Chris Jericho v 2 Cold Scorpio v Pit Bull #2 v Shane Douglas

[Loss]

Chris Jericho v 2 Cold Scorpio v Shane Douglas v Pit Bull II - 07/13/96 (ECW)

 

Often times, matches are called great when they're merely good, so that's nothing new, but since when do absolutely horrible matches get called great? I wanted to like this one, because I'm a big fan of at least two of the participants, but I couldn't help but be disappointed for a variety of reasons. The match is a four-corners match, which does admittedly work better in some ways than a fatal four-way, if only because the wrestlers don't have to lay outside the ring for an extended amount of time selling something that wasn't really all that high-impact in the first place. This match is also for the ECW TV title. The champion is Chris Jericho, and he's probably the second best worker in this match. Eliminating him first, when he's the one with the belt, makes very little sense, because the champ losing his title should be a major deal. He's good here in spots, but he's very inconsistent overall. It's cool to see him bust out moves you'd never see from him post-1999, like the Tiger Bomb or a standing top-rope huracanrana. He also keeps a consistent pace better than any of the other participants, and does far less stalling than anyone else involved. That said, he is sloppy in a few spots, particularly when he does a slingshot splash when there's not even anyone there to perform the move on. Joey Styles covered for it nicely on commentary by basically calling it like a fake-out on the part of 2 Cold Scorpio, but Jericho does at least have the wherewithal to keep going and get quickly back on track. He also does small things nicely, like roll out of the ring after a high-impact move, knowing that the move took enough out of him that if he doesn't get out of there, he's toast. It's in the details where Jericho succeeds.

 

2 Cold Scorpio is the best worker in the match, though, basically wrestling the same heel role he always did in ECW, but being the lesser of two evils when he's faced off against Shane Douglas. He does more than everyone else in the match to make his rivals look good, and he doesn't overstep his bounds because he knows the match isn't all about him. The problems come in when he stalls so much between moves. He's not really playing to the crowd so much as he is heckling them, and ECW fans are always too quick to heckle back. The best highspots of the match are almost all 2 Cold Scorpio highspots. However, I'm not really sure why he's here, and I'd feel the same way about Jericho if he wasn't the champ.

 

The main issue is Shane Douglas and Pit Bull #2. In fact, Douglas meets him at the entrance with a chairshot before the match even gets started, which should theoretically place the odds against him from the start, and I think that's what they were going for. But when PB came to his senses, he didn't try to chase down Douglas or demand to be tagged into the match. He was so bothered, in fact, that he just got back on the apron and while he was bleeding, he waited calmly and patiently for his opportunity to get in the ring. Immediately after the initial chairshot, Jericho and Scorpio start in right away, with the audience's attention still focused elsewhere. I wish they would have waited just a little bit, because what they were doing was solid. There's some nice matwork that sees Jericho tie Scorpio in to a pretzel, basically, before Scorpio starts yanking hair like his life depends on it to get out of the hold. Douglas tags in from Scorpio, and he's incredibly hated as a heel. Jericho tries to capitalize on that by doing the count-along head rams into the top, middle and bottom turnbuckles, but the audience is too cool to care about something like that. Whatever, they totally don't get it.

 

At this point, the match is basically a tag match, albeit not a very coherent one. Douglas, to his credit, stooges like a madman on the apron and when he's in the ring, and when Pit Bull is tagged in, Douglas wants no part of him and does everything in his power to get out of the ring. Scorpio immediately takes over and back bodydrops him over the top rope, and both legs hit the guardrail. I was hoping they'd play that up, but it would appear that the spot was accidental, because they didn't at all. Bull is vulnerable now though, which means Douglas has no problem coming in and taking a few cheapshots. The build to their altercation is the one part of this match that truly works, and even the mutants are anxious to see the final showdown when it happens. When Pit Bull shows even the slightest signs of life, Douglas tags out, and in this case he tags out to Jericho, breaking up the face/heel tag team thing officially.

 

Jericho lays in some vicious Taijiri-like kicks to the head, but a well-timed elbow from Bull turns the tide. They're competitive now, but Jericho hopes to change that with a really nice German suplex. Sadly, he was out of position for it, and Bull immediately was in the ropes. More sloppy work. He goes for a huracanrana, but Bull counters it into a powerbomb and Scorpio tags in, immediately going up top. Jericho knocks him off the ropes and after the aforementioned standing top-rope huracanrana and tries to pin Scorp, but Douglas blind tags himself into the match so he can attempt the fall. With this being ECW, it would have been so easy to do payback spots here, but strangely, these guys were almost constantly wrestling within the rules. Jericho didn't get in a shot before going back; he just went back without fighting the decision, in much the same way Bull didn't seem to care about the chairshot Shane caught him with early on.

 

We eventually end up with Douglas and Bull finally having their altercation, but it happens outside the ring. Jericho decides to break that up with a plancha to both, and Scorpio doesn't think that's a bad idea himself. Douglas and Pit Bull are now left to do their thing in the ring while Scorpio and Jericho brawl into the crowd, which the camera is unable to catch. It's awkward when they return though because Jericho walks off, realizes he has nothing to do and comes back to fight with Scorpio again. In a nice touch with both he and Scorpio refusing to tag, so this showdown is inescapable now. It would have been even better if Douglas wouldn't have been so half-assedly selling PB's weak punches. Jericho gets revenge for Shane's blind tag on him earlier, but it doesn't really play that way, because it ends up with the babyfaces looking incompetent for arguing over who gets to put him away.

 

Jericho/Douglas is nice in theory, but poor in execution. Jericho works a spinning toehold a few times before finally cinching in a figure four, but Douglas doesn't really sell it as anything important. That's too bad, since Jericho is keeping it interesting by chopping him while he has the hold locked in. I wish he would have set it up a little more though, and I also wish Jericho would not have broken the hold voluntarily. Douglas sends Scorpio back in for the best spot of the match, which was Jericho going for a Lionsault and Scorpio dropkicking him mid-air. After some more awkwardness and a few tags, Jericho is disposed of after a tombstone and tumbleweed. Douglas begs Scorpio for an alliance against Pit Bull and offers a handshake, but 2 Cold blows him off by beating him up again, and then dropkicks Bull off the apron for effect. In a very strange moment, he goes for a pin, doesn't get it and no one does anything -- at all -- for close to a minute. It was very weird. We get a nice attempted spot with Scorpio going for a moonsault on a pair of stacked opponents, but they *both* move, which eventually leaves Scorpio susceptible to being eliminated.

 

So now we finally have the match that should have just been the match all along. They don't really payoff the hype so well, as their brawl doesn't have any real intensity to speak of before going into angle overdrive. I'll cop to liking Douglas trying every single Southern heel cheating staple -- belt shot, chain, brass knucks -- with Bull kicking out of all of them, but I'll also admit that it's needless overkill and the point was already made. Francine turning is a fine swerve, but wouldn't it make more sense to delay the payoff of her getting her due instead of doing it immediately after she does the dirty deed? The whole match was just a mess that could never quite figure out what it wanted to be, what its pace was and where it was going. It ended up as nearly 45 minutes of filler before the big angle, which shows that Shane Douglas is not only long-winded on the mic, but in the ring as well.