The Week In Hardcore Friendly Competition 12.9.06
Posted by Stuart Carapola on 12.09.2006
It's out with the old and in with the new! In the debut edition of this new combined ECW/TNA weekly feature, I look at December To Dismember, the upcoming Turning Point PPV, and also execute AJ Styles!
When we last left off, the ECW vs ROH elimination tag match had come down to ROH World Champion Bryan Danielson and ECW's Rob Van Dam. Van Dam had gone for the Five Star Frog Splash, but Danielson got the knees up. Both men were down on the mat when former ROH star and current ECW star CM Punk, who had instigated the whole thing, climbed into the ring. But what would he do?
He would stand there and wait. Danielson collected himself first and began to stir. Slowly, he climbed to his feet and turned around, finding himself face to face with CM Punk. Danielson is puzzled and asks Punk what he's doing in the ring, but Punk just stands there without saying a word. Suddenly, Joe comes hobbling back out from the locker room. He's angry and wants to go for Danielson, but is clearly in no condition to fight the American Dragon, and Danielson taunts him by pretending to hobble across the ring. Joe slowly rolls into the ring as Danielson just laughs and prepares to take another chunk out of Joe's knee. Before they can get into it, however, Christoper Daniels and Homicide come running into the ring and get between them. Daniels yells at both men "We're a team! We're a team! We can't fight-" and out of nowhere turns around...and suckerpunches Danielson!
As the crowd stares on in shock, Joe and Homicide join in on the beatdown! Danielson doesn't have a chance against the three men and is left in a heap. They haul him back to his feet and hold him as Punk saunters up. He laughs in Danielson's face and begins taunting him. "So this is the man of honor! The man who wouldn't sell out!" Punk slaps Danielson across the face, and Danielson tries kicking at Punk, but gets beaten back down by Daniels, Homicide, and Joe. Punk goes up to the top rope and tells his cronies to bring Danielson over to him. The ROH turncoats bring Danielson over to the corner and feed him up to the top rope...PEPSI PLUNGE! Punk smiles and taunts the crowd...and by this point Van Dam is back on his feet! Van Dam looks at the scene going on around him...and then leaps up to the top rope! Five Star Frog Splash! 1...2...3! The five-on-one odds are too much for Danielson to overcome, and ECW wins the match!
Van Dam celebrates with his new buddies, and as they exchange hugs and high fives, CM Punk grabs the mic:
"You're a stupid man, Bryan Danielson. You think you're a man of honor. You think you're the greatest wrestler in the world. You think you're too good for TV. You didn't want to sell out to the man. Well Bryan, if you want to spend the rest of your life working for chicken feed, be my guest, because you sure as hell would never get over in the bigtime like I have!
But I've got news for you. I didn't sell out...I BOUGHT IN! Christopher Daniels...BOUGHT IN! Homicide...BOUGHT IN! Samoa Joe...BOUGHT IN! Even the God of all you Down's Syndrome stricken, inbred ECW fans, Rob Van Dam...BOUGHT IN! You say there's no honor in that? Well, we don't really care about honor the way you do, Bryan Danielson! All we care about is the almighty dollar. And now that we've gotten where we've gotten, we can sure as hell buy and sell you!
We are the future of this business, and to clear things up for all you eleven-toed mental midgets out there, I'm not talking about professional wrestling. We are the future...OF SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT! We are...EXTREME CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING! We are...TOTAL NONSTOP ACTION!
We are...FRIENDLY COMPETITION.
* * *
And I'm back from New Zealand. It's a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there. Especially if you're like me and are from the center of the universe, New York. Big thanks to fellow New Yorker Ari Berenstein for covering for me while I was gone, and setting me up with this great catalyst to morph The Week In Hardcore into Friendly Competition. There are a few reasons I changed from a strictly ECW column to a combined ECW/TNA deal. First of all, although I didn't expect it to be much, if anything, like the original, ECW just hasn't turned into anything special worth writing its own column about. In addition to being a boring show several weeks, sometimes the news was so light that I literally had almost nothing to cover. Now with TNA in the mix, I'll have a lot more to cover, and it also gives me a reason to watch Impact.
