Another day, another completely random wrestling show. Today we’re taking a look at WWE vs. ECW Head to Head, an event that served as a prelude to the 2006 edition of ECW One Night Stand and the revival of ECW as a brand under the stewardship of WWE.
Meanwhile in WWE’s Locker Room…
Mick Foley is standing by with a gaggle of WWE wrestlers wearing Raw and SmackDown t-shirts. Tatanka is there among them. I always forget how weird WWE’s 2006 roster was. Foley rallies the troops by telling them that this is their house and they can’t let the ECW scumfucks take it from them.
Meanwhile in ECW’s Locker Room…
Paul Heyman gives a similar speech to the ECW alumni…and also Kurt Angle. I’ve seen One Night Stand 2006 and all his WWECW matches but I still have no idea how or why Kurt Angle ended up siding with ECW in all this. Maybe they’ll explain it on this show. Regardless, Paul Heyman fires up his troops and gets them to bellow “ECW!” as they bang on chairs and smash themselves in the face with Singapore canes…as one does when they’re an ECW wrestler.
Meanwhile in the Arena…
After an opening video deal with some theme song I legit thought was pretty great we head to the Nutter Center in Dayton, Ohio for some explosions.
Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler welcome us to the show. JR does not seem like he wants to be there but Lawler says that he’s excited for the WWE to show the ECW “clowns” how it’s done. The camera then cuts to a separate announce table a couple of feet away where we see Joey Styles and Tazz.
Styles welcomes the ECW fans and puts Tazz over as a two time ECW champion. Styles and Jim Ross then hype up a couple of matches we’ll see tonight including a battle royal featuring ten WWE wrestlers and ten ECW wrestlers. I think they say it’s for brand superiority or brand dominance or maybe just bragging rights. Momentum? It’s for some vague concept that is routinely brought up as a talking point around the Survivor Series in Brand Split era WWE. They also hype an Extreme Rules match between John Cena and Sabu which is just one of those wild-ass matches that I still can’t believe happened let alone happened twice.
Tazz doesn’t give a shit about any of this though and tells Lawler that he’s lucky he’s not just beating his ass at this very moment and tells Lawler to be prepared for Sunday (spoiler alert: Lawler would not be prepared and end up losing to Tazz in like 30 seconds).
Match 1: Rey Mysterio vs. Rob Van Dam
There are actually two entrance ways here, the big TitanTron entrance way that the WWE guys come out of and then the old school ECW fake brick wall entrance deal that leads out into the crowd. It’s honestly pretty rad.
Mysterio’s the World Heavyweight Champion here but the title is not on the line. RVD and Mysterio had been tag team champions at some point before this and are not actively beefin’ with each other so they shake hands as the match gets under way. CODE OF HONOR ALL UP IN THIS MUG!
Go behind by Mysterio who trips RVD up and then goes for a leg drop but misses. He pops back up and we’ve got ourselves a stand off. The crowd seem to be a bit more behind RVD here in Dayton. Van Dam and Mysterio lay into each other with kicks before RVD hurks Mysterio up into a gorilla press. He drops Mysterio straight down on his face and then hits a standing moonsault for an early near fall.
Over on commentary, Joey Styles is going off on some jag about how he actually knows the name of wrestling moves. So did Professor Iron “Mike” Tenay dude but he never bragged about it.
Back in the ring, Mysterio comes back with a dropkick that sends RVD into the ropes. Mysterio looks for the 619 but Van Dam is able to avoid it. RVD then looks for some sort of springboard move from the apron but Mysterio sends him to the floor with a dropkick. Mysterio looks for a baseball slide but RVD avoids it and ends up dropping Mysterio across the barricade.
RVD then hops up onto the barricade and looks for a leg drop but ends up losing his balance and falling into the front row. He hops back up onto the barricade and tries a second time but this time Rey moves and RVD misses the leg drop and falls back into the front row. Mysterio then hits an insane looking springboard plancha into the crowd as we head to commercials. TAPE MACHINES ARE ROLLING!
