November to Remember 1999
Date: November 7, 1999
Location: Burt Flickinger Center, Buffalo, New York
Attendance: 3,000
Commentators: Cyrus, Joey Styles
Well it’s another of ECW’s Wrestlemanias here as we close out this millennium. The main event tonight is another tag match rather than a world title match or something stupid like that. This time it’s Rhino, Credible and Storm vs. Sandman, Raven and Dreamer. Oh how ready I am for this.
Awesome vs. Tanaka is happening….again. RVD vs. Taz….not a regular match but I have no desire to watch them fight since Taz is practically in WWF already. This looks like anything but a major show but with ten PPVs left in the company’s history I can’t complain much. Let’s get to it.
Joey and Cyrus open us up of course with Cyrus telling the smart marks to rejoice. Gertner interrupts him of course. And here’s Taz. Wasn’t he supposed to like, go to WWF? The fans think he sold out. Apparently Taz is looking for Joey. What the heck is going on? Apparently Joey never called Taz.
Ah ok Joey thinks Taz Pearl Harbored RVD by jumping him from behind. Taz interprets this as Joey wanting to fight him, prompting a F HIM UP JOEY chant! Oh that’s priceless. This is seriously cracking me up. Taz is full heel here. Joey being taller than Taz is funny. Taz complaining about someone laughing at him is funny given his current commentary style. Taz twists every word around and Joey just keeps digging himself deeper and deeper and it’s great stuff.
Joey FINALLY bails as the chant starts again. Gertner makes the mistake of smiling and you can tell his life is measured in seconds. Tazmission and he’s down. The fans really don’t like him, but that’s because he’s leaving I think. DAng he should have been heel and just choked people out a long time ago. He and Cyrus shake hands to prove he’s evil.
Theme song hits. Make your own John Cena references there.
Have to give them this: that song was AWESOME.
Simon Diamond and Dick Hertz are here. Yep the gay jokes abound. Dick slapping himself doesn’t help. Oh and Dick gets to slide. And here’s Jazz. She slaps him and Dick beats her up. Simon tells his giant to kill her. That’s close enough to Giant Killer for Spike to hit the ring.
Simon Diamond vs. Spike Dudley
Spike’s offense was more or less comprised of nothing but bumping and the Acid Drop. Oh and the occasional forearm. We’re on the floor already and Spike hits a chair shot off the top. Spike takes a short beating but then an Acid Drop ends it.
Rating: N/A. More of a long brawl than a match. Just a thing to kill time before we get to the, ahem, real stuff.
And the FBI hit the ring almost immediately and pound on Spike. Nova comes out to beat various people up as we hear about how much people imitate him. Nova is more commonly known as Simon Dean in case you didn’t know that. This is a match I think.
Nova vs. Little Guido
No clue when this actually started but whatever. Cyrus says Guido has one fatal flaw and them naturally lists two things. Guido more or less goes to the top with his back to Nova and stands there. He doesn’t get ready to do anything. He doesn’t look around or anything like that. He just stands there and gets low blowed. This leads to a Samoan Drop from the top.
It should be noted that 90% of Joey’s commentary here is talking about how no one comes up with more moves than Nova and how he’s the real “Innovator of Offense”, which was Kanyon’s nickname at the time. Literally as he’s saying that, Nova uses the Samoan Drop from the top, which was Kanyon’s finisher like two years before this. That’s just amusing.
Big Sal comes in and Nova beats him up pretty easily. A Tomakaze (Unprettier) ends it. Post match they beat up Nova some more but Chris Chetti comes back to make the save. Danny Doring and Roadkill come out and beat up Chetti. This is the biggest mess of a show I’ve ever seen. Roadkill does hit a GREAT splash from the top rope.
Rating: D. Short but long enough to be an actual grade, but still this was just bad. Half of the match was just the announcers complaining about Nova being copied by so many people. This was short and not very good though. And what a shock, more filler on an ECW PPV that means nothing at all.
