PPV review

All right, I've written reviews for about 15 PPVs here on IMDb, and confession time: this is the first ECW PPV I've ever watched. Now, I've seen a lot of ECW matches on various WWE DVD releases and elsewhere, but ECW was never shown on TV where I grew up. I followed it through wrestling magazines and the early days of the internet, and I tried to watch it on TNN when I could, but because it was generally unavailable to me, I never considered myself a fan. I've been wanting to watch some old school ECW lately though, and I bought this PPV off of eBay. Let's see how it is. One note, this is a 2001 VHS release of the PPV and it's missing backstage interviews and segments that were apparently part of the broadcast.

After Joey Styles introduces and welcomes us to ECW's first PPV, the Dudley Boyz, along with Joel Gertner and Sign Guy Dudley, come out and interrupt. They run down the fans and then the Eliminators come out for the ECW Tag Team Title Match. The Dudleyz were the champs and they got completely dominated by the challengers. I can't really remember a title match where the champions got so little offense, other than quick matches like Chris Benoit vs. Orlando Jordan from SummerSlam 2005 or Kane vs. Chavo Guerrero at WrestleMania 24. There was a lot of nice stereo offense from the Eliminators. In the end, I was surprised how short and one-sided this match was. Perry Saturn looked real good in this match. Grade: B

After Chris Candido cut a promo about having to miss the first PPV with an arm injury, Lance Storm took on Rob Van Dam. It's weird to see Van Dam not getting a major reaction from the crowd, and it's also weird to see Lance Storm with a shaved head and a ponytail at the same time. Seriously, I'm thinking about deducting a letter grade just for his haircut. Either for that or for the three horrendous looking chairshots Storm delivers during the match. I'd actually heard about those chairshots before having ever seen the match, and I've heard Storm say he's just not comfortable hitting guys in the head with chairs, and I actually find that refreshing. He's a master technician in the ring who never needed to resort to hardcore wrestling to get over. Still, the chairshots are in the match and they do suspend the viewer's belief a little bit. Other than that, this was a pretty solid match. The beautiful thing about not following ECW in the '90s is that, for the most part, I have no idea who's going to win these matches. There were a lot of false finishes in this one. It's funny hearing Styles run down ECW's competition in 1997, knowing that he's working for WWE in 2008. When the competitors crashed onto the hard floor of the ECW arena, he said something about there not being any pretty blue mats to break their fall, obviously a dig at the padding around the ring in the WWF. It's kind of a stupid thing to criticize your competitors over, but it does push the "us against the rest of the wrestling industry" mentality that ECW had. After the match, which was won by Van Dam with a Van Terminator, Storm tried to shake hands with RVD and Van Dam blew him off. It was a nice little promo about being angry about filling in for Candido, and he only went out there and beat Lance Storm for the money. Grade: B

The next match was a special exhibition from Michinoku Pro Wrestling in Japan. Hey look, it's Kaientai! Well, minus Funaki, that is. Taka Michinoku, Dick Togo and Mens Teioh (wrestling here as Terry Boy) were in action against the team of the Great Sasuke, Gran Hamada and Masato Yakushiji. This match was pretty wild with all kinds of innovative lucha libre action mixed in with a Japanese style. Wrestlers didn't have to tag in, they could just run into the match whenever they felt like. Come to think of it, in the earlier title match they didn't use tags at all, but wrestled a tornado style, with all four men going at it at once. I don't know if that was the standard ECW style or not, but it made for an action-packed match and the 6-man tag was pretty breathtaking as well. There were a number of times where a devastating move was hit and I was sure the match was over, only to have a wrestler kick out or the pinfall would be interrupted. This match did kind of seem to move from high spot to high spot, without a lot of emphasis on ring psychology or telling a story, but it worked here and the crowd was really into it. Good work from everyone involved and as a WWE fan, it makes me wish they'd have let Kaientai wrestle the way they were capable of while they were in WWE. Grade: A-

