The fourth ECW pay-per-view kicks off with The FBI (Tracy Smothers, Little Guido, and "The Don" Tommy Rich as their manager) taking on the team of Jerry Lynn and Chris Chetti. The crowd is into this mostly because the FBI were over as heels and Tracy Smothers was so damn good in this role. Lynn and Guido are the most energetic and athletic of the in-ring performers, but they don't go overboard with fancy high spots and, instead, just deliver a straight-up tag match. A good opener that almost reminds me of the tag matches that some of the early 90s WWE pay-per-views would routinely use to start their shows off. (2.5/5)
The next match is supposed to be W*ING Kanemura vs. Masato Tanaka, but instead, Doug Furnas and his manager Lance Wright show up, representing the WWE. Tanaka is a superb wrestler and Doug Furnas, at his best, wasn't too shabby of a pro either...but these two have a number of miscommunications that mar this match and cause the audience to turn against it at multiple times. The biggest pop comes when Furnas nearly paralyzes Tanaka with an awful piledriver/powerbomb attempt which goes to show how bloodthirsty the ECW fans were. Furnas looks like a million bucks cosmetically, but he seems lost at times. This one has a wacky ending too as Furnas seems to have the match won, but Lance Wright keeps interrupting his pin attempts to tell him to inflict more damage. That ends up costing him the match (because duh) and Furnas turns on Wright by laying him out and putting on an ECW shirt. If this match didn't feature so many noticeable botches, maybe Furnas could've had a decent singles run, but he did not impress here. (1.5/5)
Backstage, Joey Styles reports that the Dueling Canes match they taped earlier between Sabu and Sandman was too violent and that the PPV carriers refused to let them air it. I'm not sure if that match was advertised for the show or not, but if it was, I would've been super pissed that they couldn't air it. Styles explains that the rest of the card is stacked but...its really not. Nicole Bass and Jason show up, they want Joey to roll the footage of Tommy Dreamer arriving to the show alone (the story here was whether or not Beulah McGillicutty would be in his corner for his match later on) to embarrass him. Sure. Whatever. The big takeaway is no Sandman/Sabu match.
In the ring, Rob Van Dam takes on 2 Cold Scorpio next. The crowd is not super into this one to start as Rob Van Dam was still a bit of a pure heel and had not crossed over into "cool heel" territory. For example, RVD gets almost no reaction for most of his signature moves like the Rolling Thunder. I'm not sure when exactly RVD really connected with the crowd, but he and Scorpio do win them over by the end after a very lukewarm to outright hostile first two-thirds of action. RVD doesn't always get the crowd he deserves and, back then, he was often labeled a "spot monkey," but this match actually builds over its comparatively lengthy runtime and is worked like a bit of a dream match as both RVD and Scorpio were known for their high-flying and athleticism and we get some cool "mirror" work in the beginning leading to the action going to the floor and then getting "bigger" as the match goes on. Scorpio may actually shine brighter than RVD as his offense looks extra devastating at times (a springboard front-flip splash from the apron is particularly nasty). We get a bit of a screwy finish as there's a ref bump and then Sabu makes a run-in and is chased away by The Sandman, but this was all pretty commonplace in ECW. Based on the crowd response to this match, this was the era in ECW where the fans attending the show were really there for garbage brawls and "death match" style action and maybe a little bit of comedy, but not really as enthusiastic for the "super junior" or luche libre styles that had once also been part of the mix. That's a shame because this match deserved a more patient crowd. (2.5/5)
The next contest pits The Dudley Boys vs. Axl Rotten and Ballz Mahoney vs. New Jack and Spike Dudley in a wild three-way dance. This is precisely what one would expect - a wild brawl featuring lots of weapons and barely any actual wrestling (though Styles does note that Axl is a much better worker than he's often given credit for in the early going). The biggest and best spot of the match sees New Jack and Spike hit stereo balcony dives onto the Dudleys through a couple of tables. Its a terrific visual. Unfortunately, nothing else that happens comes close to being as cool or fun or creative. Also, towards the end, one of the Dudleys prevents Spike from pinning Axl Rotten (I think it was?), which makes absolutely no sense. Whoops. The similar match from November to Remember was much better and more memorable - even if it didn't necessarily have any more of a story or shape to it. (2/5)
Tommy Dreamer vs. Justin Credible followed. Before the match began, the fans were treated to a cameo from ECW's newest ringside reporter - Jenna Jameson. I wonder how much Paul E. paid her per appearance...anyway, Credible is backed by his manager Jason and the aforementioned Nicole Bass, a less popular, less successful version of Chyna who also died way too young. As I wrote about in my November to Remember review, Justin Credible isn't a bad wrestler, he's just not very interesting or fun to watch and was just too generic for ECW or really anywhere else. Lance Storm was generic too, but at least he turned his boringness and technical skills into part of his gimmick. Credible is basically X-Pac but without the high-flying skills, bumping ability, or personality. Meanwhile, Tommy Dreamer is a guy who really only works for me when he's involved in a match with a big storyline - for example, his feud with Raven or the tag match he had at One Night Stand II in 06' - but when he's just "Tommy Dreamer: ECW Flagbearer" and he's pitted against someone as generic as Credible, I'm rarely enthralled. This match ends - like so many ECW matches - with a bunch of run-ins and shenanigans, including the return of Beulah McGillicutty and then Mikey Whipwreck, all leading to the feel-good win for Dreamer. Nothing really special here, but I'll give credit where its due and say that the audience was into this and Bass certainly got a ton of heat just for standing around. (2/5)