Super Crazy vs. Tajiri vs. Jerry Lynn
None of those guys were announced. I just knew them once Joey said Extreme Three Way Dance. And I’m completely right. That’s not a good sign. Like not a good sign AT ALL. Did Jack Victory ever actually do anything? Tajiri has Corino and Victory with him here. Seriously I still can’t get over how different Corino used to look. He looks like Richards almost.
Corino runs down Crazy and Lynn, pointing out how many times he’s beaten Crazy. Yeah that’s a great thing to point out: we know you’ve seen this a bunch but just watch it again! Also, great to see Jerry this far down on the card and in a totally pointless match. Lynn and Crazy start us off and do perhaps the fastest sequence I have ever seen. I mean they were FLYING out there.
Both guys get Tarantulas. And of course we go to the crowd. Crazy…kind of hits a huge moonsault from a balcony. I emphasize the words kind of. Sweet goodness Lynn and Crazy are fast. Lynn hits the Cradle Piledriver on Crazy but for some reason Tajiri makes the save. That doesn’t make much sense. Ah ok he wants to use the Brainbuster to get the elimination himself. That makes sense in a way.
In a smart moment Tajiri reverses a tombstone but turns it into a backbreaker because Lynn has bad ribs. Smart. I love smart wrestlers. Tajiri goes for them again but he just absorbs them all and is like come here and piledrives him for the pin. He beats up Corino afterwards.
Rating: B-. Fast paced and fun, but I ask this: what does this prove? I mean seriously, it’s ANOTHER cruiserweight threeway. Good for them. What are they actually getting out of this? It makes no sense but whatever as it’s probably the best wrestling we’ll get all night.
We talk about Da Baldies who are the new Italian gang.
We see Angel using a staplegun on New Jack’s eye.
Da Baldies vs. Axl Rotten/Balls Mahoney/New Jack
Let’s get this over with. There are four Baldies: Spanish Angel, DeVito, PN News and Vito. Vito is the same Vito from WCW and WWE. You might remember him for wearing a dress. Naturally it’s a lot of punching and chairs and no New Jack yet. Ah here he is. There goes any quality the show had going for it. Seriously, why am I watching a guy slam a vacuum into a keyboard over a guy’s balls?
Rotten goes and gets a ladder for no apparent reason other than I guess he didn’t get beaten up enough already. New Jack goes to help him. This is all going on which their partner is getting the heck beaten out of him. Jack climbs up behind a banner which is covering a basketball backboard.
Yep he dives off of it. I still don’t care about him. New Jack busts Vito over the head with an SNES. Ok then. Vito’s head get his head stapled. And a guitar is cracked over New Jack’s head for the pin.
Rating: F+. Seriously, am I supposed to be impressed or to care or something? It’s the same idiotic brawling and mindless violence that it always is. Is there supposed to be a point to anything like this? Again, New Jack is the epitome of everything that was wrong with ECW.
Alfonso says Sabu is going to go do what he does best. This is a really different kind of promo. He’s fighting Candido. Apparently his best friend died. Not sure who Ticho is.
Chris Candido vs. Sabu
Yep she still looks great. They had been in WCW for awhile and no one cared so here they are again. If Sabu is suicidal, why is he still alive? We get a punching contest to start and Cyrus gets a creepy line. “These are two guys that would probably die without the wrestling business.” For those that don’t know, Candido died after breaking his leg at a TNA PPV. There was a blood clot or something like that.
The fans want tables, but I hope we don’t get them. When Sabu doesn’t do all kinds of crazy stuff with weapons etc, he’s far more bearable. And just as I say that we get a chair. Yep it’s table time. I guess it was inevitable. Surprisingly it’s just used as a platform and no one goes through it. Well so far at least. If they save it for the end or something like that, I can live with that relatively easily.
Table is in the ring. This isn’t much so far but it’s more of a slow build which is fine. Candido goes through a table as he misses Sabu. Sabu gets the camel clutch but only with one arm up as the fans chant show your chest. And that’s why the crowds get annoying. Sabu jumps into the crowd and you still can’t see the impact. Why would that be important though?