Plus, I'm going to have more fun with this new version of the column. Vital Social Issues N' Stuff is staying, but I've added a few new features, such as Dickhead Of The Week, the old PPV Control Center (which I bought off of TBS at a garage sale), and my old friend AJ Styles has won himself a weekly spot in this very column! So let's dive right in with...
ECW On Sci-Fi Results 12/5/2006
Taped on 12/4/2006 in Charleston, South Carolina
-The show opened with Paul "The Writing Is On The Wall" Heyman announcing that the Big Show is invoking the rematch clause, and that he's done.
-RVD and CM Punk dedicated their match against Test and Hardcore Holly to their good friend Sabu. Match ends when Punk has Jobcore Holly in the Anaconda Vice (4:00), then the Rent-A-Bashams run in, but Sabu runs in after them and they take turns hitting finishers on one of the Bashams for kicks.
-Daivari challenged, and lost to, Tommy Dreamer (1:27). After the match, Khali comes in and gives Dreamer his one move, except it's on a STEEL CHAIR!
-Big Show says that it took five men to get the ECW Title off of him, and he's getting his title back tonight!
-In the ECW Match Of The Week, Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly Kelly defeated Ariel (0:55). I am thoroughly shocked when Ariel does a Thesz Press to start the match. Anyway, afterward, Mike Knox comes out with flowers and apologizes, but the spidey sense goes off because he doesn't say what for. I bet it won't be what we expect. Oh wait, he apologizes for not dumping her earlier, and then becomes the biggest babyface on the brand by laying her out. Hopefully this is the last we've seen of her. Tazz gets upset at Knox's actions and waddles into the ring. Though the show wasn't over by the time he got into the ring as I would have thought, Knox was long gone.
-Bobby Lashley defeated Big Show in a good power match by picking Show up for a slam and actually holding him up for three or four seconds before dropping him (17:15). That was really impressive and I believe it was the first time Show's been slammed in at least a decade (unless you count Goldberg's Jackhammer or Brock's F5).
Thanks to Larry Csonka for match times.
TNA Impact Results 12/7/2006
Taped on 11/19/2006 in Orlando, Florida
-Rhino opens the show by getting pissed at AJ Styles and calls him out. Christopher Daniels comes out to try and play peacemaker, but Rhino won't have it. Styles backjumps Rhino and it turns into a pull apart brawl.
-Petey Williams defeats Homicide (2:10), then gets his ass kicked by LAX. AMW runs in and clears them out for their All-American buddy Petey.
-BG James is hanging out at an anti-DX rally. These rallies are really getting out of hand. I saw two on my way to work this morning, they got really ugly.
-Sting, Jim Mitchell, and Christian Cage talk about the NWA Title Match at Turning Point.
-Kevin Nash gives the X-Division guys psych tests and accuses Sonjay Dutt of being on steroids.
-Eric Young wants to look and feel like a woman. Thankfully he's in a bikini contest at Turning Point and not an Estrogen On A Pole match.
-Senshi defeats Eric Young after Miss Brooks comes out and flashes Young (2:43).
-Konnan challenges AMW to a Flag Match at Turning Point on behalf of LAX.
-VKM takes us into a theater where The Marine is playing. There's one guy watching and he's asleep. That was pretty funny, actually.
-Jim Cornette makes the LAX-AMW Flag Match official, and gets interrupted by Christian Cage and Tomko. Christian wants to tell his story about Abyss's past again, but Abyss runs in. He gets beaten down and Sting makes the save, but when Sting extends his hands, Abyss shakes it...then pulls Sting into the Black Hole Slam.
-Kurt Angle is giving Samoa Joe a rematch because he lost to an Iranian in the amateurs 12 years ago, then got his rematch in the Olympic Gold Medal match and beat him. He says that Joe pushed him further than he's ever been pushed and wants to give him another shot.
