Ongoing ECW PPV Results

[sek69]

 

Welcome to our live coverage of what will likely be an historic night in modern wrestling history as the launch of the new ECW brand. A lot of surprises are booked.

 

We're looking for your thoughts on tonight's show, so you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to [email protected].

 

It opened with Paul Heyman's motivational speech. And this was a good one. Loud ECW chants. Lots of signs, including "If Cena wins, we riot." At points he was almost in tears. He plugged the TV debut on Tuesday and teased at his new role as the TV leader of the cult that Sci-Fi wanted.

 

We're opening with Tazz vs. Jerry Lawler. We should be updating this one within a few minutes. Well, actually 35 seconds. Lawler slapped Joey Styles hard. Styles ran in the ring and tried to choke out Lawler, but Lawler reversed and set him up for a piledriver. As he had Styles up, Tazz came up from behind with a choke and it was over. I didn't expect much out of this, but it was even less than that.

 

Kurt Angle vs. Randy Orton is next. Now this will likely go quite a bit longer. Angle won with the ankle lock, so the revenge program looks to be one match unless Orton shows up Tuesday. It's a very different crowd. They basically died for the match when Orton was on offense, although chanted stuff at him. When Angle would do a move, they'd be way up. Angle did work a far more careful style but he's way more banged up than anyone is letting on. Orton is selling like he's hurt again, to put over Angle as a killer. Very effective in remaking Angle. As a match, it was nothing compared to their Smackdown match.

 

FBI, accompanied by Big Guido vs. Super Crazy & Tajiri.

 

 

 

Yeah, I wouldn't want to be in that building if Cena wins tonight.

[Mad Dog]

I want Cena to win in 5 seconds just to piss off all the mutants.

[sek69]

 

FBI, accompanied by Big Guido vs. Super Crazy & Tajiri. The FBI used a double-team fisherman buster on Tajiri for the pin. Crowd into it and a lot of good moves, but it fell apart with mistimed stuff at the end. Post-match was to get Show over, as he destroyed all five guys. He used a cobra clutch into a backbreaker on Mamaluke and then threw him like a rag doll. Crowd didn't know how to take Show when he attacked Crazy.

 

JBL was in as the first surprise. He was having the time of his life making fun of the fans, and is now talking about how Blue Meanie cried and how people on the internet said he was a bully. He bragged he wasn't punished for it and nobody from ECW can do anything to him. JBL said Angle, Big Show and RVD are real stars and that Vince McMahon was the one who made RVD a star. He ripped on Tazz leaving network TV to go to the Sci-Fi Channel. He called the fans Star Trek loving geeks. He claimed fans paid to see him. Tazz noted he wasn't even advertised. I get the impression JBL may come back as an ECW heel announcer.

 

Rey Mysterio vs. Sabu is up next. Mysterio wore an ECW mask. People didn't know what to make of him. Bill Alfonso isn't out with Sabu, so he may cause a surprise at the finish. Sabu's face looked like hell. He looked 60 years old and had a giant bruise on the side of his face. Mysterio was booed, but more half-hearted. There is a tiny 619 chant. The match was crazy, in both good and bad ways. Sabu looked to have hurt his left shoulder or biceps when Mysterio did a springboard Thesz press to the floor through a table. He continued, never sold it and continued to do all his spots. The finish was spectacular. Sabu did a triple jump DDT on a table to the floor. Ugly landing, as designed. The doctor then stopped the match and it was ruled no contest. They acted as if both were hurt, but it was clearly designed as it was. It wouldn't shock me to see them brought back later because they don't have non-finishes, or this was the only way they could protect both sides. No Alfonso at all. They both took a lot of punishment and did dangerous stuff, but Sabu was off on a lot early.

 

Tommy Dreamer & Terry Funk vs. Edge & Mick Foley are next. Foley's eye looks like hell. Foley is doing a promo. He said it loved and respected by ECW, he's about to put over Tod Gordon to get heel heat. Even better, Foley is chanting "Long Live the Alliance" and said he loved ECW when it was run by a visionary and creative genius Stephanie McMahon.

 

 

JBL might be the greatest heel in wrestling right now, and Foley's probably not too far behind.