Back from break Rey catches RVD with a kick but RVD turns things around by crotching Mysterio on the top rope. RVD heads up as well and nails Mysterio with a flying side kick that sends him tumbling out to the floor. He follows with a springboard leg drop on Mysterio before sending him back into the ring where he covers for two.
RVD works Mysterio over with kicks in the corner and then goes for an Irish whip only to have Mysterio reverse it. Mysterio goes charging in but ends up hitting the turnbuckles when Van Dam sidesteps him. RVD then goes out and grabs a chair that he uses to hit Mysterio with the running Van Daminator in the corner. He covers but Mysterio manages to kick out at two.
Van Dam with an Irish whip. He then grabs the chair again and somersaults with it into Mysterio. RVD then heads up top but Mysterio cuts him off and ends up bulldogging him off the top rope onto the chair. Mysterio covers. ONE! TWO! NO!
Mysterio then misses with a springboard legdrop and RVD capitalizes. He puts the chair on Mysterio’s body and heads up top. He comes flying off and Mysterio pushes the table off himself but still gets hit with the Five Star Frog Splash. RVD covers for one, for two, and for three to pick up the win.
Styles predicts that the same thing will happen to Cena on Sunday while in the ring Van Dam helps Mysterio to his feet and gives him his title. He raises Mysterio’s hand in a show of good sportsmanship.
The camera then cuts to the ECW locker room where we see a bunch of ECW dudes wilding out that their team picked up the first win in this Head to Head event. Back in the arena RVD rolls out of the ring to the floor and briefly celebrates with Joey Styles and Tazz before heading to the back.
Winner: Rob Van Dam
In what is surely a shock to everyone, two very good wrestlers who have good chemistry with each other went out there and had a perfectly fine TV wrestling match. Being from the future and knowing how this all turns out it’s pretty wild how all in WWE was on this revived ECW. Not only did they have RVD beat their golden child, Cena, for the title at One Night Stand, but here in the warm-up match that one they had him beat the World Heavyweight Champion clean (by ECW standards) in the middle of the ring. [***]
Highlights for Children!
We see clips of Randy Orton attacking Kurt Angle from Raw.
Meanwhile Backstage…
Kurt Angle is show heading towards the ring as we head to commercials. He’ll address the crowd after the break.
Meanwhile in the Arena…
Angle’s got slightly different entrance music as he makes his way down to the ring. Angle gets on the mic and says that people might think that he’d be angry about what Orton did on Monday but he’s not because two month ago he broke Orton’s ankle. He says that he’s broken a lot of ankles in his time wrestling but none were quite as satisfying as when broke Orton’s and heard him “squeal…squeal like a pig!”
He says that he’s glad Orton answered his challenge because at One Night Stand they will face off for the first time ever. That can’t be true…oh it’s because this is a new Kurt Angle…ECW’s Kurt Angle and that Angle doesn’t take SHIT!
Cue Randy Orton with that good-ass entrance music he had before he got the shitty “I hear voices in my head,” one. I legit love this bone-headed song. Anyway he stops up on the stage and asks Angle is that was supposed to scare him. He says that he feels sorry for Angle since he went from main eventing WrestleMania to being in ECW. Orton says that it’s like going from starring in a blockbuster to being in porn. The fans in Dayton cheer which Orton says is to be expected from ECW fans since watching porn is the closest any of them will ever get to actual sex.
Orton then talks about he wanted to get to the top. He says that last year he went to SmackDown but now, a year and one expired contract later he’s facing Angle as Raw’s Randy Orton.
Angle doesn’t really care though and rattles off some WWE speak about this is a new ECW…”a new breed unleashed,” and how for the first time ever he doesn’t have to worry about offending sponsors or the Olympic committee or Vince McMahon.
