PWP Contributor Sam Thorne is diving into the ECW on Sci-Fi Era starting in 2006 with his new series: “Revisiting ECW ’06”. If you missed the introduction, check it out HERE.
WWE vs. ECW Head-to-Head Re-Cap
To kickoff, we get backstage vignettes showing the Smackdown/RAW guys and the ECW guys pumping themselves up. Immediately, we see that the ECW roster is fairly weak, you’ve got; Justin Credible, Al Snow, The FBI, Balls Mahoney, Stevie Richards, and then you’ve got ECW legends Tommy Dreamer, The Sandman, Terry Funk, Rob Van Dam and Sabu.
Right off the bat, there’s only a handful of credible guys who will have any chance of success, those being Tommy Dreamer, RVD and Sabu.
The rest are mainly jobbers, Sandman won’t be taken seriously, and Terry Funk is just too old to stick around for long. Oh, Kurt Angle is also here, as he was one of two draft picks that ECW got in addition to RVD coming in from RAW.
Rey Mysterio vs Rob Van Dam (Non-title)
The first match is a big one – Smackdown’s World Heavyweight Champion Rey Mysterio vs ECW alumni Rob Van Dam. The two trade kicks and grapple, then RVD hits a gorilla press and a standing moonsault. RVD spends too long playing to the crowd, and gets a dropkick in the back from Mysterio. Rey follows up with an attempted 6:19, dropkicks RVD off the apron and onto the floor below. A missed baseball slide from Mysterio gives Van Dam momentum, as he stacks Mysterio on the top of the barricade and goes for a guillotine legdrop. Van Dam botches it and falls into the crowd, tries a second time, but Mysterio counters. He then hits a plancha onto RVD, sending both men into the first row seating as we cut to our first ad break.
As we come back from break, RVD crotches Mysterio on the rope, and hits a standing sidekick, sending him back out on the floor. Rob rolls him immediately back in, to make the whole thing redundant, following with another guillotine legdrop off the apron. Van Dam gets a 2-count, goes out for a chair, and hits a skateboard kick on the grounded Mysterio. After another 2-count, Mr. Monday Night goes for another chair, jumps to the top rope, but Mysterio turns whatever he had planned into a bulldog on the chair. Mysterio gets a 2-count, goes for a top-rope leg drop, but only catches the steel chair as RVD rolls out of the way. RVD places the chair back on the prone Mysterio and hits a five star frog splash for the pin!
Winner: Rob Van Dam (ECW)
Interestingly, Rey throws the chair off him before the finish, not wanting to take the bump.
A solid match and a great opener, making RVD look like a worthy competitor for his WWE title match against John Cena at One Night Stand. Mysterio continues his losing streak in what is one of the worst booked World Heavyweight Championship runs in history, besides maybe the Great Khali’s. Poor Rey-Rey.
Before the next break, we see a replay of Orton’s RKO on the newest member of ECW, Kurt Angle. Kurt Angle comes out for a promo and says that he isn’t angry at Randy, because he snapped his ankle two months ago and loved it. Kurt says he should be scared because he’s not going to face ‘The Olympic Gold Medallist’ Kurt Angle or WWE Superstar Kurt Angle, he’s going to face ECW Kurt Angle. Randy says he feels sorry for Kurt and calls the entire ECW audience virgins, what a rascal. They both bicker for a bit before Randy closes the segment, saying he’ll kill the entire legacy of ECW with a win over Kurt on Sunday. I’m not sure how, or why, though.
Mickie James vs Jazz
We transition to our next match which is Women’s Champion Mickie James versus ECW’s Jazz. This is the literal first mention of Jazz’s transferal, which is even more bizarre because we don’t see her on ECW at any other point.
The match is a dominant 2-minute squash for Mickie, so I won’t waste your time with the play-by-play.
