The Furious Flashbacks – WWE December to Dismember 06

The Furious Flashbacks – WWE December to Dismember 06

EXTREMEly awful

We’re in Augusta, Georgia. Hosts are Joey Styles and Tazz. You’ll notice right away that this isn’t an ECW PPV. It’s not an ECW crowd. More than that the opening video is WWE through and through. Hell, tonight’s main event features 4 of 6 competitors who are generally regarded as WWE talents. Joey Styles doesn’t start the PPV in the middle of the ring, which would have been easy and made the show feel more authentic. And who decided to run an ECW PPV in Georgia? If this was an WCW PPV the location would be fine but ECW’s hotbed was the North East. The whole vibe and feel of the show is terrible right from the start. And how easy would it have been to get Steven DeAngelis to do ring announcing? Justin Roberts is ok, nothing against him, but do something a bit special for the PPV.

MNM w/Melina v The Hardyz

And speaking of hardcore. How extreme is ECW? They cut away during Melina’s entrance so no one gets the up skirt shot. It’s little things like that. Just makes the show feel like WWE Presents December to Dismember rather than this being an ECW show. As for the Hardyz, Matt looks like his character progressed but Jeff is still in 1998. And guess which one is over? I hate wrestling fans. Check out the pyro here too. It’s a WWE show. They haven’t bothered faking an interest in making this feel like an ECW show, which is just lazy. Take away a company’s heart and soul and you’ve got bare bones. This is one of two matches booked in advance for this show and it features exactly zero members of the ECW roster. Not that it was an issue for ECW when they were running as they drafted in talent for PPV’s all the time but the whole brand split thing is just getting ignored for this. Crowd is behind the Hardyz. No mention from Joey Styles or Tazz that Joey Mercury used to work in ECW. Another WWE cover up on that probably because of the name change. Hey, I’d have marked out a little for a Christian York run in. The first few minutes here is a feeling out process because we’re in this match for the long haul. Mercury gets planted with the Washing Machine (I think that’s what I’ve seen it called – double leg, double arm, double team where the victim gets swung over the top into a back bump). “She’s a crack whore” – Augusta. Hey, maybe this is an ECW crowd. Jeff gets isolated first and Nitro hits a neckbreaker. He misses with the standing SSP though and in comes Matt. Nitro tries to counter by climbing the buckles, which gets him planted with the SPLASH MOUNTAIN for 2. Matt gets tripped by Melina. She nearly screwed that up timing wise but Matt improvised well to get things back on course. Matt bails to chase and Mercury jumps him with a hiding clothesline. Now Matt is isolated and this is the heat segment. Melina sneaks in a headscissors on Matt. Lucky bastard. MNM with a double swinging faceplant for 2. MNM try for a double suplex but Matt escapes into a double neckbreaker. MNM have been using a great deal of tag team continuity here. They pick Jeff off the apron so Matt can’t tag out. POETRY IN MOTION on Matt by MNM. Mercury calls for the Twist of Fate while Nitro goes up top presumably for the Swanton but Matt blocks it and shoves Mercury into the ropes. CROTCHED~! Jeffykins gets the hot tag and cleans house. Gourdbuster for Nitro. Matt clotheslines Mercury outside and hits a pescado on him. Matt landed harder there. They set for Nitro to just run over the top rope in a spectacular dive. Jeff adds in a plancha but it was Nitro’s dive that looked amazing. In fact Nitro is looking like a star in this match. Mercury gets picked off with Poetry in Motion. Twist of Fate and up goes Jeff but Nitro pulls Mercury out of the ring to save his ass. Star, I tells ya. He springboards into a missile dropkick to lay out Jeff for 2. Double slingshot on Jeff into the buckles and we’re now into another heat segment. MNM focus on the back to capitalise on that missed Swanton. Nitro goes to the eyes and throws Jeff out to Melina. She promptly lays the boots in followed by the slaps. “CRACK WHORE???” and she gestures towards the crowd. Heh, awesome. Address that extreme chant! Nitro with a slingshot elbow drop. Matt decides to save. MNM are working this whole heat segment in their half of the ring. Jeff goes for a sunset flip but Nitro tags out as it happens. Mercury really should have spinal tapped Jeff but ends up elbowing him to break the cover, which didn’t need breaking. Jeff kicks Mercury off on a roll up out to the floor. Mercury prevents the tag by dragging Matt off the apron. Nitro drags Jeff back across the ring and back into that heel quadrant. Jeff takes another double slingshot but lands on the buckles and climbs for a double Whisper in the Wind. Hot tag to Matt and MNM tend to be slow bumping, which kills the reaction. So Matt breaks out the bulldog/clothesline combo. Side Effect for Mercury who can’t bump it right. Side Effect for Nitro who can. That gets 2. Yodelling legdrop gets 2. Hardyz try to load Nitro up for a superbomb but Mercury helps stop it and Nitro hits a super rana for 2. Everyone battles on buckles and the Hardyz hit stereo superplexes. Melina jumps onto the apron to complain about the illegality of everyone being in there. Jeff goes to have a word and Nitro tries to dropkick the back of his head but he moves and Melina eats the dropkick and bumps to the floor. Jeff rolls Nitro up…for 2. That felt like a finish. SNAPSHOT! But Matt dives in and saves, which is Mercury’s fault for not just standing in the way seeing as he was in the ring. That’s two Nitro owes him in the beatings department. MNM go after a Super Snapshot but Matt saves with a double Twist of Fate off the top. MNM get stacked up for the Swanton bomb on both guys. Nitro tags the pin at 23.33. WOO! A long PPV opener. Need more of those. ***1/2. Solid formula tag and they had time to tell a story. Match of the night without question.

