untitled

ECW ON TNN

taped 12/23/99

RAVEN vs. MIKEY WHIPWRECK

Well, nobody can accuse Raven of being selfish. He goes over in the end, but he bumps and sells his ass off for Mikey before doing so, including taking an elbow drop through a table. It’s hard to believe that, only a few years ago, Raven was the top heel while Mikey was the plunky undercard babyface. Mikey only takes two bumps, the drop toehold into the chair, and he recovers first and still gets a near fall on Raven, and the DDT that puts him away. Mikey may have only worked in a few actual spots, but, this was nice to see anyway. It shows longtime fans and followers just how far Mikey had come from being the skinny kid that was afraid of his own shadow.

YOSHIHIRO TAJIRI vs. SUPER CRAZY

What do you know? It’s an example of the intensity that this pairing produces, in contrast to Crazy vs. Hidaka from the week before. It certainly helps that they’ve worked together a bunch, so their sequences are rather smooth. It also helps that Crazy is willing to take, and appropriately put over, insanely stiff kicks from Tajiri. But, they also attempt to do their spots in a believable manner. Crazy is still reeling from the head kicks when he tries his moonsault trifecta, so he’s not as quick and spry as he might be. It allows Tajiri the chance to crotch him on the top turnbuckle and pull him down into a tree of woe, and do his trademark baseball slide. Even the flubbed rana isn’t that a big a deal, as it’s something that one could also chalk up to Crazy having his bell rung. The finish itself is very well done. Hell, with the shots that Crazy had taken, it’d have been conceivable that the kick alone could have finished him off, but, the brainbuster ensures Tajiri’s win.

Although I do appreciate the few instances where they play off their match from the previous week, this is still little more than a giant spot exhibition. It’s all the more puzzling that this was shown directly after Super Crazy did such a nice job at putting over the effects of Tajiri’s head kicks, seeing as both Tanaka and Awesome treat chair shots, and other big bumps, like afterthoughts. Aside from the callbacks to their match the week before, there isn’t much to see here. It’s nice to see Tanaka take control of the match by avoiding the powerbomb off the apron, and it’s also nice that Awesome learns from the previous match, and blocks the German into the table. But, that’s pretty much it as far as smart work goes. Tanaka rolls out every one of his finishers, and does so after scrambling Awesome’s brains with two big chair shots, and also hits a DDT off the top through a table, and still loses. Tanaka winds up taking the running powerbomb through the table in the corner, survives Awesome’s frog splash, and then gets pinned after a regular Awesome bomb from the top. Way to make those table and chair assisted spots meaningful.

What’s even more puzzling to me than the layout of this, is the booking. It’s fine for Awesome to get the title back, since Tanaka had FMW commitments, but, why not wait a couple of extra weeks and do it on the upcoming Guilty As Charged PPV? Instead of giving Tanaka a token reign of a few days (just like with the tag titles the year before), let him retain it here and look like a fighting champion going into the rematch? Van Dam was untouchable, but there’s no reason that he couldn’t have gone over Sabu, Rhino, Storm, or Credible. Instead, the match is just the backdrop to continue Awesome’s feud with Spike Dudley, who hadn’t even sniffed the idea of being World Champion, and who hadn’t been in any major main events outside of tag matches against the Dudleys.

Conclusion: Even with the disappointing main event, this is still a nice continuation from the previous week, a couple of fun undercard matches and another (albeit predictable) title change.