-Rhino comes out for the main event, but gets attacked by AJ Styles and they brawl to the back.
-Kurt Angle wins a five way match with Abyss, Sting, Christian Cage, and Samoa Joe when he pretends to help Joe to his feet, then gives him the Angle Slam for the win (7:29). Way to get Joe over as a badass by having him job clean in ten minutes there.
Thanks to Larry Csonka for match times.
Overall Top Ten Ranking
As voted by me. This ranking includes wrestlers from both groups and is entirely subjective.
ECW World Champion: Bobby Lashley (Champion Since 12/3/2006)
NWA World Champion: Abyss (Champion Since 11/19/2006)
1)Kurt Angle
2)Samoa Joe
3)Big Show
4)Petey Williams
5)Rhino
6)CM Punk
7)Rob Van Dam
8)Senshi
9)Tommy Dreamer
10)Mike Knox
Dickhead Of The Week: Samoa Joe
It really pains me to say this, but the guy looked like a fucking tool at the end of Impact this week. Here he was, undefeated for 18 months, baddest motherfucker in the business, soundly defeating everyone thrown in his path. Now he does the job to Kurt Angle, and all of a sudden he's losing clean in a ten minute TV match? I don't care what the storyline build to the PPV match is, this was the wrong way to book Samoa Joe, and now his credibility has been badly damaged. If he doesn't beat Angle at Turning Point, he's may never recover in much the same way Goldberg never did.
ECW News
Paul Heyman was sent home from the TV taping on Monday and appears to be done with the company. Apparently, Vince McMahon was upset over the way the ECW PPV turned out and blamed Heyman since he had sole creative control for the weeks prior to the PPV.
I'll go more in depth into this down in Vital Social Issues, but I don't think this is going to be the big hit to ECW that everybody seems to think it's going to be. I think the brand will get along just as well, if not better, without Paul Heyman around. On the other hand...
Big Show also appears to be done with the company following this week's episode of ECW On Sci-Fi. He has been suffering from back problems for some time and has wanted time off for a while now.
This is bad news, because Big Show has literally carried the entire brand from the moment the cop's lights went on behind RVD and Sabu. Say what you will about the guy, but he has busted his fucking ass to get this brand and the ECW Title over, and his health has suffered for it. For as poorly as he's been booked, and as badly as he's let himself deteriorate, he took the ball and ran with it this year, and now that they're at a point where they've got nobody else in a position to carry the ball (hence the Lashley move), the brand is going to suffer a far more major loss with Show leaving than Heyman. And in the last leg of our journey through this week's political upheavel at ECW...
Former Smackdown head writer Dave Lagana has been named as Paul Heyman's replacement as head of the ECW writing team.
This basically says it all about how Vince McMahon views the future of ECW. Don't bet on seeing many Extreme Rules matches in the near future. However, we can look forward to a long running storyline where Sabu wins the ECW Title because "The Sheik would want it that way".
During the quarterly stockholder conference call earlier this week, Linda McMahon said that the TV deal for ECW On Sci-Fi is set to run through December of 2007.
So to all you naysayers that Heyman leaving is the death of the brand, I can guarantee you that McMahon is not going to have an empty timeslot for a year.
The rating for ECW On Sci-Fi this week was a 1.8, up from a 1.5 last week.
This is a good sign, as it appears that Bobby Lashley winning the title may have gotten some people interested. It was a good show this week, so hopefully the momentum will continue and the rating will stay up next week.
Al Snow missed the PPV due to a family emergency.
Sucks for him.
Christopher W Anderson isn't expected back until at least the new year due to having herniated discs.
Would suck for him if it weren't for the fact that he'd most likely be completely jobbed out if he even made it onto the PPV.