ECW.COM – Rob Van Dam talks about the dangers of the Extreme Elimination Chamber. He says the match is dangerous and he’s doing it because being ECW champion means everything to him.

Matt Striker v Balls Mahoney

Striker gets on the mic to call this match “Extreme rules”. Well, extremely well enforced rules. He calls the official over to say in this match he wants no eye gouging, no hair pulling, no moves off the top rope (BILL WATTS THAT SHIT DOWN!) and no foul language. Now where in the fuck is Balls Mahoney’s PPV chair? Striker has his own picture on his ass. “You gotta wonder about a man who wants to sit on his own face” – Joey. Heh. Mahoney shows off the wrestling skills by taking Striker down and schooling him on the mat. Striker opts to break the rules by punching away. Then he asks for the match to be stopped after Mahoney hits a leapfrog. Mahoney with a cross armbreaker but Striker gets right into the ropes. He punches Mahoney in the side of the face and claims it was an open handed strike. Mahoney runs into the ring post shoulder first, which leads to Striker working the arm. As he’s doing so Mahoney rolls him up for 2. “Imagine Balls in a singlet” – Tazz. Heh, that’s one apiece for comedy. Striker gets right back on the arm. Mahoney tries to fend him off with punches but gets taken down by the arm again. Mahoney rolls through but Striker works at the arm again. Sideslam from Mahoney gets 2. Mahoney goes up top and Striker shakes the ropes until he gets crotched. Hey, he said nothing off the top. Fujiwara armbar and a good one from Striker and Mahoney has to get into the ropes. He goes for more work on the arm but Mahoney back suplexes him. The crowd is doing the old ECW “Balls” thing with every Mahoney punch. BALLS, BALLS, BALLS, BALLS…OOOOOOOOH, BALLS! Then a sit out spinebuster just finishes at 7.21. Mahoney wins in a somewhat anticlimactic fashion. **. Nothing wrong with that. Striker was being a jerk and had a focus. Mahoney had more intensity. Of course if he’d left an imprint of Striker’s face on a chair post match this would have been 10 times more over.

SHILL – Brian Pillman: Loose Cannon on Fanatic Series.

BACKSTAGE CM Punk warms up but we cut to SABU who’s been laid out. Crowd senses a bait and switch situation and chants “bullshit”.

