ECW December to Dismember (December 2006)

Original Airdate: December 3, 2006

From Augusta, Georgia; Your Hosts are Joey Styles and Tazz

Opening Match: The Hardy Boyz v MNM: Both teams feel each other out to start, with the Hardy's dominating, but Jeff getting caught in the wrong corner. Johnny Nitro hits him with a neckbreaker, but a standing shooting star press misses, and Matt Hardy gets the tag. He pops off a backelbow and an elbowdrop, then ups the ante with a splash mountain for two. Melina gets involved to allow her charges to turn the tide on Matt, and they cut the ring in half on the dark haired Hardy. Tandem wheelbarrow facebuster gets two, but an attempt at a tandem vertical suplex is countered with a double neckbreaker! MNM manage to cutoff the tag, and add insult to injury by hitting Matt with their own version of poetry in motion. They try a twist of fate/swanton combo, but Matt blocks, and gets the tag off to Jeff. He comes in hot, and delivers a gourdbuster on Nitro - Roseanne Barr the door, we've got a kettle on! Matt hits Joey with a plancha on the outside, and here comes Nitro with a tope suicida - Jeff then adding a flying bodypress to complete the dog pile! Inside, the Boyz hit the real Poetry in Motion, and the Twist of Fate sets up the Swanton Bomb, but Nitro pulls Mercury out, and Jeff crashes! Johnny springboard dropkicks in on Jeff for two, and things settle back down with MNM cutting the ring in half on Jeff. Tandem catapult is countered with the Whisper in the Wind, however, and there's the tag to Matt! He throws clotheslines like they're going out of style, and both heels eat Side Effects - getting two on Nitro. Matt with a bodyslam to setup a 2^nd rope flying legdrop for two, then over to Jeff for a powerbomb off the top, but Mercury rushes over to help Nitro counter with a rana for two. The Boyz fight them off and hit stereo vertical superplexes, but Melina gets involved again to prevent a count! She ends up eating a dropkick from Nitro by accident, and Jeff schoolboys him for two! The crowd is into it, too! He goes for the kill, but Joey rushes in, and they drop Jeff with the Snapshot for two! They decide to kill him good with a Snapshot off the top, but Matt rushes in to save - dropping them both with cutters off the tip to setup a Swanton from Jeff at 22:36! Good match, though way too long. *** ¼

Striker's Rules Match: Matt Striker v Balls Mahoney: Striker's Rules mean no eye gouging, no hair pulling, no moves off the top rope, and no foul language. Get rid of the mats around ringside, and this sounds like a Bill Watts wet dream! Balls takes those rules in stride, taking Matt down by shooting at the leg, but Striker has the ropes. Criss cross ends in Mahoney hiptossing him down for a cross-armbreaker, but Matt is in the ropes again. Balls charges, but crashes into the post in the process, and Striker single-arm DDTs him. He stays on the arm, so Mahoney tries a schoolboy for two, but eats a sling blade for two. Everything about Striker screams 'mid 90s JTTS.' Like, I can totally picture him taking a competitive squash loss to Man Mountain Rock on Action Zone, or something. Matt keeps pounding the arm, but runs into a sidewalk slam. Balls goes up, but Matt shakes the ropes to knock him off - and thank goodness! No one wants to see a DQ tonight! He's just trying to make sure Mahoney flies right! Striker with a fujiwara armbar, but Balls makes the ropes, and delivers a side suplex. He starts mounting a comeback (making sure to sell the arm all the while), and the Ball Breaker finishes at 7:24. I'm assuming all of these crowd shots were done at the request of Merriam-Webster, in order to give them an image to print next to their entry for 'white trash.' I mean, WOW. Nothing, but not terrible. ¾*

The FBI v Elijah Burke and Sylvester Terkay: Burke starts with Little Guido, and they play mind games with each other. The FBI double up on Burke, but Terkay gets the tag, and pounds Tony Mamaluke in the corner. Sorry if I missed any details there, but Trinity's outfight tonight is distracting. Sly misses a stinger splash to allow the tag to Guido, but Terkay shrugs him off, and press-slams him over the top onto Mamaluke. Terkay and Burke cut the ring in half on Guido, but he evades Burke long enough to tag. Mamaluke comes in hot, but a tandem flapjack only gets two, and Terkay takes Tony out to allow Burke the Elijah Experience at 6:42. Total indy level junk. DUD

