Loved Shane's bump off the back body drop and selling on the floor bleeding right into him eating a plancha. then Mikey stomped his fingers and started working his arm which I liked as well. Shane reverses a hammerlock but gets dropped to the floor. He pauses to shit talk a fan and ends up turning right around into a baseball slide. Rope running spot and Shane comes down on his knee after a leapfrog selling it. Amazingly instead of it being a fake injury, Mikey starts targeting the leg. Mikey hits an Indian Deathlock that looks really cool and they actually do a Shane hope spot only for Shane to get chop blocked and locked into a figure-four. Shane tries to sit up and Mikey chops him down while in the figure-four which was awesome. Mikey finally gets cut off with a desperation hot shot. Shane hits his delayed vertical here but I liked it a lot as he pulled up early and sold the leg pretty hard afterword. Shane with his reverse neck snap which looked sick. Mikey just gets drilled on a release gutwrench suplex and Shane locks in a camel clutch. Mikey really starts selling his back at this point and Shane hits a belly to back. Shane gets down on his knees and locks on a weird neckbreaker hold. Shane goes up top but Mikey catches him and hits a superplex for a nearfall, then a standing rana for another. Mikey gets whipped into the ropes but comes back with a flying forearm of all things for another nearfall. Shane takes a superkick and crawls through the ropes to the floor. Mikey suplexs Shane in and Francine tries to grab his leg but Mikey kicks her on her ass. Mikey hits a sweet diving dropkick for a great nearfall. Almost too good actually as the fans are pissed off when Douglas kicks out and of course Shane pulls the win with a belly to belly out of the corner seconds later. This was a pretty great match. Actually with Shane's selling being consistent and the leg injury actually playing some role in Mikey's ability to make a comeback.

ECW World Heavyweight Title: "The Franchise" Shane Douglas © vs. Mikey Whipwreck (9/19/97)

 

These two always have good matches it seems so this should be no different. Shane gets the crowd going early on and they hate his guts but then he works a left knee injury allowing Mikey to really work him over. I loved Mikey doing the figure-four then using chops ala Flair to get the crowd whooing. Shane would eventually get on offense while still selling the leg and puts Mikey through the wringer. Mikey would make a spirited comeback before Francine would interfere although he would kick her to the floor before Shane hits a desperation belly-to-belly suplex to retain his title. Damn good match and this feels like a fairly easy nomination to me.