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Heat Wave 1999
Date: July 18, 1999
Location: Hara Arena, Dayton, Ohio
Attendance: 3,700
Commentator: Joey Styles
So it’s another month and time to do another ECW show. Taz is still world champion and tonight is destroying Tajiri. Yeah that’s a great way to drive up the buyrate Paulie. The main event is RVD/Lynn vs. the Impact Players. Ok that’s a bit better. Oh never mind. None of them have any tag titles or anything worth winning here so there we are again. The card looks like crap so I’m not really looking forward to this. Let’s get on with this.
Taz says he’ll beat Tajiri. I’m so riveted.
Danny Doring and Roadkill say that they’re awesome. The only thing awesome here is their manager Ms. Congeniality. Most of you know her as Lita.
Chris Chetti and Nova say they’ll win.
Jason rubs oil on himself and talks about himself beating Jazz.
The Dudleys talk about Balls Mahoney. Why do I have a feeling that means Spike also?
Steve Corino, who I still barely recognize, talks for Tajiri. He’s a cowardly heel manager at this point. Yeah he would get better.
Storm and Credible say they’ll win. Can we GET TO THE DAMN SHOW???
Lynn says he’ll team with RVD tonight because he has to. RVD says Sabu will understand. Sabu comes in and doesn’t like it.
Holy shit we’re in the arena! What a concept! Joey does his normal welcome and we hit the theme song. There are six announced matches, the tape runs just over two and a half hours, and we’ve spent over seven minutes talking. This doesn’t make me go to a happy place for this show, and I like being in my happy place. If nothing else we get shots of Dawn Marie.
Danny Doring/Roadkill vs. Chris Chetti/Nova
Lita is with the heels here, and uh, damn. She’s playing up a **** character already. That’s saying a lot. The fans want to see her tits. That’s something she’ll get used to. Doring wants to talk. That doesn’t shock me at all. He says he was laying in bed last night and had a realization and something came to him. Ok then. See, when the fans here do the chants they’re cool as they were original. Now when TNA fans do them, they’re obnoxious.
Doing proposes to Lita, who accepts. Naturally there’s no ring, so Roadkill hands him a condom. Sure why not. Somehow Nova sounds awesome right now. Chetti is wearing a Mad Hatter hat and dancing badly. Even Joey is freaking out over it. The first contact of the show is made at thirteen minutes in. Chetti might be gay now. Ok then. Nova is alone in the ring and gets hit with a Hart Attack.
Joey says he’s 28. That just comes off as odd but cool at the same time. It’s nice hearing someone be that young. It’s fast paced so far if nothing else so I can’t complain. Roadkill is a decent power guy. Doring is just a pest. Nova hits what would become known as the Ratings Spike in OCW. He follows that up a bit later with a Stunner/DDT combo on the heels. That’s damn cool looking.
We get a horrible figure four. Damn it and things were going so well up to that point. Chetti hits a sweet looking double jump moonsault and grabs a mic. He says it’s time to dance, and of all songs Livin La Vida Loca comes on, and he dances with Lita. WOW. Nova comes in and of course is pissed off.
Lita winds up taking what we would call a Cradle Shock. In an impressive display of strength, the dancing idiot hits Roadkill with one as well and a double splash/legdrop from the same turnbuckle at the same time (cool move) ends it.
Rating: B. We have four young guys wrestling a fast paced tag match to open a PPV with a hot woman involved. Sounds like a winner to me. The dancing thing is just OUT THERE though. I get that you want to have a gimmick for the guy, but seriously? That’s the best you can do? Hot opener though and I’m into the show because of it so great job there.
We see clips of Taz yelling at Tajiri but he’s interrupted by Corino and Rhyno. Corino is more or less hated here as the punk kid. After a funny bit of Taz yelling at Corino and it being just one long bleep, Tajiri turns heel and beats up Taz to set up the title match here.
Jason vs. Jazz
So it’s heel manager vs. heel manager. Sure why not? Jason is Buff Bagwell but more annoying. Jazz is Jackie meets Chyna in case you missed her in WWE. Yes this is one of the six matches on the card. Oh great she’s dancing. Jazz is from New Orleans. I would have thought Utah. So I’m thinking this is like Jarrett vs. Chyna Lite.