[sek69]

 

Tommy Dreamer & Terry Funk vs. Edge & Mick Foley are next. Foley's eye looks like hell. Foley is doing a promo. He said it loved and respected by ECW, he's about to put over Tod Gordon to get heel heat. Even better, Foley is chanting "Long Live the Alliance" and said he loved ECW when it was run by a visionary and creative genius Stephanie McMahon. It turned into a six-way with Beulah & Lita as participants. This match was sick with ladder, tables, barbed wire, a flaming 2x4. Edge even did a barbed wire edgecution on Dreamer. Foley was hit with a flaming barbed wire 2x4 and took a bump off the apron into a barbed wire board. Funk at one point was carried out selling an eye injury, but he came back with the 2x4 board. Funk was knocked into the barbed wire board and was in it for several minutes. The finish was Edge pinning Beulah after a spear. The people loved this and the guys killed themselves to entertain. If this match was on most any other shows, people would say it was terrible. There were points where it was so bad you could tell the people were knowing it was shit but knew they couldn't shit on it. At other points, it was exactly what they wanted. The crowd knows their role and won't let it to bad.

 

Masato Tanaka vs. Balls Mahoney is next. We only got one Balls chair shot. I guess that was for the better because the chair was bent all to hell after the shot and Tanaka was pinned. Fans were into it.

 

John Cena vs. RVD is up next.

 

 

BAH GAWD, BIDNESS IS AHBAHT TAH PICKUP!!

[Mad Dog]

Wow... they've really captured how horribly ECW was for most of it's existence. Good for them.

[sek69]

 

John Cena vs. RVD is up next.

 

But before this, Eugene came out doing his act and people booed the hell out of him. Sandman is out to kill him. For the record they are not using original ECW music for anyone. All new WWE music for everybody.

 

Match wasn't too bad aside from one really weird spot. Super crowd. Lots of funny chants at Cena like "You can't wrestle," and "Same old shit." Cena played heel at the end although the announcers praised him. John Finnegan was knocked out first. Nick Patrick was the second ref. He was knocked out as well. Finish saw Edge wearing a motorcycle helmet spearing Cena through a table. RVD used a frog splash. RVD tried to help Patrick up, but no luck as he was dead. Paul Heyman ran in and counted three. They had a big celebration and even announced RVD vs. Edge at Vengeance. I'm presuming this is a Verne Gagne deal where they say Heyman wasn't a licensed ref and what happened at the arena doesn't count. We'll find out tomorrow. If nothing else, it should help the rating and they'll declare RVD the ECW champ. Fonzie was out for the celebration but that was it.

 

Nothing compared to last year, but that was a hard act to live up to. Really, crowd was the whole show.

 

 

 

 

They need to have the first ECW TV show start off with RVD throwing down the spinner belt ala Shane Douglas and declaring himself the new ECW Champion.

[The Thread Killer]

I saw the show.

 

The crowd was quite simply...INSANE. I have NEVER seen a rabid crowd like that before...they were louder than the ECW fans last year.

 

Show started with the promo by Heyman thanking the fans for bringing ECW back. That was the gist of it. It should be noted that Heyman really seems to be building up the fact that this is not the old ECW, is it the NEW ECW.

 

The Lawler/Tazz angle was next. The crowd was super-heated for this...but it ended right away. It was more comedy than anything, and I do believe that is because Tazz is in no shape to wrestle.

 

Angle vs. Orton was a good match, but not great. Angle is wrestling a whole different style, tons of matwork and very little bumping. He is way over with the ECW crowd. Orton did a lot of stalling and running away. Angle won, it was pretty good.

 

The tag match was meh. Crowd was hyped as hell for Tajiri. It was as good as a TV tag match. Big Show came out to new theme music and beat everybody up. I think they're doing with him what they did with Sid in ECW back in 99.

 

JBL cut a heel promo, and got good heat for it, but really it was more of the same old shit from him. Nothing new or exciting, really. He's a wrestling god, blah blah blah. He's the new color guy on Smackdown I guess.

 

Sabu vs. Mysterio was a SPOTFEST ROYAL but at least two of those spots were legit HOLY SHIT spots...especially the one that ended the match. I've been an FMW and ECW fan for years and the spot that ended the match still freaked me out, somebody could have been crippled there easily.

 

Mick's prematch promo was hilarious. The match was a car wreck, but it was a good ECW car wreck with barbed wire, fire, and blood. I can't believe what Terry Funk put himself through in this match. It was something else, and the match of the night in my opinion.

 

Balls vs. Tanaka was short, and to the point. Balls was WAY over, as was Tanaka, but he looked OFF. He's really slimmed down and he did nothing in this match. Balls caved his head in with a chair shot, and pinned him. That chair shot was BRUTAL.

 

Eugene got caned by The Sandman. Yep. His new music is actually pretty good, but his entrance just isn't the same without Enter Sandman.