“All I have to worry about is kicking ass!” says Angle. He then outlines exactly what he plans to do to Orton on Sunday at One Night Stand, telling him that he’s going to break his arms and legs and neck.
Orton tells Angle that he would have become World Champion if Angle hadn’t have broken his ankle. He talks about going to rehab and how he vowed to pay Angle back for costing him the title. He then says, “This is my chance and you may think this is a coincidence, but it isn’t. It all happens for a reason.”
“What the hell are you talking about Randy?” asks Angle.
Orton tells Angle that this is his destiny. “You may be the new face of ECW, but I will use all of my rage to beat you with in an inch of your life,” he says, “All the excitement of ECW will die, the success will fail because it is my destiny to take ECW to its knees. I will single handedly kill the legend of ECW!”
This was a bit long but overall a pretty good exchange between the two that got Angle over as an unhinged lunatic and added a new wrinkle to Orton’s “Legend Killer” gimmick since now it’s extended to concepts and companies rather than just wrestlers of yore.
Hype!
The announcers stop bickering long enough to hype an Extreme Rules match between Edge and Tommy Dreamer still to come!
Meanwhile Backstage…
We see WWE Women’s Champion, Mickie James, walking towards the ring. Elsewhere Jazz is also walking towards the ring. These two will collide after the break!
Match 2: Mickie James vs. Jazz
James is the Women’s Champion here but this is a non-title match. Jazz is part of ECW though this would apparently be her last televised match in WWE or WWECW so I don’t think she really did much after this (besides a couple house show matches against Trinity).
Tazz is absolutely brutal towards Lawler as Mickie James makes her entrance bellowing, “Puppies! Puppies!” in a mocking fashion and trying to get Lawler to say it since that’s all he ever does during women’s matches. Lawler does not take the bait but he does opine that, “ECW women don’t have puppies, they have Rottweilers!”
They lock up and Mickie grabs a wristlock but Jazz counters into an armbar. She lays in Mickie with forearms. Off the ropes and Jazz does a cartwheel before blasting Mickie with kicks. Mickie goes out to the floor but Jazz comes flying off the apron with a Thesz Press. None of this actually matter since the focal point of this match is Tazz and Lawler bickering.
As Jazz lays in some chops out of the floor, Lawler says, ” I hear they’ll be having drug tests in ECW. They don’t mind…they’ll test anything.”
“What page of the joke book is that?” deadpans Tazz.
Back in the ring Jazz sends Mickie James into the corner but misses on a corner splash. Mickie tries for a kick but misses with it and gets hit by Jazz with an X-Factor. Jazz covers but Mickie manages to get her foot on the rope at two for the break. Mickie then pokes Jazz in the eyes and hits a tornado DDT and wins the match.
Winner: Mickie James
It was a WWE women’s match in the year 2006 and as such went all of two minutes and mostly existed on the show so Tazz could mock Lawler for his Boner Dad shtick. It’s kind of a shame to be honest since Mickie James and Jazz are both terrific in the ring. The stuff they did in this match looked good it was just way to short to have any sort of psychology or flow. [NR]
Video Package!
Before heading to commercial we get a video package highlighting the antics of Sabu.
Meanwhile Backstage…
Todd Grisham is standing by with John Cena. They air a clip of Cena getting beaten down by the ECW roster and Sabu putting him through a table. This clip is so good because Cena bellows, “If I’m gonna get my ass kicked I might as well go down swinging!” and then just decks Sandman in the mug.
After they play the clip Cena says that what happened on Monday makes tonight and One Night Stand even more important. He says that for the first time ever the WWE Championship is on the line at an ECW PPV. Cena then talks about what the repercussions of RVD winning the title on Sunday would be.
He says that should he lose the title that was held by the likes of Bruno Sammartino, Hulk Hogan and Stone Cold Steve Austin would be gone…turned into the ECW Championship and every WWE fan would recognize him as “the biggest goat in WWE history.” I’m assuming he’s making a Judas goat reference here as opposed to calling himself the greatest of all time, but who knows?
