The Name on the Marquee: ECW Legacy 5

Posted by Adam Nedeff on 10.31.2009

Heinousness!

-Your hosts are Joey Styles & Tommy Dreamer.

-This week, we’re looking at ECW’s most heinous moments. The entire first episode taped for TNN will not be included, but this should be good nonetheless.

-Tommy Dreamer talks a little bit about the Sandman-Raven feud and shares a little backstage tale about how life imitated art.

SHANE DOUGLAS ATTACKS PITBULL #1
-So Pitbull #1 had legitimately injured his neck a month earlier in a match against Shane Douglas. Tommy tells the story of Pitbull #1 walking around for a few days and actually going to a chiropractor to have his neck adjusted because he didn’t realize that he was seriously injured.

-So we go to a match pitting Pitbull #2 against Shane Douglas. Pitbull #1 is cheering on his partner’s corner, wearing a brace & harness that cover his entire neck and torso. Pitbull #2 basically has the match won when Francine produces a bag of white powder. This is neither the time nor the place for that, frankly, but Pitbull #2 gets to work on beating the shit out of her, with the running powerslam left intact (I do NOT get the censoring choices made on this show). Shane gets his hands on the powder anyway and manages to blind Pitbull #2, who accidentally wipes out the referee. From there, Shane viciously goes to work on the neck with a DDT (the same move that injured #1) and a chain.

-#1 provides enough inspiration that his partner is able to get free, but Shane grabs his harness and shakes him back & forth. What happens next is NOT what you expect to see from the smarkiest crowd on earth, as a shitload of fans storm the ring and go after Shane, who runs for his life from the building while being chased by Tommy Dreamer (who maintains that he wasn’t in on this) and a handful of fans. Meanwhile, Tod Gordon, Joey Styles, EMTs, and a number of wrestlers run in to check on the Pitbull. Joel Gertner tries to announce Shane Douglas as the winner, which triggers an attack from Tod Gordon. 1 for 1. Much as we all bash Ole Anderson, he made a very valid argument in his shoot interview. It doesn’t matter if the whole world knows that wrestling is a work; you can still make them believe that what they’re seeing is real if you work hard enough at it. And everybody in this angle was working pretty damn hard.

TOMMY DREAMER WATCHES HELPLESSLY
-During a six-man tag involving Tommy Dreamer, the Sandman, and a veritable host of Dudleys, biased referee Jeff Jones and biased ring announcer Joel Gertner get their asses handed to them by Spike Dudley & Beulah. Buh Buh & D-Von counter by handcuffing Tommy Dreamer & Sandman, then murdering Spike with a ladder. They turn their attention to Tommy and get set to kick his ass, but Beulah begs for mercy. She gets 3-Ded as a result. It’s heinous, yeah, but what bothered me was the way that it just came across as another spot in the match. If you want to scare the shit out of the fans, build up to something like this a little bit. 1 for 2.

RAVEN’S NEW FOLLOWER
-The Sandman’s ex-wife comes to the ring and simulates oral sex on Raven. Sandman shows up as says he’s not mad because he already knew that she was a whore.

-A little bit later, Sandman is ready to splatter Raven’s brains with the cane, but suddenly he brings out a cute little Dennis the Menace-looking tyke of eight or so, introducing him to Sandman as “Your son; this is your son, Tyler!” Joey Styles helpfully clarifies by telling us, “That’s the Sandman’s son, Tyler!” I might need to check Wikipedia, but I think this kid is Sandman’s son, Tyler.

-Tyler calls his old man a drunk and announces that he worships Raven now. Beulah, positioning herself as the MVP of this episode, challenges Peaches to a fight, but Raven backs away. Meanwhile, Sandman has been reduced to tears, and that’s great when a character is so firmly established that when he cries, it MEANS something because you just never expect it.

-Raven cuts a super-dick promo bragging about how, after working so hard to raise his kid, Sandman sees the kid simply walk away and go to him instead. He declares himself to be the salvation of the children, and Tyler mimics his pose. And we get something that we don’t get very often at all, motivation, as Raven clarifies that he’s feeling incredibly pissed about his parents’ own divorce years earlier.