I have to think that since nothing is explained of course. Apparently Jazz has either very little or no experience but of course she’s decent in the ring. A problem here is that Jason isn’t that big to begin with and Jazz is quite a bit smaller than he is so his offense looks weird. Jazz gets a decent looking crucifix into a sunset flip. Jason looks a bit like Santino in the face. At least from a distance. Jazz makes the comeback to some nice pops. Chairs are brought in and his balls are crushed. An X Factor onto the chair ends it.
Rating: D+. So was this just a random man vs. woman match or was there a point to this? Either way Jazz is annoying and the match was too short to be much. I don’t get it but whatever. I don’t get a lot of ECW stuff so there we are.
Cyrus shows up at the commentary area.
Little Guido vs. Super Crazy
Yeah because the whole international match thing hasn’t been done to death right? The commentary is REALLY hard to hear. Hey look we’re stalling before we get going. Who would have guessed that? Guido has decent bicep muscles for a guy his size. The fans are inquiring about a pizza they claim to own.
As usual the match is fast paced and exciting to see but at the same time they all run together as there’s little point to having so many of them other than ECW having no use for any of these guys other than as filler to pad out their PPVs that don’t need to be three hours as they don’t have enough stuff to go that long. The ten punch count in Spanish is a fun touch. You can never accuse ECW fans of not paying attention.
Guido gets thrown over the ropes and it looks great. Cue big dive. We hit the crowd. Never mind that we can’t see anything. In a fucking STUPID spot, the heels are looking up at Crazy for about 8 seconds while he gets ready for the big moonsault in the crowd. Hmm. WHY DO YOU NOT MOVE YOU FUCKING MORONS??? That is what people mean when they say contrived spots or moves that expose the business.
There was zero reason for them to just fucking stand there like that. No reason at all. Crazy hits a springboard spin kick which is one of my favorite spots. And he follows that up by being an idiot and doing the spot where you jump from the top and the guy puts his boot up. Tell me, is there a reason you jumped with no visable intention of doing a normal move other than JUMPING INTO THEIR BOOT? That’s idiotic spot number two.
Cyrus is really annoying so at least they got his character right. Sal, the 500 pound fat ass, comes in and hits an alleged Fameasser on Crazy for two. They can’t pin him. The fans chant Little Caesars. I haven’t eaten all day so that sounds AWESOME. Crazy fucks up the third moonsault but makes up for it with a SWEET dive onto Sal.
An Unprettier gets two as Crazy kicking out the whole time is just fucking stupid at this point. And after being killed more or less for 10 minutes, Crazy hits a powerbomb to win it. That match made my head hurt.
Rating: D. This just made no sense. Crazy getting beaten on that much and consistently kicking out with no issue was just idiotic. He takes big move after big move and is fine 8 seconds later. Also like I said, these matches just run together time after time. This show is almost an hour in and it feels like a house show. That’s not a good sign at all. Ok match, but the booking was just horrible.
We recap Balls and Spike vs. the Dudleys. Pay no attention to the fact that this is the same match as last month or that it’s the fourth time in a row that Spike has fought them on PPV.
Tag Titles: Dudley Boys vs. Spike Dudley/Balls Mahoney
Something tells me this is going to take awhile to start. Bubba talks about how these are the only belts that mean anything. That explains them jumping in less than 5 months. Gertner is still selling the injuries from the missed fireball. Joey says he looks like the Invisible Man. Joey, you fail. This is a fairly infamous promo as Bubba more or less has the crowd on the verge of rioting with how much heat they have on them.
This is where he says there’s a *insert gay slur here* in the front row and a mother who taught her daughter to suck dick. The Dudleys say that if the fans won’t come to them, the Dudleys will come to the fans. This is intense stuff if nothing else as a woman spits on Bubba. Now it’s time for Gertner to talk. He makes sex jokes based on the names of movies in theaters at the time to really date the show.
