ECW November to Remember 1998

By the end of 1998, ECW had firmly established itself as not only the #1 Indy promotion in the United States, but as (somewhat) real competition to the WWF and WCW. Unfortunately, the big two clued in (particularly the resurgent WWF), and with the rise of the Attitude Era bringing ECW’s hardcore, wild style to the mainstream (and with better production values, workers, availability), ECW started to drown in its own excesses. With every day that passed, the promotion was becoming less and less like that cool indie band that only you and your buddies knew about, and more of a polished product to secure TV and merchandise deals.

From New Orleans, Louisiana; Your Host is Joey Styles. Terry Funk comes out right away, and bitches out long time friend Tommy Dreamer – in what would become a theme for the evening.


Opening Match: Danny Doring and Roadkill v Super Nova and The Blue Meanie: Meanie and Nova were still doing the bWo gimmick, but it had long stopped being funny/relevant. Not unlike the real nWo by that point. Doring starts with Nova, and holds him in a side-headlock - with the cute bit of Doring using the hair to keep him in the hold - then complain to the referee of a hairpull. Nova with a faceslam, and he tags Meanie - as Terry Funk wanders back out to ringside to abuse some ring attendants. And bitch about Dreamer. Meanwhile, Meanie catches Roadkill with a neckbreaker, and Nova with a leapfrog legdrop for two. Four-way brawl allows the bWo to pull a double-powerbomb on Doring, and they clean house. Nova follows out with a tope, and inside, Meanie hits Roadkill with the 'People's' legdrop (a shot at both The Rock and Hulk Hogan). Terry Funk objects (assumably because he's actually worked with both of those guys, and wanted to offer a critique), and that allows the heels to turn the tide. Roadkill with a powerslam on Nova, and a well executed flying splash - but a flying elbowdrop misses, so he tags off to Danny. Doring with a forward Russian legsweep, and a flying legdrop gets two. Slugfest goes Nova's way, and he hits a powerbomb before tagging Meanie. He's a submarine of fire, and a flying moonsault looks to finish Doring - but Roadkill saves. Four-way brawl, and the bWo finish Doring properly with the Blue Light Special (an Ocean cyclone/DDT combo) at 10:54. Afterwards, Funk runs in and takes the bWo out with a piece of a table, to hammer home that his opening spiel was a heel turn (needed, since the crowd was still cheering him). The match was just background for Funk's antics. * ¼

Tommy Rogers v Tracy Smothers: What year did they think it was when they booked this? The FBI trip Rogers up during the initial criss cross, so Tommy's corner man Chris Chetti returns the favor. Smothers with a pair of spinkicks to slow things down, but gets caught with a missile dropkick, and dumped. Baseball slide takes out the rest of the FBI, but that just riles them up, and it quickly turns into a brawl with Chetti. In the chaos, Smothers manages a superkick for two, and a dropkick for two. The FBI openly run in for various double-teams, but Rogers manages a Russian legsweep, and a running kneelift. Dropkicks take the whole gang out, and a powerslam gets two on Smothers. Flying bodypress, but Smothers dodges, and cradles him for two. Smothers with a flying bodypress of his own, but Rogers rolls it for two. The FBI get involved again, but a miscommunication allows Rogers the Tomakaze at 7:51. Afterwards, the FBI beat Rogers and Chetti down (with the random help of Mabel - making his one and only ironic ECW appearance), until Spike Dudley makes the save. This wasn't unlike a bad episode of Jersey Shore - even down to having fake Italians. *

Lance Storm v Jerry Lynn: Tammy Lynn Sytch and Mikey Whipwreck both act as guest referees. They do a long counter-reversal sequence to start - mostly fighting over an armbar. Storm with a press slam, but Lynn counters into a sunset flip for two, triggering a four-alarm pinfall reversal sequence. Storm with a side suplex, countered with a bodypress for two, and into a hammerlock. Storm powers into the corner for some chops, but takes a Flair Flip to the floor, and Lynn follows with a baseball slide into a headscissors takedown. Somersault bodyblock off of the apron, but Tammy Lynn Bytch (Dawn Marie, as Storm's foil to Sytch) gets involved, and Storm turns the tide. Inside, Storm hooks a chinlock, but Lynn hits a bodypress out of a criss cross for two. Headscissors takedown, but Bytch gets involved again, and Storm dropkicks him to the floor. He follows out with a springboard bodypress, but misses a blind charge coming in, and Lynn tries the sunset flip again. Another reversal sequence ends with Storm hitting a forward Russian legsweep, and he hooks a surfboard to take the pep out of Lynn's step. Dropkick, and a powerbomb, but Lynn cuts in with another sunset flip. Storm gets sick of it, and superkicks him for two, They trade sleepers - ending with Lynn hitting a side suplex - and a powerbomb gets two. Forward falling suplex and a powerbomb, but Lance counters into a Northern Lights suplex, so Lynn bridges up into a Pedigree for two. Storm tries to go to the top, but Jerry dropkicks him to the floor, and follows with a flying bodypress. Flying moonsault coming back in, but Storm counters with a side-superplex for two. Bytch objects to Sytch's count, and we have the obligatory catfight - ending with Sytch stripping Bytch to her bra and panties. Whipwreck objects, and stuns Bytch, so Storm blows him low, and dives onto Lynn, but Tammy slow counts him. Not pleased, he goes after her, but she stuns him, only to have Whipwreck give her one of her own. Meanwhile, Lynn cradles Storm, but Lance reverses, and Whipwreck counts the fall at 16:48. Well paced, and filled with nice reversal sequences - but overbooked, and spotty. Basically, suffered from too many Lynn's - as Jerry would have been enough. **