It’s a lot of pressure and to make matters worse there won’t even be any WWE fans there, just a mess of “ruthless and aggressive ECW fans.” Cena goes on to imagine what would likely happen if he did defeat RVD and retain the championship. In that event, Cena surmises, he would quickly find himself in the middle of “the biggest riot in sports entertainment history.” Holy shit, did Cena work those guys into making the “If Cena wins we riot!” sign with this promo? That’s fucking incredible.
Cena says that he could complain about all this or lose sleep wondering about his potential ass whooping but he’s not going to do that. Instead he’s going to “fight like a man” and tonight he’s going to make a statement by taking on “the homicidal, suicidal, genocidal, dance recital Sabu.” He tells Sabu that he fears no one and that Sabu pissed off the wrong son of a bitch.
Maybe it’s because I wasn’t regularly watching during the “LOL Cena wins!” era but every single time I see some John Cena thing from the period when I wasn’t really watching it fucking rules. This promo was goddamn amazing. It’s shit like this that makes me love professional wrestling. In this one three minute promo, Cena made the title feel more important than any wrestler in WWE has in maybe a decade and it ruled! It made the match feel like it had actual stakes other than “I want to win that prop.” Guys and girls should give a shit about the title and WWE should play up their titles’ histories but they really don’t and the company is worse off for it.
Meanwhile in the Arena…
Paul Heyman heads out in a long black leather trench coat and a baseball cap. I don’t remember if he’s back to being Paul E. Dangerously here or not but he thanks the fans and talks about how overwhelming it is to be in the midst of a rebirth of ECW. He hypes the new weekly show which will unleash a new breed on Sci-Fi next week and talks about how it won’t be exactly the same as the ECW of yore…it will be even better.
He then says that it all begins this Sunday at One Night Stand and proceeds to run down the card. That card is as follows:
John Cena vs. RVD for the WWE Championship
Kurt Angle vs. Randy Orton
Tazz vs. Jerry Lawler
Terry Funk & Tommy Dreamer vs. Edge & Mick Foley w/Lita
Rey Mysterio vs. Sabu for the World Heavyweight Championship
Heyman then says that those of us that are unsure of whether or not we want to tune in this Sunday may want to sample some of what happened at last year’s One Night Stand. We then get a video package of highlights from 2005’s ECW One Night Stand.
Hype!
The 20-man WWE vs. ECW battle royal is coming up next!
Meanwhile in the ECW Locker Room…
Kurt Angle gets Team ECW fired up ahead of the battle royal.
Meanwhile in the WWE Locker Room…
Big Show rallies the WWE locker room. He says that Angle betrayed them and is only out for himself. He talks about how they might be from Raw or SmackDown but at the end of the day they’re all WWE superstars and they need to teach ECW a lesson tonight.
Match 3: Big Show vs. Randy Orton vs. Mark Henry vs. Tatanka vs. Shelton Benjamin vs. Matt Hardy vs. Fit Finlay vs. Carlito vs. Bobby Lashley vs. Edge vs. Stevie Richards vs. Al Snow vs. The Sandman vs. Balls Mahoney vs. Justin Credible vs. Tommy Dreamer vs. Kurt Angle vs. Tony Mamaluke vs. Little Guido vs. Terry Funk
20-Man WWE vs. ECW Battle Royal
This is a weird team battle royal I guess. So if it comes down to like three ECW guys in the ring and zero WWE dudes the match is over and ECW wins.
All the WWE guys come out one by one but ECW hits the ring en masse and it’s goddamn pandemonium from the jump. Dreamer chases Edge out on the floor while Mark Henry is dumped almost immediately by I think Little Guido and Kurt Angle. Moments later Matt Hardy gets dumped by Terry Funk.
There’s a pretty great moment after that where Funk just goes after Justin Credible but Credible points at his ECW shirt and Funk’s like, “My bad…” and just wanders over to brawl with someone else.
