Mike Reviews: ECW Living Dangerously 2000 – 12/03/2000

Hello You!

To say the past month or so of these reviews has been a tumultuous time for ECW would perhaps be somewhat of an understatement, with a costly leg injury to Rob Van Dam causing him to have to vacate his ECW TV Title and essentially blow the Main Event scene to pieces.

With the TV Title now vacated, we will crown a new Champion tonight in a 4 man tournament, as Super Crazy takes on Little Guido and Rhino has a long awaited singles battle with The Sandman. Sadly the Quarter Finals all got crammed in to one episode of Hardcore TV (The last one I did in fact) so the matches have all been chopped to pieces to fit the allotted time. Hopefully the matches tonight at least get some time to breathe.

ECW World Champ Mike Awesome doesn’t even have a Title defence tonight, as he will instead be defending one half of his newly won Tag Team Titles with Raven against two teams in a Three Way Dance. As a result, there isn’t really a clear marquee Main Event for this show, which combined with the general way the card has been thrown together means that I am probably less hyped for this show than any I have covered since starting these reviews last year.

I actually do own the DVD version of this show from Laser Light Digital, but I couldn’t find it so I’m going to be stuck with the WWE Network version, which means there’ll be music dubbing galore. Oh well, let’s just hope some of the dubbed music is good eh?

Anyway, that’s enough of wittering from me, let’s watch some chuffing wrestling!

The event is emanating from Danbury, Connecticut

Calling the action are Joey Styles and Joel Gertner

We open up with a promo from Jim “Sinister Minister” Mitchell, as he sits in the seats prior to the doors opening and likens members of the ECW roster to the seven deadly sins.

– Super Crazy represents greed, as he wants to win the TV Title despite The Network wanting Rhino to have it
– Dawn Marie represents vanity, although Minister does concede that in her case it is justified (I’ll say!)
– Big Sal represents gluttony, for obvious reasons
– Raven represents sloth, because he’s taking this whole “slacker” gimmick a bit too seriously
– Minister asks to skip Wrath in a funny bit (Because he used to manage him in WCW. Sorry to spell it out but I’m guessing quite a few reading this probably didn’t watch 1997 era WCW)
– Dusty Rhodes represents envy, because he’s jealous of Steve Corino’s youth
– And Francine represents lust, because she has the hots for Raven

Minister ends thing with his trademark cackle, which I believe is the recording they’d use for Mikey Whipwreck’s music down the line. This was a great promo.

Joey Styles and Joel Gertner try to do the in-ring intro, but Network Executive Cyrus interrupts and demands that Gertner step down so that he can call the pay per view. Joel actually stands up to Cyrus and challenges him to a fight, which causes Cyrus to back down. It’s all a ruse though, as Cyrus sneak attacks Gertner, which leads to Joey trying to pull him off. Interestingly, Cyrus was doing the Vickie Guerrero “Excuse Me” shtick here, so maybe someone on the writing crew in 2008 saw this and decided to recycle it for her?

Show Intro. Sadly we get no tagline this time

You might think that it is now time for some wrestling? Sadly you would be mistaken, as Steve Corino and Jack Victory (HIGH SPOT!) come down for some more promo. We’re nearly 15 minutes into the show now and we haven’t had a match yet. That’s kind of appalling. Corino insults the crowd, although a bit of a Lou E. Dangerously promo plays before someone is able to stop it. Corino notices that The Sandman’s wife and son, Lori and Tyler, are at ringside and decides to go over to insult them personally. This leads to him inferring that Lori is a slut and that Tyler isn’t even really The Sandman’s father. Lori is sickened by this and slaps Corino, which leads to an uncomfortable scene where they drag her into the ring and imply that Corino is going to rape her then and there on live pay per view. Thankfully The Sandman runs down for the save, but this leads to Rhino dropping him with a piledriver and then giving Lori a vicious GORE through a table in the corner. Sandman grabs Lori in his arms and takes her to the hospital, thus giving him a storyline reason to miss his match with Rhino later. With everyone gone, Corino grabs the mic and demands Dusty Rhodes come down so we can finally get a match in the ring.

