[1998-03-01-ECW-Living Dangerously] Bam Bam Bigelow vs Taz

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[soup23]

i appreciated the pace of this as we didn't get any meandering around in the early going and stuck straight to the meant where these two guys threw bombs at each other. stuff looked good like Taz being dumped to the outside, Bam Bam's clothesline and the T-Bone suplex from the ramp to the crowd in an especially nasty bump. Bigelow comes back inside the ring and hits a messy moonsault for a nearfall. Some more tables get set up. Bam Bam goes for a powerbomb but Taz is able to deadlift Bam Bam up and drop him face first into the table. They go to the outside area and have some fairly inspired brawling and this would have been a better match overall with some time shaved. Taz locks on the tazmission and they both go through the ring in a bump that did get over big with the crowd. Bam Bam pulls Taz out of the wreckage and pins him. I first thought this match had a bad rap on the net because I liked a lot that was done in the first half but the second half screeched to a halt. We then get the frantic Paul E saying the Al Snow match is canceled. Heyman says a Sandman vs. Sabu match will happen whether they get canceled or not. (**1/2)

[Loss]

ECW looks to be drawing about like early 90s WCW just based on the aesthetics, but I don't know if that's true if you look at the numbers. This wasn't a bad match at all, but a lot of the big stunts didn't get over. I think this might have ended up a better match in a different wrestling company because they wouldn't have had to throw in the obligatory stupid bumps and table crap. "Choke him out!" and "Bam Bam!" chants show that it's the wrestling that's over with this crowd, but that's not the focus of what they're doing. I do think Bigelow was a really good fit for ECW at this point and he was exactly the type they needed more of - guys with national exposure whose potential had been squandered by the Big Two who could be rebuilt into meaning something. The hole in the ring thing got a big reaction because it was so unexpected and it was sold as a big deal, but it's not like they took an enormous bump or anything. When stuff like that isn't built up well, to me it just makes ECW look cheap for having a shitty ring.

[Migs]

The difference between ECW and early 90s WCW is that the building in Asbury Park is full.

 

I agree with shoe's point about the slowness of the second half, but I think the big bump still works and feels like a moment, even all these years later.

 

Loved the meta-ness of seeing Paul E producing the show on the air - it's a look behind the curtain without saying "this is fake." Of course, that Sandman-Sabu match was not nearly violent enough to justify the hype.

[PeteF3]

Disappointing considering the reputation this match has--there's just a lot of clubbering between the big spots and most of the big spots aren't overly impressive or are badly executed. The result is a lot of not very interesting action. The finish works, though I kind of wish they'd both come off the turnbuckle or something, and having Bam Bam tap but the referee miss it was a clever touch. The business about Sandman/Sabu being taped in advance and "banned", only for them to show the match while they repair the ring, is a little weird and I'm not sure how we'd be expected to buy that it was *that* violent. Though maybe after N2R the censors were simply out to protect us from bad wrestling.

[TravJ1979]

Yeah, Bigelow just isn't the right opponent for Taz. I only remembered two spots coming into this match since I last watched it and those were the suplex off the ramp where I am shocked Taz didn't get a concussion or broken neck, and the finish. Beyond that it didn't appeal to me. Just two oafs beating on each other in a lackluster way.

[Superstar Sleeze]

ECW World TV Champion Taz vs Bam Bam Bigelow - ECW Living Dangerously 1998

 

So Bam Bam turned on Douglas to get the championship and then lost the title. Taz is on the hunt for world championship. Taz and Bigelow team up so now Bigelow turns on Taz and rejoins Triple Threat.

 

I have never seen this match. Thought I had, but I have just seen the Heat Wave match. Taz is legitimately one of my least favorite wrestlers. It is not just the horrible monster face character, it is his horrible selling, his horrible ring movements, the ridiculous suplexes that aren't cool in a Steiner way. But I always go into any match with an open mind (see Bigelow/RVD). In fact, I thought the first five minutes of this were very good. Not as good as Bigelow/RVD because they were wrestling without urgency and moving at a crawl. However, I thought Bigelow bumped well for Taz early then caught him and played the monster heel really well. Once they did that STUPID, STUPID bump where Taz suplexed Bigelow off the ramp into the crowd causing Taz to nail the back of his head on the railing. It went downhill in a hurry. They were already plodding, but this turned into an incredibly pedestrian brawl around the outside. There was just no rhyme or reason to anything. Bigelow slipping was funny. The spot that everyone remembers is going through the ring when Taz locks in the Tazmission and Bigelow falls back, which was a badass spot legitimately. Bigelow crawls out, drags Taz with him and wins the match and the belt.

 

Shitty match. Between this and his actually pretty awesome couple months in WCW at the end of the year, this may have been Bam Bam's best year as a monster heel.

[Beast]

I actually enjoyed this quite a bit. Watching the TV leading up to this, Taz legitimately felt unstoppable while Bigelow was finally the big monster he should have been in the US post-1986.

It's all about two spots, but they're both amazing (and the first is terrifying). Especially compared to Scorpio vs RVD from earlier in this show, this had the same spot-spot-spot type momentum, but because these two bruisers had been built up to be near unbeatable, this felt more like a modern Brock vs. Goldberg-type match than just a punch/kick/spotfest.

I still love the fans' reaction to them going through the ring. I'm assuming nothing like that had been done before, at least on a near-national level in the US? Compared to WWE pulling out the ring breaking every 5-10 years, this felt legit amazing.