Score: 2
Thoughts: You can see why they stuck Alfonso with Taz as his generally annoying presence (that damned whistle) helped give Taz some heat whereas without him fans may have rallied behind the relatively silent bad-ass in a sort of antihero way. To his credit Taz did try to egg on the live crowd a few times during the short duration of this, doing stuff like mocking Sabu's pose and challenging people in the the audience. A few of Taz's stomps looked like shit. Overall, though, Taz looked in the best physical shape of his career, had great flexibility on his throws, and came off like a fairly major deal. Cicero gets no offense in and was choked out in a couple minutes.
Match #2: Mikey Whipwreck vs. J.T. Smith
Score: 3
Thoughts: Smith wore a Goodfellas t-shirt and had a whole entourage of losers with him. Mikey looked like a guy that got lost on his way to the comic book shop. J.T. does a good job early exhibiting frustration that it isn't easier putting away the fat kid from Stand By Me. Very ugly spot where J.T. tried a baseball slide kick to Mikey on the floor where Whipwreck was supposed to dodge it and Smith lackey Devon Storm would eat it instead but Smith got tied up in the ropes and looked like a doofus. Wait, was this when Smith was still purposefully blowing spots? I don't remember. Props to Mikey for trying a slingshot hurricanrana from the ring out onto Smith on the floor. Lots of spots with Smith cronies that were cumbersome. Mikey garners a few big crowd reactions. Awesome finish with a super huricanrana from the top that saw Smith get spiked head-first into the mat like a lawn dart.
3. Buh Buh Ray Dudley and Spike Dudley vs. The Erotic Experience
Score: 3
Thoughts: Dudley's are over huge with the crowd. Buh Buh mixes in some homophobic hate speech during his pre-match promo -- must be a Romney supporter. One-half of EE is Chris Chetti, unsure of the other guy, although is face is as bloated as the one on the corpse of Satchmo. No real match layout to dissect but nothing too extraneous or bad to speak of. I do dig Ray's vocality including screaming "Shit!" after having his pin cover broken by a half-assed forearm shot. Post-match nonsensical melee with D-Von Dudley and Axl Rotten joining together with Erotic Experience to pummel Buh Buh until he took them all out with a dangerous looking dive that wiped them out; seeing Axl clutching his knee worriedly brought a smile to my face.
4. Kronus vs. Terry Gordy
Score: 3
Thoughts: Kronus looked like someone stuck an air hose up his ass and inflated him. Gordy looks like he's knocking on death's door, tripping up over his own feet during a tepid brawl on the floor, leaning against the ropes to keep himself standing, etc. Terry's powerbomb looked like he was folding laundry. I wonder if his boy Slam Master J ever screened this. Gordy won in short order with the Asiatic Spike thumb chokehold which Kronus sold like he was asphyxiating on his own vomit (which he pulled off convincingly given his experience with that very thing).
5. Tommy Dreamer vs. Brian Lee
Score: 6
Thoughts: Beulah was a nice change visually after all the flabby fucks on display so far. This actually started off molten hot with Lee tossing Dreamer all over the place and Tommy bumping with gusto. Lee slams a metal barrel over TD's back which I swear he stole from Double Dragon. Lee looks like the dual bodyguard/guitar tech for Wyckyd Sceptre. Parking lot brawl sees Dreamer take a nasty suplex onto the asphalt. Now whenever I see a match leave the building I can't help but be disappointed as nothing tops that CZW show where Moxley left all that DNA on a picnic table. I was all set to make Brian Lee jokes but he's came off here better than any Shawn Michaels performance in '96 so I'm sort of letdown all my material's going to waste. At first I kind of thought the finish was shit (Dreamer gets his ass beaten all over Allentown then when it finally gets back to the ring he scores a quick DDT for the victory) but it puts over his finisher strongly and got across he had to resort to it to survive the onslaught. Good stuff.
6. Handicap Match: New Jack vs. Stevie Richards and The Blue Meanie
Score: 2
Thoughts: If you haven't watched New Jack's 2012 RF Video shoot interview yet then stop reading this and go buy it -- maybe my favorite shoot ever. NJ is wearing a Naughty By Nature shirt. I'm sure it's balled up somewhere on Terri Runnels' floor today. Jack dishes out a beating early that looks like surveillance camera footage of a violent mugging. Did you know Meanie has a moderately decorous reverse DDT? And then the finish? Even Sasha Grey would have a hard time swallowing that.