ECW World Tag Team Title Match: The Dudley Boyz v Balls Mahoney and Masato Tanaka: Everyone comes in wielding chairs, and we get the usual brawl to start. Buh Buh Dudley starts with Tanaka all proper-like, and dominates the challenger with a headvice. Tag to brother D-Von for a diving backelbow, and they work Masato over. Missed falling headbutt allows the tag to Balls, and he crushes D-Von with a frogsplash for two. Superkick puts Buh Buh on the floor, and a backdrop puts D-Von right on top of him. Tanaka follows with a plancha, and Mahoney tries to complete the sequence with a flying bodypress... but trips climbing the ropes. Buh Buh makes up for it with a plancha of his own, but gets walloped with a chair by Tanaka. Inside, the referee gets bumped off of a Buh Buh/Masato criss cross, allowing the rest of the Dudley family to get involved. Balls fights them off with a chair, and the other three end up grabbing some for a proper chair-off.  The challengers have it won, but the referee is out, so another runs in... only to start literally reading the rulebook at Tanaka. That allows the Dudley's the DeathDrop, but it only gets two from the original referee. They start in-fighting, which allows the challengers to brain them both with chairs for two. Stereo DDT's onto chairs get two, so the Dudley's blow them low, and D-Von piledrives Mahoney as Buh Buh powerbombs Tanaka. They set up a pair of tables in the ring, but Sabu and Ron Van Dam run in with chairs, and put the champs through them to allow both Tanaka and Mahoney to cover for the titles at 15:01. Match couldn't decide if it was a proper tag match or a chaotic brawl - and may have still worked that way - but it became an overbooked mess. ¾*

Justin Credible and Jack Victory v Tommy Dreamer and Jake Roberts: Roberts is Dreamer's mystery partner, wearing a polo shirt, and only looking about ten years older than his WWF run a couple of years before. The faces clean house, and Dreamer hits a plancha, as Roberts hangs out and watches. Tommy rolls Credible in to give Jake something to do, but he quickly throws him back out to avoid having to actually wrestle. Not surprisingly, Dreamer gets overwhelmed with the two-on-one, and powerslammed on the ramp way. Inside, Credible hits a DDT, and hooks a chinlock, as Jake wanders to the wrong corner. Dreamer crotches Credible on the top, and superplexes him to try and turn the tide - though the spot was particularly goofy, since he did it in Credible's home corner, with Jack Victory just standing there looking at them. Dreamer with a powerslam, as Jake makes a contribution he feels comfortable with: decks a woman (Chastity, Credible's valet). Four-way brawl sees One Man Gang running in to help the heels out, and he hits a 747 Splash on both Dreamer and Roberts. That draws out The Gangstanators, and they take everyone out with various weapon shots, as Jake hits another woman (Nicole Bass, wrestling's Dee Snider lookalike). Dreamer literally hands Credible to Roberts to DDT, and that's it at 13:18. Afterwards, Terry Funk jumps Dreamer, making it known his anger stems from Tommy picking Roberts for a partner over him. And rightly so. When has Terry Funk ever held back during a brawl, or refused to dive out of a ring? Even at ten years older than Roberts, Funk looks twenty years younger. Unfortunately, Funk would retire again before they got to the blowoff. Jake and Victory did literally almost nothing here - this could have been a singles match without having to alter much. The rest was a pitiful, overbooked brawl. -*

Main Event: Six-Man Tag Team Match: The Triple Threat v Taz, Sabu, and Rob Van Dam: The Dudley Boyz jump Van Dam and Sabu during the entrances, and help the Triple Threat unleash a beating until Taz makes his entrance and cleans house. Everybody spills to the floor to brawl, and Sabu tries a springboard onto Shane Douglas and Chris Candido - but botches it. Second try works, but forces Candido and Douglas to stand there like idiots - gaping up at Sabu - while he goes again, as opposed to simply side-stepping him. Van Dam learns him with a proper springboard bodypress, and inside, Sabu hits a springboard moonsault on Candido for two. Flying legdrop, but Bam Bam Bigelow catches him in midair, and hits a spinebuster for two. Candido piledrives him, and the Triple Threat work him over, as Bigelow holds Taz and Van Dam off. They finally settle on Candido/Sabu, and Chris hits a hanging vertical suplex for two. Tag to Shane for a shoulderbreaker, as they continue to cut the ring in half. Sabu catches Candido with a springboard leg lariat, and a slingshot moonsault gets two - but Douglas breaks things up, and keeps Sabu from making the tag. Van Dam starts a house of fire anyway (Why not? It's ECW. What are they gonna do, disqualify you?), and we go back to the six-way brawl format. Van Dam throws every springboard flip-flop flying move in his arsenal, until Taz can corner Douglas (who makes the brilliant move of trying to escape... by climbing to the top rope), and the Tazmission looks to finish. Sabu adds an Arabian Facebuster to be sure, but ends up breaking the hold, and scoring the pin himself at 12:57. This was pretty much the last stand for the Triple Threat, as Bigelow jumped to WCW a couple of weeks later, and Shane dropped the ECW Title to Taz at the next pay per view. Match was really dull, but paid the angle off nicely - and that's always important for the biggest show of the year. It lacked the 'feel good' ending, though, as Taz didn't get to make Douglas tap, and the faces started in-fighting as soon as the closing bell rang. ½*

BUExperience: This one had all of the ingredients, but lacked the flavor of a proper flagship blowoff show – with a terrible atmosphere to boot. ECW’s best shows were always before they became too mainstream, and when they were held in Philadelphia – in front of the fans that put them on the map to begin with. This one fails on every level for what an ECW show needs to be: fun, exciting, gritty, and, most of all, different. DUD