The show kicks off with Taz cutting a promo about his title defense against Yoshihiro Tajiri and then a word from Danny Doring, who is backed up by Roadkill and...Lita? Nova and Chris Chetti chime in too, followed by Jason (who takes a break from greasing himself up to cut a barely audible promo), the Dudley Boys, the heel squadron of Steve Corino, Tajiri, Jack Victory, and Rhyno, the Impact Players (Lance Storm, Justin Credible, and Dawn Marie), a notably wooden Jerry Lynn, and then the Whole F'N Show himself, Rob Van Dam (who is interrupted by Sabu). I really liked this pre-show package and wish ECW had done it on previous pay-per-views as it was not just unique, but it really set the table for all the major matches on the show. (+1)
In the ring, Joey Styles welcomes the very amped-up Dayton crowd to the show and receives a loud, boisterous "Joey" chant.
Danny Doring and Roadkill make their way down the aisle with Lita in tow (I'm not sure what her name was in ECW as Doring just refers to her as "the lady"). Doring gets on the mic and the crowd erupts into a loud "Shut the Fuck Up" chant. Very classy, Dayton. Doring talks about Lita, describing her as chaste, and the crowd chants "She's Got Herpes." Doring tells her he loves her and then asks her to marry him. She says yes and then asks for a ring as the crowd chants "She's a Crackwhore." which Doring finds and places on her figure as Nova and Chris Chetti make their way down the aisle - with Chetti wearing a bizarre magician outfit. Nova comes to the ring and after an initial offensive flurry falls prey to the 2-on-1 after Chetti gets taken out on the ramp. Roadkill hits a big move off the top rope that draws a pop as Nova plays face-in-peril. Doring comes in with a springboard elbow of his own, but Nova makes a comeback with an inverted swinging neckbreaker (basically a Cross Rhodes). Nova makes the tag and Chetti comes in, hitting a scissor kick and then a high angle body slam. Nova comes in and hits a Stunner/DDT combo, showing off some of his offensive innovation. Chetti hits a wild move of his own not too long after: a monkey-flip into a double clothesline! Damn, that's one that would still draw a big pop today 20 years later. Chetti hits a double springboard moonsault for another huge pop but doesn't make the cover, grabbing the mic instead to gloat and then calling for the DJ to hit the music so he can dance. He entices Lita to get into the ring and they grind in the middle of the ring until Nova breaks it up. Chetti hits her with his Amityville Horror - a nifty fireman's into a pile driver - as Nova grabs Doring and hits him with the Kryptonite Krunch! Chetti hits his finish on Roadkill somehow and then the babyfaces hit their combined finish for the win in a very fun, action-packed match that was really enjoyable from the pre-match promo all the way through to the end. I daresay that this is almost "must watch" just because of how good of a job they do establishing everyone's characters and roles and playing to the crowd. Its the simple things done right, but with the ECW edge. This is a bunch of benchwarmers somehow hitting a grand slam when I think everyone involved would've been happy with just a single or a double. (3.5/5)
A clip plays of Taz challenging Tajiri to challenge him and then getting interrupted by Steve Corino, who was backed up by Rhyno and Jack Victory. Corino was great at getting heel heat and Tajiri's heel turn here was well-executed.
"The Sexiest Man on Earth" Jason comes down the aisle for an intergender match against future WWE star Jazz. Jazz does some impressive stuff, but Jason's cooperativeness is noticeable at times. This is a more legitimate, competitive wrestling match than I suspected it would be considering that, in most instances in the 90s, intergender matches were usually filled with comedy spots and lots of stalling. Jason hits Jazz with real offense - a dropkick here, an elbow drop there - but Jazz doesn't stay down, which really puts over her toughness but doesn't help out Jason's credibility at all. The live crowd was into it and exploded when Jazz started grabbing chairs, setting one up on Jason's crotch and then smashing it with another chair in a logic-defying spot. Jason basically no-sells it and hits Jazz with an enziguiri before calling for a powerbomb. Jazz escapes, though, and hits Jason with an X-Factor into a steel chair to get the win. I'll give credit to them not doing a comedy-based match, but this suffered from a lack of logic, noticeable cooperation between the competitors, and Jason not adequately selling what should've been the biggest spot of the match. They had the ingredients to make this special, but it wasn't laid out or executed properly. (1.5/5)
After some back-and-forth between Joey Styles and Cyrus, its time for some cruiserweight action as Little Guido takes on Super Crazy. Big Sal E. Graziano is introduced - which elicits a "You Fat Fuck" chant. Before the match begins, Joey Styles goes extra on hyping up Little Guido's credentials, noting that he competed in Japan's UWFi promotion and was trained by Billy Robinson and is known for his "shoot" style. At this point, Heyman was in need of credible talent and I fully get why they needed to establish Guido's toughness, but sometimes less is more (especially when Guido was more than capable enough to get all of this across through just his in-ring work). Anyway...this match is great. Unlike the Super Crazy/Tajiri matches from the PPVs before this, here you have an established heel that the audience loves to rile up taking on a guy that they knew had the goods to not just kick Guido's ass, but do it with inventive high-risk maneuvers. Its a great recipe for a cruiser match and its a shame this match isn't praised more. I haven't seen enough of Little Guido's work to call this a "career" match for him, but he's in the spotlight for much of this contest and he's excellent in the role. I also love the little bit of action that Guido's (literal) heavy, Sal Graziano, gets to do as the crowd goes wild for it and it works wonderfully in establishing even more how tough Super Crazy is. This match goes a little over 10 minutes and is entertaining from beginning to end and while not everything is perfectly executed, I love the struggle and the sense that this is a real competition and fight. Maybe not a "must watch" match, but if you've never caught this one, you won't be disappointed in the least with it. (3.5/5)
