WWECW

[Exposer]

http://www.dailymotion.com/user/theunderta.../9#video=x72vhc

 

If this is the right match, here it is JIP. This is minus the opening minute or so before a commercial interruption. This is the October match. I'm thinking it's the right one because I know they had a little feud going on.

[Chess Knight]

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x72syd_ec...rt#.UXCwILUzgrU

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x72sr2_ec...rt#.UXCwRbUzgrU

 

Full Chavo/Bourne. Well, with commercials, I guess.

[Exposer]

The ECW Originals (RVD, Sabu, Sandman, & Tommy Dreamer) vs. The New Breed (Elijah Burke, Kevin Thorn, Matt Striker, & Marcus Cor Von) (Extreme Rules Match 4/3/07)

 

This is the re-match right after Mania 23. The entrances are funny because when the New Breed comes out Elijah Burke is first and then is followed by a vampire, a school teacher, and an alpha male from the Serengeti. Dreamer always seems too big for his pants. It's like he never goes to the fitting room. The entrances followed by the commercial interruption and the show returning with the match joined in progress was frustrating. I really don't like when that's done. It always leaves me wondering how the match started. I laughed that they were working this like a tag match for twenty seconds then just decided to break loose and brawl with weapons for the remainder of the match. I guess that means I didn't miss much at all during the break. Sandman's dive was appropriately shitty. It looked like he gave Striker a slow motion flying hug. Sabu's dive was appropriately reckless with chair assistance and all. After the dive sequence the weapons came out. I liked the mini-face-in-peril section with the New Breed all just wailing away at Tommy. Some of the shots looked bad, others looked good. I just liked the idea of having a mini-face-in-peril section during a chaotic brawl. Cor Von's mannerisms in this were tremendous. At one point he gives Dreamer a spinning back suplex onto a chair which looked really nasty. He then vigorously gyrated before being attacked by some form of weaponry. Later, he pounced Sandman in a tremendous visual as it's Monty Brown pouncing Sandman for God's sake. He once again gave an enthusiastic jig with a hilarious facial expression before getting whacked hard by too chair shots. RVD and Thorn's exchange wasn't particularly good. It wasn't awful but it was a countering exchange in a brawl that felt more appropriate for a standard match. It was sloppy too but it's a brawl and I can live with that. I just wasn't too fond of the idea of that type of exchange between those two guys in this type of match. The double top rope splash/leg drop combo onto Thorn threw a table was nice. Table breaking is always fun in these kinds of settings. For the finale, we have Burke doing a full speed track sprint knee first into Sabu threw a table set up in the corner. Now that was idiotic and incredibly brutal. I forget that Burke did the Elijah Express in every match and it's bad enough doing it that much and leading to higher risk of knee damage but my God that was innately stupid. Of course, at the same time it's an awesome finish to a match. Overall, this was a little disappointing on the second or third viewing or how ever many times I've watched this. It's definitely a fun match and worth taking a look at but I'm not sure how well it would hold up to all the other great matches this program produced.

[goc]

Just an FYI, Burke later said in an interview that he didn't hurt his knee at all doing the Elijah Express to Sabu in that match and he was just selling.

[Exposer]

Just an FYI, Burke later said in an interview that he didn't hurt his knee at all doing the Elijah Express to Sabu in that match and he was just selling.

That's surprising. I wouldn't discount what he said there but that move just looks brutal every time and it seems like something that would hurt the guy doing the move over the long haul.

[Slasher]

Why is the Elijah Express being discussed like this? Dude just slams his knees into the back of his opponents in the turnbuckle corner. It isn't a knee killing move or even a move that taxes a body. It is the most perfectly safe move Elijah Burke could do, but it just simply wasnt enough in ECW.

[Exposer]

Why is the Elijah Express being discussed like this? Dude just slams his knees into the back of his opponents in the turnbuckle corner. It isn't a knee killing move or even a move that taxes a body. It is the most perfectly safe move Elijah Burke could do, but it just simply wasnt enough in ECW.

I think it's clearly a dangerous move. Running full speed and slamming your knees into someone seems a bit dangerous. I mean sure, there are moves that are more dangerous like head dropping suplexes and flying headbutts but I couldn't imagine doing that all the time wouldn't cause some risks. We should all try that move and see for ourselves if we're really going to argue over this.

