Our opening bout saw Ballz Mahoney take on his former tag team partner, Masato Tanaka. I'm not sure if there was a storyline reason for them having this match aside from Paul E. just wanting to entertain the fans by giving them too crazy tough bastards who like to swing chairs having a match against eachother...but that's what I got out of it. I like how Mahoney and Tanaka start the match with some actual wrestling as Mahoney is a much better mat wrestler than he's often given credit for and Tanaka is obviously no slouch when it comes to the fundamentals. Unfortunately, it still felt like just "table dressing" for the predictable chairshot fest that was bound to happen. Seeing some of the chairshots made me grimace, but 23 years ago, this sort of action was par for the course. Considering how brutal this could've been, I wasn't underwhelmed as much as I was just disappointed that they didn't bother to do anything original or clever to shake-up or exceed fan expectations. (2.5/5)
After a word from Lance Storm (who would be challenging his former Impact Player partner and the relatively new ECW World Heavyweight Champion, Justin Credible, later in the show), it was time for an old-fashioned ECW triple threat: Simon Diamond (with his "circus") vs. Little Guido vs. Mikey Whipwreck. Whipwreck, in his prime, was a terrific wrestler who was incredibly fun to watch. He's not in his prime in 2000. Simon Diamond had some promise when he first came on the scene, but he got a bit stagnant and, by this point, seemed like a guy who was stuck in the mud. Little Guido was the best worker of the bunch and puts in a strong enough effort to make this match watchable and, to be sure, there are a handful of well-executed sequences, but this didn't feel "PPV worthy" to me and there were no stakes. Would it have been so hard to announce that the winner got a TV or World Heavyweight Championship match down the line? Plus, I like my FBI matches with Tracy Smothers. Not terrible, but not worth seeking out. (2/5)
The next segment is built around the arrival of Lou E. Dangerously's New Dangerous Alliance, now featuring the heat magnet Elektra. Eventually Jazz shows up and then we get an impromptu bout between Kid Kash and C.W Anderson. Kid Kash had some snazzy offense, but he was less explosive and felt less special by the time he got to the WWE some 5 years later. CW Anderson was more impressive in this match than in any of the previous outings he had that I've seen - just a solid mat worker with a grind-it-out offense that made for a nice contrast against Kash. Maybe I would've cared about this match if they had done some sort of pre-match video package to explain this feud but without that context, you really just have a good-not-great match with seemingly no stakes. (2.5/5)
I wasn't looking forward to the next match when I saw it on the card: Da Baldiez vs. Nova & Chris Chetti vs. Danny Doring and Roadkill in a 3-Way Dance Tag Team match. I was pleasantly surprised, though, as this match was worked with a fast pace and ended up being "all killer-no filler" with some furniture wreckage and some nice double-team maneuvers from Nova and Chetti. Don Callis and Joey Styles do a decent job of putting over that winning this match will put someone in line for the tag titles, which I appreciate. As could be/would be expected, after Chetti and Nova get the win, Da Baldiez retaliate and out comes New Jack for an extended brawl that goes longer than the original match. If you've seen New Jack do a balcony dive (more like a drop) before, there's nothing new to see here. Even New Jack bringing out the garbage can full of weapons feels stale to me at this point. Sometimes New Jack's presence adds a level of terror a match and sometimes it just feels tacked on because the crowd expected it (but that even Paul E. knew that actually giving New Jack a legitimate "match" was a bad idea because of how limited he was). The match itself wasn't too terrible, but the post-match just grated on my nerves. (2/5)
When I heard this show was good and then watched the first four matches I really wondered if I had completely burnt out on ECW...but, no, this match does pick up quite a bit with the next bout: Tajiri vs. Steve Corino. Tajiri is a terrific ass-kicker in this match and is over huge with the crowd, while Corino is easily the best heel on the show thus far (and, hell, I'd argue should've been given the ECW World Championship over the Justin "Not So" Credible). Corino bleeds a gusher early from a brainbuster on the entrance ramp (actually a very nasty self-inflicted blade job) and ends up donning a full crimson mask for the rest of the contest. I'm not usually a fan of gore-for-gore's sake in a wrestling match, but it certainly adds drama and makes Corino, who spends most of the match eating Tajiri's offense, come across as legitimately tough. I loved Tajiri hitting a baseball slide into a table into Corino's face. Tajiri ends up winning with a double-stomp through a table, which was something you did not see in any major American promotion at the time and still felt fresh 10+ years later when Finn Balor and others starting busting out top-rope double stomps. I wouldn't call this a "must see" match because it is one-dimensional and even stomach-churning with the amount of blood, but it is easily the best thing on the show up to this point. Plus, you get a post-show appearance from Dusty Rhodes! (3/5)