Opening Match
Bullrope Match
Steve Corino w/ Jack Victory Vs Dusty Rhodes

This is not a drag the opponent to all four corners match, as you instead win by pin or submission and can just use the rope and cow bell as a weapon should you so desire. Future member of The Carnage Crew in ROH, HC Loc, is the referee here and Joey pushes that Corino beat him up on an episode of the TNN show prior to this event. Dusty wastes no time taking this brawl into the crowd, where he starts a streak of Corino bleeding on pay per view events by clocking him in the head with the cow bell.

Victory helps his charge fight back, and Dusty is soon bleeding also. I’m once again surprised at just how over Dusty Rhodes was with the “too cool for school” ECW crowd, as you’d expect them to want nothing to do with him. Dusty isn’t really physically capable of doing anything other than brawl, bleed and sell, but they manage to work around those limitations and Corino bumps around a lot to make Dusty look good and to keep the bout watchable.

Once things get back to the ring though the match is fought at a rather glacial pace, as Corino gets a bit of heat until Dusty drags him off the ropes so that he lands face first on a chair. Victory tries to throw some athletic tape in for Corino to use, but Dusty intercepts it and, with the help of Loc, he tapes the cow bell to Corino’s face before hitting him with a chair. The Bionic Elbow follows next (Which you could make Dusty do on the Anarchy Rulz video game) and that’s enough for Dusty to get the three count.

WINNER: DUSTY RHODES
RATING: *1/2

This wasn’t a disaster or anything, but Dusty was really quite limited here and the match wasn’t especially exciting. The crowd was into it though and they were happy to see Dusty win, so it has that in its favour.

Joey and Cyrus are in the commentary area, where Joey updates us that Lori has gone to the hospital and Sandman has gone with her. Someone humorously sticks their head out from behind the banner like they’re Smoke in MK II, but quickly ducks back once they realise they’re on the air. Cyrus notes that if Sandman can’t be here then he’ll have to forfeit his match and Rhino will advance in the tournament, which makes Joey suspicious about whether Cyrus had a hand in Lori getting hurt in the first place.

There is supposed to be a Little Guido promo next, but I remember that a lot of it gets drowned out by entrance music for the next match, so there’s a good chance that the people over at WWE Network felt it would be too much of a hassle to dub it and instead just cut it out.

Match Two
The New Dangerous Alliance (CW Anderson and Beautiful Billy) w/ Lou E. Dangerously Vs Danny Doring and Roadkill w/ Elektra

Lou E does the usual cheap heat promo here where he threatens to send CW out into the crowd to beat people up if they don’t shut up whilst he’s talking, which has the desired effect of getting The New DA booed. Hey, there’s a reason people still do this stuff. Doring and Roadkill’s WWE Network music is actually pretty good and has kind of a 90’s sports game feel to it. Elektra and Doring squabble on the way to the ring. Oooo, foreshadowing!

I like both of these teams and I’ve been especially digging CW’s work over the past month or so on the Hardcore TV episodes I’ve been watching. I’m glad that NWA Powerrr seems to be using him, as he’s a good hand, if not ever going to be a major star. This is a decent tag team match, as both teams know how to work the formula and also have a good dynamic between the partners. Doring and Roadkill do a good shine where they work through their singles and double team move sets, but The New DA is eventually able to double up on Doring and cut him off.

The New DA work some heat on Doring for a bit, with Doring selling it well. Eventually Doring is able to catch CW with a desperation G Spot Sweep (Kind of like Jeff Jarrett’s “Stroke” move) before making the hot tag to Roadkill. Both teams trade near falls until it looks like Doring and Roadkill have it won after giving Billy the Lancaster Lariat of Lust (Hart Attack). Roadkill heads up top to put the finishing touches on Billy, but Elektra trips him up, which allows Lou E to clock Doring with his mobile phone. CW adds the finishing touches with the spine buster and that’s enough for a New DA win.

