The Box in the Attic 05.20.07: ECW on TNN, August 18, 2000

Hey there people, where ya’ been? Yeah, so it’s been a month-and-a-half since the last edition of The Box in the Attic, what of it? Ok, so a word of explanation is probably in order. When I set out to do this column, my work schedule was sparse and my late-night hours available (when I do most of my writing) were ample. Then my schedule changed and I was left with barely enough time to write the IMC and edit the usual ROH Roundtables. Thus, BitA got pushed to the back burner. But now, with a free night and a fresh tape, I’m back and kicking. I picked a tape whose label hopefully indicates that this will work as something of a companion piece to this week’s EXTREME edition of the IMC. We’ll find out together how that works out.

Tape Label Says:
Random ECW 2

Actual Content Is:
ECW on TNN – August 18, 2000
Live to tape from War Memorial Auditorium – Ft. Lauderdale, FL

-Well, we’re on TNN, that’s for sure. The tape starts up with a Riesen Chocolate Chews commercial, so you know how dated the material is going to be this week.

-And look, it’s Tanya Harding, here to introduce Bad Boys Week on TNN. You know, they should probably keep her away from these so-called ‘bad boys’ before she’s tempted to either attack one with a pipe or have sex with one while wearing a wedding dress. If neither of those jokes makes sense to you, just don’t worry about it.

-Tonight’s featured song from whatever show about a guy driving a semi leads-in to ECW was What A Girl Wants by Christina Aguilera. You know, I’ve always thought Christina was ULTRA-hot, but I seem to be in the minority on that for whatever reason.

-Commercials: Gary Coleman and Danny Bonaduce shill for TNN’s Dysfunctional Family Week. I mean, do I actually have to come up with something funny to say on this one? I do notice that DFW starts on September 11th, which kind of weirds me out actually.

-We cut right into ECW with a ‘This week on HCTV’ bit (HCTV is short for Hardcore TV, ECW’s syndicated show for those scoring at home). Simon Diamond clocks Tommy Dreamer in the head with something allowing CW Anderson to get the spinebuster and pin Dreamer. Simon, Swinger and CW beat down Dreamer afterwards until Doring & Roadkill make the save. Simon takes the Bareback, but CW breaks up the Buggy Bang and spinebustery abounds. Jazz then runs in and takes out CW with a chair (and how weak does THAT make CW look?) but ends up taking the Problem Solver (elevated assisted DDT) from Simon & Swinger and the heels pose.

-We cut straight to a proper introduction from Joey Styles & Joel Gertner. Joey cuts off JG’s intro to announce two HUGE matches for tonight: Kid Kash vs. ECW World Champion Justin Credible and Rhino defending the TV Title against Rob Van Dam. I actually can’t make a joke here because both of those matches sound awesome.

-In the locker room, RVD and Fonzie (his manager who used to be a stickler-for-the-rules referee) cut a promo on Rhino. RVD talks about how last time they were in Florida, he broke his ankle and was out for three months, having been forced to forfeit HIS Television Title as a result. RVD’s not impressed with Rhino and says ‘Big fuBEEEEEP deal!’ (thus giving Rhino his eventual new nickname). Rob’s never been the best guy on the mic, and this was no exception, but it could have been worse. Fonzie’s pretty annoying with some hindsight, as I used to find his antics WAAAAAY more entertaining.

-ECW on TNN intro music and video package. Nothing really to note here. The most memorable image is probably Rhino piledriving Sandman’s wife off of the ring apron.

-We go back to the show with Cyrus and Lou E. Dangerously cutting a pr—

NOTE: I’m currently taking a break from writing to watch the end of the Suns vs. Spurs game.

Ok, we’re back. Anyway, Joey notes that this is the ‘second week in a row’ that Lou E. has hijacked the opening of the show, and so it occurs to me that this is the show right after the ECW show I did in this column a couple of months ago. Cool. Re-read that column for some of the history if you’d like. Oh, wait. Huh, Well, it seems like this whole ‘companion piece’ thing is going to work out even better than I planned. Again I digress. Lou E. interviews Cyrus who complains about Corino and Anton leaving The Network last week. Corino & Anton interrupt him of course to rebut and set Cyrus stra—

NOTE: I just got called into the bar to cover for my boss because he can’t stop throwing up. Now does everyone understand what I meant when I said ‘my schedule changed’?