TNA News
The Voodoo Kin Mafia, along with Vince Russo and Jeremy Borash, "invaded" a WWE house show in Knoxville, Tennessee. VKM entered the arena during Triple H's match and drew attention to themselves, trying to start a TNA chant among other things.
Well, they're really going hard with this VKM thing, aren't they? I think it makes them look really bush league.
World Series MVP David Eckstein will be at Turning Point this weekend.
If this means anything of importance to any of you. I personally couldn't care less.
Kurt Angle announced on Bubba The Love Sponge that he will be having a legitimate shoot fight inn May or June of 2007. It will be in TNA, and the opponent and rules are yet to be announced.
Kurt...don't do it. Please, for the love of all that is atheistic, don't do it. And if you don't plan to do it, just shut up about it instead of continuing to make yourself look like an idiot.
Turning Point Control Center
Turning Point is this weekend, and if everybody comes with their working boots on, this is shaping up to be another good one. Let's run down the card match by match:
Kurt Angle vs Samoa Joe
This is being billed as Joe's last match against Angle, so a lot of people are expecting Joe to go over and set up a tiebreaker match somewhere down the line, but I think Angle should go over here to make him the one guy Joe couldn't beat. Then months later, after Angle picks up the NWA Title, Joe can get one last match and beat him to win the NWA Title.
NWA Title Match: Abyss (C) vs Sting vs Christian Cage
Oh man, I know Abyss is a hard worker and all, I just don't buy him as NWA Champion. I know in the Roundtable I picked Sting to go over because I think Sting vs Angle would be a better match, but I think from a storyline perspective, Christian needs to go over and regain the belt. It might help give Joe some momentum back if he were to take the title from Christian and end HIS undefeated streak.
X-Division Title Match: Chris Sabin (C) vs Christopher Daniels (Special Referee: Jerry Lynn)
I can definitely see Jerry Lynn turning heel and helping Sabin win the title here. That's such a trademark Russo move. Whether or not he does it I hope it leads to Lynn getting back in the ring, but I personally think Lynn vs Daniels would be better than Lynn vs Sabin, so I may be pulling for the nonsensical heel turn for that reason.
NWA Tag Team Champions LAX vs America's Most Wanted (Flag Match)
Is the NWA Tag Team Title even on the line here? If not, AMW should go over to earn them a title match, but if it is then LAX should go over so AMW can get good and pissed for the next chapter in the feud.
AJ Styles vs Rhino
I like the storyline build they've been doing with AJ turning into a total whiny little bitch. Seems appropriate for some reason. I hope Rhino gores him out of his boots.
Alex Shelley vs Sonjay Dutt vs Austin Starr vs Jay Lethal vs Senshi (Paparazzi Championship Series)
Come on, I know it's Kevin Nash and, as an IWC writer, I'm supposed to hate him, but the skits he's been doing have been hilarious. I'd like to see Shelley go over to get some of his heat back since Starr's now Kevin's boy.
Ron Killings & Lance Hoyt vs Serotonin (Frankie Kazarian & Matt Bentley)
Never let it be said that one of Russo's faults is that he can't find something for everybody to do. He's even given the totally meaningless (in storylines) Bentley and Kazarian something to do here. I'm a bit torn because I'd like to see Serotonin go over, but that would mean Killings getting bounced down again. That would suck.
Eric Young vs Miss Brooks (Bikini Contest)
If this is the worst thing Russo books on this PPV, I think we can all be thankful.
Vital Social Issues N' Stuff With Stuart
I've got a link to a column that O'Dog wrote down below, but I want to throw in my two cents on December To Dismember. Was the PPV a total disaster? Yes. But there are a lot of problems the brand is trying to deal with at the moment. One of the major problems that might have taken it away from the original vision of what they were going to do with the brand was the S-L-E-W of problems that hit almost immediately, such as Kurt Angle leaving, the RVD-Sabu drug incident, etc. I wasn't around for most of the original ECW revolution and wasn't as picky about this as some oldtime ECW fans, but to me having the Raw and Smackdown guys on the show was a good thing because ECW On Sci-Fi did its best ratings when Flair, Kane, Undertaker, and the others were on the show, and when they stopped doing that and let the show ride on it's own, the ratings sunk. That's why I think having Hardyz-MNM as one of the two matches announced for the PPV was a good move since all the ECW guys who mattered were already in the main event. I mean honestly, would you be any more likely to buy the PPV if you knew that Matt Striker vs Balls Mahoney was going to be on it?