Elijah Burke/Sylvester Terkay v FBI (Guido Maritado/Tony Mamaluke w/Trinity)

Burke gets a mic and points out this is his first time on PPV. Trinity is looking SMOKIN tonight. I think it’s the no underwear thing. Burke schools Guido on the mat to start still wearing his stupid little red hat. Guido retorts by blocking a waistlock into a toehold. He schools Burke and steals his hat. Tazz points out Guido now looks like a pizza guy. FBI with the Pisan double elbow. Tazz talks about how bullshit Sabu being laid out is considering what he’s walked away from before, which is something the WWE will never understand. Meanwhile Terkay just overpowers on the FBI. Mamaluke gets thrown out over the top onto Guido. Crowd informs him that he still sucks. His MMA background isn’t helping him much is it? But then although he was 3-1 and his only challenge was the 1. That was Gary Goodridge. He didn’t last long either. Burke in with a double knees in the corner and the urinage gets 2. We get a great shot of Trinity at ringside. Oh yeah. Mamaluke gets in with a nice dropkick. Burke did a nice sell on it too. FBI go after Terkay and dropkick his knees out. Double flapjack on Burke gets 2. That’ll be it for the FBI though. Terkay bashes Mamaluke in the jaw and Burke adds in the Elijah Experience (Stroke) for the pin at 6.40. 3/4*. It was ok for what it was but it didn’t really belong on a PPV. The lack of violence didn’t help.

POST MATCH Terkay decides to show off his Muscle Buster on Guido.

BACKSTAGE Sabu is loaded into an ambulance as the crowd continues to voice its displeasure. Here’s a point – if they didn’t want Sabu in the Elimination Chamber why didn’t they have him lose his qualifying match? Instead of this horseshit. Now the crowd feels cheated and Sabu isn’t even on the show. Which is especially stupid when you consider the lack of depth on the ECW roster.

Khosrow Daivari w/The Great Khali v Tommy Dreamer

Not the first time Daivari has had a singles match with Dreamer. He jobbed to Tommy on Heat in 2003. Crowd is desperate for something extreme to happen by this point so they’re totally out of this one from the start. This needed to be extreme rules really. It’s not like Dreamer is any good at anything else. That’s why he was doing hardcore in the first place. Khali low bridges him so the ref boots Khali to the back. Daivari makes sure he leaves then takes over on Dreamer’s back. “We want hardcore” – Augusta. Told you! Daivari with a hardcore…chinlock! It’d be funny if this show wasn’t so lame. Daivari with a sleeper but Dreamer stands up and drops back to squash Daivari. Dreamer opens up with some punches and a backdrop. Scoop into the inverted DDT for 2. Daivari goes to the eyes but misses off the top. Tree of woe and finally the crowd wakes up. ECW Dropkick of Woe. Dreamer goes to finish with the DDT but Daivari reverses into a roll up and holds the tights for the win at 7.22. 1/2*. If they were aiming for “suck” mission accomplished.

POST MATCH Dreamer chases Daivari but ends up getting chokebombed on the stage by Khali. He seems inclined to do a stretcher job but out comes an official to tell him otherwise. Dreamer ends up struggling to get out of there under his own steam and he crawls backstage. This kills another three minutes or so.

SHILL – See No Evil. I’m never watching this.

BACKSTAGE Paul Heyman tells Hardcore Holly he’s now in the Elimination Chamber. Why not just book that in the first place then? All you’re doing here is pissing the crowd off.