Sweet merciful goodness ECW’s camera work was awful. While the weapons have been used here, they haven’t been the focal point of the match. Sabu hooks the camel clutch for like the third time in the match. I like that as it’s constantly weakening the back. Candido goes through his second table but it just gets two. This is ok but it’s just not that interesting.
There’s something missing from it which is hard to put into words. Candido’s power bombs were always decent. Candido looks pretty sharp here but the idea that he never went to WCW is kind of amusing to me. The problem is that Candido is running out of stuff to do so he’s starting to repeat stuff.
In a STUPID looking spot, Candido is put on a table but Sunny (yes I know her name is Tammy) goes for the save. Alfonso grabs her and Candido saves her. Then, with no one on the table, he leans over it so Sabu can dive on him. Looked stupid. After an Arabian Facebuster to the back, a camel clutch ends it.
Rating: C+. Not terrible or anything here but there was just something missing from it. It worked as well as it could have I think. Sabu toned things down here to an extent and it worked far better. Candido was a guy that was always solidly in the midcard but never jumped above it. Either way though, this was ok.
Tanaka says he’ll win. This was stupid.
Awesome says he’ll win. This was just bad.
The announcers talk about the world title match and about how Tanaka has the advantage over Awesome.
We see a segment from earlier with Heyman where everyone gets fired. Ah it’s not Paul. It’s Lou E. Dangerously, more commonly known as Sign Guy Dudley. This would have been funnier had the main event introductions not have been heard in the background.
ECW World Title: Masato Tanaka vs. Mike Awesome
This is always fun. Joey tells us to keep our eye on Tanaka. It’s a bit hard to do that given how bad the camera stuff is. Tanaka hits his running chair shot which is always a nice shot. Awesome busts out a Taker Dive that looked great. Joey tries to make fun of Hogan by saying he never leaves his feet anymore. When did he do that in the first place? Cyrus busts out the word troglodytes. That’s my boy.
Awesome hits an INSANE chair shot from the top rope and it doesn’t even put Tanaka down. WOW. They just start crashing each other’s heads in with the chair and it looks great. These matches would go so far beyond ridiculous that they were awesome. Tornado DDT on the chair gets two. Awesome counters the second one though to stay alive.
Awesome hits more or less a Batista Bomb from the apron through a table to the floor. See what I’m talking about? Holy crap is very accurate here. Naturally it only gets two. Back in, Tanaka gets a superplex through the table. Nice one too. Diamond Dust, a Dragon Sleeper from the second rope flipped over into a Stunner doesn’t even get a cover. Uh, any reason why not? A HUGE Awesome Splash gets two. The kickouts here are amusing. FINALLY a superbomb from the top ends it.
Rating: B+. Again, this is a different kind of match. These are designed to be closer to a Japanese strong style and it works very well. At the end it’s nothing but finishers and big power moves and it’s pure fun. Again, you flat out can’t take this one seriously and you absolutely shouldn’t. Pure fun and they work every time.
TV Title: Taz vs. Rob Van Dam
Oh Paulie. My sweet little Paulie. If this had been about a year earlier and for the world title and not the TV Title, you could have legitimately been around another year or even two. THIS was the money match that he just totally passed on because Shane just HAD to carry the belt an extra six months while Taz killed the rest of the roster.
RVD is of course the most over guy in the company so he never won the world title. Brilliant indeed Paul. But he, we got that Justin Credible run that we all were begging for right? They build it up as a clash of the titans even though there is NO WAY Taz is winning here. This is as much of a slam dunk as you could ask for.
Taz’s accomplishment takes forever to list off. Again, why not jump Van Dam when he’s doing his intros? They flat out say Taz is going to New York after this. Seriously, what’s the point to having this? They do a long back and forth segment to start and RVD poses. We get a LOT of strikes so far. It’s kind of dull but not bad I guess. Van Dam is REALLY BAD at whispering spots to Taz. It’s kind of pathetic.
We brawl on the floor for a bit and this whole thing is just lacking. They’re just going through the motions and it’s really obvious. Taz sets a table in the corner. We get some really bad looking stuff in an attempt at the Van Daminator and RVD gets suplexed through the table. Can you feel my enthusiasm here? Van Daminator hits from the top.
