WWE: Tuesday Night ECW Review
Tuesday, June 13th, 2006 – Trenton, New Jersey – Some Arena That Either I Didn’t Hear Them Say or They Didn’t Announce – Welcome to a series of blogs on the first few episodes of WWE’s third brand, ECW! Granted this wasn’t the original Extreme Championship Wrestling, but I enjoyed the original airings of WWECW. So, wanting to give it another spin, I’ll be reviewing the first few episodes I recorded on VHS, and then dubbed onto DVD years later. Hope you guys enjoy the reviews!
The show started with Drowning Pool’s “Bodies” theme, along with ECW’s One Night Stand pay-per-view 48 hours prior, along with John Cena saying on Monday Night Raw the night before that he’ll show up on ECW, trying to gain retribution for losing the WWE title to RVD on Sunday night!
Segment One: Paul Heyman was welcomed by the “ECW” fans at Trenton, New Jersey, and by Justin Roberts, the ECW ring announcer. The fans love seeing Paul E. back and I can’t blame them. Joey Styles and Tazz are our announcers for the show, and a team I really enjoyed at the announce booth.
After Styles and Tazz did their opening speal, Heyman introduced the WWE Champion, who carried the spinner belt. Man, am I ever happy the spinner belt was ditched and the new WWE title debuted about a month ago.
Rob Van Dam thanked Paul and also thanked the fans for the cheers and support to their new champion. Van Dam mentioned that Cena claims he’d show up and wants him to “do the right thing” and help celebrate ECW’s debut on the SciFi network!
Heyman mentions that since RVD defeated Cena two nights before at ECW’s One Night Stand, Heyman wants to crown RVD as the NEW EXTREME CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION!
Paul asked RVD what he’ll do with the WWE title, and Rob responded by saying he’ll defend both titles. Moments after, Edge’s theme hit and he and Lita came to the ring. The crowd chanted “Thank You Edge!” because it was Edge that helped RVD win two nights before, defeating John Cena.
Edge shook RVD’s hand and said he’s looking forward to challenging him for the WWE title at Vengence, and got speared for believing Edge only wanted to shake hands. Edge and Lita tried to leave in the crowd but Cena showed up and tossed him back to the ringside area and the three men battled each other for a few minutes.
After the commercial break, Heyman was backstage with the ECW roster and told his roster that if the Raw roster wanted to show them what they were about, the ECW roster will show up on Monday Night Raw, on the USA Network, and show the Raw guys what they’re about! Yes!
Match One: the Zombie versus the Sandman
When the Zombie got into the ring, he went over to Justin Roberts and grabbed the mic and spoke “Zombie language,” grunting into the mic. Maybe 15 seconds into his grunts, the Sandman’s theme hit, and he came down through the crowd, with beer and the kendo stick in hand!
Before the bell rang, Sandman nailed the Zombie with the Kendo Stick, tagging with a pop from the crowd! The bell rang and the Sandman wen to town with the Kendo Stick when the Zombie was on the ground.
The Sandman picked him up and hit him with the White Russian Leg Sweep, pinned him, and scored the victory!
Winner: the Sandman!
For the first match, I am pleased that this lasted minutes, if that, and allowing the new ECW audience to see what the Sandman was all about. I have to give this match a * and ½ * rating, since it was super short, and we saw a Kendo Stick beating on a “dead dude!”
Segment Two: Kelly Kelly tells us all about what she’s about…that she’s all about taking her clothes off! The crowd popped huge for that statement! What horny teenage boys and young-20-somethings!
After the commercial break, we see a video package from ECW One Night Stand and we see the match Tazz and Jerry Lawler had. I guess you can say this was ECW’s second match.
Match Two: Tazz versus Jerry “the King” Lawler (from ECW One Night Stand 2006)
The crowd at the arena where the PPV took place was a “vintage ECW crowd,” cheering for Tazz and booing hugely when Lawler’s theme hit. To gain more heat, Lawler walked over to where Styles was sitting at and slapped him across the face, making sure the fans hated him. Another great clip to show the ECW fans what they were about.