Ok he gets in a great line to make up for it. “Whether the girls are at home or here in Dayton, or back at home and *********ing”. Yes he’s awesome. They’ve been talking for ten minutes now. Ok, we get it already. FINALLY Balls’ music kicks on. And now Balls talks. He says it’s a street fight with falls count anywhere. Wow I’m stunned. Naturally it’s a massive clusterfuck.
Seriously did you expect anything else? We get the cheese grater and I already hate this match. Seriously, what does this have to do with tag team wrestling? You never see more than two people on screen at once. D-Von and Spike are in the crowd doing whatever. Since there’s no referee with them, it’s rather pointless to follow them isn’t it? It’s just a big brawl with blood and random strikes. Spike dives off the balcony. Yeah I don’t care either.
Now I’m stunned as all four guys are in the ring at once. Holy shit. The fans chant for flaming tables. Being put through one of those sounds pretty good right now. D-Von just goes off on Mahoney in the corner with punches. Ok that was kind of cool. The faces hit their finishers at the same time and of course the Dudleys kick out. And it worked so well the first time that we should just do that all over again!
So of course the four finishers don’t do it so they win with a schoolboy. Wow that’s riveting. The Dudleys do the beatdown afterwards and the table is lit up. Make that two tables. What a waste of fake wood. The powerbomb on Balls is botched. Yeah there’s nothing unsafe about that. Spike goes through. And since this was an idiotic match, here’s New Jack to really cram it home. As I’ve said, he is the epitome of everything wrong with ECW. This celebrating goes on forever as we kill more time.
Rating: F. The camera work sucked, there was zero wrestling, the ending was idiotic, it’s the same match as last month and the same feud for four months and New Jack was involved afterwards. What do you think I’m going to give this?
Francine comes out with Dreamer. Well that’s an upgrade if nothing else. He’s in a silver shirt and shorts. Oh dear. He runs down King of the Ring and Bash at the Beach. Ok to be fair both of those shows sucked. Summer of 1999 was not a kind month to PPV. Dreamer makes the big announcement of ECW on TNN. Ok now at the time, this was a big deal for ECW, but it wound up killing them.
Actually that’s not true but whatever. The crowd boos Canada. Ok then. He goes over how they started in front of 50 fans and it went up and they eventually got on TV and then they got on PPV and now they’re on national TV and having sold out arenas for PPVs. While there is SO much more to it than that with how much trouble the company was in at this time with more or less more debt than a small country, it’s true that they came very far and getting a national TV deal was a big thing.
He has another thing to say and he’s crying as he tries to say it. And here’s Corino and his lackeys. Cornio’s gimmick of being anti-hardcore was great. Not as great as Foley when he did it but still. Apparently Dreamer’s back isn’t getting better. Corino makes the announcement that Dreamer’s career is over. This is the first thing so far that I remember happening in the original ECW. Cornio runs down the lack of wrestling in the company. Preach it man.
Dreamer was a great character as you could throw him in any angle like this and he was a perfect fit. Corino says he should lay down and put Corino over. Ok wait. He just said that Dreamer was worthless. Why then should he want to get put over by what he would consider a jobber? Dreamer does his big speech that always works very well. They get into it and Corino can’t do shit to him. Crowd is nuts for Dreamer. Francine gets a Bronco Buster on him.
Francine DDTs him and pins him. There was a referee there…why? Tajiri is here, finally looking like his normal self. Taz comes out to make the save. Well he’s defending against Tajiri tonight, so let’s do this.
ECW World Title: Taz vs. Tajiri
This was when Tajiri was pretty fucking awesome in the ring so there’s a tiny chance he could pull this off. He hits a picture perfect Asai moonsault over the railing to take out Taz. That was sweet looking. It’s all Tajiri to start us off. He’s fun to watch if nothing else. Taz gets a suplex and imitates the Japanese bowing. Can Taz do anything other than throw suplexes? It certainly doesn’t appear that he can.
To be fair can Tajiri do anything but kick? The Buzzsaw kick gets two. Taz shoves Tajiri onto Rhyno. This isn’t the most interesting match of the night really. We head to the ramp for some brawling of course because it’s ECW. Taz busts out a Batista Bomb on the ramp. Cool. Tajiri goes through a table. Yeah this is boring. Taz has left.
