo which launched Mr. Monday Night.

Gran Hamada, The Great Sasuke and Masato Yakushiji vs. Taka Michinoku, Terry Boy and Dick Togo

When Jim Ross said Sasuke vs. Taka was each of those two’s first North American PPV match at Canadian Stampede…he missed this.

Michinoku Pro are honorary members of the BWO.

Streamers! Must be a Japanese thing according to Styles.

Sasuke would have some more ECW matches, most notably putting over Justin Credible.

Taka would be WWF Lightheavyweight Champ by December.

Dick Togo is like a great power cruiserweight.

The crispness of these moves is awesome.

Hamada with a lightning fast armbar. Nice.

AMAZING sequences of moves between Terry and Sasuke. I can’t even explain it, but it had about 10 reversals and some cartwheels. Wow.

Ouch, they stand Sasuke on his head and Taka dropkicks him right in the gut.

Michinoku Pro with an awesome group taunt and they included Sasuke!

Terry Boy is named that as a tribute to Terry Funk. He busts out the Spinning Toe Hold.

Wow Terry Boy props up Masato with a weak slingshot…so Togo can clothesline him down and Taka can come off the top with a flying knee drop!

Michinoku Pro gets a triple powerbomb on Masato, but they botch it on Sasuke. The only mistake this whole match.

Bad Sasuke hurricanrana counter as well.

Sasuke with a Asai Moonsault and he lands in the crowd!

Hamada with a really nice leaping swinging DDT.

Sasuke, Hamada and Yakushiji win when Sasuke pinned Taka in 16:55. Sasuke hits a Tiger Suplex on Taka for the win. Very good match, although I recall this being heralded as one of the best matches of the year (it wouldn’t even crack my top 3 matches on PPV that year). But nonetheless very fun and very good.

Big Stevie Cool backstage skit. BWO! He didn’t think he was a man being Raven’s flunky. He was in WCW in three months as well.

ECW TV Championship
Shane Douglas© vs. Pitbull #2

Story here: Douglas broke the neck of Pitbull #1. Revenge for Pitbull #2, maybe. Francine was also the former manager of the Pitbulls.

Francine is pretty damn hot.

Pitbull #1 is in the front row.

Douglas interview, talks about breaking Pitbull #1’s neck. Also about the masked stalker he has.

By the way, the Triple H Game gimmick was done first by Douglas. Although Douglas never evolved.

Headlock start really killed the crowd. Bad start.

It’s early, but this match is missing on all accounts right now. Very boring.

Blown spot where Douglas does a twisting crossbody and the Pitbull catches him…but then has to drop him.

Pitbull does a weak Fall Away slam for Douglas to go over the top rope and though a table, but even that looks weak.

Pit Bull #1 gets involved, and crowd didn’t even pop for it. This is not a good match.

Pitbull #2 throws a steel guardrail in the ring.

They botch crotching Pitbull #2 on the guardrail. Jeez.

Even the brass knuckles spot is boring and unexciting.

Shane Douglas retains by pin at 20:43. Overhead belly to belly out of nowhere for the win. Match was awful. While Douglas seemed off, Pitbull #2 had to put in the laziest performance of any wrestler I can remember, Vampiro included. Horrible punches. He wouldn’t even kick out right at the end. No surprise that he was gone in a few months and never caught on with WWF or WCW. Terrible match that went 12-13 minutes too long. Paul Heyman apparently apologized for it as well.

Here comes the masked man! He’ll take off the mask if he gets the girl!

Everyone seems to know it’s Ruck Rude, including Joey Styles.

Shocker…it’s not Rude…as Rude comes out from being disguised as one of Douglas’ bodyguards! It was Brian Lee who’s turned on Douglas. No idea why this all happened, but it was better than the 20 minute snorefest we just got. Crowd agrees. By the way, both Lee and Rude were in the WWF in 4 months. I feel bad for ECW sometimes.

Raven interview! He kinda gives away the fact that Terry Funk is going to win the three way to face him later. You know, since he’s cutting a promo on him.

Taz promo. Last hype job for the grudge match of the century!

Sabu vs. Taz

This match had been built up since 1995 I believe, when Sabu left Taz while they were World Tag Champs. It turned into a lot of moments where both men were close to coming to blows, but never would. Each claimed to be scared of the other. To be honest, the build was absolutely fantastic.

Taz is the heel and Sabu is the face.

This just has a big match feel.

Taz with the early Taz-Mission attempt…although Sabu escapes and Styles calls it as a huge deal.

Focus is mostly on Taz outwrestling Sabu, which I don’t really think is the way to go to be honest.

I always thought Sabu’s springboard leg lariat was a real creative move.

Sabu with the plancha into the crowd! Landing was a bit off…but it incites a serious ECW chant nonetheless.

Nice submission holds from Taz (Bow and Arrow), but this isn’t what the crowd wants.

Some nice chair spots.

Sabu misses Taz on an chair springboard dive, then Taz overhead belly to belly suplexes him over the top (which makes Douglas’ finish look awful anyway). Unfortunately, while I’m sure it hurt, it didn’t look great.

Sabu goes for a swinging DDT though a table off the apron, but Taz counters and sends Sabu through the table. Bill Alfonso, who is Taz’s manager here, starts begging Sabu to get up. Styles calls it mocking, but this makes sense in a few minutes.

Sky high legdrop from Sabu! Very nice.