Ok, we’re back again. Anyway, Corino comes out to set Cyrus straight, but Cyrus ends up cutting a pretty effective heel promo about how he gave Corino his spot. Good stuff from Cyrus, but Steve Corino is one of the last people I’d want to piss off given the opportunity. Speaking of which, I met Corino at ROH’s Chicago show in October and he was actually a really nice guy. Cyrus calls him ‘Stevie’ a bunch of times and then tells him that if he ‘can’t make the cut’ if he ‘puts the gimmick down’, which is just about the harshest pseudo-shoot you can say to a guy. Corino swears at Cyrus (and calls him ‘Don’) in response and the fans start up a bizarre ‘U-S-A!’ chant for whatever reason. This all ends with Corino threatening Cyrus and then Cyrus begging off and setting up Corino & Anton vs. Cyrus & Lou E. for later in the night. Cyrus then dares Corino to superkick him but Anton turns on Corino as he sets up and rejoins The Network. Anton puts Corino in The Clap Trap (his silly name for the Sharpshooter) as we cut out.

-Commercials: ECW will soon be bringing you a series of VHS and DVDs that highlights their best and most memorable matches. Hey, kind of like the one that featured this week’s IMC match. Huh, how about that…

-1wrestling.com Replay: Anton turned on Corino about two minutes ago (or seven years ago if you want to get technical) in the way I described above.

-Tomorrow night, ECW returns to the ECW Arena in Philadelphia. Hmm, 8.19.00? Looks like the date of a particular match. Maybe it’s the one from THIS WEEK’S IMC… Huh, how about that… Announced for the show are Corino vs. Anton (well that’s certainly convenient), Dreamer, Doring & Roadkill vs. CW, Simon & Swinger, Jasmine St. Claire making an appearance, Psicosis taking on Yoshihiro Tajiri for the first time ever (I wonder where that match has been discussed before?), and Justin Credible & Rhino vs. Kid Kash & RVD. I would have loved to have seen that card live in 2000.

-Later tonight: Kid Kash gets a rematch from last week with ECW World Heavyweight Champion Justin Credible and Rhino will put the TV Title on the line against RVD.

-Commercials (so soon?): Some wacky titanium tipped drill bits eat up our entire break. All I could keep thinking during the whole thing was ‘wow, that’d be really handy if I was a thief’. Does that make me a bad person?

-The F.B.I. (with unfair fat guy advantage) vs. Psicosis (with unbridled bravado), Tajiri & Mikey Whipwreck (with the Sinister Minister and Mikey’s bizarre Hawaiian shirt selection): We cut to some ad time before the bell can ring. Oh, and Joey & Gertner are playing up how WACKY it is that Psicosis chose Tajiri as one of his partners when the two go head-to-head tomorrow night. Wonder where you could find some further discussion about that particular match-up?

-Commercials: iwon.com gives away free money every day. I feel like that didn’t work out for them as a business model in the long run.

-We rejoin the six-man tag just as the bell rings. Mikey and Mamaluke start until Guido come in on a blind tag and takes control on Mikey. Mikey comes back with headscissory, but Guido gets an inverted Fujiwara armbar. Mamaluke comes back in, but Mikey tags in Psicosis who comes off the top with a spinning heel kick. Psicosis gets a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker off a long leapfrog sequence and Guido comes back in (illegally), but eats a superkick from Tajiri. Sal E. comes in (weighing as much as Mikey, Tajiri & Psicosis combined it seems) but gets tripped up and Tajiri kicks his face in a bunch of times. Serves him right for trying to hang with this many talented guys. The FBI guys are all on the floor, so Psicosis tries a pescado. Sal catches him in midair, but Mikey hits one of his own to put everyone down. Tajiri then casually hops down to ringside and brings Mamaluke back in. Mikey & Tajiri double team him a bit for two. Tony gets a nice DDT on Mikey and tags out to Guido who takes gets a two count on Whipwreck with a dropkick. Sal tags back in, but misses an avalanche in the corner. Guido clotheslines Mikey down and Sal drops an elbow, finally hitting a move despite having a massive weight advantage over everyone else in the match. Guido back in now but he eats a Whippersnaper (Stunner) and Mikey tags out to Tajiri. Tajiri takes control with kicks (what else) and gets his handspring elbow on Mamaluke. Sal E. comes in again, but Psicosis sends him to ringside with a missile dropkick. Psicosis then holds Mamaluke for Tajiri, but ends up taking the green mist in the face (setting up animosity for their match the next night (extra commentary on that match is surely available elsewhere)). Tajiri goes to work peppering Guido with kicks, but when he goes for a brainbuster Psicosis kicks him in the crotch allowing Guido to hit the Kiss of Death (Unprettier) and pin Tajiri at 5:47. Solid trainwreck six-man tag. I like five of the six guys in this one (I’ll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out which one doesn’t belong) so it was entertaining enough to just see most of these guys go through their regular offense. As for the Psicosis-Tajiri issue, Joey didn’t so much as mention any of this during the play-by-play for their match, so Paul E. could probably have just skipped the silly booking tricks and just let this finish clean and let the match the next night simply be a competitive one for competition’s sake. Not that big of a deal in the long run, obviously. **1/2

-Commercials: ANOTHER commercial for Wendy’s Mozzarella Chicken Supreme sandwich. This is literally the ninth version of this ad since the show started. I remember the sandwich and it was good, but it wasn’t THAT good.