I think another major problem is that they just don't have enough TV time to get enough guys over to the point where they can put together a compelling full-length PPV. You can argue that TNA has the same problem, but they've been around much longer, and it took them years before they were ready to move to the "monthly PPV" format that WWE does. ECW in its current form has only been around for six months. The roster is just a wee bit on the small side as well. I think they would have been better off not doing the PPV since they had so many things working against them. They would have been better off either waiting until they got more guys over, or not cramming all the top guys into the main event, or even just doing another WWE vs ECW show. They'd do well to add a second hour of ECW that would be internet-only. Now was the wrong time to try and do an ECW-only PPV. Let's hope they have their act back together by June.
*
Okay, about Paul Heyman's dismissal, I don't think this is the death blow that will forever ruin ECW that everybody thinks it will be. Let's face facts, whether or not he's still the booker he was back during the glory days, he was never going to be able to book like Paul Heyman as long as he was working for the McMahons. He could add his own touches, but the McMahons still had the final say. He was in the best situation when he was in OVW and was basically free to book as he saw fit and, though I didn't get a chance to see any of it, by all accounts it made for some great TV. But if Paul Heyman's not able to do what he wanted in terms of booking, he was going to be unhappy. And if he was unhappy, he was going to say something to the McMahons about it, which would make them unhappy. Being that everyone involved was unhappy with the situation, I'm not surprised to see things turn out the way they did.
Here's something else to roll around in your head: Paul Heyman had apparently been given nearly complete booking control for the last few weeks of ECW, and regardless of what Vince or Paul thought of the shows, I thought they stunk and that this week's episode was much better. Another thing to remember is that it's not Paul Heyman's company anymore, it's Vince McMahon's. The same way you can't go around managing your ex-girlfriend's love life after you break up, you can't take sole control of a company you don't own anymore. If Vince McMahon has a different vision than Paul for the future of ECW, then he's better off having somebody like Dave Lagana writing than somebody who's going to question everything he wants done. I know I wouldn't like that very much if I was his boss. If nothing else, we might get a smoother product now that we don't have a situation where Vince is telling Paul what he wants and Paul gives it to him, but sneaks in as many elements of what he wants to do as he can in between. That leads to a really disjointed product.
And as for Paul, now he's free to go wherever and book for whoever. Sure, there's bound to be some sort of no-compete clause, but eventually he'll be free and clear. I don't think he'll end up in TNA (however much fun it would be to have Heyman, Russo, AND Cornette working in the same company) or ROH (where his pupil Gabe Sapolsky is doing a fine job on his own), but I don't think Paul Heyman's done in the business. He's bound to pop up somewhere, at least making an appearance where he comes out and pops the crowd by running down WWE. But I would be willing to bet that, with his booking track record, somebody out there will be willing to bring him on board in a creative capacity. If and when that happens, it's going to be really interesting to see how his latest project turns out.
*
I really have to question the finish of the main event of this week's Impact. I mean, Joe was undefeated for a year and a half, and when he finally lost to Angle it meant something. Now he's getting blown away in ten minutes on free TV. I know wins and losses aren't the be all and end all to Russo as long as the story gets told, but now a win over Joe is meaningless since it literally took nothing to put him away this week. I still think Angle's going over this weekend and Joe will get another rematch down the line where he'll win, possibly for the NWA Title if Angle picks it up along the way. I don't see Angle losing yet. They basically booked themselves into a corner with this match on Impact since nobody could really comfortably do the job. They COULD have if they'd left Rhino in, but I guess that's all in hindsight now.
