wrestling / TV Reports
The December to Dismember 2006 Breakdown
| ECW December to Dismember 2006 by J.D. Dunn December 3, 2006 Nothing says “we don’t know what in the fuck we’re doing” like collecting Raw and Smackdown superstars together for a match on your first regular ECW PPV. Seriously, what would be wrong with just giving some indy guys a tryout and saving this match for Armageddon, which will no doubt also be stretched thin? Early feeling-out process to start with the Hardy’s dominating the early going. Nitro knees Jeff in the gut to counter a jawbreaker as the crowd gets on Melina with a half-hearted “she’s a crackwhore” chant. It’s Melina, so she drowns them out all by herself with a shriek. Matt gets the tag and hits Mercury with a Splash Mountain bomb. Melina trips up Matt and leads him into a Mercury lariat. Matt plays face-in-peril. MNM has the balls to hit Poetry in Motion. They try for the Twist of Fate/Swanton combo, but Matt shoves Mercury into the ropes. HOT TAG TO JEFF! Matt clears Mercury out of the ring and hits a pescado. Nitro one-ups him with a no-hands plancha! That’s some Shawn Michaels shit, right there. Jeff finishes the sequence with a dive off the top. Back in, the Hardyz hit Poetry in Motion for real, but Nitro saves Mercury from the Swanton and hits Jeff with a springboard missile dropkick. Now Jeff plays face-in-peril. MNM doesn’t seem to have missed a beat, and they may even be better because Nitro has grown by leaps and bounds over the past year. Jeff hits a Whisper in the Wind on both opponents and gets the HOT TAG TO MATT! The Hardyz set up for something, but Mercury helps Nitro counter to a rana. The Hardyz hit stereo superplexes, but Melina has the ref distracted. Nitro accidentally knocks her off the apron going after Jeff. MNM hits a Snapshot (with some fan having the balls to call it a 3D ripoff). They try a Super Snapshot, but Matt makes the save with a double Ace Crusher, allowing Jeff to finish with the Swanton at 22:23. Good stuff from all involved, but Taz and Styles seem pretty silly repeatedly shouting, “This is the kind of action you can only see on ECW!” Yeah, or you can watch the shows these guys actually wrestle on. ***1/4 Striker changes things to “Striker’s Rules,” which is kind of like old NWA rules. Striker has his own face on the back of his tights, prompting Joey to get in the line of the night: “You have to wonder about a guy who wants to sit on his own face.” Balls actually can wrestle, and shows off some stuff early. Striker avoids a charge, though, and Balls posts his own shoulder. Striker goes after the arm, and looks reasonably competent doing it. Balls goes up (which is against Striker’s rules), but Striker crotches him and locks in a wakigatame. Balls makes the ropes and starts the one-armed comeback. Striker fires back but runs into a Rydien Bomb at 7:22. Striker looked okay, but he’s stifled by a restrictive gimmick. Once they loosen those reigns, he might be a worthwhile wrestler. *3/4 The FBI actually gets some offense in on Burke, but Terkay tags in and overpowers them. Guido plays face-in-peril for a while. If the heels have any interesting offense, they don’t show it here. Mamaluke gets the hot tag, and the FBI gives Burke a double flapjack. Terkay (or “the Man-Bear” as Tazz calls him) saves, allowing Elijah to hit the Elijah Experience (featuring Homer) at 6:41. After the match, Terkay hits a Muscle Buster, prompting a sizable “TNA” chant. *1/2 Daivari slugs the hell out of Dreamer early, but Dreamer comes back with a hiptoss. They take it to the floor where Dreamer whips Daivari into the crowd barrier. Back in, Dreamer tries to capitalize on a snap suplex, but Khali pulls the ropes down, spilling Dreamer to the floor. The ref saw it, though, and sends Khali to the back. Daivari stays on top with a sleeper. Dreamer slams him backwards and hits an Inverted DDT for two. He avoids a crossbody and hits a tree-of-woe dropkick. Daivari pops up and reverses the DDT to a schoolboy with a handful of tights for the win at 7:23. That has to be one of the pussiest finishes I’ve ever seen. Dreamer chases after Daivari but runs right into Khali who gives him a Two-handed Chokeslam on the metal entrance ramp. Dreamer makes it up under his own power. *3/4 Before the match, Kelly wishes CM Punk good luck in the Elimination Chamber. I’m not sure who the faces and heels are here, but Knox and