Posted August 25, 201015 yr comment_5454958 Chilly Willy v. Mike Bell Total squash though Willy does hit possibly the stiffest butt bump I've ever seen. Bilvis Wesley v. Michael Shane I had forgotten all about Wiles getting stuck with this gimmick at the tale end of ECW. I actually liked the early story of this with Shane working Wesley's arm and I kind of wish they would have stuck with that. Somewhere in here Wesley gets cut hardway. Actually his offense looks pretty stiff in this and I'm sort of surprised he didn't split Shane open. This is paced really reasonably, has a couple of good punch exchanges and even pretty good build to the big spots. I'm not going to advocate for this but it's easily the best Michael Shane match I've ever seen for whatever that is worth. EZ Money/Julio Dinerio v. Balls Mahoney/Nova Man the early Nova/Money segment of this is like the shittiest possible version of the Red v. Ki Kung Fu Sequences. I can just imagine them sitting in the crowd at this show and thinking "fuck we can do better than that." On the other hand I really enjoyed Dinerio's selling for Balls punches and Balls frog splash looked really great. In Nova's defense I will say that he took a couple of nasty whiplash bumps in this. There was an awful lot of garbage in this but there was enough good to keep it from being a total dud. Christian York v. Jerry Lynn Cyrus brings Lynn out and man heel Jerry Lynn comes across as the most forced and phony thing I've ever seen in wrestling. I have not hated Lynn as much as I thought I would have so far but this is just a really weak role for him and his heel taunting of the same four or five fans is just strange. Anyhow this match was stupid. Kid Kash v. Justin Credible Good god this was awful. Several blown spots, really awkward pacing and a fucking stupid finish that made both guys look worse. Horrid. Roadkill/Danny Doring v. Da Baldies I will say this - these guys bumped big and hard throughout this match. This was not particularly good though it wasn't a disaster either. Heel ref getting thwarted by a WWE loaned/returning Taz was pretty cool. Rhino v. Spike Dudley This is pretty much Spike's kind of match as he gets over on Rhino early using his speed, only for Rhino to take over with power and just maul him. I was not totally enamored with Rhino's control segment at first because he seemed to be distracted by some douchebag who was getting thrown out of the building, but once you saw that Spike had color, Rhino seemed to really lay in to him with stiff shots, a nasty gore, et. I really loved Rhino chucking Spike into the crowd and that being the impetus for the Spike comeback. Spike's whole gimmick is nerd who snaps and beats up big guys and he really beats the shit out of Rhino at this point with some nasty chairshots amidst the crowd and hurling Rhino off a stage with a hip toss. The finish to this was pretty great as Spike introduced a table on the floor and tried to hit the acid drop onto it, but Rhino nailed him with a leaping piledriver from the apron through the table instead. Spike gets rolled into the ring and somehow kicks out, only for Rhino to hit another piledriver for the three. For a ten minute match this took a while to develop, but the last four minutes were really fucking good so I'm giving it a thumbs up. Mikey Whipwreck/Tajiri v. FBI I have a memory of these matches being really rapid fire spotfest and this does not really fit my memory of those matches. That is not to say this is not a spotfest, because at the end of the day it is. But there are nuances here that I really enjoyed. For example Mamaluke throwing a blind punch to Mikey's face to escape a headscissor, or Tajiri finally avoiding Guido's Fujiwara take down. Another positive in this match was Tajiri, who I thought looked really great. At one point Mikey is working over Mamaluke and Tajiri leans over and screams at him "Mikey let me in, I want to try something he knew." He then proceeds to tie up Mamaluke and Guido in to utterly bizarre and visually shocking submissions neither of which I have seen before. Later when he takes the hot tag from Mikey he unloads an really awesome barrage of strikes on Mamaluke. This wasn't precision work either. I'm talking about fast and furious bombs that were thrown to every corner of his body with such velocity that the ones that didn't connect actually added to the intensity of the attack. Having said that James Mitchell was annoying as fuck in this match, Mikey did not look particularly good and I thought Guido looked outright bad at times. When Tajiri was beating the hell out of Mamaluke this was a lot of fun, but the rest of the time it felt flat and I don't think it should advance on the strength of relatively short exchanges. Steve Corino v. Sandman (Texas Death Match) My problem with this is that there was no beginning or middle at all. Literally the first spot is these guys exchanging slow motion punches in the ring. Granted they sold them well but when you do your first double knockout spot in a Texas Death Match less than a minute in there is a problem. I did think Sandman sold his ass off in this and there were some crazy spots that looked good but it had a bullshit finish and a match that is essentially one long stretch run can not go through with a bullshit finish. D-Von Dudley/Bubba Dudley/Tommy Dreamer v. Simon Diamond/Johnny Swinger/C.W. Anderson (Street Fight) The angle to set up the one night return of the Dudleyz early in the show was pretty great with them helping Dreamer make the save of an attack on Mercury and Matthews by Diamond and co. Pre-match is pretty ridiculous as they do the whole Dudleyz intro spiel and Bubba singles out the one anti-Dudz sign in the crowd and tells him to come to the ring. When he says he won't because of security Bubba says "security hasn't been paid in 2 months they aren't going to do nothing." Then he goes up in the crowd and gets in the guys face which is really uncomfortable and sort of sad for a variety of reasons. The match itself is straight up comedy with a lengthy mid-match Too Cool dance segment that includes Dreamer exposing his thong clad ass, Towel Boy getting chucked onto the heels Spike Dudley style, et. This was only a month before the company went under and this had the feel of a "goodbye" match with a really subdued crowd.
