Welcome to another live BLATT vs. ECW. Let’s hope tonight’s show is without zombies and too many vampires.
Updates are in italics
Opening video is the look back at last week’s main event of Big Show vs. RVD ladder match where RVD won a shot at the ECW World Title. This is followed by Heyman announcing that RVD chose December to Dismember as his title shot opportunity. Heyman announces it will be an Extreme elimination Chamber match.
Tag match announced for tonight: RVD & Hardcore Holly vs. Test & the Big Show.
The first match tonight is a qualifying match for the EECM.
Sabu over Kevin Thorn by Camel Clutch
Interesting pairing of guys. Of course they are going to throw Thorn out there first because he’s a vampire and I just hoped that they would avoid the zombies and vampires tonight. Thorn has yet to be challenged in the ring so far, and we can’t tell if he’s any good either. Sabu takes early control, but this of course doesn’t last long. Sabu manages to hit an AWESOME springboard DDT on Thorn, who is selling Sabu like a broom would sell for Flair. The DDT is just the beginning of the sequence of moves that end the match, I don’t think they’ll acknowledge it but this was the first time that Thorn was pinned.
Rebbecca interviews the Sandman, but a clown walks by with a horn. The clown meets the same fate that the male stripper, Macho Libre and the zombie met. The Sandman hates clowns, despite this being Halloween and Rebbecca seems a bit scared. Sandman and Rebbecca are a nice match in an interview segment. At least this time she didn’t get beer spit on her.
Taz has a gift for Joey. It’s a noose. Man, I hope this stuff is a work.
Davari and the Great Khali make their ECW debuts and Davari’s got his headdress on in full effect. Khali’s chin is looking as big as ever. I guess this is now where they send mid-card gimmicks to die.
Davari over Shannon Moore by DDT (and terrorism)
Speaking of where gimmicks go to die, here’s the Princess of Punk. Khali does what he does best, which is standing there. Styles creates a link between Saddam Hussein and Davari, send in the marines. Khali comes into the ring and beat on the Princess a bit more before they leave the ring. If Khali’s chin or forehead got any bigger,
Rebbecca’s got RVD backstage. RVD’s there to talk about the EECM. RVD says he’s going to walk out the champion. Hardcore Holly breaks up the interview to remind RVD of the damage he did to him weeks ago that not only helped him get over, but become a face as well.
Next up: the vixens are wearing Halloween costumes.
Alright, we’re getting introduced to the Vixens. Taz is guessing that they are hot women in black robes. All three make their way to the ring, Ariel included. I figure that she’d not be involved because of her character. Trinity gets a surprisingly large reaction. Trinity is dressed as a crime scene. Ariel doesn’t appear to be wearing a costume, and she says as much. There’s always gotta be one wet blanket in the crowd. Kelly Kelly unveils her outfit as CM Punk. Trinity gets cheered, Ariel gets boed, the crowd goes nuts for Kelly Kelly. Somehow Trinity wins that one though. Trinity is described as a walking crime scene. This is funny on many levels. Knox comes out to confront Kelly and is met by CM Punk. Once again CM Punk kicks the crap out of Knox and sends him packing while he remains in the ring with Kelly Kelly. Let’s pull the trigger on a match already, please?
Mike Knox addresses me directly and issues a challenge to CM Punk for next week. He wants to know if we’ve enjoyed what we just saw. I took some enjoyment out of it. Thanks Mike.
Rob Van Dam & Hardcore Holly vs. Test & the Big Show
Man, if this match doesn’t read as “slow and lumbering except when RVD is in the ring” I don’t now what would.
It’s taken me this long to realize that they changed the entrance ramp to something a little more 2001 than the 2000 Royal Rumble look. It’s not bad, but it’s nothing wonderful either.
Apparently I missed Colt Cabana dressed as a pink fairy in the crowd with Matt Longtime as Frankenstein and Dysfunction as Beetlejuice (says Meltzer). I’ll have to check the tape later. Big RVD chant to start the match and RVD gets tagged in by Holly right away. This of course means he’ll be taking the abuse tonight. Holly gets tagged in next as Styles and Taz can’t figure out what an EECM is. Large Big Show sucks chant goes on while he’s not in the ring. RVD hits a nice cross body over the top rope on Test as he’s standing on the ring apron.
…and we go to commercial as both guys are outside the ring.
The match is a nice way to save the Big Show for Cyber Sunday, I guess. Back from commercial and the heels have control. Test does some damage with his foot to Van Dam’s head. Don’t mistake that for Test doing kicks or anything of that sort. He’s just stepping on him. You know, main event stuff. Oh that Test, he’s such a main eventer.
Show and Holly are both in just in case Test and his standing on RVD weren’t slow enough. Show makes sure to hit most of the main event heel bullet points. Mouths off to the referee, mouths off to the crowd between moves and makes slow circles between moves too. This is all within the first few seconds of Big Show being in the ring. Show is quickly out and Test is back in and met with a “Test sucks too” chant to even out the “Big Show sucks” chant from earlier. Test has a wrist lock / rest hold which might have been a bullet point missed by the Big Show. To make sure that he’s the slowest main eventer in the match Show’s back in the ring to do more damage to my patience. There’s another chant I’m missing, and I’m pretty sure that I have it wrong because I’m hearing “flush ‘dem balls”.
RVD is in to try and chop down the proverbial tree that is the Big Show. RVD does a good number on Show but Test makes the save. We’ve got BONZO GONZO right before the ref gets bumped. Test takes an Alabama Slam, Holly gets a clothesline, Show gets a thrust kick and RVD gets pulled out of the ring. No one is left in the ring and RVD gets attacked from behind by… a guy in a gorilla suit? What the hell? A gorilla with a pipe attacked RVD. The gorilla reveals himself to be Paul Heyman.
This is just in from the Wrestling Observer:
Paul channeled the GREAT 1982ish angle where Ted DiBiase & Matt Borne beat JYD & Mr. Olympia in a loser leaves town match. There was a gorilla in the stands (at the time that wasn’t an angle alert because they were taping as part of a county fair type deal in Shreveport). Anyway, the gorilla speared JYD, who was the one guy everyone knew wouldn’t lose the fall. Jim Duggan ended up being the gorilla. JYD came back as Stagger Lee the next week. Mid South Wrestling in 1982 had some of the best booking ever, by the way.
And by just in I mean it was in on Sunday.
See you next time, same Blatt time, same Blatt channel.
The Inside Pulse
So outside of the main event we’ve got a pretty productive show. Knox FINALLY issued a challenge to CM Punk to fight a real match, our first PPV main event is starting to firm up with half of the participants named in Big Show, RVD and Sabu, and Davari and Khali were introduced as new “threats”. I hope that Khali isn’t put into the main event at D2D, but you never know. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that my personal favorite for the show, Balls Mahoney, was nowhere to be seen once again, and the same thing goes for Matt Striker. Elijah Burke and Sylvester Terkay have yet to make appearances, but they’re not going to bring all four guys in at once. The main event was a fluff match to fill space and use up the guys that were a part of it. Big Show is going to be getting as much protection as possible until his contract is up in February and his Mania match with Hogan come Mania 23.
The EECM should be interesting. It’s going to eat up a lot of ECW’s thin talent roster and I hope that after they have 6 guys in that match they don’t wind up bringing in wither wrestlers to even out the card (this was a concern in the comments from the news post about this). I really hope that they can prove with this PPV that the ECW brand really is a separate brand and isn’t just a junior show of RAW and Smackdown!.
This week gets ***3/4 for trying as hard as they did.