Mike Knox/Kelly Kelly v Kevin Thorn/Ariel

Kelly grabs the mic and wishes CM Punk good luck in the main event. Crowd bites on a big “CM Punk” chant right away. Ariel does some freaky poses on the way into the ring. Crowd loves that. She’s barely covering her ample bosoms and the short skirt shows us that her underwear is pretty miniscule. Everyone bar Kelly is heel so the crowd doesn’t give a shit about this one. Can’t say I blame them. It’s only here for the obvious finish. Knox and Thorn start out. I would be surprised; nay shocked, if anyone gave two tugs of a dead dog’s cock about that particular fight. So they wrestle away in front of silence. Knox hits a great lariat to no reaction because he’s a heel and he did it to a heel. Thorn sort of clubs away like Randy Orton only with less charisma. Ariel is the only point of interest as she leans over into the ring to shout thus showing her ass off to one side of the crowd and her tits to the other. Knox boots Thorn in the face for 2. Kelly is practising her bouncing. Tazz suggests she’s “getting her quads loose”. Crowd is popping Ariel but not the wrestling. Mainly because it’s boring. Ariel tags herself in, which means Knox has to tag Kelly. Yeah because it’d be wrong for ECW to have male on female violence. I’m sure that’s something they’d never stoop to. Kelly gets the tag and because she isn’t trained at all Ariel just destroys her. Kelly spends most of her time in the ring screaming and trying to escape. She certainly doesn’t do any selling because she doesn’t know how to. Ariel tries by sticking her boot in Kelly’s neck exposing her underwear again. Crowd likes that. Ariel misses in the corner and Kelly goes to tag out but Mike Knox totally heels on her and walks off. There’s your telegraphed conclusion. Crowd wants the happy dream ending and chants for Punk but he’s in the main event! He doesn’t belong out here yet. The finish comes mercifully fast as Ariel hits a legsweep Nodowa at 7.41. 1/4* and I think that’s pretty generous. Only here for the booking and dragged at under eight minutes.

POST MATCH They won’t leave Kelly alone, which brings out the SANDMAN. We all know Sandman is an entrance and a Singapore cane beating these days and that’s all we get here. Sandman sure is working safe these days. Someone get him some alcohol.

BACKSTAGE Michael Cole tells us about Smackdown’s PPV in two weeks: Armageddon. Crowd boos.

ELSEWHERE Rebecca gets a word with Bobby Lashley. He cuts a bland promo. Get this guy a manager.

ELSEWHERE The Big Show walks followed by Paul Heyman, Test and Bobcore.

PROMO TIME – Paul Heyman. As far as I can tell to just kill some time ahead of the main event. Heyman talks about ECW living on after his death and it becoming a global brand. He says we’re moving forward into 2007 with the Big Show as champion because he’s the future.

Extreme Elimination Chamber/ECW title – The Big Show (c) v CM Punk v Test v Bobby Lashley v Hardcore Holly v Rob Van Dam

Weapon in each “pod”. Punk has a chair, Test a crowbar, Show the barbwire bat and Lashley a table. At least with Sabu gone there is a three face/three heel set up. But frankly it’d be more interesting with Sabu in there. The entrances eat up some more time, which is probably for the best because this PPV is running REALLY short. RVD and Bobcore start and do so really slowly. Holly decides that clubbing away is a good way to go. RVD strikes back unconvincingly so Holly throws him out onto the steel. RVD spends forever climbing the ropes to set up a Spiderman spot where he jumps onto the chamber wall. Holly avoids the dive off there though and RVD hangs himself up on the ropes. Bobcore walks around doing nothing. He makes an unusual decision of coming off the top rope, slowly, into a raised boot. That looked terrible. It’s only a set up anyway for RVD to hit the Rolling Thunder over the ropes and onto Holly on the outside. Holly suplexes RVD back into the ring for 2. More clubbing as they try and eat up the last minute to the first pod opening. Holly hits a dropkick. There have only been like four spots in the first five minutes. And one of those was the dropkick I just mentioned. First guy into the Chamber is CM PUNK. He gets a healthy reaction. He throws his chair at Holly and hits a slingshot lariat on RVD. He tries the chair throw at RVD who catches it and throws it back at Punk’s head. RVD monkey flips Punk onto the chair. They run the jumping over the legsweep into a legdrop on the chair spot that RVD & Lynn used to do. RVD manages to bust himself open on that. I’d assume it was hardway because it’s right over the eye. Punk puts the chair in the corner and runs RVD into it head first. Then kicks the chair. OOOOH. Holly is up and he swings Punk into the chamber head first. Pin out there gets 2. Holly stomps on Punk and hits a sideslam. Holly sets Punk on the buckles and chops him backwards into the pod. Holly to the top and it’s a top rope superplex. RVD tries to sneak a pin on Punk for 2. The time is ticking away and next into this match is TEST. He uses the crowbar on Punk before raking it in RVD’s head wound. He chokes away at Punk for a while. Joey notes he’s leaving Bobcore alone. RVD doesn’t and he clotheslines Holly. He has the chair and Test takes it. Shot for Holly too. Punk is in the corner so RVD chair surfs him. Now RVD has the choice of three guys to Frogsplash. So does he a) eliminate one of the two heels or b) his only potential ally and the only other babyface? If you guessed B then congratulations you’re just as stupid as RVD. Punk eats a Frogsplash and is booted at 12.23. Just a dumb move on all counts. The only fresh and different and new guy is first eliminated. Brilliant. No really. I didn’t see that innovative piece of booking coming.