[EricR]

WWECW 7/21/09

 

 

 

1. Yoshi Tatsu vs. William Regal

 

This starts out being all about Tatsu eating a beating, with Regal dishing elbows all over, kicks to the chest, uppercuts, big suplexes (standing exploder and delayed butterfly), straightjacket choke...and also all about Striker being an annoying prick on commentary ("the modified Kanemoto strong style of Tatsu" "this is just the opportunity Piston Honda needs" seriously fuuuuuuuck you). This is basically 4 straight minutes of Regal stiffing Tatsu until Tatsu hits a nice Pele kick, and then a whole barrage of other kicks that were too fast for Regal. Regal catches Tatsu up top, and I *LOVE* Regal pulling his kneepad down before he goes for his running knee finish. I thought Greg Valentine moving his shin guard before he used the figure 4 was cool when I was a kid, and that kinda shit is still awesome. But Regal gets caught with a high kick running in and Tatsu gets the surprise win. Real fun match.

 

2. Ezekiel Jackson vs. Mike Williams

 

45 seconds, 3 moves, but they were all pretty great. Williams runs into a big boot, Zeke runs him over with a giant clothesline, and then spikes him with his brutal standing urunage. Kozlov comes in afterwards to hit his chokeslam/spinebuster on poor, poor Mike Williams.

 

3. Goldust vs. Shelton Benjamin

 

Man Goldust has a beautiful right hand. I think I like the uppercut more than the overhand but I can't decide. Shelton pusses out of taking the butt butt and we'll see if I enjoy 3 straight Benjamin matches in 3 straight weeks of TV. Shelton does do a cool neckbreaker cravate so I can get behind that. Goldust has such a cool run of offense with his snap powerslam, nasty kick to a prone Shelton, hard atomic drop and an honest to god proper bulldog. All of his classic offense sure makes a lot of Benjamin's indied up offense look ridiculous. Who started the idiotic trend where moves involve pulling or dropping a guy onto your own knee? All that shit looks stupid. Benjamin does some sort of springboard...something...into a Goldust uppercut, but it looked really bad. Shelton did his springboard and just landed on his feet in front of Dustin, as if he were supposed to miss a move, but he just jumped in and landed flat on his feet. He then does one of those horrible bits of Marufuji offense where he flings himself over the top to the floor while at the same time kinda sorta vaguely pulling Goldust neck first into the top rope. It just looked like Goldust's face bounced off the ropes while Benjamin went flying out of control and spilled nastily onto the floor. I'm not sure what viewer would get the impression that Goldust got the worst of that move. And then Benjamin wins with his "grab guy and pull them down to the mat, landing much harder than my opponent". Boy this was really bad. Really awesome Dustin offense interspersed with him having to get into position for Benjamin's weird masochistic offense. The whole thing just looked like Benjamin taking moves, and then doing moves to himself. Crowd was dead and confused. So Benjamin had two glorious weeks, and EVERY SINGLE THING that made him cool those last couple weeks was completely absent here. It's really hard to put into words how detrimental he was to this match.

 

4. Tyler Reks vs. Paul Burchill

 

I gotta root for my boy Reks here, now that he is a resident of my little 7,000 population town of Cotati, CA. If you see a tall jacked dude with dreadlocks down at Oliver's Market, the odds are favorable that it's Tyler Reks. This was apparently Reks' TV debut. And as much as I want to root for Reks here, this match is a pretty incredible match to showcase how great Burchill had gotten before being released. He has these cool punches to Reks' chest, really made Reks duck on some missed clotheslines that would have just leveled Reks, awesome running double knee spot in the corner, super high bump on a backdrop, etc. He even made the chinlock sequence look good as he lied down with it and really made it look like he was choking the life out of Reks. Reks' offense at least tries to be clever, but it all lands pretty soft. Nothing he did was bad in context, it just really didn't have much oomph. Any time a guy his size does springboard dropkicks and springboard crossbodies it can't help but look impressive, but I found myself being more impressed by his ability than the actual moves. Still the match was the proper length and peaked at the right spots, so all in all this was good.

[EricR]

7/28/09

 

 

 

1. Tyler Reks vs. Paul Birchill

 

The rematch!! Were they really trying to get Reks over as "guy who likes extreme sports"? I'm shocked they didn't call him something like Tyler Cortese. And while I'm making shitty MTV Sports jokes, Burchill hits an absolutely SICK knee drop from the top that really is more vicious than any other WWE finisher. Holy shit that looked like it should have caved Reks' chest in. It sucks that it was literally Burchill's first move of the match as nothing will look more spectacular than that. Burchill continues to work over Reks' chest/abdomen with a nice body vice, some kicks, a nasty Saito suplex and his awesome running double knees in the corner. But then once Reks starts making his comebacks I realize that almost all of Reks' big moves (plancha, crossbodies) involve hitting his chest and abdomen really hard against his opponent, and since there was no chance he WASN'T going to hit those moves, it really makes all the cool Burchill body part offense a waste. Reks wins with his nice springboard dropkick, but this was really a 50/50 match where Burchill took his 50 to start and Reks finished with his 50. That's like the worst kind of 50/50 match. After seeing two matches between these guys I know there is a really good match somewhere in there. Last week's was almost it. Paul Burchill at this point is looking like the lost great worker of the last few years. The guy has been working like Regal but with twice as much offense. I doubt the feud will continue after this, though, which is probably for the best as I'd rather see Burchill against other guys.

