WWE vs ECW - 06/07/06
by Scott Christ
Hi, there.
Last time I was here at thecubsfan.com to tell you about what I thought of some wrestling show was November of 2005, when I watched the TNA show that Christian debuted on. Let me tell you what happened to me, dearies.
Eddie Guerrero died and I stopped watching wrestling. (Can you hear the violins swelling!) It wasn't on purpose. I wasn't so disgusted with the state of this vile industry that took a life so young that I could not in good conscience watch wrestling anymore, it's just that... it sucks. OK? It sucks, bad. IWA Mid-South became the old IWA Mid-South again, and I know some people like to pretend Bull Pain matches are interesting more than once in a blue fucking moon, but it's just not for me. I don't want to watch the new era of deathmatch wrestlers in IWA Mid-South. Personally I hope they make money off of it -- what do I care? Ian never did wrong by me the bunch of times I spent money on his product, but he wasn't making any doing shows I would want to see. When Darin Corbin and Trik Davis are IWA MS champions, I'm out. Sorry.
As for ROH, I just don't have the money to follow too avidly. I am intrigued and I would call myself a ROH fan, but I can't keep up show-to-show like some folks do. And I haven't seen a full ROH show since the one I went to last November.
TNA is garbage except for when Kevin Nash is making graphs and drinking Zephyrhills water, and WWE is dogshit. I know everyone likes to cream over how great Smackdown is, and I like lots of the wrestlers and some of the matches, but man, the problem is the live crowds for WWE shows generally suck. I've been watching stuff from 2001, which was really a good year despite the botching of the invasion, and it occurs to me that those crowds, even on bad nights, were nuclear compared to anything they have now save for something like WrestleMania or a particular town that hates John Cena more than another town.
When the ECW is being restarted!!!!! scuttlebutt became more than just scuttlebutt, that's when my attention rose again. And it's stupid because it's not like I was a huge ECW fan. But the reason I liked ECW at all, for the most part, was the crowds. I like really hot crowds. Plus I enjoyed the hell out of last year's PPV.
So I guess I'll try to watch this. I have no high hopes for it, but I don't expect it to TOTALLY suck. This is one of those instances where you've got a bunch of everybody insisting it will be the worst thing in the history of time, because they always want trainwrecks if things aren't going to be good. Most likely this will just be mediocre and fade away. People insisted Eddie/JBL would be a terrible program. Instead it was pretty great, but since they all wanted it to be so bad, you had that large portion that after the fact still insisted it was just the shits and the worst thing ever to happen in the history of the universe. It's as if nobody remembers the dying days of WCW. And even THAT shit is fashionable to pretend was good now. Oh but in the last few months! Whatever, dudes.
Cubs remembers the dying days of WCW and still hated THIS show more than that. The Cubs Fan has his points. However I kind of liked the show.
THE WWE LOCKER ROOM STANDS AROUND AND GETS READY
There was a comment on the front page of this site already that pointed out things like Finlay/Lashley and Hardy/Edge co-existing with no problem, so I won't. Although I just did. And really, didn't anyone at least think of Hardy and Edge? That was some seriously personal stuff. Why is Rey Mysterio so mad about ECW this year? Last year he was gung ho and had a 619 left up in him to deliver directly to Eric Bischoff's face, and he was fighting the crusaders at the end and everything. One of which was Kurt Angle, ECW diehard. I...man. I shouldn't have THOUGHT about this, huh?
THE ECW LOCKER ROOM STANDS AROUND AND GETS READY
I don't know why they had them all trembling and snarling like a bunch of junkies in one of those 1996 heroin chic indy pulp films, but they sure did. I don't remember Little Guido and Tony Mamaluke being so INTENSE.
STUFF WITH THE KING AND TAZZ AND STYLES ALL NIGHT
OK so they were annoying at parts, but also sometimes very entertaining. Actually just Joey was annoying to me, since I always like the back-and-forth between Tazz and Lawler as they either really hate each other or are great at pretending they do. I tend to think it's the former. JR being stoic and composed all night was kinda funny.
REY MYSTERIO v. ROB VAN DAM
Ooh, a shadow segment! Really takes me back. I don't like RVD period, but I do prefer this RVD to the post-2002 WWE RVD. There was that point in late 2001 when RVD was actually good and hanging with Austin and Angle in that forgotten but great three-way PPV main event, but other than that, I've got no real use for him. This RVD was sort of like if 1997/98 RVD ran through the flower patch in the sandlot outfield on Dusty Diamond's All-Star Softball. I was disappointed that Van Dam didn't wander around ringside high fiving people after the shadow segment, but this also needed Fonzie and his whistle to really capture the full aura. I don't know what I actually thought of this match other than it's sad that Rey had to go down clean AGAIN, but whatever, I'm kind of of the opinion that it doesn't even matter anymore. Rey busting out the plancha to the crowd was pretty sweet, and so was RVD falling off the barricade while preparing for a legdrop. The match was OK, I suppose. I don't understand why Van Dam helped Rey up and shook his hand after it was over, and I don't understand why Rey would fling that chair away from himself during the frog splash, and GOD ISN'T IT DISGUSTING THAT THEY MADE REY LOSE TO A FROG SPLASH. THE TASTELESSNESS. Oh well. Oh well. What can you do? So does Rey hate RVD or vice versa or what?