Thorne start. Not exactly Flair-Steamboat, is it? Well, it’s not Nightstalker-Sid Vicious bad either, but you’ll notice lots of clotheslines and clubbing blows. Ariel tags in, forcing Kelly in. Kelly’s not much of a wrestler, but that’s okay because Ariel gets the only heat of the match for showing her ass. Kelly crawls toward a tag, but Knox suddenly short-arms it and walks to the back, leaving Kelly to take a beating. Ariel finishes with an STO-Goozle combo at 7:43. Ariel and Thorne grab Kelly, apparently to sire her, but the Sandman makes the save. While this match was nothing, the WWE really should take a cue from the crowd who were chanting “CM Punk” for the last half of the match. * The “extreme” part comes in as each chamber has a weapon in it, turning the match into a psychotic game of “Clue.” Oh, and they call them “pods” instead of “chambers.” Holly and RVD start out, which is a good idea given their recent chemistry, but they look like they’re going at 3/4 speed. Van Dam clings to the cage but misses a twisting crossbody and cuts himself in half on the ropes. Holly jumps right into a boot, though, and Van Dam hits Rolling Thunder over the ropes. Holly hits his dropkick as the fans chant for CM Punk. And it is Punk! Punk tosses the chair into Holly’s face and springboards into a clothesline on Van Dam. Van Dam gives as good as he gets, though, tossing the chair right back in Punk’s face. RVD goes for a legsweep, but Punk jumps over it and legdrops him on the chair in one motion. Holly returns and swings Punk into the cage. He gives Punk a superplex, and RVD gets two off it. Punk reverses a corner whip and hits the corner knee, but Van Dam boots him for a triple knockdown. Test comes in with his crowbar and rips at Van Dam’s cut. Van Dam gets a hold of the chair and takes out all three guys with it. Punk is in the middle of the ring, so Van Dam finishes him with the Five-Star Frogsplash at 12:22. The crowd is pissed. Test double-crosses Holly with a boot and gets the pin at 12:40 even though Holly appeared to kick out. Van Dam goes up on top of Big Show’s chamber, despite the fact that there are two other empty ones he could have climbed. Show reaches up and grabs Van Dam’s foot long enough for Test to recover and slam him off the top of the chamber. Test puts the chair on Van Dam’s face and drops an elbow off the top of Show’s chamber to eliminate Van Dam at 13:58. Okay, NOW the crowd is pissed. Okay, so the only two acceptable choices for the fans have been eliminated. They’re chanting for a refund. Lashley is supposed to come in next, but Heyman’s Enforcers take out the referee on the outside and lock Lashley in his chamber. He uses the table (the weapon in his chamber) to smash through the top chains so he can get out. Lashley opens a can of whupass on Test, but the fans have turned on the match at this point. Test misses a chair swing, and Lashley nails him with the crowbar. The spear eliminates Test at 19:38. Heyman gives Show a little pep talk by saying Lashley will tear him apart. Way to go, Rockne. Big TNA chant out of protest. Show comes out of his chamber with a barbed-wire bat. Lashley is able to block with his chair-jitsu, though. He tosses Show through one of the chambers and pummels him. Show tosses Lashley back in and goes for the chokeslam, but Lashley counters to a DDT. Show throws a few wild swings, which Lashley ducks. Lashley slips off a powerslam and spears show for the anti-climactic win at 24:41. This started out really good, but they seemed to eliminate people on the basis of talent with the people who had some going first. **3/4 Final Thoughts: I was told to expect one of the worst PPVs of all time. We’re talking “Great American Bash ’91” or “King of the Ring 1995.” Instead, I saw just another lackluster PPV from a company that’s starting to specialize in them. The wrestlers themselves were giving as much effort as they can, but the booking really let them down. They haven’t built an undercard that can support a full PPV, hence the importation of the Hardyz & MNM. They stacked all of their feuds into one match, so the rest of the undercard had to be thrown together despite the fact that they had several months. Then, in a monumentally stupid move, they ignore everything the audience has been telling them over the past few weeks and just cave in to Vince’s baser instincts. Thumbs down, but not “worst of all time” bad. |