Winner: Mickie James (RAW)
We get a promo package hyping Sabu’s arrival in WWE, following a plug for tonight’s main event which is WWE Champion John Cena vs Sabu in an extreme rules match, guaranteed to end with a bullshit finish. We see some ECW footage of Sabu’s high-flying offense, before Todd Grisham starts to interview John Cena. Cena says a loss to ECW would disrespect each former WWE Champion, if they’re allowed to rebrand the WWE Title (which is clearly never going to happen). Cena rambles incoherently for two minutes, before declaring he’ll fight like a man and that Sabu’s pissed off the wrong son-of-a-bitch.
A muzzled corporate Paul Heyman comes out for a shill promo full of marketing buzzwords and he says ‘New Breed Unleashed’ about nine times, followed by an oddly placed run down of the One Night Stand card so far. Heyman doesn’t say much of anything and then we cut to more generic filler from the last ECW One Night Stand. Oh goody.
Our next match has five superstars from Smackdown and 5 from RAW vs 10 ECW Superstars in a battle royale for ‘ultimate supremacy in sports entertainment’ according to Jillian, whatever the hell that means.
WWE vs ECW Battle Royal
As for the participants; Smackdown has Mark Henry, Matt Hardy, Finlay, Bobby Lashley and Tatanka (Wow) while Raw has Shelton Benjamin, Edge, Carlito, The Big Show and Randy Orton. Representing ECW is the FBI, Stevie Richards, Tommy Dreamer, Terry Funk, Sandman, Balls Mahoney, Justin Credible, Al Snow, and the clear focal point of the new ECW, Kurt Angle. ECW got the jobber entrance all together, while each RAW and Smackdown guy got their own.
Edge immediately leaves the ring as Tommy Dreamer comes after him as part of their feud. Kurt Angle and the FBI immediately throw Mark Henry out, Matt Hardy following soon after. Big Show throws Guido over, and Tommy Dreamer gets rid of Tatanka. Sandman dropkicks Carlito off the apron, and Edge finally rejoins the match. Edge and Orton team up to take advantage of Tommy Dreamer. The match seems to mostly favour the ECW guys at this point. Funk, Justin Credible and Al Snow, Stevie and Balls all get eliminated with comic ease, leaving just Angle and Sandman fighting for ECW.
Back from the break, Orton, Shelton Benjamin and the Big Show are ganging up on the Sandman, while Angle takes on Finlay, and Edge fucks around outside, not having actually entered the match yet. Orton throws out Sandman, and the hard camera misses the elimination, good job. Benjamin charges at Angle, and gets thrown out, leaving it 3-on-1. Badass Angle takes charge, giving Orton a german suplex, same for Finlay, then he reverses a chokeslam from Big Show and hits an Angle Slam.
Finlay is the first up, as he crotches Kurt and tries to throw him out, Kurt beats him back, tackles him and catapults the Irish man out for the elimination, as Edge finally enters the match. He goes for a spear, Kurt Angle catches it and reverses it into a german sending him over, but Orton rushes him from behind and throws him out, leaving him and Big Show in the ring as winners for WWE.
Winners: WWE (Randy Orton and Big Show)
BUT WAIT. As Orton taunts Kurt Angle and celebrates, Big Show tears off his RAW shirt and reveals an ECW shirt! He tosses Orton out as the fans look incredibly confused
Winners: ECW? (Extreme Fucking Big Show)
Kurt Angle re-enters the ring as he and Big Show celebrate. Big Show + Kurt Angle = ECW. Those guys who have been in WWE for years, you know the ones. The former Olympic gold medallist and the guy who was handed world title shots as soon as he stepped in the doors of WCW. Here’s the immediate problem with ECW 06, two big WWE figureheads are immediately the focal point, just like Angle and Austin were in the invasion, we’ve been given the exact same thing this time around. Show and Angle chanting E-C-DUB after the match was just sickening, because we know they probably don’t want to be sent to the c-show and that they probably hate the concept of ECW. That’s definitely the case with Angle as he’s stated so publicly since. Calling them ‘The New Breed’ is also a clear stretch as both men are middle-aged multi-year veterans.