WINNERS: THE NEW DANGEROUS ALLIANCE
RATING: **3/4

This was an enjoyable tag team match where they worked the formula well and told a good story of Doring and Roadkill being the better team who were all set to win before their manager did the dirty on them. Elektra supposedly hated Roadkill in real life and vice versa, which is why splitting her off from them seemed like the way to go.

The Impact Players of Justin Credible and Lance Storm are in the hallway with Jason and Dawn Marie. Hey, we haven’t seen Jason in weeks, where’s he been? Credible and Storm guarantee that they’ll win their ECW Tag belts back tonight.

We have another case of two entrances being cut, as Simon Diamond is the ring with Mitch and Tom Marquez to take on Kid Kash. Simon says that he has a problem, which Judge Jeff Jones agrees with as he brings ECW World and Tag Team Champ Mike Awesome down to the ring. Mike Awesome says he wants to fight, so the guys in the ring can either run away and live, or stay and die. Simon and his cronies quickly flee for their lives of course, but Kash fancies his chances and attacks Awesome to start an impromptu match.

Match Three
Mike Awesome w/ Judge Jeff Jones Vs Kid Kash

This is pretty much a squash for Awesome, as he runs through his big moves and just gives Kash a bit of a kicking. Kash sells it all well and they do eventually give him something, as he dives out into the crowd onto Awesome before taking out Jones in the ring with the Bawitdiba double arm DDT. Going after Jones leaves Awesome alone to recover however, and he makes Kash pay by powerbombing him through a table to pick up the three count.

WINNER: MIKE AWESOME
RATING: SQUASH

This was a magnificent way of making Awesome look like a dominant monster whilst also letting Kash show off one of his impressive high risk dives so that he didn’t look like a goober. An actual scheduled Title defence would have probably been a better use of Awesome, but this at least showed him to be a strong Champion who deserved his belt.

Kash’s friend Jazz comes out to check on him following the big table spot, but this leads to her getting attacked by Jado and Scott Keith’s favourite Japanese wrestler ever Gedo. Chris Chetti and Nova run down to rescue her and we would appear to have yet another impromptu match.

Match Four
Jado and Gedo Vs Nova and Chris Chetti

This is all action in the early going, with Gedo getting a nice Asai moonsault out onto Nova and Chetti. It’s thanks to stuff like that why Scott Keith is such a big Gedo fan. In fact, I heard that if you send him over 5 dollars Canadian then Scott will officially induct you into the Canadian branch of the Gedo fan club. Sign up now before the end of March and you can get a free garish jumpsuit that you can wear in your house. They’ve ran out of red sadly but I hear there’s still a few puke yellow ones if you act quickly!

There are some sloppy moments in this one, as both teams don’t always seem to be on the same page with each other. That could be because the match is so incredibly rushed though, and it’s no surprise that the best bit is when things slow down for a little bit so that Jado and Gedo can get some heat on Nova. Nova is eventually able to counter a Gedo rana attempt into a powerbomb though and makes the tag to Chetti.

Chetti’s hot tag segment isn’t bad at first, but things soon break down again and the match just becomes a tug of war of big moves, with some of them not really landing that well. Eventually Nova and Chetti take care of Jado and squish Gedo with The Tidal Wave (A leg drop/splash combo from the top rope as both men jump side by side) for the three count. Poor Scott will be sobbing salt tears into his Fuyuki-Gun pillow tonight as a result of that one!

WINNERS: NOVA AND CHRIS CHETTI
RATING: *

This was too short, rushed and sloppy. I could have maybe excused that on a TV show but I expect better on pay per view. Why couldn’t they have just booked a normal match between the two teams and then give them enough time to work the formula like the previous tag match on the show?