Taz wins when Sabu passes out in 17:49. Sabu escapes a Taz-Mission with a suplex…but Taz suplexes Sabu in return on his head. Sabu though then busts out his own T-Bone Tazplex! Sabu locks in the Taz-Mission on Taz! Taz counters and drops Sabu on his head twice with two suplexes…then the Taz-Mission ends it. Watching Alfonso here is also quite telling as he looks disappointed, too bad it isn’t referenced. Sabu and Taz shake and hug to boos…but here comes Rob Van Dam! They double team Taz! Sabu botches driving Taz through the table, then dangerously does it a 2nd time (where we easily could have broken his neck). Sabu chokes out Taz with his own hold. Alfonso then reveals a Sabu shirt! How often does the manager end up siding with the loser of the team (he bet money on Sabu to win)! Anyway, this began the awesome RVD-Sabu team. RVD says he “loves to work Mondays”. Awesome.

Let’s talk about this match for a bit. It’s a good match, but this is the problem. This was supposed to be the greatest grudge match in history. Taz said it best in the ECW Rise and Fall documentary that there was no way the match was going to live up to expectations and unfortunately he was correct. I do think they should have done a different type of match though. Maybe because it wasn’t late enough yet or something, but there hasn’t been a whole lot of violence on this show. This match (and Douglas-Pitbull #2) needed hardcore matches, not wrestling matches.

Here comes Tommy Dreamer for some commentary for the main events. I wonder why he didn’t wrestle on this show.

#1 Contender to the ECW World Championship
The Sandman vs. Terry Funk vs. Big Stevie Cool

BWO!
BWO!

Here comes the Sandman. Dubbed entrance, but I do like Megadeth’s Trust anyway. This may be a while.

Sandman starts the match off by drinking and spitting the beer in Stevie’s face.

Tommy says he won’t interfere in this match or the one with Raven for Funk. Again, just giving it away are we?

The crowd is hot for this, which is good, because this has been some sloppy wrestling so far.

Four neckbreakers on Stevie Cool. Sandman just throws a ladder in the ring and nails Funk, what a throw.

Funk with a moonsault off the top of the ladder (nutcase) which totally misses Stevie…except for a boot. Still, crazy old man with a crazy spot.

Sandman takes the ladder and comes off the top and smashes Richards. You don’t even see that in Ladder matches today!

Funk with the spinning ladder! Styles with the accurate assessment: Funk’s nuts.

Catapult move seem to get botched somehow, as the ladder doesn’t come up.

Crowd clearly wants Stevie to win this thing by the way. Stevie Kick gets 2 on the Sandman…crowd chants bullshit.

Some crazy Sandman over the top rope dive to catapult the ladder into Stevie’s face. Ouch.

Sandman with a PERFECT toss of a trash can into the ring…as it lands with a crash on Terry Funk’s head!

Another ladder catapult! The ladder goes flying and almost ends up in the crowd. Sandman must be drunk.

Double powerbomb eliminates Stevie. Fans are not happy. I never realized Stevie was so over here.

Sandman finds barbed wire in the streamers that were thrown earlier! Funk though, gets it and whips the hell out of the Sandman with it. Ouch.

Terry Funk wins when he pins Sandman in 19:07. Sandman legdrop from the top only gets two. Richards on the apron, but Sandman (who wrapped himself in barbed wire) body splashes him off. Funk gets control by getting the can on Sandman’s head. Stevie Kick, then a Funk Moonsault for the pin. Very sloppy…but I guess it could still be classified as a fun brawl. Raven’s out right away, as there is only ten minutes of show time left.

ECW World Championship
Raven© vs. Terry Funk

This is booked smartly early, as Raven beats the crap out of Funk. Funk just wrestled a 20 minute violent brawl. So it makes sense.

Funk is bleeding everywhere. There’s a doctor in the ring, but Funk continues on.

Commentary from Dreamer is awesome, as he’s near tears as he promised he wouldn’t help his mentor.

Doctor’s in there again. The Funker fights on.

Raven drives Funk through a table with a flying dive over the top rope. That looked very cool!

Raven takes out the doc!

Reggie Bennett is out here. No Idea who she is, but she attacks Funk (Raven’s Nest did own).

Raven gets on the mic. He says he’s going to end Funk’s career right here.

Big Dick Dudley attacks Dreamer with a hard trash can shot! Dreamer turns the tide though and chokeslams (kinda) Dudley off the stage through a stack of tables! OH MY GOD from Styles!

Dreamer’s coming for Raven!

Dreamer throws a trash can at Raven…who catches it and throws it back at Dreamer. It gets Dreamer good…and he awesomely no-sells!

Terry Funk wins the ECW Title when he pinned Raven in 7:20. Dreamer DDT. 1…2…no…? Fans thought it was over. THE BELL EVEN RANG….but Raven kicked out. Small package…and that gets the three! Big pop for the title win. Match wasn’t even a match really, in fact the small package was the only move Funk got in. But it was a fun mess of interference and Raven kicking Funk’s ass…with a great moment at the end.

This is a tough one to grade. If I grade it purely on its quality of matches, it is a disappointing show overall, somewhere in the C+ range. One great match quality wise, a couple of good ones (even if one of those didn’t live up to the hype) and some crazy brawling.

If you grade it on the historical aspect, this PPV launched RVD’s career. It launched Taz’s top run as a face. It put ECW on PPV, and it lasted four more years in a very competitive era for wrestling. It had great moments. This was an ECW fan’s dream.

Sometimes you have to go with history. It’s almost a B+ and would be if not for the disappointing hype around Taz vs. Sabu (still a good match)….and the disaster that was Douglas vs. Pitbull #2.

Final Grade: B