Monday, September 19, 2011

ECW Barely Legal

It’s the first ECW pay-per-view and the start of an ongoing look of all 20 or so of the ECW pay-per-views. Quick note: the WWE produced ECW shows will not be a part of this series. Here we go!

The Dudley Boys vs. The Eliminators – 3
The Eliminators sychronized double team offense looked more choreographed than the Rockettes Christmas Special. There was a nice double team vertical suplex/cross-body combo from the Dudleys. Saturn hit a completely random double springboard moonsault in the middle of the match. No tags in this at all, just a four man free-for-all. Joey Styles completely wet himself during the finish with the Eliminators winning the tag titles.

Rob Van Dam vs. Lance Storm – 4
Dear God, Storm’s rat tail was hideous. First half of this was an elongated beating that Storm took like a man. Storm’s comeback was nice, especially with the nutty chair bumps that RVD took. RVD slipped up on a springboard elbow and looked awful trying to recover mid-botch. Storm’s chair shots are almost as bad as his haircut. Fun little match as I though both guys looked decent. Didn’t really impress or offend.

Dick Togo, Terry Boy, & Taka Michinoku vs. Gran Hamada, Great Sasuke, & Masato Yakushiji – 6
A different feel with this one as the action was literally, to use and old cliché, lightning fast. It was such because as soon as someone would hit a move on his opponent, they would go right into the next spot without any semblance of selling or acting like it even phased them. Sasuke and Taka were the shining stars of this match. I loved their exchange at the end with Taka dropkicking the shit out of Sasuke and Sasuke giving a stiff Razor’s edge as a reciept. Yakushiji, who I’ve never heard of before or since, looked fairly good too and has a wild suicide dive where he looked like green missile shooting out of the ring. Good match here but it felt like I was watching it on fast forward.

Shane Douglas vs. Pitbull #2 – 4
Better than I remember it being although I’m still not sold on the Pitbulls. PB2 seemed as if he only knew the basic, rudementary offense. Douglas for his part looked better than he does in most matches but it’s still the same old schtick, the talking before hand, the chain in the boot, etc. Lots and lots of ball shots ranging from low blows to PB2s favorite, crotching Douglas on the railing. Douglas took a hell of a bump through the timekeepers table in the bump of the match. I didn’t buy for a second that PB2 could be put away with a simple belly-to-belly suplex after taking table and belt shots to the head. Post match had more heat than the actual match with Rick Rude and Brian Lee laying waste to Douglas. Twenty minutes was a bit long for this, I think shaving 5-7 minutes off would’ve been just fine.

Sabu vs. Taz – 6
I really liked the pace they set here early on. Not going out and working on fast forward but keeping a very deliberate pace. Every big move has a bigger effect this way. The punching wasn’t worth shit as Sabu’s punches were just as shoddy as ever and Taz’s didn’t look much better. Sabu’s offense looked cleaner than normal with him actually hitting stuff instead of screwing everything up. Big spot of the match was Sabu taking a bump through a table on a Taz reversal. Holy shit, the suplexes at the end of the match were incredible. Finish felt kind of flat and the post match angle took a while to get to its point but overall, a better match than I remember.

Three Way Dance: The Sandman vs. Terry Funk vs. Stevie Richards – 4
This is the match that featured two of Funk’s most notable moments in ECW, the first being the moonsault off the ladder and the other being the spot where he spun around KO’ing his opponents with said ladder. Funk also took two hard, hard shots when Sandman was throwing plunder in the ring. Funk hit Stevie and Sandman with a chair like he was playing Whack-A-Mole. Barbed wire spots didn’t really work all that well as the wire was covered in streamers.

Terry Funk vs. Raven – 1
This was a complete clusterfuck. Funk was bleeding a gusher after a drop toe hold into a chair and just took a colossal beating for the whole match. Interference from Raven’s nest led to Tommy Dreamer getting assaulted by Big Dick Dudley at the announce position and then Big Dick taking a bump through three tables like he slipped off a curb. The feel-good moment at the end with Funk winning the title is pretty much the whole reason this got a point.

An okay show with a few memorable moments, mostly provided by Terry Funk. The M-Pro six-man tag was fun. Looking forward to see what pops up on the rest of these pay-per-views in the future.

2 comments:

Brian said...

Yakushiji did some stuff for Osaka Pro and CMLL Japan before disappearing.. - that's a Thunder Fire Powerbomb (not a Razor's Edge).. - i remember watching this live as it aired on PPV on a school night and being so excited.. - fell asleep watching the replay directly after.. those were the days..

Jessie said...

wow....was the funk match that bad....would say i'll rewatch this but feel like i've seen it 100 times