Someone asked for something American or British this week, never man to turn down a request let us look at potential disaster in the waiting. ECW One Night Stand.
This isn't of course the ECW we know and love, the violence, the risqué content, the profanity laced interviews. Well okay it is, but its the first steps WWE made towards ruining the legacy of a company whose star had shone so brightly years before. This is the second One Night Stand and marked the relaunch of ECW as a different entity. I chose this one because its an interesting mix of WWE presentation and ECW before the WWE ideas took over and brought us something not that good. Bobby Lashley as Champion anyone? Kelly Kelly? Mike Knox? Oh yeah we are still stuck with him, but for a while there it was all good in the hood and as usual, most bad ideas do start with good intentions.
The premise of this PPV began with The Money in the Bank ladder match held at Wrestlemania that year won by none other than Rob Van Damn. With Vince more than willing to put himself on TV to fire up the feud a lot of the angles wrote themselves. The first match on the card, Tazz vs Jerry Lawler was quick. Inevitable really as Tazz is permanently retired through injury. This stemmed back from the days of ECW taking over Raw to support their first Barely Legal PPV, a rehashed angle but with strong heat. Jerry Lawler was Satan to ECW fans, and if you've seen the night that Raven left ECW you will see how hot he was. Next we have Kurt Angle vs Randy Orton, which is especially interesting because Angle's first foray into pro wrestling was with ECW. He attended one show and left when Raven crucified the Sandman swearing up and down he would never get involved with Paul Heyman again. So why he ended up being an ECW guy is beyond me, though he fit into things quite well, and as always the ECW fans gave good wrestlers respect. This match leads on to a good comedy aside. The FBI vs Super Crazy and Taijiri. Crazy and Taijiri both made their names in ECW and by then had been WWE regulars as had the FBI, this showed in a more polished version of the ECW three way dances Guido, Taijiri and Crazy worked in the early 2000's. Then it was on to the business end of things.
Sabu vs Rey Mistero for the World's Heavyweight Championship, oh sorry World's Championship, like not calling it heavyweight was going to make us think Rey wasn't 190lbs and 5' 9. Anyways, this was a very good match, and full of the things both where famous for, they lived up to their legacy. However Sabu was about 6 years past his prime and Rey was in on of those spots in his career where he wasn't injured, though he looked like he could be injured at any time. The two ECW veterans knew what the crowd at the Hammerstien Ballroom wanted though and they gave it to them, the match ending in a no finish, which back in the day would have caused a riot. Maybe the ECW fans had calmed down?
Mick Foley, Lita and Edge vs Terry Funk, Tommy Dreamer and Buelah. This match is another booking choice oddity. Cactus Jack was the first true star of the fledgling ECW in 1993, his work for them while with WCW as tag champion made the company name (along with some incredible matches with Sabu). The angle came from real emotional interplay between Paul Heyman and Mick Foley. Heyman had called Foley a prostitute for going to the WWE in real life, and they cut some of the some rabid promos that hark back to the days of the Anti Hardcore ECW interviews that where quite possibly the best interviews ever done in wrestling. This was a nostalgia match for sure. Even Terry Funk who I do believe will go on for ever didn't look good, despite taking most of the big bumps. He was outpaced by younger talent in the opening of the match. But did they put their bodies on the line? You bet they did. All in the name of ECW, which for Edge was quite the thing having not been an ECW guy to begin with. As this is really a WWE show we had what The Masked Man calls “the palate cleanser”, something a bit more throwaway before we got onto more serious business. Balls Mahoney and Tanaka put together a fun, chair shot laden, high spots match that you would come to expect from those two really. Did what it said on the tin and gets us to the main.
John Cena vs RVD for the WWE title. There have been crowds bigger than this for WWE title match, but none more vocal. This was the birth of “Cena Wins, We Riot” (okay those fans hadn't calmed down at all). This is where Cena began his route to being a heel in the 18-30 male demographic and clearly he loved it. Having not been a heel for so long he revelled in the fact that he could do as he liked, all he had to do was be himself and do his regular thing and he was over like no other guy in front of any ECW crowd. They hated him of course, RVD was God for a night, but if you want to see where the kernels of the Second Summer of Punk come from, this is it. Daniel Bryan's feud against John Cena? That starts here to. As Punk said himself if there was one city that appreciates Daniel Bryan more than any other its Philadelphia. Bryan and Punk would have been right at home in the old ECW, and as we know Punk made the new ECW his brand. This match of course would not be in Philly, its in New York. The sentiment is the same though wherever you go, and it gave Cena, and Vince, the chance to see the possibilities of where things could go. It wasn't the first time he was booed, London crowds have always been particularly unkind to Cena, and Boston doesn't seem to hold home town advantage any more, but back then this was something very different and it worked perfectly.
Of course in the end the idea of an ECW relaunch turned out to be a dud. The wrong bits of ECW came forward, the philosophy of breaking new talent and trying to make stars would not happen until NXT 6 years later. RVD was caught in possession about a week later, the TV show sucked because they didn't take it seriously enough and on top of that RVD, Paul Heyman and Tommy Dreamer, the architects of the new ECW did not have enough power over the WWE old order; Michael Hayes, Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn to make the show work with one vision. However at the beginning there, it was a sight to see.
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