Misnik's Musings
11/28/99
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Puzzling.

        That is the basic feeling about the ECW Arena show from 11/27/99. People left puzzled and a lot of the fans I have spoken with and have had emails with felt it was a bad show. Well, I agree and disagree with that sentiment. As the last ECW Arena show of the century, it was a stinker; but as an ECW on TNN taping, it was a good, solid show and set up a lot of what we will be seeing on Sunday January 9th at the Guilty as Charged PPV.

             There was a lot of buzz going into last night’s Arena show- how is Paul E going to keep topping himself- WHO is going to come back tonight and wreak more havoc on the ECW and send the current story lines. It’s great having Sandman back where he belongs, but to have him involved in the saga of one of the most dysfunctional tag teams in ECW in Tommy Dreamer and Raven.

              One of the things I feel is that left a bad taste in fans mouths is the last match – not to say that Mike Awesome isn’t a good champion and great wrestler, but at the last Arena show, he was the 2nd match on the card and now he’s on top vs. Justin Credible. People were confused as I think they weren’t sure how in fact Justin had all of a sudden garnered a shot at the gold. It seemed like people felt that Justin’s appearance was a red herring and they were waiting for the big surprise to come out and there was none.
It was a good match with a solid, clean finish and actually had Mike take on one of the Impact Players in ECW and as the pre-match mic work built up, gave Justin Credible a title shot he hadn’t had before. That was great and actually about time, but with nothing more than that set-up, the match had no real build up.

            In one of my earlier columns I had mentioned that what the former “Sign Guy Dudley” was doing as now he is to be known as “Lou E Dangerously” was a tribute to Paul Heyman. Well at the Arena on 11/27 we learned that wasn’t the case. He even went so far as to reform the “Dangerous Alliance” with members “Beautiful” Billy Wiles and “ The Enforcer” CW Anderson. Well, Wiles and CW are no Eaton and Arn. Well, they aren’t yet. This is a great opportunity for a couple of hard working tough guys who paid their dues in the business to get a shot and no doubt with the best manager in the business with Lou E Dangerously behind them, the NEW Dangerous Alliance will be a force on the ECW Tag Team scene.

                   Well the tag team scene is as interesting as ever been in ECW right now. Here is Tommy Dreamer and Raven who are your tag champs, but neither man can stand the other- throw into the mix the returning Sandman who is one of Dreamer’s best friends, but Sandman has a history against Raven.
Now you have the Impact Players going after Raven and Dreamer- and then on the heels of the Impact Players are Chris Candido and Rhino. Add to the mix, Jason, Steve Corino, Dawn Marie, Jack Victory, Francine, Tammy Lynn Sytch and Lori Fullington, its tough to keep track of who is with who, who’s after who and what they’re all after. The fact that off the above were involved in the match at the ECW Arena added to the mood that people left with and even though it made no sense live as to what was going on, it will all make perfect sense on TNN Friday night at 8pm.

                  There is certainly one feud that needs no explanation- Da Baldies vs. New Jack. With Balls and Axl there to help with the carnage and always make sure its as fair of a fight as you can have on the street or on the subway. With the staple gun, both of these “gangs” have been able to continue to raise the bar on the violence and its gonna be fun to see how it plays out.

                               Granted the ECW Arena show of 11/27 didn’t live up to the hype of being “ the last ECW Arena show of the century”, but, considering this past year and a lot of the uncertainty before TNN and Acclaim came onboard- I’m just happy knowing that we had shows for all of 1999 and one already scheduled for 2000.