Elsewhere Dreamer works over Shelton Benjamin while Edge stalls out on the floor. Elsewhere Big Show merks Little Guido with a punch that sends him flying out to the floor. Tommy Dreamer dumps Tatanka and Sandman dropkicks Carlito out of the ring. God do I never not mark out for “highflying” Sandman.
Edge, who still has not gotten in the ring, hops up on the apron and pulls Tony Mamluke over the top rope with a hiptoss to eliminate him from the match. Orton then goes to toss Tommy Dreamer and Edge, who is out on the floor, helps pull him out of the ring to eliminate him from the match. Edge mockingly laughs at Dreamer as we head to commercials. TAPE MACHINES ARE ROLLING!
Back from the break Edge is still just chilling over by the announce tables. He eventually gets up on the apron a nails Justin Credible with some cheap shots before helping Finlay eliminate Terry Funk. The former Belfast Bruiser then tosses Credible as well.
Elsewhere Al Snow takes a swing at Shelton Benjamin with Head but misses. He gets kicked in the head (his actual head not Head the mannequin head) and goes flying out of the ring. Head is still in this though so Big Show picks it up and in the second good goofy battle royal comedy spot of the match throws Head out of the ring onto Al Snow to eliminate it from the match as well.
Stevie Richards gets tossed and we’re down to only Balls Mahoney, Sandman, and Kurt Angle on the ECW side of things while WWE still has Orton, Edge (who still hasn’t actually gotten in the ring), Big Show, Lashley, Finlay, and Benjamin. Balls goes after Lashley and gets absolutely launched out of the ring before Joey Styles could even start to get Balls’ legitimate Greco-Roman wrestling bona fides out. Lashley is near the ropes though so Angle strikes and promptly dumps him out to the floor as well.
ECW is down to just The Sandman and Kurt Angle. As we head to break Sandman and Finlay grapple on the mat while Angle gets beat down. TAPE MACHINES ARE ROLLING!
Back from break Sandman tries to battle back but he’s promptly dumped leaving Kurt Angle all alone in a five on one situation. Benjamin looks for a headlock but Angle counters by hucking him over the top rope to the floor to eliminate him. Kurt Angle goes into WRESTLING MACHINE mode and starts hucking dudes with belly-to-belly suplexes. He has one for Finlay and one for Orton. Big Show goozles him to try and cut him off but Angle escapes and gets Show up for a goddamn Angle Slam!
Finlay, however, nails Angle with a clothesline and tries to toss him but Angle comes back with uppercuts and then catapults Finlay over the top rope and out to the floor to eliminate him. The Ultimate Opportunist, Edge, then runs in and tries to dump Angle, but Angle catches him with an overhead belly-to-belly suplex out to the floor.
Angle is too close to the ropes though and Orton runs up on him from behind and dumps him out to the floor. Orton mocks Angle out on the floor while the bell rings and the announcer starts to announce WWE as the winning team but while this is happening behind Orton, Big Show is tearing his t-shirt asunder to reveal an ECW t-shirt underneath. He grabs Orton and plants him with a chokeslam and then tosses him out of the ring to win the match for ECW.
Kurt Angle gets back in an leaps into Show’s arms for a hug while over on commentary Joey Styles is screaming, “IT’S A NEW BREED UNLEASHED, FEATURING BIG SHOW!”
Winner: Big Show
This was an absolutely bonkers assortment of dudes but more than maybe anything else in the lead up to WWECW was a sign of what the brand was going to be: a bunch of WWE Superstars slumming it while the ECW originals are made to look like jokes. As for the match it was fine for a battle royal I guess, but unless it’s a Royal Rumble type deal I don’t think battle royals are ever really great. [**]
Meanwhile in the ECW Locker Room…
Back from break them ECW boys celebrate Big Show jumping ship and winning the battle royal by drinking beers together with Show and screaming, “ECW! ECW!”