*
By the way, I hear about Bobby Lashley's "amateur experience" where he was supposedly some kind of national champion. I know it wasn't in the NCAA, and he sucks ass as a wrestler. He has a suplex, big whoop. Does anybody know what his amateur credentials actually are? And I don't mean the constantly regurgitated "national champion and military champion", I mean what tournaments has he actually won and what level was it at? Like, does his amateur career consist of Pee Wee Tournaments? I know about amateur wrestling, so if you do write in don't feel like you have to dumb it down for me. I just have my doubts about this guy.
*
Oh, and knowing the way Russo books, is there anyone who DOESN'T see a Jerry Lynn heel turn a mile away?
The Weekly Execution Of AJ Styles
In my personal homage to Kenny from South Park, in this section I will execute my least favorite currently active wrestler, AJ Styles, on a weekly basis. As my way of giving back to the man, Mr Styles can be assured that, if he does nothing else in a given week, he has guaranteed column space here.
And we get the ball rolling on the executions in a big way this week, because the first time out, we're doing anal electrocution! That's right, as Daria put it all those years ago on Beavis & Butthead: "fifty thousand bolts...up the butt." Luckily for us, Kane still had the car battery he used to electrocute Shane McMahon's nuts and it still had some charge in it, and he was nice enough to give it to me. Thanks, Kane!
So we take the car battery, connect it to a nice, conductive metal rod, give AJ plenty of water to drink, and let 'er rip! Holy crap, look at AJ light up like a Christmas tree! Hey, what's that smell? EWWWWW, AJ! Can't you control your bodily functions? That's just disgusting. And look at the mess you made! AJ? AJ??? (nudges AJ)
Well, looks like AJ's done for this week. If you have any suggestions on other fun ways we can kill AJ Styles, send them along to stuwrestling@hotmail.com.
Links To Stuff You Can Read
Larry checks in with his review of the final PPV from the original ECW, Guilty As Charged 2001, a show which I was lucky enough to attend.
Also, here is 411's review of the new ECW's first standalone planecrash...I mean, PPV, December To Dismember.
O'Dog doesn't feel too good about the future prospects of ECW in his latest edition of The Goodness.
Michael Weyer gets all up in my ECW/TNA groove with this week's Shining A Spotlight.
Mike Hamflett reviews the book that set off the wrestling biography crazy, Mick Foley's Have A Nice Day, in Story Lines.
Bayani wants John Cena to drop the WWE Title in Truth B Told.
And if you didn't have enough, here's even MORE Larry Csonka, in Wrestling's 3R's.
What Did We Learn This Week?
In all things, there is at least one lesson to be learned. Here I will impart upon you what I took away from each week in ECW and TNA. You are encouraged to send in your own life lessons learned from such men as Kevin Thorn and Sonjay Dutt.
This week on ECW On Sci-Fi, I learned that...
-No matter how grotesquely obese you become, there is always some steroid freak somewhere out there who can bodyslam you.
-Putting on the best match in the short history of a TV show will invariably lead to you inexplicibly turning heel to kill your heat, and then being made into a job boy to boot.
-Chivalry is truly dead.
This week on TNA Impact, I learned that...
-It's okay to job out the most valuable wrestler on the roster in a ten minute main event match if you have a PPV to build to, because once he gets that big PPV win, everybody's going to forget that he jobbed in TEN FUCKING MINUTES.
-Though they may be secretly preparing to destroy the United States, the Iranians have done a good thing by providing Kurt Angle with the motivation to agree to another match with Samoa Joe.
-It's a good idea to book five guys who shouldn't be doing jobs into a match against one another three days before the PPV.
* * *
That's it for me this week, folks. I'll tell you what, this was a hell of a lot more fun to do than TWIH. If you've got any feedback or any contributions to The Weekly Execution Of AJ Styles or What Did We Learn This Week?, send them along to stuwrestling@hotmail.com. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next week.
