Posted September 3, 201015 yr comment_5455292 Little Guido v. Tajiri After watching this I really think this is the greatest pairing in ECW history. None of their matches fail to hit the mark and this is the third one that I think is a legitimately great match. This is less spotty than their other matches and has a totally different feel even if one of the primary themes is the same, i.e. the arm work on Tajiri. I thought Guido was actually the star of this. Loved the early exchange with him screaming that Tajiri couldn't outwrestle him which sort of set the tone as every time Tajiri would look to take over Guido would take him down and go to the arm. Conversely Tajiri's offensive swings were entirely reliant on kicks and Guido's selling of them was excellent. There were some great spots in this including Tajiri hitting his rewind back elbow which "hurt" him leading to a Guido cross armbreaker attempt, Guido trying to isolate the arm from the front and Tajiri hitting a desperation German suplex and yet another cool Fujiwara take down from Guido. This match was much more low key than the other two matches and had fewer dynamic moments but I thought the consistency of the arm work was better and made for a more complete story. Finish with a somewhat out of the blue Tajiri brainbuster was disappointing and satisfying at the same time as you wanted it to go longer, but it really did come across as a Tajiri hail mary that happened to connect. Tommy Dreamer v. Steve Corino Dreamer agrees to work a "pure" wrestling match at Corino's insistence. This is basically the match these guys were working around the horn at that time with an opening amateur sequence, gay jokes, Corino breaking the rules first, Corino refusing to do hardcore spots, et. Most things are executed well but this doesn't really seem like the best you could do working this sort of match. Battle Royal This was actually pretty fun. Lots of good looking punches from Balls, a really cool Chetti elimination that was mimmicked and upped by Justin Credible, and a cool final showdown with Spike and Roadkill leading to Roadkill taking an insane bump over a table on the floor. Fun. Tracy Smothers v. Justin Credible This is an interesting match up. Rich says Credible's crew consists of some "brown sugar" and a "parapalegic." Awesome. Credible backing off and running away from Smothers is funny as shit. Seriously Credible working a stalling gimmick in a match where the opposition is Smothers and Rich is fucking hysterical. Credible wildly running from Smothers babyface offensive explosions was even better. Smothers just morphs into a natural babyface so easily, firing up and taking the big bump off of Jason interference to set up the heel control segment. Smothers utilizing his wild theatric bumps as a babyface and smacking the mat to get the crowd fired up for his comeback attempt were just really awesome and a neat departure fromt he usual ECW act he had. There was some sloppy execution in this but it was really fun and fresh and I thought both guys were excellent at doing the things they had to do to make a unique match like this work. D-Von Dudley/Bubba Dudley v. Nova/Chris Chetti I thought some of the early athletic spots with Nova and D-Von actually looked really good and the early Chetti v. Bubba mat segment and Bubba's reacion was pretty awesome. Actually I liked Bubba a lot in this as he bumped huge and I loved his big running rope splash spot. Chetti took a totally crazed bump toward the end of this. Sort of boring during parts but this was fairly well structured and not a total disaster. New Jack v. Mustapha Pre-match Axl Rotten comes out to Natural Born Killaz distracting Mustapha who gets attacked from behind by New Jack. Then Axl throws the trash can of stuff in the ring and Jack stabs him up pretty nastily. Mustapha walks out and New Jack grabs the mic and says something and then brings a small young fan in the ring and hands him the fork he stabbed Mustapha with. What the fuck... Lance Storm v. Super Crazy I liked Crazy fine in this, especially his insane over the top rope bump off of an attempted running knee. Storm was just sort of there. This was a standard workrate match with a few really cool things and a bunch of stuff that you just shrug your shoulders at. Spike Dudley v. Taz Spike sells Taz's big boot so well you actually think it is a decently executed spot even though it really wasn't. Actually this was a cool match that was fucked up by Roadkill and doring interference. Spike bumped huge and Taz gave Spike a fair amount and made him look in the process even without really selling too much for him. Balls Mahoney v. Rob Van Dam This was okay. I thought some of the spots with Van Dam altering his offense to block Balls counters were pretty coo,l and Van Dam's hilo looked crazy, but that chair hot potato spot was fucking horrible and I thought a lot of this was pretty pedestrian. Finishing was fairly well done.