We head to the locker room, where Elektra cuts possible one of the worst promo’s of all-time, where she blames Paul Heyman for not giving her a helping hand in the past, causing her to have “real personal animosity” towards him. I think even the goobers who write dialogue in WWE scripts would have raised their eyebrows at that one. Elektra goes on to call Doring a “little boy” and adds that Roadkill hates here because his boobs are bigger than hers. The delivery was terrible, the wording was awful and I shudder at the thought that this was the BEST take. I mean, how many worse takes didn’t make the cut? Does WWE have them? Have they locked them in a bomb proof vault in an attempt to save us all from them ever getting out?!

Match Five
ECW TV Title Semi Final
Little Guido w/ Big Sal Vs Super Crazy

Guido’s entrance also gets cut here. They must have shaved close to 15 minutes off this show in total for the WWE Network cut. Long time readers of these ECW reviews will know that these two have had A LOT of matches with one another over the past year, but it’s at least been a bit of a while since the last one due to Crazy working some matches with CW Anderson. They waste no time getting stuck right in, as Crazy moonsaults onto both Guido and Sal in the crowd, in a spot that would have meant more if Kid Kash hadn’t just done it 15 minutes ago.

Guido shows off some of his Billy Robinson shoot wrestling roots by catching a Crazy cross body and turning it into a Fujiwara arm bar on the floor. You can see here that they were trying to make Guido come across as more of a serious wrestler, hence why he’s this far into the tournament. Guido actually blades off a Crazy chair shot back inside the ring, which leads to Sal coming in and handing Guido his belt so that he can unleash his inner MJF by wearing Crazy out with it. The Sicilian Slice (Second rope Rocker Dropper) follows next, but Crazy to kick out at two.

Sal passes a table into the ring and they set Crazy up on it so that Guido can climb Sal’s shoulders for an elbow drop through it. Crazy manages to move however and Guido goes crashing through the table, leaving Crazy to rana Sal to take him out of proceedings. Crazy powerbombs Guido onto the remains of the table and follows with a Quebrada, but that only gets two. It looks like that was a botch actually, as Guido didn’t seem to get his shoulder up. If Maffew puts it to music from International Superstar Soccer Deluxe in one of his upcoming videos then you know that it was. Crazy doesn’t dwell however and just delivers brain buster, this time for the three.

WINNER: SUPER CRAZY
RATING: **1/2

Yet another rushed match in a series of them tonight. I really don’t know why everything has been so rushed as they must have had at least 2 hours and 40 minutes to work with here and they aren’t getting remotely close to it thus far. The match itself wasn’t bad, but they didn’t really have enough time to make it any better than average.

Joey and Cyrus hype ECW Hardcore Revolution: The Video Game, which leads to a quick video of Joey beating up Cyrus in the game itself. Hey, the game was basically keeping them in business at the time so I don’t blame them hyping the fudge out of it.

Match Six
Kintaro Kanemura Vs Balls Mahoney

They cut the entrances again here. Kanemura is a Japanese hardcore wrestler who made a name for himself in places like W*ING. This is yet another rushed match, as this show is starting to feel like a WrestleMania from the late 80’s/early 90’s with a tonne of short meaningless matches on the undercard to get guys a payday, except we don’t get the benefit of there being good longer matches like Randy Savage Vs Ultimate Warrior to make it all feel worthwhile.

Kanemura runs wild for a bit to start and gets a back senton splash from the top rope before running into the Ball Breaker (Think D’Lo Brown’s “Sky High” move) and a big frogsplash from Balls for two. Kanemura hits Balls with his own chair, but Balls no sells it and then follows up with the Nutcracker Suite to pick up the abrupt victory.

WINNER: BALLS MAHONEY
RATING: N/A

I’ve had sandwiches that lasted longer than this match.

Da Baldies of Spanish Angel, Tony DeVito and Vic Grimes attack Balls post-match as a result of Balls helping out New Jack in tag matches recently. Grimes actually gets an incredible looking move in where he gets a 300 pound senton bomb from the top rope to put Balls through a table on the outside. This is New Jack’s cue to run down and we have ANOTHER impromptu match. Yeah, I think Paul might be overdoing that one a tad this time.