 

2. Vladimir Kozlov vs. Bill Baine

 

Baine was nice enough to already be waiting in the ring for Kozlov. Between Kozlov, Big Zeke and Viscera, WWECW had some of the greatest squash match workers in all of wrestling. The matches are 90 seconds, the jobbers get crushed in fantastic ways, and the moves are cool. It's that easy. Kozlov looks just vicious here, bursting out of the gates with a running boot to Baine's chest, then blasting him with stiff headbutts to the chest and tossing him around with cool dead lifts into fireman's carry slams. Fuck Kozlov looks awesome in these short matches.

 

 

It has to be said, but Tommy Dreamer actually knows how to work a suit really well. For a guy with arguably the worst ring gear in WWE (or possibly even of anybody who's ever worked a semi-major program in a semi-major wrestling fed ever), he's backstage talking with Tiffany, and he's rocking the black blazer with conservative but properly fitted button up white shirt, and actual non-douchebag jeans. Blue jeans, white button up, nice blazer. And it's not one of those shitty Affliction-type white shirts and blazer (like the date rape asshole white button up Shelton Benjamin was sporting earlier), but just a nice simple white longsleeve button-up. A classic American look pulled off to perfection by Tommy Dreamer of all people. And the best part was when I was talking on the phone with Phil about it, and he was busy getting ready for a party, and I told him I wouldn't take up much of his time, and then I talked about Tommy Dreamer wearing suits for 7 minutes.

 

 

3. Sheamus vs. Goldust

 

Crowd is absolutely on fire for Goldust right from his entrance here, cheering loudly for him and starting up "Goldust" chants the whole match. And rightfully so as he looks killer here. Every single thing he does looks good, including things that you long accepted would just never look good, like his rope running. When Sheamus tosses 'Dust into the ropes he careens out of control into them and actually somehow makes it look like the ropes are making him bounce back into Sheamus. Rope running is just one of those things we all have to look the other way when it happens as it's almost always going to be goofy and illogical but it's just kind of a thing that exists within this dorky ass form of entertainment we've all become so obsessed with over the years. Goldust pumps his boot right into Sheamus' face as he charges into the corner, and follows it with an epic uppercut. Sheamus catches the next boot and dishes a great body blow and then locks on a cravate as the fans chant for Goldust and well you know this shit is awesome. Goldust makes people care during another resthold and they are jacked during his comeback punches. He also throws a cool yakuza kick that I've not seem him use often. Sheamus gets a little crossed up at the end but we forgive him because he's fairly green at this point (wocka wocka wocka!) but who cares, this is what every 5 minute match wants to be.

 

4. Christian vs. Zack Ryder

 

Christian dominates the first few minutes of this and Ryder does a nice enough job just taking offense. He takes offense like kind of a douche, but that really fits with his character I guess. He can't just land like a normal human being, he has to REALLY slap both hands against the mat. Can't just bump off the apron to the floor, has to take an overly dramatic fall and whip his palms into the floor. So of course you know he'll eventually bump the Killswitch like Rock taking a Stunner. He does something I really liked here when Christian went to the top rope, Ryder just ran away across to the opposite corner. It didn't work as Christian immediately jumped down and clotheslined him in the corner, but it's better than guys just aimlessly wandering into a dropkick. This was one of those matches that made people really get into WWECW while it was around. It was 12 solid minutes of nicely executed moves that had good nearfalls and nice believable back and forth. It also featured horrendous Matt Striker commentary, as he would drop gems like "Christian, finding success by employing his trademark offense" which sounds like either a generic sound bite you'd hear Cole repeat 3 times a match on a PS2 wrestling game, or like something an alien would say when he's trying to fit in with humans at a wrestling show. "That one human man certainly damaged the other human's torso yes?" But who cares about how shitty Matt Striker is, when Christian can make it seem like Ryder has a chance of upsetting the champion then you have something that works. And ECW really was delivering something like this almost every week.

[EricR]

8/4/09

 

 

Show starts with a 13 minute (!) Abraham Washington show where we get to hear a whole bunch of the comedic chops of Shelton Benjamin. He calls Wash a low rent Byron Allen which works, and Zach Ryder is also here because they're in Long Island or somewhere close and boy Ryder is boring. They eventually do ECW Idol and Shelton does a fairly accurate Darius Rucker which - as far as celebrity impressions go - has to have one of the lowest pussy attainability ratios possible. It would be like a girl at a party trying to thrill you with her really good Bonnie Hunt impression.