Tommy Dreamer v Daivari: Daivari gets hammered right away, so he bails to the outside to stall. Great Khali distracts Dreamer to allow Daivari a sneak attack, but Tommy quickly fights him off, and he bails again. Inside, Tommy hits a drop-toehold, but Daivari goes to the eyes, and dumps him to the outside for a baseball slide. Whip into the barricade is reversed, however, but Daivari beats the count. Dreamer is ready with a vertical suplex, but he stupidly runs the ropes right where Khali is standing (with his hand already on the damn rope ahead of cue), and goes crashing over the top. Serves him right. The referee boots Khali from ringside, but the damage is done, and Daivari has control. He works Dreamer over in dull fashion with an array of restholds, but Tommy wins a slugfest, and hits a backdrop. Inverted DDT gets two, so Daivari goes to the eyes, but an attempt at a flying bodypress ends in a splat. Dreamer hangs him in a tree of woe, but the DDT is countered with a schoolboy at 7:23. TV level finish, house show level match. ¼*

Mixed Tag Team Match: Mike Knox and Kelly Kelly v Kevin Thorn and Ariel: Knox and Thorn start, and it goes nowhere fast. It's bad, you know. Thorn hits a short-clothesline, but Knox fights him off in the corner, and hits a bodyslam for two. We're a good four minutes into this, and literally nothing of note is happening. I'm struggling to write play-by-play. Even Undertaker/Giant Gonzalez (while terrible) was more eventful than this. Ariel finally tags in, and with her comes Kelly. Well, at least now I'll be entertained, even if the match is going to hell. Ariel pounds her, but misses a charge in the corner. Knox refuses to tag, however, and walks out on his girlfriend - mad over her flirtation with CM Punk. Well, given Punk's track record, can ya blame him? Kelly is dead meat at 7:44. Embarrassingly bad, and unnecessarily long. -***

Main Event: ECW World Title Extreme Elimination Chamber Match: Big Show v Rob Van Dam v Bobby Lashley v CM Punk v Test v Hardcore Holly: The 'extreme' designation is because each man has a weapon in his pod with him, like some sort of action figures. Collect all four! Holly is replacing Sabu, who was kayfabe injured earlier in the night. He starts with RVD, and they quickly spill out onto the platform, where Rob wipes out while trying a dive. Holly bodyslams him on the platform a couple of times, and this is surprisingly dull thus far. Holly tries a flying elbowdrop on the platform, but Rob lifts a boot to block, then hits a cool Rolling Thunder variation where he goes over the top rope with the senton onto Holly out on the platform. He tries a vertical suplex into the cage, but Holly reverses him back into the ring for two, and follows with a dropkick for two. Punk enters the fray with a chair, which he throws at Holly's head before springboard clotheslining Van Dam. He tries throwing the weapon at Rob's head, but it backfires on him, and RVD delivers a monkeyflip onto the chair. Punk springboard dropkicks Holly after dodging a legsweep from Van Dam, and he throws Rob hard into a corner mounted chair - RVD busted open. Nasty! Punk tries a flying seated senton onto Holly, but gets caught, and bashed into the cage for two. Holly with a sidewalk slam for two, and he drops Punk front-first across the top rope, then takes him upstairs for a vertical superplex - only for Rob to dive onto CM to steal the cover for two! Test is next in, complete with a crowbar, which he uses to grind at Van Dam's wound. Punk manages to avoid the bar himself by snapping Test's throat across the top rope, and Rob comes back with a chair to exact some revenge. He passes the love around to Holly and Punk as well, and the Five Star Frogsplash eliminates CM at 12:25. Test quickly hits a big boot on Holly to send him home at 12:46, which allows Rob to sneak up with a flying sidekick. He climbs onto the top of Show's pod, but the champion hooks his ankle through the mesh, and Test knocks him down with a chair to setup a flying elbowdrop off a pod at 14:01. That leaves Test alone for a while, until Lashley enters the match, along with a table. Paul Heyman's guys won't let Lashley out of his pod, however, so he uses the table to bust through it. He comes at Test with a flying clothesline, and beats his ass all around the ring and the platform. Lashley with a pair of clotheslines and a vertical suplex, and a spear finishes Test at 19:40. There's still over a minute until Show is due in, however, so Bobby uses the time to get some weapons ready. Show enters with the barbed wire bat, but Lashley is able to evade him, and Show ends up getting the bat jammed in the cage after missing a swing. Bobby capitalizes by ramming the champ's head into the cage a few of times to draw blood, and he throws his overgrown ass through a pod. Bobby keeps coming, but gets casually tosses across the ring. Chokeslam, but Lashley manages to counter with a DDT, and a spear finishes at 24:44. What is with Vince and super duper rocket in the pooper pushes for guys who spear? Really directionless match, that went from ‘aimless but decent’ to ‘blatantly boring’ after Van Dam’s elimination. *

BUExperience: This one was a total bomb on pay per view (drawing the lowest pre-Network buyrate in history), and for good reason. It truly deserves that ‘honor.’ This was so bad that Tommy Dreamer and Stevie Richards attempted to quit their jobs over it, and Paul Heyman was gone the WWE immediately after, not to return for years. Avoid at all costs.

DUD