-ECW World Heavyweight Title: Justin Credible © (with Francine and phallic compensation Singapore cane) vs. Kid Kash (with Kid Rock entrance music to really hammer home the point of his gimmick): Kash was pretty much the hottest thing in the company at this point, by the way. We take a moment away from Kash’s entrance for Gertner to cut one of his awkward sexually-charged promos. Unnecessary doesn’t begin to cover it. Fun stipulation for the match: there must be a winner. This was years before ROH would make that a regular stipulation and revolutionize the wrestling world, by the way. Kash controls early with a headlock and a neat springboard sunset flip for two. Kash gets an armdrag and another rollup and Credible bails. Credible jaws with the crowd, part of which is digitized for whatever reason. Anyone out there know why ECW would have had to pixilate the crowd at a house show? Whatever. Credible tosses a chair in the ring, so Kash sets it up and sits on it, daring Credible to come back in the ring with him. This was back when Kash’s ego was cool and not yet completely self-destructive. Credible takes the bait, but then also takes a drop toehold on the chair for two. Kash gets a double springboard hurricanrana that sends Credible out again and Kash follows with a MAN-SIZED flying crossbody to the floor. He tosses the champ back in and covers for another two count. Credible finally gets some offense in by hitting a superkick and takes a few moments to recover. He grabs the chair and sets it up in the middle of the ring before smashing Kash’s face into it. Credible stays on offense with some brawling and hits the chinlock. Kash fights out and gets a sunset flip for two, but gets his head taken off by a clothesline. Credible grabs another chair and preps for something, but Kash reverses and DDTs him on it as irony rears its ugly head yet again. Kash covers for a close two count that most of the building bought as a fluke finish. Kash gets a moonsault press for two and then gets a swinging DDT on a chair, but he takes out the ref while executing the move and there’s no one to count the pin. Rhino then (of course) runs in and goes to town on Kash. RVD follows and goes after Rhino. Rob sends Rhino out and gets a beautiful slingshot cross-body to the floor as Fonzie whistles incessantly and points to himself a bunch. Back in, Credible clocks Kash with the cane and covers for… two? Wow, thought that was it. Credible is incredulous (say that three times fast) and goes for That’s Incredible (corkscrew tombstone piledriver), but Kash wriggles out and hits the Moneymaker (Tiger Driver ’98 (or Jay Driller if you’re a ROHbot)), but the ref is still down and can’t make the count. Rhino rolls in, Gores Kash into 2003, and puts Credible on top, but turns around into a leaping sidekick off the top from RVD, who takes a moment to put Kash on top of Credible before getting another slingshot cross-body to Rhino at ringside. The ref counts for Kash, but it only gets two. Kash puts Credible on top as RVD and Rhino continue to brawl at ringside. Kash goes up to execute what appeared to be a Dragonsteiner, but Francine hits him with the cane and Credible gets That’s Incredible off of the second rope for the pin at 9:28. Credible rolls out and is announced as the winner. The match was going along really well before the overbooking began, but remained fun despite the run-ins and whatnot. The storyline really was RVD & Kash against Credible & Rhino, so having RVD and Rhino brawl around while the match was going on didn’t take too much away from what Kash and Justin were trying to do. Kash looked really strong here (with at least two visual pinfalls on the champion), which kept him solid for his eventual TV Title match with Rhino. Not a classic or anything, but certainly a nice match for free TV, plus it had that added edge of ‘Paul wouldn’t REALLY put the World Title on Kid Kash, would he?’ uncertainty that most wrestling companies can’t reproduce these days. The closest thing I can give you by comparison is Delirious’ first title shot at Bryan Danielson from last year. Fun fact: the referee for this match was future ROH regular and Carnage Crew member HC Loc. ***1/4

-Commercials: A Geico commercial that DOESN’T feature that stupid gecko. Not that it was much better or anything, but at least there was no gecko.

