Here's the final post for the ECW Unreleased vol. 1 DVD. This is for the year 2000. Strangely, the DVD has more matches from this year than any other year. It's also not terribly representative of the year as they've avoided Steve Corino as a wrestler... was he doing commentary for ROH when this was released? Or maybe still wrestling with them? But I think he's a really big part of ECW from 1999 until closing. I really dug his feud with Dusty Rhodes for instance. I'm going to start with that.

YouTube time:
Dreamer & Dusty vs. Corino & Jack Victory - "Jacksonville Street Fight" (Jacksonville, FL early 2000) - Can't pin the date but it's probably the first couple months of 2000. Mainly clips but it's fun stuff. Corino was a great scrawny weasel. Dusty was great and really gave ECW a bit of a shot of energy/interest when things were getting stale. Rhino comes out as does Sandman. And that's another great fresh set of matches (looks like we'll get to that shortly)... although the story did seem reminiscent of Sandman vs Raven. There's a fan cam (02/04/00) of this show if you're interested.

Jado & Gedo vs Roadkill & Danny Doring (Asbury Park, NJ fancam 03/03/00): Happy to include a Doring & Roadkill match...vs Jado & Gedo... that's a no brainer! Doring & Roadkill along with Chetti & Nova were great on the undercard. Honestly they felt like part of the main event... cool moves and comedy every time. Anyhow 10 minutes of fun...really we get great action from both teams, cool moves, nice heel & face work. There's everything to like about this one!

OK DVD time:
Taz vs. Tommy Dreamer  (ECW Cyberslam 2000, 04/22 - ECW World Heavyweight Title Match) - Taz never should have left ECW...I mean that as a fan...Taz wasn't getting paid in Philly though. This was OK..Taz did some good suplexes. Everyone knew Dreamer was going over so they were just happy to see him again. I understand why this is on here. It's a historic moment...and that leads to...

Tommy Dreamer vs. Justin Credible (ECW Cyberslam 2000 ECW World Heavyweight Title Match)- Another OK match but it's really one big segment and is fun overall. Francine is out there (still as Raven's valet if you're following along) and is supporting Tommy...but she betrayed him (and Raven I suppose) and sides with Justin. She takes off the Raven grunge gear and goes back to lingerie basically. She has a nip slip moment (WWE blur it) but it's pretty funny actually. She's a super likable person and she mentions flashing the audience only once and I have to believe this was it She says something to ref Jim Molano (sp?) the ref and is laughing to herself. I'm talking about this because it's more interesting to me than the outcome of the match in 2024. And in all reality, Francine is just as much ECW as anyone else from the Pitbulls to Franchise to Tommy to Raven to Justin Credible...she spans about 5-6(?) years of the company's history. She absolutely is due a helluva lot of respect. The Queen of Extreme is damn right!

YT:
Masato Tanaka vs. Balls Mahoney (ECW 2000) - This is from ECW on TNN and is the rematch from Heatwave 2000...supposedly. It's clipped so we're just seeing the big spots. It's a lot of fun and despite Tanaka being more of a straight up wrestler at this point in FMW, he's still pretty damn hard core...he and Balls use tables, chairs and thumb tacks in this one.

DVD:
Rhino vs. The Sandman - ECW Heat Wave 2000, 07/16/00 - ECW World Television Title Match - Fun, fun match. They used a guardrail in the ring for a bunch of cool spots. But it's what most of the match is and then some run-ins. And honestly, I feel like the booking lost its zip. It just felt a little too much like WCW and WWF by this point. These two had a neat feud when Rhino was going after Sandman's wife. The Network (of TNN) vs ECW was actually kinda lame in hindsight. As a fan at the time, you felt it because I could tell ECW was changing but it's uninspired. I dunno what they could've done differently.

Rhino vs. Spike Dudley - ECW Massacre On 34th Street, 12/03/00 - ECW World Television Title Match - Now we get a really good match. This is like what Rhino would do in TNA. Big spots for both guys but good wrestling in the middle. Here Spike wants revenge for Rhino breaking his leg. He's looking to repay the favor! There's really good work here but Rhino is still too green to sell it to the extent that he needs to. If he did this would be even better. It does feel like the company is just about trying to one-up itself in terms of spots and reflexively, that's what the fans are there to see. I think this did a good job of actually telling a story and delivering the highspots.