Next up was Shane Douglas, a man who never met a crowd whose enthusiasm and excitement he couldn't kill. Now, I'm not incredibly familiar with his ECW work, but I feel pretty comfortable saying that based on his WWF and WCW work. Here he gloats about breaking the neck of Pitbull #1 and then defends his Television Title against Pitbull #2. This may have been the longest bout I've ever seen where nothing really happens. Seriously, I watched this PPV less than 24 hours ago, and I can't really remember any spots in this match. I know that one of the wrestlers brought the metal guardrail into the ring, but it fell over before they could even use it. Douglas retains his title. In previous weeks, someone had been interfering in Douglas's matches and it was suspected to be Rick Rude. After the match, the masked man comes out, saying he'll reveal himself if he can kiss Francine,who looked amazing, by the way. So he comes out, kisses Francince, unmasks himself as Brian Lee, then Rude comes up from behind. He had been one of Douglas' riot officers. Lee and Rude beat down Douglas who runs away. That was pretty much the most entertaining thing about the match. It wasn't a bad match specifically, but it was very plodding and slow. Grade: C

Taz and Sabu fought in the Grudge Match of the Century. I'll take their word for it, because not really having watched ECW, I didn't know what they were feuding about. Anyway, this was a real solid match, certainly better than anything we saw from these two men after they went to WWE. A nice combination of chair and table spots, outside the ring brawling, and some technical work inside the ring with suplexes and submissions. These guys have two contrasting styles but they meshed real well. Maybe I need to see more of Bill Alfonso, Taz's manager who turned on him and joined Sabu and RVD at the end of this match, but I can't stand the guy. This wasn't the first I've seen of him, but man is he annoying. And not the good kind of annoying that heels are supposed to achieve, but an annoying that makes me want to cry and scream. He barely speaks passable English. I need to watch some earlier ECW, because Taz doesn't strike me as a guy who needed a manager, even when he wasn't talking much. I want to try to find some more matches between these two. Grade : B+

After the match, Taz tries to shake hands with Sabu and the two have a short bonding moment, before Sabu's tag team partner, RVD, comes down and attacks Taz from behind. Sabu is initially reluctant but joins in as does Alfonso who's now turned on Taz. I loved RVD's promo after the match, about being a PPV superstar and available to work on Monday nights. The crowd's and Styles' reaction to that was great too. I tell you, they really did a good job playing up the "us vs. the rest of the wrestling world" angle.

Tommy Dreamer comes out to join Styles on commentary for the Three Way Dance between the Sandman, Terry Funk, and Big Stevie Cool. He's there because Funk is his idol and mentor and Tommy gave up his spot to allow Terry this chance to compete for the ECW title. The winner of this match faces Raven immediately after the match. This match is what you would expect an ECW Three Way Dance to be. Not a lot of technical hold, catch-as-catch-can wrestling here. There were a lot of spots with ladders, including Terry Funk doing a moonsault off of one. He pretty much missed, but he still gets props for doing it. There were some good trashcan spots, especially when Sandman threw one in from the outside and hit Funk right in the head. Talk about pinpoint accuracy, lol. Later on some barbed wire came into play after Sandman wrapped himself in it and used it on Funk. Big Stevie Cool was eliminated first. Richards looked pretty good in this match, representing the bWO. Even though he was eliminated, he came back in the ring to hit Sandman with a Stevie Kick while Sandman had a trash can over his head. After that, Funk was able to get the pinfall and face Raven. Grade: A-

Raven is in the ring almost immediately. I can't grade this match quite the same as the others, because it's not much of a match. Funk is pretty much dead before it even starts. After a classic Raven drop toehold onto a chair, Funk is busted open. He bladed himself pretty deep here because blood is just gushing out of him. There's so much blood that it's actually hard to tell where it's coming from. It almost looked like it was from his cheek. Medics keep coming out to check on him and Tommy Dreamer keeps saying Terry Funk will never quit. Funk promised not to get involved in the match. Raven destroys the Funker some more with some tables outside the ring. Funk gets attacked by some friends of Raven, I suppose, and Raven gets on the mic and taunts Dreamer, who had started to get up after Funk started getting ganged up on. Big Dick Dudley comes from behind and attacks Dreamer who is able to reverse the attack and chokeslam him through three tables which were conveniently stacked at ringside. Dreamer comes down to the ring, DDTs Raven and Funk is able to cover Raven for his second ECW Championship. Due to the circumstances of the match, this wasn't a classic or anything, but it told a good story, and what they did do, worked. Grade: B

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed my first ECW PPV and I'm going to try and find some more on eBay. Looking at the grades, I think I liked this show more than I even expected I would.

P.S. Check my profile for other PPV reviews I've done. Check them out and let me know what you think.