The match itself was one of the best battle royals I’ve seen, it actually had a big-match feel to it and the booking was actually good and not completely obvious. Next, we see a blurry ECW promo from ’94 showing a young Mick Foley calling out Terry Funk, calling him full of shit. With almost no introduction, we see Foley and Edge in the ring, as Dreamer and Funk come out for the next match. All four of these men were just in the battle royal, which shows how far they were stretching for ECW talent. Apparently it’s not a tag though, it’s Dreamer vs Edge. Not entirely sure what relevance that promo had just before this match.
Edge vs Tommy Dreamer
Edge starts with a chair in hand, Tommy comes in with a barbed wire bat and both duel to start this match. They immediately go to the outside. Christ, they’re already stalling. Dreamer attacks Edge’s back with a sign post, but Edge counters and nails dreamer with a baking tray. Funk and Foley cheer their younger counter-parts on, as both men manage to make weapon spots look incredibly boring. Dreamer and Edge act as if they’re gassed, even though we’re maybe three minutes in.
The innovator of violence gets Edge in a tree of woe, and nails a chair into his face with a potent dropkick. As Edge crumbles in the corner, Dreamer and Funk go to dudleyville as they grab a table. Tommy finishes setting it up and goes for a corner suplex, but Lita runs in a nails him with a kendo stick. Funk comes into stop her, but Foley chokes him out with barbed wire. Dreamer goes for the shittiest back bodydrop in wrestling history as Edge lands nowhere the table.
Dreamer covers up the botched spot with a DVD (Death Valley Driver) through the table, but Lita interrupts the pinfall with a kendo stick. Dreamer tries to powerbomb Lita, but Edge hits the spear and goes for the pin, as Lita sits on Dreamer’s face.
Winner: Edge (WWE)
All four men continue to brawl for a bit on the outside, in what is just a set-up for the tag match at One Night Stand 2006.
After the break, we get a whiny five minute promo from the oddly-heel Mick Foley, still setting up their match at ONS. Yawn. They’re clearly struggling to fill the last twenty minutes, as Tazz attacks Jerry Lawyer to shill their match as well. Lawler challenges him, the two exchange awful punches and start vaguely grappling each other behind the commentary desk, as the timekeepers, referees and other commentators have to pull them apart. After that embarrassing nonsense, a graphic reminds us of our main event, Cena vs Sabu.
A video re-capping the evenuts between RVD and Cena airs as they sign the contract for RVD’s money in the bank match at ONS. The video shows Cena burying most of the ECW roster, before the other RAW guys run in and scare them away. We’re really in for a ride aren’t we?
John Cena vs Sabu (Extreme Rules Match)
As Sabu’s slow-ass entrance starts, we’ve only six minutes left on the clock. Straight away, we see that these two just don’t work well together. The sequences just don’t flow well, but it seems to be mostly Sabu’s fault. It’s a lot of whip-punch-kick-punch for the first few minutes, until Sabu kicks Cena in the balls before hitting a decent slingshot senton. He goes straight for a chair, throws it in Cena’s face, slings him into the ring and does the same again. He sets up the chair, runs along it to the ropes and hits a great moonsault for a 2-count.
The homicidal, suicidal, genocidal maniac sets the chair up again and hits a stiff Air Sabu to the jaw of Cena. Sabu throws Cena around on the outside, and hits a leg drop on Cena’s neck on the announce table. Sabu continues to stall, goes for another leap off the chair, but Cena catches him and hits the Attitude Adjustment. He goes straight into the STF, but the Extreme Big Show cuts him off as Raw, Smackdown, and ECW stars spill out and start brawling in the ring.
Winner: No Contest
So that was the WWE VS ECW head-to-head. We got two decent matches in RVD vs Rey and the battle royal, a lot of set up for One Night Stand 2006, presumably because they didn’t want to waste time on RAW, but the main revelation is the defection of the Big Show. While it’s not necessarily a good thing in the eyes of the ECW diehards, it at least showed that WWE was at least going to try to push ECW, as they were willing to invest a few of their top talent into it, even if that’s misguided.
Next time we’ll jump straight into ECW One Night Stand 2006, focusing mostly on the important ECW matches. Then we’ll start on the ECW weekly series on Sci-fi.
Until next time.