Match 4: Edge (w/ Mick Foley & Lita) vs. Tommy Dreamer (w/ Terry Funk)
Extreme Rules Match
Before the match Edge gets on the mic and talks about how Mick Foley knows all about hardcore. Edge then tells Foley he has a surprise for him and plays him one of the anti-hardcore promos he did as Cactus Jack back when he was in ECW in ’95. Goddamn are these great.
Dreamer heads out with a 2×4 wrapped in barbed wire as JR informs us this will be “an ECW style match.” There’s a bunch of plunder already in the ring and Edge has himself a chair but he promptly bails to the floor when Dreamer hits the ring. Dreamer goes out after him and knocks the chair out of Edge’s hands with the barbed wire 2×4. He then takes a swing at Edge with it but misses and Edge tees off on him with a series of rights. Dreamer manages to turn things around by whipping Edge into the steel steps.
They head back in where Dreamer gets a trashcan full of plunder and grabs a street sign that he goes to town on Edge with. Lita trips Dreamer up which allows Edge to take over with street sign shots and causes the ECW announce team to mock Edge for needing his girlfriend’s help to win matches. Edge then grabs an extreme cookie sheet and works Dreamer over with it while on commentary Styles goes on a jag about how ECW signed guys like Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko because they weren’t huge musclefucks that fit the WWE mold. There is also a wrestling match happening while the annoucers bicker…
Edge sets up the trash can but before he can send Dreamer head first into it, Dreamer counters with a neck breaker to get out of trouble. Dreamer sets up a chair and looks to send Edge off the ropes but Edge reverses the whip and sends Dreamer crashing face-first into the chair with a drop toehold. Edge then nails Dreamer with a running trash can lid shot. A trash can assisted elbow drop follows and earns Edge a near fall. Edge follows up with an implant DDT onto the trash can and covers but Dreamer kicks out at two.
Edge works Dreamer over with rights and whips him into the corner but ends up getting booted in the cock by Dreamer. Dreamer then gets Edge in the Tree of Woe in order to stomp on his cock. With Edge still in the Tree of Woe, Dreamer places a chair in front of Edge’s face and then sends it into his mug with a running dropkick.
Dreamer then heads out to the floor where he and Funk get a table and slide it into the ring. Lawler starts ranting about how using tables isn’t “real wrestling” which leads to Styles calling JR a hypocrite for being vehemently against the notion of “sports entertainment” but not actually doing anything about it. Styles then brings up “the leprechaun” on SmackDown (Hornswoggle) and Lawler legitimately has no idea what Styles is talking. This is absolutely amazing and leads to Styles yelling at Lawler to actually watch the product sometime.
Back to the action, Dreamer sets up Edge on the top turnbuckle and heads up with him. He lays into Edge with some chops but Lita comes in and smacks Dreamer with a kendo stick. Terry Funk then gets involved, and starts to carry Lita off but Foley comes in with a strand of barbed wire and tries to strangle Funk with it. Edge then sets up for a super powerbomb through the table, but Dreamer counters with a backdrop. Edge completely misses the table and ends up landing straight on his head in a nasty looking botch that I’m suprised didn’t instantly maim him.
Dreamer gets Edge up and puts him through the table with a Death Valley Driver so I guess Edge wasn’t dead. He covers but Lita comes in to break up the pin at two. Dreamer does not appreciate that and gets Lita up for a powerbomb but as he does Edge spears him. Dreamer lands with Lita sitting on his on his face. Edge quickly covers and picks up the win.
Funk and Foley are still brawling out on the floor and Foley seems to have been busted open hard way above his left eye. Funk’s still got the barbed wire wrapped around his neck and is cussing up a storm.
Winner: Edge
Outside of the scary botch where Edge landed on his head this was a serviceable hardcore brawl that told a decent story. The announcers bickering got to be a bit much at times (the story of this entire show) but we did get Lawler not being aware of the wrestling leprechaun on SmackDown which was pretty great. [**½]
Hype!