 

The Main Event was...WOW. Cena got KILLED by the crowd. I have NEVER seen somebody so hated in my life, I don't think. They chanted just about every bad thing you could think of at him. I almost felt sorry for him for a minute. RVD looked okay, but in my opinion, his match against Mysterio on Wednesday was better than this.

 

To me, the obvious ending is that RVD got the pin from Heyman, so Vince says it doesn't count...Heyman says it does...and there you go. RVD has a semi-legit claim to a title, but Cena has a legit claim to keeping it.

 

This show was ALL about the crowd. I have NEVER seen anything like it in my life as a fan. The matches were all pretty much poor to fair at best, but the atmosphere and the novelty of the event more than made up for it.

 

It wasn't a good wrestling show...but it WAS an EVENT that I'm glad I saw.

[Guest HarleyQuinn]

I must chime in that I liked the new version of Big Show's theme. It was slowed down and a bit more of a rock edge to it.

[Guest DylanWaco]

I think after tonight Terry Funk broke the tie and becomes my pick for best wrestler ever. No way in hell a sixty one year old should be the best worker on a show.

[The Thread Killer]

After tonight, it's probably going to end up like 1995 all over again for a while. We're going to end up with a bunch of smarky smark types who point out that the matches were spotfests, or hardcore trainwrecks, and that anybody who liked it must be a mutant, or stupid...blah blah blah.

 

ECW was, and I hope will be again, about more than the quality of each match. I always found that ECW shows were best viewed as a whole, and that like all of my fellow Kool Aid Drinking Mutants, I believe that Paul E. could bring the best out in his guys, and show them doing what they do best. If it's high flying spotfu, brawling, or whatever...they do what they can do best...and they don't half ass it.

 

I attended a bunch of ECW shows, and they were unique in that the fans and their insane love for the product was a huge part of what made ECW into ECW. Vince doesn't own that, and he can't control it. He can manipulate it into making money for him, and it probably will make money for him...as long as he's smart and lets Paul E. run the show. The minute ECW becomes Raw or Smackdown style Sports Entertainment, it will stop being ECW in the eyes of ECW fans, and they will turn against it.

 

As long as Paul E is writing it, I'll buy it. As soon as somebody compromises that, I won't. If that makes me a mutant, then so be it. I can live with that. All I know is that tonight I saw something that I haven't seen elsewhere for a LONG time...and that's a passion for a product. That's what the tOA types hate about ECW, Paul E., Joey Styles, and the ECW fans.

 

ECW doesn't fit into their idea of what good wrestling is, or should be...aka Joshi or AJPW from 1989-1998. ECW fans love the product, they're vocal, a lot of them don't care that the shows aren't made up of * * * * * matches...so it does not compute.

 

Not everything in wrestling does work on a technical level. ECW to me is about emotion, and cheering for the underdog. To me, Paul E. trying to make his vision of ECW fly under the nose of Stephanie McMahon and Johnny Ace is just as much of a "revoluiton" today as it was when he was trying to compete with WCW.

 

It's about something that isn't glossy and pretty, and well produced, and sexy. I don't care who OWNS it...The Sandman, and Terry Funk, and Sabu will never be on the cover of Entertainment Weekly. It's not for everybody, but I loved it, so I'm glad to see it back, and to hell with anybody who has a problem with it.

[Strummer]

I will point out again that a lot of fans are hypocrites. They criticize WWE for having bad matches (and wrestlers) but let the ECW bad wrestling slide. They are held to different standards. That is my main problem with the mutants.

[sek69]

Being hypocritical isn't something unique to ECW fans. You see it in pretty much any group of fans.

[Guest Local Jobber R]

The thing is a bad ECW match can be entertaining because of the Holy Shit moment while a bad Raw match is laughable considering all of the work they put into it with the countless time used for promos and backstage segments resulting in a stinking pile of green poo in the ring.

[World's Worst Man]

Bad WWE style is atrocious. Bad ECW style can be entertaining due to the spots. That's the difference. None of those TLC matches were any good, but people liked them because of the spots. But these days, the spots in WWE are laughably bad or nonexistant. To most fans, spots = good wrestling, and what's why they like ECW's "crap" but not WWE's "crap".

 

The show was probably worse than last year's as far as good wrestling goes, but it was fun enough. I don't think we'll be seeing "good wrestling" in ECW until they bring in some of the indy guys who are familiar with different styles. Until then, it'll be WWE-style crapfests or ECW-style spotfests.