 

1. Ezekiel Jackson vs. Dangerous Danny Danger

 

Pretty sure I've seen Danger on some Beyond Wrestling shows so this already gets a win. Zeke does two of the nastiest backbreakers you've ever seen and hits the nastiest urunage you've ever seen and this is 30 seconds but he doesn't care about his opponent's safety or well-being at all and good lord now Kozlov is coming out and I LOOOOOVE their jobber squash-offs. Koz hits his rad spinebuster urunage and then Zeke gets pissed and hits his urunage AGAIN. Backstage Danny Danger receives a handshake and the new superpower of "peeing blood".

 

2. Sheamus vs. Goldust

 

God Stryker is garbage. "Last week Goldust was able to counter Sheamus using fundamental offense tactics." Whatever. Sheamus works over Goldust's arm in all sorts of cool ways, with single arm DDTs and a weirdo bulldog to his arm. GREAT spot early where Goldust pushes Sheamus into the turnbuckles to reverse a powerslam, gets a schoolboy with the good arm, and when Sheamus kicks out it leaves Goldust prone which leads to Sheamus locking on the old Rings of Saturn, which is just a fucking KILLER chain of moves. Goldust gets to the ropes and goes on a freaking great tear, hitting all sorts of great punches, his great bulldog, great clotheslines, THAT powerslam, and you love all of it. Finish is quick and clever, with Goldust going to the 2nd rope to hit a bulldog, but Sheamus sweeps his leg and gets the flash pin. Logical and totally acceptable. Afterwards Sheamus starts to cut a promo on the floor and 'Dust levels him with a clothesline to the back of the head. Pretty much a flawless 5 minutes of pro wrestling. I am LOVING this feud.

 

3. Extreme Rules Match: Tommy Dreamer vs. Christian

 

This starts out as one of those late 90s plunder matches, but works pretty well because Christian has much more creativity in setting up garbage spots than all those guys. It's not just dudes brainlessly hitting each other with cookie sheets, Christian finds some interesting ways to fly into garbage. They had rolled out a hot dog cart and I had no idea how they'd use it, as it was far too small to do moves on, but too heavy to be picked up. Well Christian runs at Dreamer at one point and takes a drop toe hold into the cart, sending buns and condiments flying. Another great spot had Dreamer whip Christian into the ring steps, but Christian baseball slid to stop his momentum and then charged at Dreamer, only to take a nasty backdrop on the floor. Christian also sets up a bunch of cool counter/reversal spots to put neat twists on getting hit in the face with a trash can. At one point Christian gets clotheslined over the barrier into the crowd, and while Dreamer finds a trash can Christian recovers, Dreamer misses the can shot, Christian punches him, then does a massive missile dropkick off the ring barrier. Finish is really cool as Christian had come out with a car door which I had totally forgot about. He brings it into the ring, Dreamer bashes him with a can hilariously through the window (Christian clearly forgot he had the windows down). Then they work some fun reversal spots around Dreamer trying to hit a piledriver on the car door until Christian nailed the Killswitch on the door, and then pinned Dreamer underneath said door. Really good match. Christian brought a bunch of cool elements to a garbage match and it felt like Dreamer had a real chance at winning. Even though I wouldn't care about Dreamer being champ again, I was getting real excited at the prospect of a piledriver on a car door. So now I want somebody to make that happen.

[Chess Knight]

Been watching some shit.

 

Mark Henry v. Matt Hardy (ECW 8/19/08)