Good to see that he has intelligence still. He comes back with barbed wire but Joey insists we go wide. Never mind that we couldn’t see that at first. Taz puts him in the Tazmission with the barbed wire. Ok then.
Rating: D+. Well the kicks and suplexes looked good so I can’t complain there that much. It went way too fast though so it was hard to keep up with things. The barbed wire at the ending was just odd. Also it felt thrown together which is never a good thing. Not a very good match.
Joey and Cyrus talk about the main event. Yeah it’s more filler.
Impact Players vs. Rob Van Dam/Jerry Lynn
Everyone gets their own entrance as we have 35 minutes to go with just this match left. Lynn and Storm are guys I really like though so I’m happy here. Van Dam gets a great pop of course. We can’t put the title on him though. Apparently something is wrong with RVD’s wife in real life at this time. That’s not good. Van Dam walks around the ring for awhile to kill MORE time.
Seriously, his music is still playing 7 minutes after the intros for this match started. We get it: you don’t have enough stuff to fill in three hours. Have a quick match to make it seem like you do at least. Or give the world title match longer than ten minutes. Why does no one jump Van Dam when he’s doing his spinkick thing to start a match? Hey the bell rang! We actually get a fucking match! Storm and Lynn start us off.
Well one has talent at least. Let’s stall! Over FOURTEEN MINUTES after the intros start, we have our first contact. That’s fucking stupid. Lynn beats them up on his own. Well good to see that RVD is completely not needed. Instead I’ll just stare at Dawn Marie. Ah here’s Van Dam vs. Storm.
We get a decent technical sequence to start us off that ends in a standoff. Damn they’re moving out there. Storm gets the half crab but it means nothing at this point. LYNN VS. STORM!!! Heel evilness leads to Storm taking over. The heels like to throw chops way too much.
And here’s a chair. They’ve had the hardcore stuff toned down a bit on this show so that’s good. We get a nice pinfall reversal sequence from the two guys I like best and Storm ends it with one of those great superkicks of his. In a nice nod to the Clique, Credible hits the Razor’s Edge, complete with hand motions. Van Dam has been in maybe a minute out of ten so far.
This is a fairly solid main event tag match methinks. The big star finally comes in. Well the fans are reacting to him so the hot tag makes sense if nothing else. He hits the seated dropkick into the chair into Storm. For no apparent reason he threw in a moonsault that made no difference at all. Sure why not. Lynn hits Credible with a bulldog from the corner to the ramp. Cool looking move with the variation there if nothing else.
It’s broken down now of course with everyone all over the place. Storm hits a spinwheel kick from the top rope which is one of my favorite moves so he stays awesome. Apparently that’s his finishing move. Ok then. Credible manages to get thrown into the corner and dives over it without ever hitting the corner. Yeah that didn’t look stupid at all.
In a PAINFUL looking spot, Storm gets drop toe holded into the chair but just grazes it. That would hurt more than a full on shot. And here’s Sabu to put Credible through a table. Ok then. RVD misses the splash and it hits Lynn but he kicks out which is a very nice touch. Van Daminator and Cradle Piledriver ends this. Sabu shoves Van Dam into Lynn. Lynn hits Van Dam and then Sabu and it’s a three way brawl to end the show. The last three minutes are just a highlight reel of the show. Sure why not.
Rating: B. This was pretty good I thought. The teaming at least made something resembling sense. Also having Storm and Lynn in there for a good amount of time is nothing bad at all. It was a solid main event tag match so I’m happy with it.
Overall Rating: D. And that’s being rather generous. Seriously, 6 matches, MAYBE two of which belonged on PPV, and a really long talking segment. That’s what this show was. The card feels like a house show. I mean, did anyone give Tajiri a real chance at winning the belt? Do Lynn and RVD get anything from winning?
Spike and Balls win the tag belts. Good for them. Now if they NEVER INTERACT WITH THE DUDLEYS AGAIN I’ll be happy. This just felt like nothing happened here at all and like a big house show or TV show. That’s not a good sign at all. Avoid this one.
