ktc

Dueling Chair Shots
by Kurt La Mont
column date 05/18/2000

HH2k Review:

My initial reaction to the PPV was that it was average. The more I thought about it though the more that I liked the show. The production flaws really detracted from what was a very good show. Here’s a match by match run down (all matches on a scale of 1-4):

Balls v. Tanaka - Pretty good match, and they killed themselves with chairshots on top of that. Balls is one of the most underrated wrestlers in ECW but he ends up in too many brawl type matches because of his willingness (or desire?) to take physical punishment so it largely goes unnoticed. This match scores a 3 out of 4 in my book.

Kid Cash v. C. dubba-ya Anderson - I haven’t been given a reason to care one way or another yet about either one of these two. And looking like an Anderson or Kid Rock is not a reason for me to care. Working hard will only take you so far. Not a bad match, but the lack of a reason for them to wrestle made this seem just like filler. 2 / 4

Guido v. Simon v. Mikey Whipwreck - Another match just thrown together at the last minute. However, I like all 3 guys so the match was enjoyable for me. I hope this is the beginning of the end of the comedy entourage of Simon. Prodigy and Prodigette are OK, but the Musketeer? What is that all about? It’s tough to take Simon seriously with him out there. As for the match, it was pretty strong and had a really cool new move from Mikey. Hopefully, Mikey’s next fireball spot will at least look good. It looks pretty silly for Big Sal to sell a move when you see the flame is no where close him. Oh well, maybe next time. 3 / 4.

Nova/Chetti v. Roadkill/Doring v. Baldies - Apparently this had some impact on the tag team belts. To me its pretty clear that of the existing tag teams in ECW right now Nova and Chetti are clearly above everyone else. I’m finally convinced that they are worthy tag champions. We’ll see if that happens now. The match was neither great nor horrible, just very similar to past matches except Nova pulled a new move out again. 2.5 / 4

New Jack v. Angel - If you’ve seen this once and didn’t see the PPV you didn’t miss anything. New Jack comes to the ring with weapons, uses a few, drags someone through the crowd, puts them on a table, climbs somewhere high and puts the guy through the table, and goes to the ring for the win. 2 / 4, with one of the points coming because New Jack is crazy.

Tajiri v. Corino - This was without question the overachieving match of the night. Corino will be the next superstar in ECW but to this point we haven’t had much of an opportunity to see him shine in the ring until now. I bet this is the show we look back on as Corino’s breakout match. Finally putting him with an excellent wrestler such as Tajiri just made him look even better. Corino’s blood splattering on the camera was just a classic shot. 3.5 / 4

Sandman v. Rhino - Did I nail this match in my preview or what? I wasn’t expecting the piledriver from the apron through a table on the floor though. Apparently Lori Fullington has a death wish. This match was just table spots and canes shots galore. The question that I have is, can Rhino have a good match without using a table or chair? I haven’t seen it yet and I have my doubts. 2.5 / 4

Jerry Lynn v. RVD - This was another tremendous match between these two. However, there were a few things that bugged me. One is RVD’s insistence on stopping to talk to the crowd 3-4 times for 2 minutes at the beginning of his matches after only 15 seconds of wrestling. Nothing like breaking the flow of a good match. The second thing that bothered me was the involvement of The Network in this match. If Lynn and Anton were not going to be a part of The Network there was no need to involve them here (of course this could change in the future). The third thing bothering me was how obvious Anton’s turn on Van Dam was. It would have been a swerve if he didn’t turn. Regardless of the items I didn’t like this was still a tremendous match. Hopefully this will lead to more matches between the two as Lynn will want a ‘clean win’ over RVD. 3.5 / 4

Justin Credible v. Lance Storm - For some reason the crowd could have cared less which is a shame because this was a strong match. The only thing that I would have changed is to lengthen the match and have less of an awkward ending. 3 / 4.

Despite all the technical glitches and a poor crowd this turned out to be a strong PPV. To me it was the best PPV of the 3 this year. On a scale of 1-4 I rate this a solid 3.

Of all the wrestlers to leave ECW in the past year I think, surprisingly, that I’ll probably miss Storm the most. In addition to losing a great technical wrestler you’re losing someone who was just reaching main event status in ECW. Everyone else who left recently (Taz, Sabu, Dudleys, Douglas) was on the downside of their ECW careers. We were able to see their best years while they were in ECW. However, Storm’s best years are ahead of him and we’ll just have to see them in WCW now. Good luck to Lance in WCW, he’ll definitely be missed in ECW.

(Hopefully he can successfully convince Russo that people actually like good wrestling without 57 run-ins every match. It won’t work but I can dream can’t I?)

And for those of you who read Mark Maddens "column" and disagree with what he said, or perhaps you are upset with what he wrote, just realize that he is 'in character' and he uses the column to generate heat. It's pretty pathetic. Just ignore him, maybe he'll go away. Or better yet don't bother to read the column. Just because he's on TV doesn't mean he's credible.

More good stuff next week when I return to the regularly scheduled Monday night column. Send e-mail to [email protected]