Match Seven
Da Baldies Vs New Jack

This mostly becomes a New Jack Vs Vic Grimes match, as Grimes does the old pizza cutter attack, which I’m not sure would actually cause someone to bleed considering mine sometimes can’t even work its way through a particularly thick pizza crust. This match is infamous for one particular horrible spot, as New Jack and Grimes stack up two tables and then brawl up to a rickety scaffold by the side of the crowd. Apparently the plan here was for New Jack to superplex Grimes off the scaffold through the tables, but both men can barely stand on the scaffold due to it not being remotely adequate for what they need it for. As a result, New Jack tries to “improvise” by just falling backwards off the scaffold and pulling Grimes with him in the process, which leads to Grimes tumbling right onto New Jack’s head and face in the process in an absolutely gruesome bump. Thankfully no one dies from this and they decide to just call the match off.

WINNER: NO CONTEST
RATING: DUD

An awful and ludicrously dangerous match. They should never have been allowed to go out there with that spot planned, as it was obvious the minute they got up there that the scaffold wasn’t fit for purpose. I don’t do negative star ratings, but I was tempted to on this one. New Jack and Grimes weren’t finished doing crazy stuff together, as they would go on to have a scaffold match in XPW a couple of years later where Grimes would take a terrifying bump off the scaffold where he missed pretty much every table and bounced off the ropes on the way down, which New Jack would later go on to claim was deliberate on his part.

Joey, clearly flustered and thinking on his feet, says that New Jack will likely be joining Lori at the hospital, which got him some heat online back in the day. It seems pretty clear to me that he didn’t mean anything by it though and was just trying to keep a façade going that it was business as usual despite the horrific unplanned bump he’d just had to call.

Semi-Main Event
ECW Tag Team Titles
Champs: Raven and Mike Awesome w/ Francine Vs The Impact Players of Justin Credible and Lance Storm w/ Jason and Dawn Marie Vs Tommy Dreamer and Masato Tanaka

The opening portion of this match with all three teams is absolute mayhem, with bodies getting thrown all over the place and big moves aplenty. The action is exciting and looks good, but this section is also incredibly rushed, which is a shame because a proper length match with all six of these guys going at it would be fantastic. Highlights from this section include Awesome getting his Undertaker WrestleMania dive onto Credible and Jason, and Raven giving Dreamer a drop toe hold onto the edge of a table, causing it to break off.

Eventually that table gets stacked in the corner and Tanaka suplexes Awesome through it before adding a Roaring Elbow to pick up the win. I guess that means Tanaka is going back into the World Title picture then? I can’t imagine why else they’d have Awesome take the fall for his team when Raven of all people is hardly going to be hurt from doing a job. With the Champs now eliminated, the match becomes more of a traditional tag match, with The Impact Players getting some heat on a now bleeding Dreamer.

That doesn’t last very long though, as heel miscommunication leads to Dreamer making the hot tag to Tanaka, who runs wild on the heels with a great hot tag segment that makes him look like the best wrestler in the entire company. Tanaka and Dreamer get a cool Doomsday Device/Diamond Cutter styled combo move onto Credible, but Storm breaks up the resulting cover to save the match for his team. Tanaka keeps coming though and gets the coolest move in wrestling, The Diamond Dust (YouTube it!) onto Credible, which Joey correctly points out was the move Dreamer and Tanaka used to win the belts on a previous occasion. Storm takes Tanaka out with a lovely piledriver in response though and a spiked piledriver follows on Dreamer to give the heels the belts again.

WINNERS AND NEW CHAMPION: THE IMPACT PLAYERS
RATING: **1/2

This was far too short but it was good whilst it lasted. I really don’t see the point in Raven and Awesome having the belts to be honest, as they could have kept them on Dreamer and Tanaka and done the logical rematch with The Impact Players here whilst having Raven and Awesome tangle for the ECW Title.