Date: July 18, 1999
Location: Hara Arena, Dayton, Ohio
Attendance: 3,700
Commentator: Joey Styles
So it’s another month and time to do another ECW show. Taz is still world champion and tonight is destroying Tajiri. Yeah that’s a great way to drive up the buyrate Paulie. The main event is RVD/Lynn vs. the Impact Players. Ok that’s a bit better. Oh never mind. None of them have any tag titles or anything worth winning here so there we are again. The card looks like crap so I’m not really looking forward to this. Let’s get on with this.
Taz says he’ll beat Tajiri. I’m so riveted.
Danny Doring and Roadkill say that they’re awesome. The only thing awesome here is their manager Ms. Congeniality. Most of you know her as Lita.
Chris Chetti and Nova say they’ll win.
Jason rubs oil on himself and talks about himself beating Jazz.
The Dudleys talk about Balls Mahoney. Why do I have a feeling that means Spike also?
Steve Corino, who I still barely recognize, talks for Tajiri. He’s a cowardly heel manager at this point. Yeah he would get better.
Storm and Credible say they’ll win. Can we GET TO THE DAMN SHOW???
Lynn says he’ll team with RVD tonight because he has to. RVD says Sabu will understand. Sabu comes in and doesn’t like it.
Holy shit we’re in the arena! What a concept! Joey does his normal welcome and we hit the theme song. There are six announced matches, the tape runs just over two and a half hours, and we’ve spent over seven minutes talking. This doesn’t make me go to a happy place for this show, and I like being in my happy place. If nothing else we get shots of Dawn Marie.
Danny Doring/Roadkill vs. Chris Chetti/Nova
Lita is with the heels here, and uh, damn. She’s playing up a **** character already. That’s saying a lot. The fans want to see her tits. That’s something she’ll get used to. Doring wants to talk. That doesn’t shock me at all. He says he was laying in bed last night and had a realization and something came to him. Ok then. See, when the fans here do the chants they’re cool as they were original. Now when TNA fans do them, they’re obnoxious.
Doing proposes to Lita, who accepts. Naturally there’s no ring, so Roadkill hands him a condom. Sure why not. Somehow Nova sounds awesome right now. Chetti is wearing a Mad Hatter hat and dancing badly. Even Joey is freaking out over it. The first contact of the show is made at thirteen minutes in. Chetti might be gay now. Ok then. Nova is alone in the ring and gets hit with a Hart Attack.
Joey says he’s 28. That just comes off as odd but cool at the same time. It’s nice hearing someone be that young. It’s fast paced so far if nothing else so I can’t complain. Roadkill is a decent power guy. Doring is just a pest. Nova hits what would become known as the Ratings Spike in OCW. He follows that up a bit later with a Stunner/DDT combo on the heels. That’s damn cool looking.
We get a horrible figure four. Damn it and things were going so well up to that point. Chetti hits a sweet looking double jump moonsault and grabs a mic. He says it’s time to dance, and of all songs Livin La Vida Loca comes on, and he dances with Lita. WOW. Nova comes in and of course is pissed off.
Lita winds up taking what we would call a Cradle Shock. In an impressive display of strength, the dancing idiot hits Roadkill with one as well and a double splash/legdrop from the same turnbuckle at the same time (cool move) ends it.
Rating: B. We have four young guys wrestling a fast paced tag match to open a PPV with a hot woman involved. Sounds like a winner to me. The dancing thing is just OUT THERE though. I get that you want to have a gimmick for the guy, but seriously? That’s the best you can do? Hot opener though and I’m into the show because of it so great job there.
We see clips of Taz yelling at Tajiri but he’s interrupted by Corino and Rhyno. Corino is more or less hated here as the punk kid. After a funny bit of Taz yelling at Corino and it being just one long bleep, Tajiri turns heel and beats up Taz to set up the title match here.
Jason vs. Jazz
So it’s heel manager vs. heel manager. Sure why not? Jason is Buff Bagwell but more annoying. Jazz is Jackie meets Chyna in case you missed her in WWE. Yes this is one of the six matches on the card. Oh great she’s dancing. Jazz is from New Orleans. I would have thought Utah. So I’m thinking this is like Jarrett vs. Chyna Lite.