-So a little while, at Natural Born Killaz, Sandman just canes everything in sight while Raven hides behind Tyler. A “Cane your kid!” chant erupts, demonstrating what a genius Paul Heyman truly was. If you can make an eight-year-old kid your top heel, you may be a god.

-Sandman instead tries to make peace with his son, but Tyler whacks him with the cane (which he should have followed by yelling “I LEARNED IT FROM WATCHING YOU!!!”…or not) and leaves with Raven. Sandman lets out an anguished scream of “Tylerrrrrrrrrr!!!” to round things out. Very different, and VERY effective stuff here. 2 for 3.

RVD SHOOTS!
-For those who are screaming “Show me a damn match!” here’s your segment, as we get a very generous portion of Rob Van Dam vs. Lance Storm. RVD just beats the living shit out of Lance Storm with a chair while the crowd chants “Sell-out!” (RVD was doing a WWF-loyalist wannabe thing at this point.) After putting on a clinic of different ways to use a chair, Lance Storm suddenly makes a miracle comeback, but the Van Daminator secures the win.

-Lance offers a hearty handshake post-match, but RVD doesn’t want his respect or these people’s respect! He complains about being used as an injury substitution and says that winning the match under those circumstances, he’s worth more money to ECW…and more money elsewhere. 3 for 4. Good spotfest and an above-average promo by RVD standards. Given how his promos typically aren’t that good, I suspect his good promo is a one-shot deal! OMG LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I JUST….AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….I JUST…THOUGHT OF THAT! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! WIN!

TOMMY DREAMER WINS AND LOSES THE BELT
-Tommy & Taz trade two-counts until Tommy pulls a three-count out of nowhere. Taz presents him with the ECW belt and hugs him, taking a final bow before leaving Tommy in the ring to soak in the accolades from the fans. Tommy delivers a tearful promo. He never made it to Wrestlemania or Starrcade, but he made it to the ECW arena!

-A number of co-workers make their way to the ring to pay their respects to their triumphant comrade, but then along comes Raven…who offers a handshake and a hug. It turns out to be Justin Credible playing the part of Paul Orndorff tonight, taking out Tommy Dreamer and Raven. Justin demands a title shot immediately, and despite being busted open, Tommy goes for it.

-It’s an ECW brawl, complete with the happy little walk through the crowd, and the annoying thing is they don’t even do a high spot when they get there. They literally walk through the crowd, make it to a wall, and then head back to the ring. This leads to another dumb spot where Dreamer lays the bell on Justin’s nuts and then rings it. Why would that hurt?

-Justin mounts a comeback, and a hell of a comeback at that, targeting Tommy’s injured eye and laying into him with a chair. Dreamer refuses to stay down and hits a Death Valley driver on Justin through a table. Justin gets desperate and tries to finish with That’s Incredible, but Tommy kicks out. Francine runs in to beg for Mercy from Justin and Justin tries to go after her. Tommy comes to her rescue and goes for another DVD, but Francine turns on him with a shot to the nuts, and the win is academic for Justin Credible. 3 for 6. Those of you new fans who weren’t watching back then…we fans were incredibly sick of these turns by this point.

-We go back to the studio for Tommy & Joey’s reaction to RVD’s shoot. I can think of one place where it would have been more sensible to do this segment. Funny end to it, as Joey misreads some sarcasm, and Tommy clarifies, "I was riffing, like Tazz-with-two-Z's used to do."

The 411: The two things you need to cover when talking about ECW are its style of wrestling and its style of booking. After four episodes of nothing but matches, they pretty much had to do this episode. And while the Sandman/Raven feud and the Pitbull attack were essentials, some of this stuff just didn't seem historical or noteworthy. Is Rob Van Dam cutting a heel turn promo supposed to look different from other heel turns we've seen? Is ECW copying Vince Russo's booking supposed to make me nod my head appreciatively?

Final Score:  5.0   [ Not So Good ]