-ECW Television Title: “The Big F’N Deal” Rhino © (with unparalleled intensity) vs. “The Whole F’N Show” Rob Van Dam (with Bill Alfonso (with whistle) and a true love and respect for every single fan at ringside): Rhino gets upset that RVD is taking forever to high-five every fan at ringside (and to be fair, so was I), so he just comes out and goes after him on the floor with the bell ringing to start us off officially. RVD gets whipped into the guardrail a couple of times. He goes for a springboard moonsault to come back, but Rhino just pushes him off the guardrail into the crowd. The two brawl around the arena with Rhino mostly in control (except of Fonzie’s whistling). The fans are of course chanting non-stop for RVD. Rhino chokes away on Van Dam and then sits him in a chair in the corner at ringside. Rhino then hits an Ole Ole Gore and tosses RVD back in. Rhino gets a hard powerbomb, but doesn’t cover. Rhino whips RVD into a military press and then just dumps him on his face. An RVD enziguiri misses, but he gets the step-through spinkick instead. Rhino, who was often accused of being really green at this point, looks really good here, by the way. RVD gets an inverted atomic drop and gets his running chair surfing dropkick to Rhino who’s slumped in the corner. RVD then (predictably) poses. Rolling Thunder follows, as does more posing. Second-rope moonsault from RVD and then a Van Daminator, but RVD doesn’t cover. He takes his sweet time going up for the Five-Star Frogsplash, but when he eventually hits it, Credible runs down immediately and hits him with a chair to prevent the pinfall attempt. Credible just goes to town on RVD in the corner and the ref finally calls for the bell to DQ Rhino at 6:45. Both guys continue to stomp RVD until Kid Kash comes out, but in lieu of him making the save, he just eats a wicked piledriver from Rhino and ends up getting beaten down, too. The Sandman then runs down which pops the crowd huge and canes Credible a bunch leading to the White Russian Legsweep. He’s the only guy left standing as we fade out. Weak finish to the actual match, but it had to happen. It was the money rematch for the TV Title given away on free TV. And yes, I did re-read that sentence and it does look kind of dumb. Regardless, to a keen eye, RVD got pretty exposed here, as he just sort of hit his spots and posed instead of going for quick covers to seriously try to regain his title. In truth, Rhino really carried this thing, doing some nice, simple, credible offense when needed and selling well for RVD’s spots. A good little brawl, but nothing particularly special. Plus, with the writing being on the wall that we weren’t going to get a clean finish, it ended up feeling like you were playing the waiting game as a viewer, expecting the run-ins to start at any moment. This would be the opposite of the overbooking in the Credible-Kash match earlier in the night. And what was the deal with The Sandman? It would have been MUCH better to just have Rhino & Credible beat the hell out of the faces leading to the big feel-good tag win at the ECW Arena. **1/2

The Final Word:
A nice week of action. I know no one’s going to believe this, but I didn’t actually realize before I started watching that this was the lead-in show to the Tajiri-Psicosis match I did in the IMC this week. As it turns out, it’s a fantastic coincidence, but the tape says ‘Random ECW 2′ so there really was no way to know going in. As for the show itself, the nonsensical Anton turn was kind of a silly way to start things off, but I like Corino, so giving him a bunch of time will never earn you bad marks in my book. Three decent (and relatively long) matches on a one hour show is pretty good, even with a stupid ending to the main event. Kash vs. Credible was the big payoff this week (Rhino vs. RVD was bigger in name, but was clearly not going to get a real finish) and it delivered both in the storyline and in the ring, which is basically all you could ask for. Fun show this time around. Check it out if you can find it.

Extra Super Fun Bonus Section:
So last time I looked at ECW in this column, I mentioned the vaguely legendary ECW Tag Team Title Tournament at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. I have now done research and figured out the complete brackets for the tournament, which are below to quench any lingering curiosity that you may have had:

FIRST ROUND
EZ Money & Julio Dinero over Christian York & Joey Matthews
Doring & Roadkill over Da Baldies (DeVito & Angel)
Simon & Swinger over Chris Chetti & Nova
Tajiri & Whipwreck over The F.B.I. (Guido & Mamaluke)
Credible & Rhino over Sandman & Chilly Willy
Jerry Lynn & Tommy Dreamer over RVD & Kid Kash

SEMIFINALS
Whipwreck & Tajiri over Money & Dinero
Simon & Swinger over Doring & Roadkill
Lynn & Dreamer over Credible & Rhino

FINALS
Whipwreck & Tajiri over Simon & Swinger and Lynn & Dreamer in a Three Way Dance to win the vacant ECW World Tag Team Titles.
(Dreamer & Lynn eliminated first, Simon & Swinger eliminated second)

And for the record, Tajiri & Mikey would go on to drop the titles to the F.B.I. the next night. That would also be the night where Kid Kash would upset Rhino to win the ECW TV Title.

This has been your Extra Super Fun Bonus Section.