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Jerry Lynn vs. Christian York  (ECW Hardcore TV #401, 12/31/00, taped 12/15) - This is a good example of how ECW had changed... the commentary is Joel Gertner and Joey Styles talking about Jerry Lynn's storyline (kayfabe) rather than calling the match. And not a couple comments but straight up WCW/WWF conversing about something else while quality wrestling is happening. So I'm going to mute that. Anyhow this feels like an early ROH match...heck Gabe S. is filming the fancam. It's definitely a shape of things to come match with the indie guys starting to make a splash. This is kinda when "movez" wrestling started going mainstream.. like I don't think York does one traditional wrestling maneuver all match. But its only 2000 so honestly to my 2024 eyes, its nothing bad at all So its a fun match and a good inclusion to show where things were headed (and maybe still are???)

Mikey Whipwreck & Yoshihiro Tajiri vs. Kid Kash & Super Crazy vs. Little Guido & Tony Mamaluke - ECW Guilty As Charged 2001, 01/07/01 - Tag Team Three Way Dance_- I guess I could kinda say the same thing with a match like this. It doesn't really feel like ECW anymore but it's still a great match. Like pretend it takes place in TNA and there's nothing stopping me from enjoying it. And ECW isn't all chairs and tables, which this has little to none of. ECW grittiness wasn't really there...so it's no surprise that many of these guys were able to get on ramped to WWE. I totally dig the Tajiri & Mikey w/Sinister Minister. I think it was the only thing I was paying attention to at the end.

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I had to include the Tajiri vs Super Crazy 2000 "Death Match" trilogy..or what I could find...

Tajiri vs Super Crazy "Mexican Death Match" - Unfortunately this is clipped for TNN which seems like a common occurrence for ECW but also other promotions around this time (Arsion, GAEA, AJPW) but we get all the big moments. This looks like a helluva great match!! I'm not sure if this is available in full though. I read the Match Review Archives and it seems people are seeing the full match but the TNN episode has little clips in it. It doesn't seem that they cut any wrestling from other matches where I've found the full version but it does disrupt the flow.

Tajiri vs. Super Crazy "Japanese Death Match" (ECW 2000) Hardcore TV - confusing since they use the ECW on TNN entrance way. This is in Jacksonville and is from the same show as the Dusty match above. This looked equally as interesting (and clipped) but even from the clips didn't seem to have the same intensity. That one was a Philly show so that might have something to do with it. ....OK I tracked down the fancam footage and this is from 02/04/00 Jacksonville, FL. It's relatively short and its really a collection of spots but showing the full match would have been better on TV. There's no real reason to clip this other than TV time. It's a good match.

Super Crazy vs. Tajiri (Tv Title "Japanese Death Match") ECW on TNN 2000 - Hell this is even more clipped than the others! Could be good? They clipped this down to nothing for post match shit which is more Network vs ECW. I think that's why I stopped watching ECW around this time. Wrestling took a backseat to storyline shit...Anyway, I believe one or more might be on a Best of Tajiri DVD comp from RF video before he stopped selling DVDs. I checked the website and he doesn't even have a boatload of the old Best of compilations available. So very glad that I was able to order a few things a couple years ago. If I do have fancam versions, I'll be sure to rewatch and review them.

I had a blast watching ECW the past few weeks. To me '97-99 seemed like the peak years to me in terms of roster, storylines, and match quality. 2000 really seemed transitional to a future that never happened. Or not with this roster... original MLW actually really feels like ECW just changed its name...moreso than ROH did in 2002-03. Clearly ROH had a better idea to move forward rather than live in the past too long. And maybe that's the thing, wrestling was changing and ECW was heading that way but just didn't have a chance. Anyone that Vince wanted he got and used up...and ultimately that's what was always gonna happen. I don't think that's the case with ROH just because the company lasted like 20 years compared to 6-7 years of ECW. ROH went through a few more ups and downs and few people were there more than a few years at a time. 

If you've dug this, I'm going to do a little more stuff... Fancams & IWA Puerto Rico for a teaser. I'm also going to get back to ROH, if you couldn't tell from the above paragraph. Anyhow, I recommend anyone who loved ECW checking this DVD out but you definitely will get the itch to watch more than what it offers. If you've been interested in ECW then it's a good place to start. I would recommend watching some of the YouTube matches first because as they used to say, "It's Not For Everyone." But for real, you'll have fun

Hang in there and thanks for reading!