Good thing Taz put the chair in front of his face like he did or that wouldn’t have worked. Taz goes for a head and arms suplex off the top and Van Dam just falls off the top. Nothing more than that: he just fell. I guess everybody screws up now and then, but the match sucking isn’t helping. Five Star ends it with no drama anywhere in sight.
Rating: D. Seriously, this was boring. It should have headlined the biggest show ever for the company and have gotten RVD the world title but instead it’s another defense for RVD in a match with zero heat on it because no one believed Taz would win. The match was just bad too with blown spots and contrived looking stuff all over the place. Not the worst match ever, but completely underwhelming on all levels. The bad grade is more for the disappointment than anything else.
With NO transition, it’s main event time.
Rhyno/Justin Credible/Lance Storm vs. Sandman/Tommy Dreamer/Raven
Literally, we see RVD celebrating and then Rhyno’s music is playing. At least we get to look at Dawn Marie. Francine comes out in a bikini. Ok then. Raven and Dreamer are tag champions at this point. Sandman’s entrance effectively kills five minutes of the show. Why is this a big match? Not important. Why are they fighting? Not important. Why are these people teaming together? Not important.
Actually, I don’t think any of these feuds/matches have been explained. Not important I guess. So with like 5 minutes, the heels don’t bother jumping Raven and Dreamer at all. Brilliant there guys. It’s a good sign when you can walk around for the length of Enter Sandman. We’re already past the prayer. Tommy has a case around hits elbow. Wasn’t he supposed to retire?
We kill more time by doing entrances. Seriously nearly fifteen minutes have passed since the end of the previous match. Hey it’s a bell and we’re going to get a match! Sandman vs. Rhyno start us off since Justin makes a fast tag when he sees who is starting for the faces. And we stall. Raven won’t tag Dreamer. The showdown here is Sandman vs. Credible but we don’t get it yet due to Credible running.
Credible had allegedly run Sandman out of ECW to WCW where he sucked for the most part. We actually have something close to a wrestling match for a little bit. You can tell this is the super show. Storm vs. Sandman is a weird pairing to say the least. I’m not sure if Rhyno had the Gore or not yet. Raven punches Dreamer to get the hot tag.
Apparently he does have the Gore as he uses a bad one on Raven. Yep it’s a big brawl. They lasted all of 7 minutes without one. That has to be a record for a main event here. DDT to Credible gets two. Raven and Dreamer working together is weird and just as I say that Raven drop toe holds him into a chair. NOW THAT’S MORE LIKE IT! The Gore hits Storm and Sandman has a cane.
The girls go at it for a bit. Dawn isn’t wearing underwear. Nice. Raven possibly accidentally canes Sandman and Credible hits the Tombstone for the pin. Raven didn’t make the save though. That’s how it ends? Also Joey is SHOCKED that Raven would be a heel. Uh why? That’s the end of the show mind you. Well that and the 4 minutes of highlights. Show ended after two and a half hours for all intents and purposes.
Rating: F+. This is the main event of the biggest show of the year and it doesn’t even break ten minutes? This felt like a total filler match and nothing more. Does this actually change anything? Raven is a bad guy. Is this supposed to be like surprising or something? Seriously, why was this on last? With RVD and Taz at least it would have felt huge. This feels like just another match. I have no idea what Heyman was thinking back then, but it couldn’t have been coherent.
OverallRating: D. Again, how in the world is this supposed to be the main show of the year? It felt like it was missing about thirty minutes. The opening half hour is a massive mess and Taz being ticked off, the two more hardcore matches are forgettable at their best with Sabu and Candido being ok at best, the title matches had nothing of note at all, and the main event was entirely lackluster.
Tell me: what is different after this show? Nothing at all has changed. Tanaka would take the title from Awesome around Christmas on television only to drop it back six days later. This show is just totally lacking any kind of special feeling to it and it would for any kind of PPV, not just a mega show like this. Take a pass here, but it’s not terrible I guess.
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