I have to think that since nothing is explained of course. Apparently Jazz has either very little or no experience but of course she’s decent in the ring. A problem here is that Jason isn’t that big to begin with and Jazz is quite a bit smaller than he is so his offense looks weird. Jazz gets a decent looking crucifix into a sunset flip. Jason looks a bit like Santino in the face. At least from a distance. Jazz makes the comeback to some nice pops. Chairs are brought in and his balls are crushed. An X Factor onto the chair ends it.
Rating: D+. So was this just a random man vs. woman match or was there a point to this? Either way Jazz is annoying and the match was too short to be much. I don’t get it but whatever. I don’t get a lot of ECW stuff so there we are.
Cyrus shows up at the commentary area.
Little Guido vs. Super Crazy
Yeah because the whole international match thing hasn’t been done to death right? The commentary is REALLY hard to hear. Hey look we’re stalling before we get going. Who would have guessed that? Guido has decent bicep muscles for a guy his size. The fans are inquiring about a pizza they claim to own.
As usual the match is fast paced and exciting to see but at the same time they all run together as there’s little point to having so many of them other than ECW having no use for any of these guys other than as filler to pad out their PPVs that don’t need to be three hours as they don’t have enough stuff to go that long. The ten punch count in Spanish is a fun touch. You can never accuse ECW fans of not paying attention.
Guido gets thrown over the ropes and it looks great. Cue big dive. We hit the crowd. Never mind that we can’t see anything. In a fucking STUPID spot, the heels are looking up at Crazy for about 8 seconds while he gets ready for the big moonsault in the crowd. Hmm. WHY DO YOU NOT MOVE YOU FUCKING MORONS??? That is what people mean when they say contrived spots or moves that expose the business.
There was zero reason for them to just fucking stand there like that. No reason at all. Crazy hits a springboard spin kick which is one of my favorite spots. And he follows that up by being an idiot and doing the spot where you jump from the top and the guy puts his boot up. Tell me, is there a reason you jumped with no visable intention of doing a normal move other than JUMPING INTO THEIR BOOT? That’s idiotic spot number two.
Cyrus is really annoying so at least they got his character right. Sal, the 500 pound fat ass, comes in and hits an alleged Fameasser on Crazy for two. They can’t pin him. The fans chant Little Caesars. I haven’t eaten all day so that sounds AWESOME. Crazy fucks up the third moonsault but makes up for it with a SWEET dive onto Sal.
An Unprettier gets two as Crazy kicking out the whole time is just fucking stupid at this point. And after being killed more or less for 10 minutes, Crazy hits a powerbomb to win it. That match made my head hurt.
Rating: D. This just made no sense. Crazy getting beaten on that much and consistently kicking out with no issue was just idiotic. He takes big move after big move and is fine 8 seconds later. Also like I said, these matches just run together time after time. This show is almost an hour in and it feels like a house show. That’s not a good sign at all. Ok match, but the booking was just horrible.
We recap Balls and Spike vs. the Dudleys. Pay no attention to the fact that this is the same match as last month or that it’s the fourth time in a row that Spike has fought them on PPV.
Tag Titles: Dudley Boys vs. Spike Dudley/Balls Mahoney
Something tells me this is going to take awhile to start. Bubba talks about how these are the only belts that mean anything. That explains them jumping in less than 5 months. Gertner is still selling the injuries from the missed fireball. Joey says he looks like the Invisible Man. Joey, you fail. This is a fairly infamous promo as Bubba more or less has the crowd on the verge of rioting with how much heat they have on them.
This is where he says there’s a *insert gay slur here* in the front row and a mother who taught her daughter to suck dick. The Dudleys say that if the fans won’t come to them, the Dudleys will come to the fans. This is intense stuff if nothing else as a woman spits on Bubba. Now it’s time for Gertner to talk. He makes sex jokes based on the names of movies in theaters at the time to really date the show.
