[2000-12-01-OMEGA] Steve Corino vs Cham Pain

[Migs]

ECW's not even dead yet and Corino is already on a barnstorming tour. Cham Pain has the fire but is fairly sloppy, and the first five minutes are almost all punches. Corino takes control and is much more methodical, in a good way. He busts out some a King of Old School bit, as he brings in a chair... to sit down in while he applies a front facelock. My mind wanders to Corino v. Lawler, which I feel like would have been great, and I know happened in the coming years. Have I seen that one before? I rack my brain, but it's been too long and I watched too much indy wrestling in the early 00s. The match is still going. Cham Pain takes over again with, you guessed it, punches. They introduce a table, which is of course more over than both guys, because it is 2000. There's a ref bump, and interference from CW Anderson, and an overdramatic table bump from Cham Pain to end it. Corino got this to watchable, but not much more. Not recommended.

[soup23]

Another good match and overall this was a pretty fun show. This had a lot more brawling aspects to it and Cham Pain has more heavy punches than you would think given his frame. I liked the way the weapons like the tables and the structure of the building with the concessions window were mixed in. CW Anderson comes out to help his buddy Corino and we get another non finish which is the downfall of the show as all three matches we saw had some pretty shoddy finishes. Like I said with Michaels/AJ, that was fine for that spot on the card but it is less acceptable for the main event. Someone I didn’t recognize makes the save for Cham Pain but again this was a good show but had a couple of matches that had some bullshit that prevented it from being great. ***1/4 (6.7)

[GSR]

Cham Pain “the former exotic dancer who now brings his skills to the wrestling ring”.  I hope his wrestling skills are better than his pants which are hideous.  Fast paced opening, which he gets the better of, and Corino is on the outside catching his breath.  There’s an absolutely hideous botch when Corino reverses the whip to the corner, Pain supposed to leap to the middle ropes, but he’s not giving it full care and attention, his feet not even landing on the ropes as he embarrassingly crashes and burns to the mat.  Great facials by Corino as he stalls for a few moments.  He tosses Pain to the floor where he slams his head into the wooden kiosk doors.  Corino cuts off the comeback with a clothesline before yelling at the fans that he’s “the man”.  The current ECW World champion collects a chair from ringside and makes out that he’s going to brain Cham with it, only to take a seat, making himself comfortable as he applies a front facelock.  Pain escapes the sleeper and an accidental clash of heads sees both men go down.  Cham is back throwing punches which has been the basis for a high proportion of his offense.  Neckbreaker for a two count.  Corino counters the reverse DDT with a nice Northern Lights suplex.  For the second time in the match he throws him to the floor and then clears merchandise from a table which he drags towards the ring.  Pain is up to his feet and yet more punches from him.  Weirdly he retrieves a table from under the ring, weird in the fact that the one Corino was dragging is only a matter of feet away and surely it would’ve made sense to just to use that one?  One table becomes two, again taken from under the ring, and he places this adjacent to the first.  Back inside Corino lifts Cham Pain onto his shoulders and his swinging legs take out the official.  Great, another ref bump.  Reverse DDT, Cham getting the visual three.  A second ref slides into the ring to take the place of the original but, before he can complete his count, C.W. Anderson is out and drills him with a big right hand.  Anderson KO’s Pain with the ECW title belt, puts Corino on top of him, but he’s still able to kick out of the cover due to the groggy, original ref’s, slow count.  Corino accidentally superkicks C.W as their attempts to work together misfire.  Cham goes up top, however he’s not quick enough and Corino gives him a shove, Pain taking a corkscrew senton through those tables he’d arranged at ringside moments earlier.  C.W. throws him back into the ring where he’s easy pickings for Corino.

Two matches from this OMEGA show, two ref bumps, two lots of outside interference, two unsatisfactory finishes.  Not ideal and Chad’s review doesn’t bode well for the A.J. Styles/Rick Michaels match which I still have left to watch.  This was struggling to maintain my attention and Pain especially seemed hesitant at times, maybe thrown off by that horrible botch towards the start.  The table bump is really the only memorable thing about this.