The ECW on Sci-Fi Breakdown 06.13.06

ECW Tuesday Night Stardate: June 13, 2006 Live from Trenton, NJ Your hosts are Joey Styles and Taz. Paul Heyman opens the show by welcoming ECW Champion Rob Van Dam. He presents him with the new ECW World Heavyweight Championship title belt. Van Dam says he’s keeping both belts, though, because one is meaningful to him and the other one spins. Edge and Lita come out to make nice. Edge says he respects RVD. Of course, when RVD lowers his guard, Edge spears him and mocks his RVD pose. PIT STAINS ARE EXTREME! Edge and Lita try to leave through the crowd, but John Cena shows up right behind him. RVD and Cena take turns hammering Edge until they turn on each other. Edge lowblows RVD and escapes through the crowd. Cena knocks out Paul Heyman and follows Edge through the crowd. Did Joey just call Lita a schifusa? In the back, Paul Heyman is pissed that Cena and Edge would screw with ECW’s debut. And he’s going to do something about…on Monday. The Zombie vs. Sandman See, we’re on Sci-Fi, so we have to have a horror/sci-fi character. He looks like a cross between Undertaker and Terry Gordy. He cuts an AWESOME promo connecting the war in Iraq to existentialist philosophy and bends it back around relating it to the rebirth of ECW. Jesus Christ! He’s a ZOMBIE! He just grunted a few times, what do you expect, he’s braindead! On the plus side, TNA may have just found someone for their booking committee. Sandman hits him over the head with his Singapore Cane and finishes with the White Russian Legsweep about 10 seconds in. Nice touch: when he hit the zombie, dirt flew off the dead guy. I guess Sandman’s big contribution to the brand will be to beat the shit out of things “smart” fans find stupid. 1/4* Next up, we join Kelli, an exhibitionist who promises to take off all of her clothes tonight. Well, that’s an exhibitionist for you. We see the entire Tazz vs. Lawler match. Kurt Angle vs. Justin Credible Angle takes Justin down and dumps him to the floor. Justin gets in his face, so Angle headbutts him and slaps on a rear naked choke for the win at 1:48. After the match, Angle accepts Randy Orton’s challenge for a match at Vengeance. 1/2* In the back, Heyman tosses out the script and makes an “Extreme Battle Royal.” All weapons are legal. Whoo-hoo! I call shotgun. The winner gets John Cena at Vengeance. Outside the arena, a vampire hangs around. See, we’re on Sci-Fi, so we have to have TWO horror/sci-fi characters. Maybe Dr. Samuel Beckett will go back in time and turn this into a better show. Damn, Ziggy says there’s an 89.9% chance he’s just here to keep Britney’s baby alive. Oh boy. Kelli comes out to strip. Not that she’s not a nice piece of ass and all, but chicks like this are a dime a dozen in wrestling. Besides, she’s just some random girl. If it were someone we knew like Lita or Trish, this might be somewhat titillating. No pun intended. Instead, it’s just Friday night in Ft. Lauderdale without the drunkenness. Oooh, Hellraiser: Hellworld is on next. You owe it to yourself to see Kathryn Wynnick in leather pants. Turn it off after that, though. 10-Man Extreme Battle Royal. Your participants are Tommy Dreamer, Stevie Richards, the FBI (Little Guido, Big Guido & Tony Mamaluke), Sabu, Balls Mahoney, Doering, Roadkill and Al Snow. Big Show cleans house, and we go to break. Most of the match seems to happen during the break because as soon as we come back Show is running through guys like Ex-Lax through a widow woman. There goes Al Snow. There goes Danny Doering. There goes Stevie Richards. There goes Roadkill. Show weakly slams Balls through a trashcan. Read it again. It’s pretty funny. There goes Balls. Sabu tries Air Sabu, but Show catches him and tosses him to the apron. Show tosses Dreamer through a table. That leaves Show, Sabu and the FBI. Show chokeslams Little Guido on Mamaluke and eliminates them both. Big Guido goes head-to-head with Big Show, and Show shoves him out. Big Guido holds on, though, and they do the Royal Rumble ’92 ending with Sabu hitting Show with a chair to send him over the top at 9:20. Most of the match happened during commercial so [NR] Final Thoughts: I was hoping for something more akin to the early days of Raw with a raucous home crowd. Instead, it felt more like the early days of “Heat.” Most of the crowd was pro-WWE, killing much of the atmosphere that made ECW so special in the first place. ECW fans may be obnoxious, but at least they were enthusiastic. This was the same “hang on, I’m on my cellphone” crowd you usually get at Smackdown and Raw. Maybe they’ll make some adjustments, but tonight’s show felt more like a glossy, big-budget remake of an indy film than a rebellious renegade promotion. J.D. Dunn