1) Jerry Lawler vs. Tazz - 1
2) Kurt Angle vs. Randy Orton - 6
3) Super Crazy & Yoshihiro Tajiri vs. The Full Blooded Italians - 5
4) Rey Mysterio vs. Sabu - 7
5) Tommy Dreamer, Terry Funk, & Beulah vs. Mick Foley, Edge, & Lita – Mixed Tag Team Match - 7
6) Balls Mahoney vs. Masato Tanaka - 3
7) Rob Van Dam vs. John Cena – 6
Before I get to reviewing the show, I want to get up on a soapbox and talk for a moment about the people who continually trash ECW. You know who you are because you’re the ones who will kiss Vince’s ass and will continually praise any product that Vince puts out. You’re the ones who bash TNA and say that a 60 year old man making out with a diva every week on TV is pro wrestling. You’re just the kind of marks that Vince loves and are nothing but well trained zombies. Let me say that the stuff on Raw and SmackDown every week is not pro wrestling. ECW is professional wrestling. TNA is professional wrestling. The indies are professional wrestling. Anyone who says otherwise is completely and utterly full of shit. Don’t give that “Oh, ECW is a branch of WWE” crap. I know it is but it’s way, way better than Raw or SmackDown. If you want to see pro wrestling, you need to watch this show and look at the effort that everyone puts out. From the announcers to the wrestlers, everyone busted their ass and put on the best pay-per-view of the year.
Now that I’m done lecturing, let’s look at the matches. Tazz came out to his old ECW music and squashed Lawler in about 30 seconds and then joined Joey Styles on commentary. Angle and Orton had a great match that was mainly highlighted by good solid wrestling, something that is really lacking on TV these days. They worked about 15 good minutes and the crowd just ate it up by riding Orton the entire match. The tag match with the F.B.I. was the standard cruiserweight tag match and wasn’t really anything new or groundbreaking. It was nice to see Tajiri again but I’ve got the feeling that he’s not back for good. If I said that Mysterio vs. Sabu was crazy, that would be an understatement. They threw chairs at each other, flew through the air, and damn near broke each other’s necks. In a match that was filled with sick spots, the first one where Mysterio through a table on the outside was nuts but I’ve never seen anything like the finish. Basically, Mysterio was standing on a table that was bridged between the ring apron and the guardrail. Sabu ran the ropes, jumped onto Mysterio and DDT’ed Mysterio through the table, damn near breaking his and Mysterio’s neck.
The mixed tag match was nothing but a bloodletting. Funk was busted good right by his eye and was taken out for medical treatment. He later returned with a barbed wire board that was eventually lit on fire. The match itself was sickening. There were garbage cans, street signs, and sheets of plywood covered in barbed wire used during the match. It was one of the most, if not the most violent, bloody, and brutal match I’ve ever seen. Balls and Tanaka was filler in between the big matches and wasn’t their best encounter and would’ve probably been better off on the ECW show on Sci-Fi. RVD and Cena wasn’t great in terms of wrestling quality but the crowd more than made up for some of the lackluster ring action. It’s a good thing they decided to put the belt on RVD because I honestly believe that the Hammerstein Ballroom would’ve been burnt to the ground if they hadn’t. As I was watching it I noticed that Cena was covering up quite a bit whenever RVD would do a move with the chair. The finish was kind of screwed up because two refs were down and Heyman counted the fall. A great win for RVD to cap off an incredible show that I will never forget. This was one of the greatest nights of professional wrestling, and not sports entertainment, that I’ve ever seen.
2 comments:
wow, let me ask you to step off your soapbox because it's looking wobbly....i just want to put a quote from you and see how you would respond to it now: "Let me say that the stuff on Raw and SmackDown every week is not pro wrestling. ECW is professional wrestling. TNA is professional wrestling. The indies are professional wrestling. Anyone who says otherwise is completely and utterly full of shit. Don’t give that “Oh, ECW is a branch of WWE” crap. I know it is but it’s way, way better than Raw or SmackDown."
comments?
wow, jess.. i think you burned him on that one..
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