The ECW World Tag Team Championships are up for grabs, but before The Dudleys make their defense, they cut a scathing promo about the fans in Dayton and draw mega heat. At one point, Bubba gets in the face of a female fan in the front row and it is really on another level of heat-seeking. You can see there are some young fans in the audience, but the Dudleys do not temper their promo at all as it is absolutely filthy. Their opponents tonight are Balls Mahoney and Spike Dudley, who had been rivals to the Dudleys for years and years by this point. Lots of blood and brawling over the arena with Dudley eventually flying off a balcony. Balls and Dudley trade merciless chair shots in the ring. Its funny to say, but the finish for this was a touch too "cutesy" for me and it would've been better if they had just went with Balls and Spike getting the initial post-finishers pinfall rather than using that spot as a false finish and then ultimately ending things with a tacked-on double rollup. After the match, Bubba and D-Von beat down on the babyfaces, cutting short any sort of victory celebration, and attempt to powerbomb them through flaming tables. I say "attempt" because Bubba can't get Balls high enough and he basically just drops him on his head (it probably wasn't wise to call for such a major spot after spending the past 25 minutes not only brawling all over the arena, but also getting winded by nearly instigating a riot before the match). New Jack eventually runs down to make the save to add even more craziness to this.The least entertaining part of this half hour might have been the match itself despite it featuring lots and lots of classic ECW violence, but the rest of this was so wild that one can't look away from it. (3/5)
Tommy Dreamer makes his way down the aisle with Francine in tow. Tommy cuts a heartfelt promo about how much he loves ECW - as usual - and teases that he could be forced to hang up the boots due to injury. Before he can announce his retirement, Steve Corino marches out and cuts him off. Corino was very good on the mic and could've been a bigger star in WCW (had it lasted) or WWE (had it not been incredibly crowded with high level talent in the late 90s/early 00s). Things get "shooty" as Corino talks about how Dreamer should lay down for him and "put him over" before he retires, but Dreamer refuses. They start duking it out and somehow Francine gets a pinfall over Corino! Corino's back-up, Jack Victory, Rhyno, and Tajiri jump in. Dreamer gets put into the Tarantula, which leads to Tazz showing up for his title defense against the Japanese Buzzsaw. I like how ECW pay-per-views would sometimes have segments lead into matches or matches lead into other matches as it was a unique layout. Tazz controls much of this match, which made sense as Tajiri had not really been established as a main event-level, World Heavyweight Championship-caliber challenger. This is as good an example of Tazz's "bad-assed-ness" as any other match I can think of because Tajiri is more than willing to take a ton of punishment and he's an excellent wrestler in his own right who knows how to sell and let things breathe more than, say, Sabu or Sandman or whoever else does. The finish is crazy as, after taking out the rest of Corino's crew of henchmen and chasing Corino himself to the back, Tazz grabs a bunch of barbwire and applies a Tazmission on Tajiri on the ramp that leaves Tajiri bleeding like a stuck pig. They keep the camera wide so you don't really see the maneuver itself as much as the aftermath, but that makes it seem even wilder. This isn't a great match or anything, but its a fun 10 minutes of near non-stop action and the crowd is hot for it. (2.5/5)
Main event time - Rob Van Dam and rival Jerry Lynn take on The Impact Players, Justin Credible and Lance Storm. One might wonder a tag match that (a) wasn't for the ECW World Tag Team Champions and (b) didn't involve the ECW World Heavyweight Champion would be the main event, but by this point, Rob Van Dam was the most over babyface act in the company (despite actually being a heel). This is a really fun match as you get all of the RVD craziness and undeniably convoluted spots, but also some outright solid wrestling from Lynn and Storm. Sabu makes a run-in towards the end and puts Credible through a table to steal Van Dam's thunder. Then, in the post-match, RVD ends up getting into it with both Sabu and Lynn. Not an essential or "career" match for anyone, but still above-average. (3/5)
With a respectable Kwang Score of 3-out-of-5, there's no wonder why Heatwave 99' is rarely considered an all-time great ECW show, but it deserves some reappraisal (or maybe its just the Ohio homer in me). The crowd is red hot from beginning to end despite a card that doesn't necessarily look great on paper. What made this enjoyable for me was the consistency. Even if no match was truly "must see," there was also only one truly terrible match (Jason vs. Jazz), a quality that few other ECW shows, especially in the 98'-2000 years had. The opening tag match overachieves, Little Guido/Super Crazy is very strong, and the main event delivers too. Even without the bonus point I tacked on at the start of the show, this show would've scored one of the highest ratings that any ECW pay-per-view has earned since I started watching them a few months back.
FINAL RATING - Watch It...With Remote in Hand
No comments:
Post a Comment