We got screwed at SummerSlam with a quick DQ match where Hardy hit the twist of fate in the first 30 seconds and Atlas interferes, so Hardy tries for it early a couple of times again. WWE figures they'll be nice to all of us fans and actually give us a potentially good and decently lengthy match, though. And these two blew 'good' out of the water. So my point was Henry countering the early twists of fate were neat. Since those twists didn't work, Hardy gets thrown around a bit (including an awesome one were he goes sort of shoulder/armpit first into the mid turnbuckle or something) before he trips Mark up and slams his leg across the apron-side part of the ring. What I absolutely fucking love about things like this is how the opponent is forced to move around Mark as he's not even human. Like, you see people put up a tent and have to manoeuvre around the tent and be careful about structuring it together. I get that sort of feel. They shift around this big monstrosity and try to carefully create their openings. I tried to think of an analogy involving Wipeout or the Japanese game show MXC (how Henry's opponents look so small, get tossed around in weird ways and stutter to face big obstacles), but couldn't nail it. So Hardy works the leg because he realises this match could actually not be ridiculously short, but at the same time if he works the leg right he could MAKE it short. Henry is as good at selling offense as anyone in the company. Not only does it look like he's in as much pain as you think he'd be in, but he can stand up and hit his own shit without blowing anything off. He throws some clubs and slams to create the littlest bit of distance and time between himself and Hardy. Once the part where Henry beats on Hardy with Hardy making his hope spots (which was always going to be ****3/4 - my favourite was Matt slipping out of the full-nelson and double-kicking Henry in the gut while on the ground), Henry still limps and puts over the damage Hardy's done. I love how Mark sold it less and less as time went on, so he didn't give Hardy anything to use as a bullseye if he gets on top. But you're never really on top with Henry; the most you get is a big flurry of offense which you can get a pinfall off of. Matt going to the mid-rope with elbows to a wobbly Henry before hitting a mid-rope bulldog is example of that. Matt realises the ropes worked for a second, so he goes to the top, and to my surprise he actually manages to hit the crossbody instead of it becoming a WSS. Hardy finally getting the twist of fate only for Atlas to pull him off again was RUDO, and the ref didn't see it this time so the match can continue. And it continues for about forty seconds until Henry gets his WSS in. See? You only have so much you can do on top of Henry. There is no way this could have been anything less than good and I meant it when I said they blew 'good' of the water. Million stars? Yes, this was one million stars.

 

Mark Henry v. Finlay (ECW 9/16/08)

At this point in my wrestling viewing these are probably two of my ten favourite wrestlers (Finlay *definitely* is), so I had to have some sort of expectation for this. They weren't unreal expectations, but they were expectations nonetheless. I watched this twice and it disappointed neither time. Henry automatically makes any match exciting by dwarfing the other man (and if he DOESN'T dwarf then other man, then we have a battle of FATTIES!), and his opponent has to move around him and find openings. Most of the beginning of this was that - Finlay dancing around Mark, trying to find openings, and when Henry punished him for it he gets back to dancing around. He can't afford to stay still. There's only so much punishment you can take from the strongest man in the world though, and a kind of subtle but awesome thing about this was Finlay would go down harder and further toward the ground each time he tried to make and opening. It wasn't paying off, and soon enough Mark had the match where he wanted it. Another thing that I found incredibly awesome was that Finlay was selling his mid-section most of the match - which Henry rarely even worked on. Mark had been clubbing Finlay, and stomping on him and all that, but once he STANDS on Finlay- pushing all of that weight on top of him - that's practically enough to injure a body part. And if that WASN'T enough to injure it, then Finlay's through-the-middle-rope shoulder thrust being countered into, well, being pushed from the apron into the announce table, is enough. What a great spot; Fit hits *one* thrust, and Mark goes 'well that's enough offense for you', and shoves him a few feet into the air. Finlay was selling the rib/back even when Mark would punch him in the head. And when Henry uses a bearhug and three body slams in a row, you can imagine. Finlay has a great hope spot where he dodges Henry who goes face first into the turnbuckle, and then fires away at his head. He's cut off again, but Henry goes for an elbow which he rolls out of the way of. I tell you, the sight of Finlay beating Henry in the face while Mark was blinded by the ring apron is way I watch the graps. Atlas and Horny get involved which could have sucked, but it creates another opening for Finlay, who whacks Henry's arm with the sheleighleigh. Now he has something to work on. That doesn't pan out, and because he's still selling the ribs, Henry puts another bearhug on, but Henry was selling the arm post-match (beautifully, btw) so it obviously did something. Finlay counters the bearhug with a sunset flip (that one's kind of hard to explain, but it was awesome - he pretty much climbs Henry), and Mark Henry in a sunset flip means he's going to go for a missed butt splash. ANOTHER OPENING FOR FINLAY! He rushes on top of Henry, doing those jumping butt-thingys of his own. The match doesn't last much longer than that and with his shitty ribs he isn't kicking out of the WSS. Man alive this is great.