The post-match brawl involving Tajiri, Dusty, Jack Victory, Corino, Kanemura, and ECW Television Champion Rhyno leads to the latter's defense against The Sandman, who had been involved a very serious and violent feud with Corino and Co. based on them attacking his wife Lori. The Sandman is super popular with the crowd (no surprise there) and, as usual, his entrance lasts almost as long as the "match" itself (or maybe even longer than it?). Anyway, Rhyno and Sandman had surprisingly good chemistry as two big brawlers throwing stiff shots and whipping eachother into stuff. This match flies off the rails after Rhyno misses a Gore and ends up putting himself through a table. Corino and Jack Victory return and then Lori Fullington shows up with a cane. Lori tries to help the Sandman but ends up getting piledriven through a table off the apron in an absolutely INSANE bump. It looked incredible and Lori sold it very well. The crowd went wild for it. They set Lori up to get gored through a table, but Sandman saved her only for them both to get gored through a table. I'm not sure this is "must see," but I would call this a masterpiece of a heat-getting angle and an incredible "piece of business" as JR might say. Excellent segment, if not necessarily a great "match." (4/5)
Rob Van Dam returned to the ring after a lengthy hiatus caused by injury (which is what led to him having to drop the ECW Television Championship match) to take on "The New Whole F'n Show" Jerry Lynn. These two had great matches seemingly every time they stepped foot in the ring together so this match was expected to buoy this show. As per usual, Van Dam does a bunch of showboating in between a bunch of reversals and counters while Lynn wrestles with intensity and focus. More than even their last big pay-per-view match, this one does come across as built around just how much Lynn has improved and how prepared he is to steal RVD's thunder on his big return night (this was also Lynn's big return match after a couple months off due to injury too). Rob Van Dam's "best friend" Scott Anton (aka Scotty Riggs of American Males fame) turns on him to help Jerry Lynn finally score a win over Van Dam, which makes it a ton less meaningful. I've seen some say that this is the best of RVD/Lynn series and I can certainly see the argument; While the match is 20 minutes, its a less exhausting watch, fought with more purpose beyond just popping the crowd, and the execution of every major sequence is good-to-great (which isn't necessarily true of their previous encounters). I'm not sure this quite hits the level of "must watch," but its close. (3.5/5)
Main event time - Justin Credible vs. Lance Storm. Credible refuses to allow Tommy Dreamer to be a part of the match, which gets him a ton of heat but also seems like a bait-and-switch as it seems like Dreamer was originally scheduled to compete. I'm not sure if he was still nursing an injury or if Dreamer was heavily promoted as wrestling, but its addition-by-subtraction for me as I'm not a big fan of ol' Tommy. Credible and Storm proceed to put on a legit wrestling match and title fight. Of course, this being ECW, there is plenty of hardcore wrestling thrown in (Storm, for example, blades early after a shot from a Singapore Cane) and a cat fight between Dawn Marie and Francine, but Credible and Storm at least attempt to sneak some actual wrestling into the match too, which I appreciated. Storm's suplexes are fantastic and he's clearly the better worker, but by this point, I'm guessing it was common knowledge that Storm would be heading to WCW (he debuts there almost exactly a month after this show) so it makes sense that they'd have Credible get the clean win. This being a heel/heel encounter, the crowd doesn't really come alive for much of it aside from the big spots and the catfight. Dreamer shows back up at the end of the match to a big pop and delivers a Death Valley Driver to Francine to give the crowd a "feel good" moment of man-on-woman violence. All in all, not a bad main event, but just nothing I'd seek out unless you were somehow a Justin Credible or Lance Storm superfan. (2.5/5)
Though its overall Kwang Score of 2.75-out-of-5 might not seem very good, for an ECW pay-per-view, especially one from the company's final stretch, its a stronger endorsement than it may appear. At this point, ECW shows were almost predictably uneven and scattershot. The infusion and pushing of new stars led to some acts really shining in 99' and 2000 - Steve Corino, Tajiri, even Danny Doring and Roadkill - but not everyone reached their potential and evolved into must-see performers (Simon Diamond, Chris Chetti, and Da Baldies all had glaring "holes" in their game that made their matches feel like "filler" on shows that fans were expected to shell out $30+ to see). This match offers more good action than bad, though, with Lynn/Van Dam, Corino/Tajiri, and Sandman/Rhyno all being excellent and entertaining in their own way. The main event is passable (which wasn't always true of ECW), the opener is decent enough, and there are good performances to be seen from Kid Kash and Little Guido as well.
FINAL RATING - Watch It...With Remote in Hand
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