Posted September 1, 201015 yr comment_5455251 Little Guido v. Tajiri Guido mocks with the crane so Tajiri runs him off with elaborate air kicking which was pretty funny. Then Guido comes in and takes Tajiri to the mat and Tajiri reverses him and gains control. Guido is bumping huge early off basic shit and it is really awesome. Guido wins a strike exchange which was bizarre and Tajiri tries to go to the air and gets taken down with the Fujiwara and from that point on this match becomes unbelievably great. Guido does a really great job of going back to the arm throughout and Tajiri does a great job of selling it. Tajiri gets a nasty hardway cut to the eye at some point but they never miss a beat as he hits a bunch of cool mat shit, some brutal strikes including the back kick counter to the corner, et. Guido's bumping really can't be overstated here as it is great and I loved Tajiri kicking big Sal to shit before the finishing brainbuster which looked brutal as hell. This is right up there with the Hardcore Heaven 99 match. Clean cut babyface Tajiri was really great. Super Crazy v. El Mosco Del Merced This is an interesting follow up to the previous match. Stand off exchange of flippy shitty at the start was pretty fun and well done and then Mosco almost dies on a missed moonsault and Crazy almost kills the ref using him as a vault for a hilo. Later they do an even crazier flip/highspot exchange on the floor that ends with Crazy hitting a moonsault off the stage. There are probably a half dozen dives in this. I don't think Merced does a single spot in this that doesn't involve a twist or a flip of some sort. Crazy's reverse surfboard spot was pretty cool as he was dragging Merced's face across the mat in the process. Finish seemed sort of out of the blue but I think this should be seen as a really fun pure spotfest. Jerry Lynn v. Justin Credible This might have been the best structured of their matches. Got the heavy Credible pinballing early to set the tempo along with some big Jerry Lynn spots. When Credible takes over his offense looks more spirited than normal and Lynn had some good bumps and reactions including a great spinoff bump off of a post shot on the floor that was a really awesome cutoff spot. They ran through some other really good cutoff spots in the ring, including a blindside cane shot that stopped a Lynn run that I actually liked a lot. Table spot was really well built to. In fact I even enjoyed the interference here as it came across as buying time for Credible rather than just run-ins's for the sake of run-ins like a lot of other ECW stuff. Was not huge on the false finishes or the finish itself, but I think this was good enough to move on. Nova v. Lance Storm Nova took a really good guardrail bump. Otherwise this was standard fare. Mustapha Saed v. New Jack This could have been worse. I mean it sucked but New Jack two good bumps and it wasn't long. Balls Mahoney v. Rod Price I enjoyed this way more than I should have. Some of the crowd brawling was chopped up and poorly shot but this had the aura of a real live street fight. Balls was throwing some real big blows in this and I enjoyed his interplay with the crowd. Price bled a huge and nasty gusher in this and his comeback was a lot of fun as he looked legit pissed from the blood loss and beat the fuck out of Balls during his run including a great superplex through a table. Really enjoyed the teased finishes on this and I thought the finish was a lot fun. There was not a great deal of "stuff" in this, but I thought it was a solid street fight. Roadkill/Danny Doring v. D-Von Dudley/Bubba Dudley I enjoyed Roadkill stiffing D-Von, but he really should have been paired off with Bubba at the jump. Bubba dumping Doring on his head was pretty nasty. I usually complain about the brevity of ECW FIP segments, but the Doring segment here seemed to go really long even though everything was executed well and there were some good cutoff spots mixed in. Actually fuck that Doring was the best I've ever seen him as FIP here. Some of Doring's post-hot tag offense was really shitty but I loved all of the double team spots from the babyfaces and Doring's selling of the blindside shot from Sign Guy that led to Roadkill being left alone for the Death Drop was actually really awesome. This is pretty much THE Doring match to watch as it is the one time I can recall him outworking Roadkill and easily the best babyface performance of Doring's career. Tommy Dreamer v. Steve Corino Holy shit the mic exchange that proceeds this match goes on forever. It gets the crowd hot, but it could have been half as long and just as successful. Then the first five minutes of the match is Francine mooning the crowd. Man the stalling this is ridiculous. I mean the fucking mic work on here just keeps going on and on after every exchange. It's all good and entertaining but it's actually mind blowing how lengthy this is at this point. The deal of course is that Corino wants Dreamer to work a straight up "old school" match so Dreamer obliges. Corino ends up throwing the first punches (which all look great) so Tommy of course beats him up, does the crowd brawling, et. Tommy ends up doing a Flair flop while wearing a Big Goldy replica belt, putting on a Crow Sting match during an offensive run and other goofy shit. Corino introduces a ladder and they do some pretty big bumps with it leading to the finish. As a whole this was a good match with some really fun mic work but I feel like it was one of the most needlessly long segments I've ever seen in wrestling. Spike Dudley v. Rob Van Dam There are people who really like their matches together and I understand why because Spike does take Van Dam's stuff well and will bump like a nut for anyone. On the other hand I really want to see Spike get more in. Van Dam is an abysmal offensive wrestler during this period and there is only so good you can make him look with what he's got. I mean Spike does get his shit in here but really comes across as an afterthought in the match and I don't think Van Dam does anything to make it look serious or threatening. Overall I wouldn't object to someone calling this a "good" match but I don't feel like it's something worth going out of your way to see.