[Guest Local Jobber R]

"Good Wrestling" won't happen in ECW until they sign some people from ROH, Japan, Mexico. But then again "good wrestling" isn't what made me a fan of ECW to begin with. I luvs me some hardcore spotfest.

[Loss]

The wrestling climate worldwide isn't the same it was 10 years ago. There's not much worthwhile Japanese talent to steal, almost everyone worth having except Danielson in ROH is locked up in TNA and just about anyone who'd be worth signing from Mexico is under a long-term contract to CMLL.

[Guest KingPK]

I attended a bunch of ECW shows, and they were unique in that the fans and their insane love for the product was a huge part of what made ECW into ECW. Vince doesn't own that, and he can't control it. He can manipulate it into making money for him, and it probably will make money for him...as long as he's smart and lets Paul E. run the show. The minute ECW becomes Raw or Smackdown style Sports Entertainment, it will stop being ECW in the eyes of ECW fans, and they will turn against it.

This pretty much nails my feelings on this subject. I'm not sure if the ECW TV show is seperate admission or what, but if you're filming the ECW show in front of a Smackdown audience, it's not gonna translate. And longitme fans have made up their minds about ECW a long time ago, so if they piss off the ECW fanbase they have right now, game over.

[Loss]

Also, between keeping Cena a babyface and pushing outside companies as sometimes face/sometimes heel groups, they seem to be booking to challenge their loyal fanbase at this point. They're being told pretty much all the time lately that they're going to get the exact opposite of whatever it is that they want.

[anarchistxx]

Finally got round to watching the show.

 

I'll just start by wondering what was with the retarded indy/TNA chants all night? 'This Is Awesonme', 'You Got Served', 'Angle's Gonna Kill You'. It was crap.

 

Anyway...

 

Lawler/Tazz was a waste. Even if Tazz can't go Lawler could have carried him using just his punches and weapon shots. 1/4*

 

Angle/Orton was decent enough, the wrestling at the start was rather pointless, liked the crowd reaction to Orton who was a great heel. Pretty much standard stuff though, nothing special. **

 

FBI v Crazy/Tajiri did nothing for me. Span a lot of it on, so shouldn't really rate it, but if I did I'd give it *1/4

 

JBL's promo was brilliant.

 

Mysterio/Sabu was entertaining and worked well. Ending wasn't good, they could have just had Rey win with a quick roll up in the ring to at least get a clean finish, but the match could have been a lot worse, and was in actual fact pretty good and fun. **1/2

 

Foley, Edge and Lita's promos were once again excellent.

 

Funk/Dreamer/Beulah v Edge/Foley/Lita was better than can be expected. Completely sick, some great spots, but at the same time messy, disjointed and mundane and some points. Still, it entertained me, and was probab;ly MOTN if only for the sick spots. **3/4

 

Didn't bother watching almost all of Balls/Tanaka. What I did catch was awful.

 

Cena/RVD had a great atmosphere, but the match wasn't all that good, and it certainly didn't feel like RVD's big win. **1/4

[Mad Dog]

This is off to a great start. The WWF guy got cheered for attacking the ECW guy. Failed ECW chants and they didn't give a shit about RVD's promo.

[Guest HarleyQuinn]

I read that Joey Styles told the crowd to refrain from the more risque chants because of the families in the audience for the Smackdown tapings...that'll definitely help the crowd show the ECW theme as well.

[Mad Dog]

They've tried ECW chants a couple of times but they just quietly go nowhere.

[Guest Spaceman Spiff]

The Zombie was fantastic. He even got mic time, which consisted of nothing but "GRRRRR" grunts. Got destroyed by Sandman, but hopefully they keep the gimmick around. It could probably get over pretty good as a comedy act. That promo was more intelligible than Khali's promos.

[Mad Dog]

The Zombie for ECW Champion. His promo was much better than RVD's.

[Guest NYU]

This show has been tremendously disappointing. I mean, one of the most disappointing wrestling shows I have ever seen.

 

RVD looked like a bitch compared to the two WWE guys. And now we're going to keep chugging along with the Raw vs. ECW angle, which is completely counterproductive to making ECW its own entity.

 

The Zombie is the first wrestler to kick off ECW? Yeah, that's an omen if there ever was one.

 

This new ECW Kurt Angle is not capturing my attention at all. And his match with Justin Credible was all kinds of mediocre.

 

Kelly? What the hell was the point?

 

And let's not forget that the crowd has just been awful. They can't even get an ECW chant to pick up. From the beginning, it was obvious that taping ECW right before Smackdown was a mistake. The two crowds do not mesh well at all.

 

It's like this show was designed tonight with the intent to fail.