7. Pitbull 2 vs. Shane Douglas
Score: 2
Thoughts: Fast-forwarded over an assuredly vitriolic Douglas promo. Francine gets tossed around in a tiny skirt and G-string so we get plenty of shots of her pisser. We also get some shots of Pitbull I in headgear if that's more your thing as I wouldn't judge. Odd that for a guy that supposedly hates Ric Flair so much you can see Douglas aped a bunch of his shtick off Flair. Weird moment outside the ring where they awkwardly (Scott Hall would call it a "stumble bumble" and only ardent TNA viewers will catch that one) played tug of war with a chair like they were fighting over a taco at Jack in the Box. Just a horse shit finish.
8. Perry Saturn vs. Sabu
Score: 4
Thoughts: Sabu exuded an aura of mystery while Saturn approximated a homeless guy found in a Big Lots dumpster. Sabu almost breaks his neck flipping over the ropes onto Perry on the floor then Saturn inexplicably cuddles Sabu and blatantly speaks to him like a father telling his son from the losing baseball team "Good job, pal." Saturn screwed up the table bridge Sabu built by slipping slightly off the apron and putting his foot down cracking the table to which some belligerent fan in the crowd yelled "You fucked it up fat ass!" Amen. If Sabu was the Peppermint Patty of ECW that'd make Saturn the Franklin. As Marcy would say, "Nice botch, sir!"
No wonder Saturn started talking to a mop than went off the grid to recreate the druggy haze of Gaspar Noé's Enter the Void but traded Japan for some retched Minnesotan lake town. "I'd like to rent a canoe for the day" they'd ask. "Well, sorry, we're all out of rentals, but I've got a bloated, unshaven Perry Saturn out by the dock that smells of menthols and SpaghettiOs". "No thanks! I'll just take the ginger ale and beef jerky and be back on my way on the road." "Well, I don't want you to leave empty-handed, how about some celebrity up-skirt shots, 3 for $5! I've got this real fine one of Natalie Portman riding up the escalator at the Maplewood Mall."
How'd Sabu's flying DDT off the top look? I'll give you three guesses and it rhymes with "bit". We finally get a garbage spot worth rewinding when Sabu hits a tornado (more like a mild breeze) DDT off the apron onto another bridged table. I will say Saturn's flying elbow easily kills CM Punk's and just about everyone else's from the past twenty years.
No wonder Saturn started talking to a mop than went off the grid to recreate the druggy haze of Gaspar Noé's Enter the Void but traded Japan for some retched Minnesotan lake town. "I'd like to rent a canoe for the day" they'd ask. "Well, sorry, we're all out of rentals, but I've got a bloated, unshaven Perry Saturn out by the dock that smells of menthols and SpaghettiOs". "No thanks! I'll just take the ginger ale and beef jerky and be back on my way on the road." "Well, I don't want you to leave empty-handed, how about some celebrity up-skirt shots, 3 for $5! I've got this real fine one of Natalie Portman riding up the escalator at the Maplewood Mall."
How'd Sabu's flying DDT off the top look? I'll give you three guesses and it rhymes with "bit". We finally get a garbage spot worth rewinding when Sabu hits a tornado (more like a mild breeze) DDT off the apron onto another bridged table. I will say Saturn's flying elbow easily kills CM Punk's and just about everyone else's from the past twenty years.
9. Steel Cage Match: Raven vs. The Sandman
Score: 3
Thoughts: Sandman looks like my junior high school janitor minus the tattoo of Rambo (or was that a dream?) and only possesses a modicum more of wrestling talent. Raven crafts about as much story here as those flimsy Spider-Man comics he wrote on codeine. I ordered this show to see a rare ECW cage match only to find them brawling out through the crowd like a typical ECW match. Some fascist tries to hand Raven his shitty band's demo mid-match. That's as likely to work as impressing a girl because your Panda Express card only needs to be punched once more for a free entree. Meanie, Richards, and Nova are all in the ring further filling this toilet bowl with turds. Someone bring me a plunger and quick. Maybe we'll finally answer the question: "How many junkies does it take to beat a drunk?" Sandman's wife somehow ends up handcuffed to the cage and he rips open her blouse revealing her pasty fake jugs. It gets classier though as Sandman's little boy gets in the ring inches away from mommy's fun bags and watches daddy get a concussion while a blood-soaked Raven clings onto his adolescent frame. ECW diehards need to re-watch some of the back catalogue because this is the wrestling equivalent of diarrhea spraying out of your dick.
No comments:
Post a Comment