KURT ANGLE WANTS TO TALK, AND SO DOES RANDY ORTON
Angle's promo was about how he's totally ECW now. This is kind of the thing where people hear the Ramones or the Clash and then they act like they actually like the Exploited too. I don't really know how that applies, actually, I just wanted to say I don't like the Exploited at all. Anyway Orton interrupts and as usual can't promo to save his life, and he's signed with Raw! Boo. My big idea was to have Orton relegated to ECW because if they draw even a small sect of legit old school ECW fans, they would have absolutely hated Orton's guts. They wrestle Sunday, because Kurt is repping EXTREEEEEEEME
MICKIE JAMES v. JAZZ
What the fuck? Who cares. Mickie wins. I have never gotten a chance to fully document my feelings on Mickie James while writing about pro wrestling on the internet, so I'd like to take this chance to say I'd totally hit it. What a babe!
JOHN CENA TALKS TO TODD
I wonder if on Monday I was the only one that marked out for Randy Orton getting to bust out a quick, "Whoa, Todd," to start his promo on Raw? Everyone seems to think this promo was really good but I truly can't tolerate the way John Cena looks or talks so I have to disagree. Some dullards might compare him to the Rock, but John Cena reminds me of a combination of both New Age Outlaws. He's a dopey cornball like Road Dogg with a Billy Gunn body. Add in some Sting level lameness and I think you've made a John Cena, basically. His three dads.
THE BATTLE ROYAL
Why the hell did Little Guido get to throw out Mark Henry, albeit with help from Angle? Why the hell does Tatanka have a job? Let's count the people who were anti-ECW two years running: Edge, Carlito. That's it. Do you think Kurt Angle was walking to the ring, leading this pack of fools, and wondering what it is that he's really living for anymore? Was he like, "Oh God, yes, I always wanted to team with Justin Credible." Did Kurt ever team with X-Factor? Is Tony fuckin' Mamaluke REALLY on WWE TV as Tony Mamaluke? Who invited Al Snow? The battle royal was its usual self, they're more or less all the same, even if they have "a story" like this one did. The story here is that Big Show turns on Orton after he and Orton are left as the survivors, thus negating the WWE win by tossing Orton and I don't know, whatever. Big Show? I can see the true blue ECW fans getting behind Angle because he'll have matches they can get into, but what is Big Show gonna do besides cause 911 people to make 911 jokes? Actually if they have Balls set up to crush Big Show with one of his patented chairshots and Big Show merely punches the chair, I will probably be like ECW ECW ECW. I guess he could throw Tony Mamaluke really far.
EDGE (w/Lita & Foley) v. TOMMY DREAMER (w/Funk)
Now here's what the OMG trainwreck freaks were looking for. This was God awful bad. Sometimes I didn't hate Dreamer, but he is barely a wrestler and it truly shows when he's in against Ring Polished Edge. Joey can't say "nads" on USA. Dreamer nearly kills everything he comes into contact with before eventually Edge spears him and it's over. Mercifully, mercifully over. This was truly terrible. This shit was the first thing they officially booked for the PPV and it must have the absolute least going for it on the way in among stuff that's announced. Foley and Funk stuff on the outside made its point, I guess, but while I love me a good potatoing, it all looked so deliberate and took forever as Foley just sat there allowing Funk to punch him in the eye long enough to bust his eyebrow open so that the next segment could happen.
MICK FOLEY SITS IN THE RING WITH THE SPOTLIGHT ON HIM AND CUTS A GREAT PROMO
Foley is great when he's on. He was on here. They might could have gotten to this BEFORE and the match might have seemed worthwhile.
TAZZ AND LAWLER FIGHT
I love ECW Taz. I love old Memphis Lawler, what I've seen of it. So imagine my delight when they punch each other in the face. Holy crap did Lawler deck him. This was great.
JOHN CENA v. SABU
Oh can you imagine the carnage Sabu will unleash! He is so sloppy and dangerous! This match was exactly what I expected: a basic, competent, perfectly fine brawl. Cena did some stuff, Sabu came back with some stuff, and then they went for the finish. Lillian announcing Sabu was the most bizarre moment of the night for me, and it was a weird show all around. Having a DQ or no contest in this extreme rules ECW match was a little, oh, absolutely retarded, but I cannot nitpick because I'm thrilled that these two didn't fall on one another and wind up wearing their shoes on their hands as some morons figured would happen.
Spect I'll watch that PPV on Sunday, even at 40 dollars. I mean why not, man? It's either going to be pretty good or it won't be, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to be awful unless something goes terribly awry. I do expect Sabu and Rey to be pretty solid and I anticipate perhaps the strangest atmosphere for a show ever. So I'll probably write about that and then perhaps not about anything for months again. Who knows! It's a wild world.