 

Chavo Guerrero v. Evan Bourne (ECW 10/14/08)

I have Taker v. Show LMS to re-watch and it's been a while since I saw Show v. Maywether, but as of now this is probably my WWE 2008 MOTY. They open up with some snug and tight looking grappling, the kind of Jamie Noble stuff that doesn't look like the two guys were watching tapes and just mimicking what they see for fun. Chavo had this really awesome headlock that he wrenched and tugged on; reminded me of Orton's chinlock in the 04 Benoit match. Bourne starts to stand up and fight back, so Chavo switches to an armbar, which gives Guerrero leverage from a different side. Bourne hits beautiful arm drags, has a spectacular 'LOOK NO HANDS' dive, and plays an excellent babyface. I really don't know what else WWE want from him. OK, so he looks like a skinny midget Patton Oswald dork with goofy faces and crappy finger poses. Ignoring that, what else do they want from him? In this match I found myself saying 'I don't see that very often' or 'I've never seen that before' on certain spots. The best one was Bourne going for a top rope hurricanrana and Chavo sprinting out of the way so Bourne goes ass-first into the turnbuckle and crashes onto the mat. Amazing spot. There was a cool Liger-like kappo kick from Chavo here too and a really good and different looking roll-up from Evan. Maybe it was the video quality I was watching, but I swear there was an Irish whip where Chavo tried to poke Bourne in the eyes but failed. If that actually happened that was amazing as well. Bourne gets to hit the rana he didn't earlier in the match (does it by jumping from the mat to Chavo's head while Chavo is sitting on the top rope), Chavo makes the 'positioning oneself for opponent's finisher' not look awkward, and the match comes full circle. I don't know what there is possibly not to like about this. Well, Chavo does the three amigos which I've always been iffy about, but Bourne counters the third amigo by kneeing Chavo in the goddamn head while being held vertically. Great match.

 

 

Mark Henry v. Finlay (ECW 11/4/08)

I will take a stab in the dark and say Finlay and Mark watched their 9/16 match and thought they were working too light with other. 'We should hit each harder next time' 'Yeah, we should'. So this wasn't INCREDIBLY stiff, and part of it may have been the sucky quality I get these matches in, but man just everything here looked way nastier than the previous match. And they spend a decent chunk just clubbing each other so that makes it extra stiff and extra awesome. This is a #1 contenders match for Hardy's ECW Title next week, and Finlay is rushing to get this done as quick as possible. You know how this goes, though. Mark Henry is the fucking wall and Mark Henry is the fucking wall that cuts you off when you think you're about to get hot. Great spot where Finlay's doing the 'shoulder thrust through the ropes' things and Henry shoves a knee into his face. They both get to tackle limb work, but why just tackle limb work when you can tackle limb work after a great and possibly accidental spot? Like I said these two club each other, and on one of Finlay's Henry puts his arms up to block. With Mark having aeroplane turbine-arms, Finlay actually injures himself in the process of hitting Henry's block. Henry sees blood in the water and starts tearing away. The part where he was standing on it looked like it was going to send the arm directly through the canvas. Mark then takes a page of the Big Show v. Eddie Guerrero book and uses that 'I Don't Even Have To Try' one-arm armbar, with Finlay writhing in pain. Finlay's big break comes when Henry goes for the butt-splash in the corner (by using Fit as a step) like in their first match - which is his 'Ric Flair Goes to the Top Rope', so he misses - and lands awkwardly on his leg. It was a completely weird landing; he didn't land ON his leg really, I mean it looked like a regular ol' butt-splash miss, but he kind of caught his heel on the mat for a split second, so you buy that something in that utility pole he calls a leg was pulled. I kind of doubt they had it in mind for Henry to land like he did, but Henry sold the leg, and Fit realised it as the opportunity to not completely die (while selling the still-injured arm). He jumps it and starts throwing everything he has, at not only the leg, but at Henry's head. Henry injured his own leg, great, but while he's down, Fit may as well throw whatever he has at Mark's brain cage as well. This is his first real chance to get something going. Henry now needs space, so he recklessly chucks Finlay out of the ring and tries to get his leg back to form. He can rest while not having to worry about Fit resting up, with the beefy Tony Atlas wailing on him. We get Hornswoggle stuff before a sheleighleigh finish, yet none of that felt disappointing, and the strongest man on Earth chasing a midget around with a slowly healing leg couldn't possibly be anything but amusing. This was fucking super. I could watch this shit allllll day. If I were making Schneider Comp-like sets of matches I dug, this'd probably be on the first version. 2008 Henry isn't looking far off of 2011 Henry, and the two Finlay matches + Hardy match are almost as good as anything he did that year. I should really watch the PPV match these two got.

 

Matt Hardy v. Finlay (ECW 11/11/08)

Both guys are babyface so there isn't a chance they will top the 6/07 masterpiece, but this was still plenty good. Bit of a split English crowd but you'll hear more boos for Hardy. Finlay gets the match in his favour and Matt tries to get the hell away from him in neat ways. There's a great moment where Finlay's bringing Matt up the steps and Matt pushes Fit so he flies off of the steps and into the barricade. We get some Hornswoggle crap like Horny going flying off of the apron and hurting his leg because Finlay threw Hardy into the ring post, but the midget was enough of a non-factor for this to satisfy and for them to have a great ending run. I have no idea what else to say about this, but it's very good. I feel like I'm not giving this enough credit and should watch it again.