Jim Ross quickly throws to a trailer hyping Kane’s See No Evil movie. Has anyone ever actually watched that movie?
Meanwhile in the Ring…
Back from break we see Foley, still bleeding from the temple, sitting in a chair in the middle of the ring. There’s weird purple mood lighting for some reason. Foley gets on the mic and demands to know where people get off calling him a sell out and a whore. He says that people think he hates ECW when that’s not true. He says that he loved ECW but it didn’t love him back.
“She was like the girl I can’t let go, but the one that makes me sick when I see her. She wanted too much blood, heart and my life so I left, and I found fame and fortune in WWE,” Foley says of ECW. He goes on to say that Paul Heyman was right, there was a difference between him and Tommy Dreamer, “I’m a whore and he’s not.”
Foley goes on to explain that seven years ago (it was eight but who’s counting) he pulled a sock out of his pants and made Vince McMahon laugh and because of that he got a chance. He says that Dreamer never did those sort of things and all he has now is heart, pride, and the letters “E-C-W.”
Foley then says that he rewatched his hardcore match against Edge from WrestleMania widely considered the greatest hardcore match of all time but upon watching it he starting thinking that maybe it wasn’t as good as he remembered it being.
“Maybe Edge,” he says, “you and I will have to top it, be sicker than ever to walk into the cesspool that is the Hammerstein ballroom, with those bloodthirsty fans.”
He explains to Edge (and everyone watching) that Tommy Dreamer can do everything that he can only with more passion and that he and Funk will beat the shit out of them on Sunday. Foley says that Funk is the greatest wrestler he’s ever seen and if you just see him as an old man you’re underestimating him. Foley says that Funk’s slaps hurt worse than most men’s punches and that he can use weapons like no man ever has. Foley says that Funk is in pain every day but he’s looking for one last great match. Foley then talks about how he blew Funk up in Japan and set him on fire in Phildelphia but afterwards Funk hugged him.
“He doesn’t do that anymore…” says Foley.
Foley says he doesn’t want him to either. He screams at Funk and Dreamer that he had the guts to go to WWE. He then tells them that at One Night Stand he and Edge are prepared to take a beating in order to “exorcise the sick whore that is ECW!” He says that he’s been thrown off cells, put into thumbtacks and through burning tables but all that pales in comparison to the horrors that he will unleash at One Night Stand.
“GODDAMN YOU ECW!” he screams, “I will stake the hearts of you heroes!”
Foley goes on to say that ECW took everything he had to give and threw it away and on Sunday when he walks to the ring as a WWE legend, Tommy Dreamer and Terry Funk will learn about loss.
“Have a nice day…”
I know this might come as a shock to some people but Mick Foley is very good at cutting promos. Maybe it’s because I see him as the nice guy in real life dude that’s on Twitter in 2022 and the most recent in-ring stuff I’ve seen from him was ’98 Raw where he was for the most part a babyface or a goof that was being duped into doing Vince McMahon’s bidding but I kind of forgot how great he was at being an unhinged heel too. Anyway this is a terrific promo where Foley puts over his opponents’ abilities and promises heretofore unseen violence to counter those skills and abilities to sell the upcoming match (which, spoiler alert, is a legitimately terrific match).
Meanwhile at the Announce Tables…
Tensions are at an all time high following Foley’s promo. Lawler and Tazz get into a verbal spat again which leads to Lawler challenging Tazz to do something about it. Tazz gets up and takes off his jacket and then he and Lawler get into it. Again, the censors are working overtime here (and doing badly) as Tazz screams, “C’MON MOTHERFUCKER!” at Lawler. They end up rolling around behind the announce table while Styles cheers on his broadcast colleague. Referees and WWE officials come out to separate Lawler and Tazz but Styles yells for them to “Let them go!” He and JR then get into a bit of a shoving match as we head to commercials.