Styles ran down to the ring and jumped Lawler. He didn’t get far, since Lawler was a trained wrestler and he wasn’t. Lawler threw him off of him and was about to hit the piledriver on Style, but Tazz grabbed Lawler and put him in the Tazzmission.
The King passed out to the Tazzmission and Tazz picked up the victory!
Winner: Tazz!
I have to give this match a * and ¾ * rating, because it was short, and told an awesome story. Like mentioned for the Sandman match, Lawler put over Tazz great, helping show the world what ECW was about and helped continue the rivalry that Lawler and ECW had back in the 90’s. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, find the ECW documentary and watch it. WWE’s “Rise and Fall of ECW” tells it perfectly on why Lawler didn’t like ECW at the time.
Match Three: Kurt Angle versus Justin Credible
The first thing that happened was when Credible entered the ring, he ran towards Angle and Angle hit the double leg take down onto Justin Credible and showed the fans what WWE “never allowed” him to do, and that’s be the “Wrestling Machine,” and show off his amateur moves.
Angle let Credible up and Credible got into Angle’s face, I guess telling him that Angle has nothing on him, and Angle responded with a headbutt, which Credible kneeled because of it, and Angle locked on a choke hold, which caused Credible to tap out.
Winner: Kurt Angle!
I have to give this match a * star rating, since it was all Angle, and seemed a lot like a squash match, which isn’t bad at all. Helps put Angle over as a Wrestling Machine and shows the WWE Universe the new style Angle was trying to put over.
Angle grabbed the mic said that it doesn’t matter what set of rules he faces Randy Orton because he’ll make Orton tap out at Vengeance and he’s the new face of ECW!
Segment Three: Paul Heyman’s backstage and asked us if we want to fell extreme. Heyman threw out all his plans and said that the main event would be a ten man Extreme Battle Royal and the winner would face John Cena at Vengeance. Great way to put over the winner of the Battle Royal.
Segment Four: Kelly Kelly’s Exposé. Yup, Kelly Kelly danced and tried to take her clothes off. What else can I say? Not much of a reaction, which I was surprised. Whatever.
Match Four: the Extreme Battle Royal!
Tommy Dream, Sabu, Al Snow, Stevie Richards, Road Kill, some guy who I don’t know and was never named, the FBI, Balls Mahoney, and the Big Show all participated in the Battle Royal. All this humanity in a hardcore Battle Royal, I’m excited! It’ll be hard to do a play-by-play for this match; I’ll mention some of the highlights.
Hands down, the Big Show was highlighted off and on throughout the battle royal. Makes me wonder on whom’ll get put over in this match. Hmm, interesting.
Road Kill and Tommy Dreamer both tried at individual times to take out the Big Show with weapons and they both didn’t get far. Well, the only time they went far was when the Big Show tossed them out of the ring. Good paycheck for them, I suppose.
Big Guido and the Big Show went at it and the Big Show almost eliminated Guido, until Guido held onto the Show and Sabu grabbed a chair and jumped and smacked the Show on the back, eliminated him!
Winner: Sabu!
I have to say that this match has to be a ** star match. The weapons helped to put this match and episode over. I am looking forward to future episodes, since I edited this down; ECW was only 45 minutes long, which I really enjoyed. If the WWE wants to keep all the shows that they currently have, I don’t know why they bump Raw down to two hours, Smackdown to an hour, and have the Main Event on Wednesday nights stay an hour, and have Saturday Morning Slam 30 minutes long, because that’d be an easy dose to put down for WWE.
But that’s my opinion. As a “debut episode,” I have to give this show a ** and a ¼ * rating, since it showcased some of the main stars on ECW and gave the new audience a taste of what’s to come. Like said, I really enjoyed the hour television format because it was easy to digest and forces the WWE to hit the main points rather fast. If you can, go out and find this episode.
Main Event Status Radio 