Ok he gets in a great line to make up for it. “Whether the girls are at home or here in Dayton, or back at home and *********ing”. Yes he’s awesome. They’ve been talking for ten minutes now. Ok, we get it already. FINALLY Balls’ music kicks on. And now Balls talks. He says it’s a street fight with falls count anywhere. Wow I’m stunned. Naturally it’s a massive clusterfuck.
Seriously did you expect anything else? We get the cheese grater and I already hate this match. Seriously, what does this have to do with tag team wrestling? You never see more than two people on screen at once. D-Von and Spike are in the crowd doing whatever. Since there’s no referee with them, it’s rather pointless to follow them isn’t it? It’s just a big brawl with blood and random strikes. Spike dives off the balcony. Yeah I don’t care either.
Now I’m stunned as all four guys are in the ring at once. Holy shit. The fans chant for flaming tables. Being put through one of those sounds pretty good right now. D-Von just goes off on Mahoney in the corner with punches. Ok that was kind of cool. The faces hit their finishers at the same time and of course the Dudleys kick out. And it worked so well the first time that we should just do that all over again!
So of course the four finishers don’t do it so they win with a schoolboy. Wow that’s riveting. The Dudleys do the beatdown afterwards and the table is lit up. Make that two tables. What a waste of fake wood. The powerbomb on Balls is botched. Yeah there’s nothing unsafe about that. Spike goes through. And since this was an idiotic match, here’s New Jack to really cram it home. As I’ve said, he is the epitome of everything wrong with ECW. This celebrating goes on forever as we kill more time.
Rating: F. The camera work sucked, there was zero wrestling, the ending was idiotic, it’s the same match as last month and the same feud for four months and New Jack was involved afterwards. What do you think I’m going to give this?
Francine comes out with Dreamer. Well that’s an upgrade if nothing else. He’s in a silver shirt and shorts. Oh dear. He runs down King of the Ring and Bash at the Beach. Ok to be fair both of those shows sucked. Summer of 1999 was not a kind month to PPV. Dreamer makes the big announcement of ECW on TNN. Ok now at the time, this was a big deal for ECW, but it wound up killing them.
Actually that’s not true but whatever. The crowd boos Canada. Ok then. He goes over how they started in front of 50 fans and it went up and they eventually got on TV and then they got on PPV and now they’re on national TV and having sold out arenas for PPVs. While there is SO much more to it than that with how much trouble the company was in at this time with more or less more debt than a small country, it’s true that they came very far and getting a national TV deal was a big thing.
He has another thing to say and he’s crying as he tries to say it. And here’s Corino and his lackeys. Cornio’s gimmick of being anti-hardcore was great. Not as great as Foley when he did it but still. Apparently Dreamer’s back isn’t getting better. Corino makes the announcement that Dreamer’s career is over. This is the first thing so far that I remember happening in the original ECW. Cornio runs down the lack of wrestling in the company. Preach it man.
Dreamer was a great character as you could throw him in any angle like this and he was a perfect fit. Corino says he should lay down and put Corino over. Ok wait. He just said that Dreamer was worthless. Why then should he want to get put over by what he would consider a jobber? Dreamer does his big speech that always works very well. They get into it and Corino can’t do shit to him. Crowd is nuts for Dreamer. Francine gets a Bronco Buster on him.
Francine DDTs him and pins him. There was a referee there…why? Tajiri is here, finally looking like his normal self. Taz comes out to make the save. Well he’s defending against Tajiri tonight, so let’s do this.
ECW World Title: Taz vs. Tajiri
This was when Tajiri was pretty fucking awesome in the ring so there’s a tiny chance he could pull this off. He hits a picture perfect Asai moonsault over the railing to take out Taz. That was sweet looking. It’s all Tajiri to start us off. He’s fun to watch if nothing else. Taz gets a suplex and imitates the Japanese bowing. Can Taz do anything other than throw suplexes? It certainly doesn’t appear that he can.
To be fair can Tajiri do anything but kick? The Buzzsaw kick gets two. Taz shoves Tajiri onto Rhyno. This isn’t the most interesting match of the night really. We head to the ramp for some brawling of course because it’s ECW. Taz busts out a Batista Bomb on the ramp. Cool. Tajiri goes through a table. Yeah this is boring. Taz has left.