[Dylan Waco]

At the time I said that Bourne v. Chavo match was the best match I saw from anywhere on Earth in 2008. I watched some of this stuff a few years back and was pretty high on it but lost my reviews.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Bourne hits beautiful arm drags, has a spectacular 'LOOK NO HANDS' dive, and plays an excellent babyface. I really don't know what else WWE want from him. OK, so he looks like a skinny midget Patton Oswald dork with goofy faces and crappy finger poses. Ignoring that, what else do they want from him?

To not keep smoking synthetic weed?

[Chess Knight]

At the time I said that Bourne v. Chavo match was the best match I saw from anywhere on Earth in 2008. I watched some of this stuff a few years back and was pretty high on it but lost my reviews.

I'd have to go down heavily on Danielson/McGuinness, Ish/Greco and the BatBat 6-man among other things for it to be my worldwide MOTY, but that seems more reasonable than unreasonable. I kind of want to watch it again right now.

 

Bourne hits beautiful arm drags, has a spectacular 'LOOK NO HANDS' dive, and plays an excellent babyface. I really don't know what else WWE want from him. OK, so he looks like a skinny midget Patton Oswald dork with goofy faces and crappy finger poses. Ignoring that, what else do they want from him?

To not keep smoking synthetic weed?

 

Touche. In hindsight I probably shouldn't have completely forgot about his OTHER form of high flying.

[EricR]

8/11/09

 

 

1. Zack Ryder vs. Shelton Benjamin

 

This feud was set up last week when Ryder jumped Shelton while Shelton was singing a Hootie & the Blowfish song. Although Matt Stryker explains that it's all about the traditionalist throwback wrestler in Shelton Benjamin taking on the modern style of Ryder. Yep, the first thing I think about when I watch Shelton Benjamin matches is how much of a throwback he is, just he and Ole Anderson bitching about when guys REALLY knew how to cut off a ring. I do think Ryder works better as a heel, but we have problems as Benjamin doesn't really know how to work as a face. Ryder hits a nice dropkick off the 2nd rope and we hit a weird moment in the match where both guys start selling like they've been in a war 90 seconds in, even though only 3 moves have been done. Then a neckbreaker happens and I genuinely can't tell who was giving the neckbreaker and who was taking it, and I don't know if they know either as they sell it exactly the same. This seems to be something that happens in Shelton Benjamin matches, where I rewind moves and I can't tell who is supposed to be taking what, and who is doing what to whom. Ryder did a vertical suplex, Shelton flipped over and landed on his feet...and then they both fell to their backs and sold. I have zero fucking idea who did what to whom. Match only goes like 3 minutes so it's not like that was the one thing holding this back from being good.

 

2. Vladimir Kozlov vs. Kevin Brooks

 

Fans chant "You Can't Wrestle" at Kozlov and boy is that still really annoying. Kozlov and Zeke continue to try and shatter jobber vertebrae and slam the poor little guy around a bunch, whipping the back of his head off the mat in the process. These really need some Chris Nowinski "The More You Know" type stats comparing back bumps to car accidents.

 

3. Paul Burchill vs. Yoshi Tatsu

 

This was really fun but then ended 2 minutes in when Katie Lea interfered. It was a really fun 2 minutes and they squeezed a whole lot of damn moves into 2 minutes, but a 2 minute match ending in interference is what it is. Burchill had an awesome double knee drop, Tatsu threw some nice kicks and a cool elbow drop, and then it all stopped. Hurricane returned and attacked Burchill post-match. I totally forgot he came back and was still in WWE this late.

 

4. Tyler Reks vs. Tom James

 

This match gets 75 seconds, so we've had 4 matches that have been given a total of 7 minutes on this episode. Fuck that noise.

 

5. William Regal vs. Tommy Dreamer

 