Test is up looking for the big boot but gives it to Bobcore not RVD. Which makes no sense whatsoever. Even worse Holly kicks out at 2 and the ref doesn’t count to 3 but Holly gets kicked out of the match anyway at 12.44. And this one is going down the toilet in a hurry.

RVD up top then and he hits the leaping sidekick. RVD stops off to taunt Big Show, which is a mistake because he tries to use Show’s pod to jump off. How fucking stupid is RVD? Eliminating his potential ally, attempting to use the guy he hates pod to jump off. Test throws him off, puts a chair on RVD’s face and drops an elbow off Show’s pod for the pin at 14.00. Yeah, you read right! BEFORE the next pod opened. They couldn’t have wrestled for one more minute before that spot?

So here comes a minute of nothing as Test rolls around selling the last spot before LASHLEY enters the match. Except he doesn’t because in another genius stroke of booking Heyman has his boys knock the ref over and prevent Lashley coming in. Lashley uses his table to break the roof of the pod, which also makes no sense because it’s fucking metal. Wood doesn’t break metal. Test grabs his crowbar and goes to sort this out but gets caught with a diving lariat. Then, and this is even more stupid, Lashley whips Test into the pod door breaking it. Why not just break the door? Why not do it in a way where you can use the table? And why eliminate anyone of interest before doing all of this? Lashley clubs away at Test and the crowd is actually getting bored with this now. Test goes for the chair but Lashley kicks it in his face. A few clotheslines follow to audible boo’s. This guy needs a manager. No one cares about him. Is that a boring chant? Lashley uses the crowbar and hits the spear to dump Test at 19.39.

The timer shows we have over a minute before Show comes into this thing. Who in their right mind would book a main event with this much dead time in it? Lashley gets his table out, which is a pointless tease because it’s broken. He tries throwing it at Show’s pod to keep himself amused. So Show is out along with his barbwire bat. That bat looks tiny in his hands. Lashley grabs the chair to protect himself. He uses that to block the bat shots. Show misses eventually and Lashley uses the chair on him. The bat is now out of play and forgotten. The point of that was what exactly? And the point of all the early eliminations? Show is thrown through Punk’s pod and Show is busted open. Show breaks his way out the other side to try and escape Lashley while Heyman screams “get angry” at him. Show calls for the chokeslam but Lashley escapes into a DDT. Show misses in the corner; Lashley jumps on him but gets caught. He escapes however and hits a spear for the pin at 24.43. Wow, underwhelming. *3/4. Horrible booking prevented this from ever being entertaining. The opening 12 minutes were decent but the quick fire and, with the exception of the Test elbow, bad eliminations killed any heat they had going. The dead sections where there was just one guy in the ring were pretty much unforgivable.

The 411 – 3.5.

The opening tag match was entertaining. The rest of the show went progressively downhill. Has to be a contender for the worst PPV this year. It didn’t have anything that would set it apart as an ECW show. If anything the Elimination Chamber was less violent than usual. It was certainly less entertaining. Everything that wasn’t booked in advance felt like filler. Seeing as only two matches were booked in advance that’s a lot of filler. Not that the PPV went that long. It crept over the 2.15.00 mark, which is ridiculously short for the money they wanted for it. Don’t bother with the replay. This show was badly booked and incredibly poor.