Good to see that he has intelligence still. He comes back with barbed wire but Joey insists we go wide. Never mind that we couldn’t see that at first. Taz puts him in the Tazmission with the barbed wire. Ok then.
Rating: D+. Well the kicks and suplexes looked good so I can’t complain there that much. It went way too fast though so it was hard to keep up with things. The barbed wire at the ending was just odd. Also it felt thrown together which is never a good thing. Not a very good match.
Joey and Cyrus talk about the main event. Yeah it’s more filler.
Impact Players vs. Rob Van Dam/Jerry Lynn
Everyone gets their own entrance as we have 35 minutes to go with just this match left. Lynn and Storm are guys I really like though so I’m happy here. Van Dam gets a great pop of course. We can’t put the title on him though. Apparently something is wrong with RVD’s wife in real life at this time. That’s not good. Van Dam walks around the ring for awhile to kill MORE time.
Seriously, his music is still playing 7 minutes after the intros for this match started. We get it: you don’t have enough stuff to fill in three hours. Have a quick match to make it seem like you do at least. Or give the world title match longer than ten minutes. Why does no one jump Van Dam when he’s doing his spinkick thing to start a match? Hey the bell rang! We actually get a fucking match! Storm and Lynn start us off.
Well one has talent at least. Let’s stall! Over FOURTEEN MINUTES after the intros start, we have our first contact. That’s fucking stupid. Lynn beats them up on his own. Well good to see that RVD is completely not needed. Instead I’ll just stare at Dawn Marie. Ah here’s Van Dam vs. Storm.
We get a decent technical sequence to start us off that ends in a standoff. Damn they’re moving out there. Storm gets the half crab but it means nothing at this point. LYNN VS. STORM!!! Heel evilness leads to Storm taking over. The heels like to throw chops way too much.
And here’s a chair. They’ve had the hardcore stuff toned down a bit on this show so that’s good. We get a nice pinfall reversal sequence from the two guys I like best and Storm ends it with one of those great superkicks of his. In a nice nod to the Clique, Credible hits the Razor’s Edge, complete with hand motions. Van Dam has been in maybe a minute out of ten so far.
This is a fairly solid main event tag match methinks. The big star finally comes in. Well the fans are reacting to him so the hot tag makes sense if nothing else. He hits the seated dropkick into the chair into Storm. For no apparent reason he threw in a moonsault that made no difference at all. Sure why not. Lynn hits Credible with a bulldog from the corner to the ramp. Cool looking move with the variation there if nothing else.
It’s broken down now of course with everyone all over the place. Storm hits a spinwheel kick from the top rope which is one of my favorite moves so he stays awesome. Apparently that’s his finishing move. Ok then. Credible manages to get thrown into the corner and dives over it without ever hitting the corner. Yeah that didn’t look stupid at all.
In a PAINFUL looking spot, Storm gets drop toe holded into the chair but just grazes it. That would hurt more than a full on shot. And here’s Sabu to put Credible through a table. Ok then. RVD misses the splash and it hits Lynn but he kicks out which is a very nice touch. Van Daminator and Cradle Piledriver ends this. Sabu shoves Van Dam into Lynn. Lynn hits Van Dam and then Sabu and it’s a three way brawl to end the show. The last three minutes are just a highlight reel of the show. Sure why not.
Rating: B. This was pretty good I thought. The teaming at least made something resembling sense. Also having Storm and Lynn in there for a good amount of time is nothing bad at all. It was a solid main event tag match so I’m happy with it.
Overall Rating: D. And that’s being rather generous. Seriously, 6 matches, MAYBE two of which belonged on PPV, and a really long talking segment. That’s what this show was. The card feels like a house show. I mean, did anyone give Tajiri a real chance at winning the belt? Do Lynn and RVD get anything from winning?
Spike and Balls win the tag belts. Good for them. Now if they NEVER INTERACT WITH THE DUDLEYS AGAIN I’ll be happy. This just felt like nothing happened here at all and like a big house show or TV show. That’s not a good sign at all. Avoid this one.