The SmarK 24/7 Rant for ECW on TNN – The Debut (August 27 1999)
– So let us take you back to 1999, when maverick promotion ECW finally went national, debuting on The Nashville Network as what turned out to be a warmup for the WWF jumping ship there as well. I don’t normally do the ECW shows on 24/7 because the Hardcore TV episodes are not very reviewable, but they had to clean up the production and pacing 1000% for this show, which makes it much easier to deal with as a reviewer. Joey Styles and Tazz introducing the show tell the rather embarrassing story about how crappy the first TV taping was, and thus the first episode on TNN is a “best of” show. Sadly they omit the part about how Tazz and the Dudley Boyz both defected to the WWF at this point, but WWE has themselves been upfront about that on the ECW DVD and such.
– Hosted by Joey Styles.
World TV title: Rob Van Dam v. Jerry Lynn.
Heck of a way to kick off the series. I have to wonder why they overdub “Walk” with a generic rock song when they could just as easily overdub with “One Of a Kind,” which is now much more closely associated with him and which WWE owns the right to? This match is from Hardcore Heaven 99, for those keeping track. Gymnastics sequence to start and they cut some highlights from Lynn’s other matches in to build him up. RVD slugs away out of the lockup, but gets put on the apron by Lynn and dropkicked to the floor. Lynn follows with a crossbody off the top and brings him in with a guillotine legdrop. That gets two. They slug it out on the top and Lynn brings him down with a bulldog, which gets two. Rob gets the chair from Fonzie, but Lynn kicks it back at him, only to get dropkicked to the floor. We take a break and return with Rob hitting a tope suicida over the guardrail, nailing Lynn in the front row. Back in, Lynn tries a tornado DDT, but RVD blocks with a suplex for two. Lynn with a sunset bomb for two. Short-arm clothesline and they fight to the floor, where RVD backdrops him into the crowd. He follows with a Van Daminator and we take another break, and return with Rob baseball sliding a chair into Lynn’s face in the ring. That gets two, and they slug it out on the apron, which leads to Lynn powerbombing RVD through a table on the floor. Back in, after some more annoying editing, Lynn accidentally tosses a chair at the ref, but gets a german suplex for two anyway. He goes up, but Rob runs up the ropes and kicks him in the head, but they just totally blow the superplex and both fall down, which gives Rob two. Ugh. Lynn with his own Van Daminator for two. Pinfall reversal sequence leads to the rollup from Lynn for two out of a cradle piledriver attempt. Lynn slugs away in the corner, but Rob fires back and pops up with a moonsault for two. Lynn tries an inverted DDT, but Rob snapmares him into a legdrop and fires off the frog splash, but Lynn reverses the cradle for two. RVD finally gets his Van Daminator and another frog splash finishes at 15:26. Definitely liked it more than my initial viewing while drunk and grumpy in a shitty bar in the slums of downtown Edmonton, but with the blown spots and goofy editing it’s definitely one of their lesser efforts. ***1/2
– Back to 1994, as Shane Douglas throws down the NWA World title. This gives Joey the chance to name a bunch of guys who never won the ECW title. That kind of stuff just comes across as so needy and bush league.
ECW World title: Taz v. Rhino
The compulsion to put an extra “Z” on Taz and spell “Rhino” with a Y is nearly overwhelming. Rhino immediately powerbombs Taz, but it’s no-sold and Taz flips him off and tosses him. Rhino was nothing at this point, just a flunky for Steve Corino. Back in, Taz drops him on his head with a suplex and then follows with a t-bone superplex. Taz grabs a table and sets it up in the corner, and Rhino goes through that, too, sure enough. Man, there’s squashes and then there’s SQUASHES. Tazzmission ends the brutality at 3:02. If Rhino had been on his way out, this would have counted as a total burial. *
Big Sal v. Spike Dudley. Acid Drop and we’re done at 0:15. These days Big Sal is more well known for doing weight loss shows on TLC.
– Meanwhile, we meet the Impact Players and Cyrus, who comes across as a big star here. Too bad he burned his bridges with WWE because he would have been the perfect leader of the Right To Censor and might have made it watchable.
– A video package introduces basically the entire cast of characters with quick snips, followed by Taz doing one of his towel promos. It’s nice that they devoted so much time on this show to making Taz look like a giant star right before he left the promotion.
– Back in the present, Joey and Tazz wrap it up, and Joey tells the story about how much TNN absolutely hated the first show and were ready to bail on the deal after one show. Joey readily admits what a disaster that first show was and Tazz talks about leaving the promotion just when it was about to break nationally.
– Well, there was one pretty good RVD v. Lynn match, and a nice introduction to some of the players, but the match selection was pretty terrible and it didn’t really communicate what the promotion was about. I can see why TNN had such a problem with it, frankly. I’d like to say that the show got drastically better, but it didn’t, and in fact by the end it was a bizarre trainwreck of Paul Heyman rebelling against the network that bailed out his company. Take a pass on this one.