When we return from break order has more or less been restored. There are some WWE officials standing between the two announce tables now, I guess to prevent any further nonsense from poppin’ off. Tazz and Lawler immediately start talking shit again and Jim Ross is just like, “Can we just finish this show?” and then tosses to a video package about the main event. I kind of love cranky “sick of this shit” JR.
Highlights for Children!
We then get a video package highlighting the stuff that went down on Monday including Sabu showing up and putting Cena through a table. It covers the same ground that the video they played before Cena’s promo earlier in the show did and it still kind of rules. Cena as a fighting champ is all kind of awesome and I don’t understand why I’m supposed to hate him at this point in his WWE career.
Match 5: John Cena vs. Sabu
Extreme Rules Match
Cena bumrushes Sabu with a series of rights as Sabu gets in the ring. He takes Sabu off his feet and then moments later gets two off a back elbow. Cena knocks Sabu into the corner with more rights and then fires off a snap suplex for another early near fall. Cena continues to hammer away on Sabu first with more rights and then clubbing blows to the back.
Sabu tries to get something going and boots Cena but Cena comes back and plants him with a belly-to-belly suplex for yet another near fall. I think it’s around this point when Lawler shits on the sort of wrestling Sabu does leading Tazz to tell him, “Shut up Lawler, the most you ever went through was a headlock and a tackle.”
Lawler comes back with, “I’ve had girls hit me harder than you.”
Tazz and Joey Styles, without missing a beat, reply in unison, “I bet you have.”
Like did they workshop that before they went out there or did Jerry Lawler just Mister Magoo his way into getting mocked for being a pedophile on live TV?
Anyway Cena continues to dominate. He boots Sabu and then chokes him out for a bit before sending him into the corner with a hard Irish whip. Sabu finally catches a break but kicking Cena in the cock and dumping him out to the floor. He follows with a slingshot senton and then grabs his chair and hucks it at John Cena’s head. I still cannot believe that this match is happening in a WWE ring…
Back in the ring, Sabu hurls the chair at Cena’s head again. Sabu then hits the triple jump moonsault which the crowd in Dayton mark the fuck out for and covers but only gets two. Sabu then sets up the chair and connects with Air Sabu for another near fall. Sabu then hits an Arabian facebuster which Lawler mocks for probably hurting him more than it hurts his opponent. Tazz actually agrees with Lawler which after the hour and a half of TV that preceded this was pretty funny.
Cena rolls to the floor but Sabu goes out after him and rams him into the ring steps. Sabu then slams Cena into the Raw announce table and gives him a leg drop. Sabu then sends Cena back into the ring and covers but Cena kicks out at two. Sabu sets up his chair again and goes for a second Air Sabu but Cena catches him and gets him up for the FU. Cena then slaps on the STFU.
The Big Show then runs ambles down to the ring and decks Cena for a DQ…in an Extreme Rules match. Okay I guess?
The rest of the locker rooms then run out and we go off the air with a sea of humanity in red, blue, and black t-shirts wailing on each other in the ring.
Winner: John Cena
Seeing Sabu in a WWE ring will never not feel weird to me but to see him in there with John Cena, just wrestling a normal-ass Sabu match where he’s hucking chairs at the dude and shit is absolutely insane! Having a DQ in an extreme rules match was kind of dumb and if I was booking it I would have just had Big Show come out and deck Cena, then have the WWE locker room come out then the ECW guys for the big brawl we got at the end and just gone off the air with a non-finish instead. [**½]
Final Thoughts
Watching this it’s kind of wild how much effort WWE was initially willing to put into the revived ECW. They made ECW feel like a big deal throughout the course of this which is a big plus. None of the matches were all time classics or anything but they weren’t supposed to be since this was more or less a sample platter to get people hyped for the PPV and in that regard it kind of succeeded since even in 2022, knowing what I know about how WWECW would end up turning out I still kind of want to watch more of it now because of this show.
Atomic Drop 