Cyrus leaves the commentary table to run down and congratulate the new Champs, getting an hilariously sleazy hug from Dawn in the process. Don Callis plays a fantastic creep. Cyrus calls Rhino down to the ring so that we can start the Main Event. Rhino has some really good dubbed music actually. I could picture it being in a game like Crazy Taxi or Moto Racer 2. It’s got that high tempo style that you just want to race to. Cyrus is now supposed to be interrupted by Paul Heyman, but Paul misses his cue so Cyrus has to ramble and repeat the feed line again until Paul finally shows up. Paul makes lewd gestures to The Network and says Cyrus is an asshole until Joel Gertner comes out to take over and bring out Super Crazy for the Title match.

Main Event
ECW TV Title Final
Rhino w/ Steve Corino, Jack Victory and Cyrus Vs Super Crazy

Crazy runs wild on Rhino to start, getting a dive to the outside, but Rhino power slams him back inside whilst the crowd chants for Sandman. It’s harsh on Crazy that this is supposed to be his big moment and the crowd is busy chanting for someone else, but what were ECW expecting after doing the bait and switch earlier? Rhino gradually wears Crazy down with his usual array of power moves, and the execution is fine but Rhino wasn’t as good at match structure and in-ring storytelling in his younger days.

Rhino presses Crazy over the top rope through a table at ringside, and then sets up another table inside the ring for good measure. Crazy is able to dodge the GORE though and Rhino goes through the table in the corner. Crazy gets a trio of moonsaults following that, but that’s Tajiri’s cue to come down to the ring and spit mist in Crazy’s eyes before kicking him in the face.

Things look bleak for our hero, but here comes Rob Van Dam, Scotty Anton and Bill Alfonso for the save. RVD flapjacks Rhino through a table, which is impressive considering he only has the use of one leg, whilst Anton takes Tajiri out of the equation. Crazy follows with a moonsault to the downed Rhino and that’s enough for him to pick up the three count and the Title.

WINNER AND NEW CHAMPION: SUPER CRAZY
RATING: **

This was lacking in heat until RVD came out, but the action itself was fine. I don’t think it did much for Crazy that he won straight after the RVD interference though. It would have been better for RVD and Anton to take out the lackeys, thus leaving Crazy with a chance to win the match in a 1 v 1 situation to put him over more.

The Network goes for the heel beat down post-match, but The Sandman makes the save and everyone has a celebratory beer to send us all home.

In Conclusion

This felt far more like an Attitude Era episode of Raw than a pay per view, especially as the WWE Network version of this show comes in at just over two hours long. There were a bunch of longish angles/promo segments and most of the matches were TV length. It didn’t really feel like a pay per view at all. Nothing felt overly special or really worthwhile. It just felt like someone had stapled two episodes of the TNN show together.

If I were perhaps only watching the pay per views and not the weekly television then I might have been able to just enjoy this for a couple of hours of anarchic fun, but because I am watching the show every week I expect something more from a supposed big show, not just more of what I get on a weekly basis.

I think it’s telling as well that this is the first pay per view I’ve watched since I’ve started doing these reviews last year that didn’t have at least one great match on it. This is likely down to the fact that the show somehow managed to both be insanely rushed whilst also full of filler, which is a dichotomy that you wouldn’t expect possible but they managed it somehow. The Tag Title match in particular had the potential to be truly great with an extra 10 minutes or so added to it, but they instead loaded one match with all the best wrestlers and then cut the match way short so that they were all wasted.

I’m afraid I’ll have to give this show a thumbs down and recommend that you give it a miss. There’s just not enough good stuff on it to make it really worth your time and you could get just as good an idea for what ECW was all about during this time period by watching one of the TNN episodes, and you’d save yourself an hour in the process. This company is in serious need of some direction and better forward planning. Still, they’ve got something with Awesome as World Champ at least. Right? Right?? Why are you looking at me like that?