Next up - Taz vs. Bam Bam Bigelow for Taz's ECW World Television Championship. There's a lot to love here, though this match does have a bit of a mixed reputation. What I think really works is that Taz had really gotten over the idea that the ECW TV Championship was as important as the ECW World Championship so the stakes are high. Because Bigelow had turned on him by re-joining the Triple Threat (which didn't make 100% sense but whatever), there was also some real personal animosity here that comes through in some of the vicious strikes and insane bumps (at one point, Taz hits a T-Bone Suplex on Bigelow off the stage and onto the concrete and its unclear how neither guy suffered a serious injury). The criticisms that most often come up, though, are that there is too much space between the big moments and that Taz really couldn't get Bigelow up for many of them, including a sloppy table spot that would've and could've been much better if Taz actually had the strength and size to make it work (he didn't). There are also many fans who dislike the ending - which sees Taz apply the Tazmission and force the Bammer to tape (out of the ref's few) only to end up crushed through the ring when Bigelow falls back onto him. Whether or not this finish has since been overused, watching it to this day, it still feels like a big, wild, unexpected moment. If nothing else had to go right in this match, that crash needed to and it absolutely did. (3/5)
With the ring broken, Joey Styles cuts to the pre-taped match that was "too violent for the censors to allow to air" but that Paul Heyman has decided to air anyway - Sabu vs. The Sandman. The rumored reason this match was pre-taped was because their November to Remember 97' match was so poorly received that they decided it was a safer bet to let these two wrestle and then, if necessary, edit the match down. I reviewed that November to Remember match and while it does go long and have some unnecessarily repeated spots, it wasn't that terrible. In fact, I'd sooner re-watch that match than this one, which is maybe a touch too "safe" in comparison. I did like how this one started with "Sabu" running in and attacking the Sandman before the match can even begin only for it to be revealed that its RVD dressed as the Homicidal, Genocidal One. From there, the real Sabu runs in and continues to take advantage of the Sandman and we get a whole bunch of spots that are undoubtedly better executed than what they did months earlier but, because they actually work, it almost feels less fun and dangerous. Despite Styles saying that this match was too violent for the censors, there's no blood, no fire, no thumbtacks - its just the usual chairs and tables and because I'm guessing Sandman wasn't on LSD during this match, everything is done competently and without too much downtime. (2.5/5)
Main event time - The Triple Threat's Chris Candido and Shane Douglas vs. Lance Storm and a mystery partner. The storyline coming into this match was that Candido and Storm were the ECW Tag Team Champions but were also feuding at the same time and Sunny (Candido's real life boyfriend) had sided with Storm. Meanwhile, Al Snow - who's match with Eliminator John Kronus had been cancelled due to the ring breaking during the Taz/Bigelow match - had become very popular and had had a handful of matches against Candido and Bigelow starting in late 97'. Anyway, the mystery partner is revealed to be...Sunny. Styles thinks this is a brilliant move by Storm as neither Candido or Douglas would ever dare to attack Sunny, but even if that were true, it still means Storm has to face both guys basically 2-on-1. Also, the corner of the ring that Bigelow and Taz fell through is still broken and is just taped off like a crime scene. It doesn't really matter because a few minutes into the action, Sunny predictably (and in a very poorly executed "spot") turns on Storm and Candido and Douglas beat him down and the match falls apart. The turn leads to Al Snow coming out to a huge ovation and helping to even the sides. Somehow Snow is inserted into the match because he actually hits his finisher on Douglas, pins him, and the bell is rung. Ahhh, ECW. It made no sense to put this on at the end of the show as, even if you do run Taz/Bigelow as the main event, the ring breaking would've still been a very cool visual and unexpected surprise. As a "match," this is not at all worth seeking out, but I could see the argument that the live crowd's reaction to Snow is worth seeing if one was curious about what Snow's "peak" was in ECW. (1.5/5)
With a pretty low Kwang Score of 2.18-out-of-5, Living Dangerously 98' would not be the first ECW pay-per-view I'd recommend...but it may not be the last either (at least it beat out the historically maligned by November To Remember 97' show by a whopping .04 points on my scale). The Taz/Bigelow match is better than average, the FBI were great at this time, Scorpio/RVD is better than the fans treat it, and the three-way dance is the type of fun, wild brawl that ECW did better than any other major US company at the time. The rest of the card is more "miss" than "hit" and the misses aren't just off by inches, they're off by miles. The Furnas/Tanaka match is bad, the main event is a non-match, and Sabu/Sandman, while demonstrably "better" than their match at November to Remember 97' is simultaneously less noteworthy.
FINAL RATING - High Risk Maneuver
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