Once I saw the match announced I immediately assumed it was the infamous elbow match, but this was actually a different yet also completely awesome match. I'll level with you, this may have been the single greatest individual Tommy Dreamer performance I've ever seen. The whole match I was waiting for and expecting the moment where his elbow starts to swell to alarming levels, cringing every time Regal would slam Dreamer's arm into the post or stomp on it or whip it into the mat, knowing that Dreamer's selling wasn't *really* as good as it looked since his arm was going to blow up at any moment. But when it never did I was faced with the realization that Tommy Dreamer just sold his arm better than most human beings have ever sold an arm. The match really is incredible. Dreamer comes in with a taped up arm and Regal just goes off on that fucking thing. He yanks it and twists it in all sorts of gross ways, stomps on it, works a bunch of cool holds on it (some of Regal's best matwork in his WWE career). Things roll to the floor and Regal kicks it against the ring post and good lord did that look painful. Dreamer fights back in really nice, convincing ways, as Regal is fixated on putting him away with the Knee Trembler but Dreamer keeps ducking out of the way of it. Every time Regal misses it allows Dreamer to control for a bit, until Regal invariably grabs him by that arm and tries to dislocate it from Dreamer's body. There was a great punch exchange towards the end that was real quick with really nice shots from both guys, with Dreamer even mixing it up with right hands and body shots!! This match was just incredible. Really a career performance from Dreamer, and one of Regal's absolute best career performances. Something you could show anybody with a passing interest in either guy, and they'd then be convinced each was an awesome worker.

[JMFabianoRPL]

Sandman vs. Zombie....only cause it's gratifying to watch after what I found out about the latter.

[Smack2k]

I didnt see them listed here, but the CM Punk vs. Johnny Nitro series was really good in 2007...

 

And to me, the BEST WWECW matches were between Christian and Jack Swagger in 2009 (I think that is the year) over the ECW title...they had 2 really good matches on TV as well as a really good PPV match..

 

I will have to look through my results and listings to see what other stuff they had..

 

WWECW, once it became its own thing and not "ECW 2.0" was actually a show I really enjoyed.....gave newcomers a chance to shine and get a storyline as well as allow some guys who were really good in teh ring, but lost in the shuffle on the big shows a chance to shine...I think they should have kept it...

[Stiva]

I didnt see them listed here, but the CM Punk vs. Johnny Nitro series was really good in 2007...

Cena/Morrison from the show following the Benoit tribute is an excellent match too from a period where Cena was red hot.

[Smack2k]

I didnt see them listed here, but the CM Punk vs. Johnny Nitro series was really good in 2007...

Cena/Morrison from the show following the Benoit tribute is an excellent match too from a period where Cena was red hot.

 

I remember saying to my wife "These two will be in the main event at Wrestlemania some day..(Punk / Morrison)....I was HALF right (and it was Punk, kind of hard to be wrong with him!)...and who knows how far John COULD have gone....

[Alucard]

I didnt see them listed here, but the CM Punk vs. Johnny Nitro series was really good in 2007...

Their last one where Punk wins the title on 9/1 is one of my all time favorites.. really perfect blowoff with a red hot crowd making everything feel like a real special moment.

[Smack2k]

Didnt Holley / Lashley / Test have some decent TV matches in late '06 - early 2007?

 

Also, CM Punk and Elijah Burke had a good series in Spring 2007 - leading to a 2/3 falls match on TV

[Jimmy Redman]

Didnt Holley / Lashley / Test have some decent TV matches in late '06 - early 2007?

Not really. The triple threat they all had sucked. Lashley/Test sucked twice. Don't remember anything particularly good from any of those combos.

 

I just went over a lot of this period, and honestly, it's not just bad memories. Lashley was really bad. After watching so much 2006-07 lately I am twice as impressed that Cena got the match out of him that he did, because I have not found a single other Lashley performance that is even in the same universe as GAB. He was woeful.

[Alucard]

Lashley's best stuff outside the Cena match was in early 2006. I remember really liking Lashley/JBL from No Way Out 2006 which if I remember right was Lashley's first loss, then he went on to have a very fun feud with Finlay. I think there was one Lashley/Booker match (out of the ton they had) around May 06 that stood out as being much better than their other matches. But yeah once he went to ECW it was all downhill and he was just really not interesting and forced as champion. The only Lashley/Holly match I recall was when they tried to put Holly over as a threat/big test and had Lashley squash him in under 5 mins... that sucked.

[Smack2k]

Huh...OK then.....I could have swore that got a TON of love when it happened in 2007 and that Test was reinventing himself and becoming really good again....oh well, I smoked a lot back then (of many things!)...glad I didnt re-watch it!! Maybe its just due to that nasty cut Holly got on his back.

 

07-08 WWECW to me will always be Punk's first great run in WWE as he battled Nitro/Morrison and then Chavo in some excellent matches on TV....

[Jimmy Redman]

Well both Holly and Test had great TV matches with RVD in 2006, Holly's being the back slicing match on 26th September and Test on 3rd October. Honestly don't remember another standout match or performance from Test's run. I can believe that people were pimping him, I just don't remember.

 

I also think RVD had a hell of a year in 2006 and had good to great TV matches with a lot of people around that time. I would definitely recommend watching 2006 WWECW, but primarily for Big Show's title reign and RVD being generally good.