VIOLENT PANDA Wrestling Review: ECW Cyberslam ’99

PANDA here with my first show review on the FO ONE WON! For the record this will be counted as Volume 2 #1, for the person that cares. Thanks for all the feedback to my inaugural Digest, I’ll be posting some of your comments in the next one.

I decided to start off reviewing a company everyone is familiar with, and slowly branch out into other stuff. It’d be cool if I eventually reviewed a show by every major company out there. Also, please bear with me as far as pic quality. I’m kind of trying to figure out how low of a compression I can get away with because (A) I know a lot of us CYBERSPACE SURFERS are still dial-up monkeys, and (B) these pics will take up alot of space as they collect. But that’s not your problem. Your problem is to try to understand how Justin Credible got so high up on the card! Good luck with that and remember – once you go black, you never go back! Let’s never go back… TOGETHER.

ECW CYBERSLAM 1999
4/3/1999 ECW Arena Philadelphia, PA

Lynn is CRAZY OVER as the “New F’n Show” chants ring out before the opening bell. They start off with a few of those reversal sequences, neither man can take the advantage. Then Lynn busts out the Gory Guerrero special (1). He sends Tajiri out of the ring and without hesitation climbs the turnbuckle and hits a SOARING plancha (2), crowd goes nuts. I’ve noticed over the last few years crowds just don’t pop for this flying stuff like they used to. Now it’s all about the STIFFNESS. Jerry rolls back in and is greeted with another chant. Tajiri slides in and takes control. He locks in the once mega-popular Tarantula (3). They brawl to the outside, Tajiri suplexes Lynn over the guardrail and onto some chairs. Then he climbs the apron – ASAI MOONSAULT (4) over the rail and onto Lynn! Crowd is going insane! Tajiri gets back in the ring and soaks up some applause, allowing Lynn to slide in and go on the attack. The two clear transitions in this thing are both when the other guy was standing in the ring while the opponent suffered outside the ring. Basically they are booked as total equals, and from here on out they pretty much trade moves 1 for 1. Lynn sits Tajiri on a top turnbuckle, then tries to sit Tajiri on his shoulders but Tajiri ROLLS BACKWARD DOWN JERRY’s BACK, lands on his feet! Tajiri ends up doing the tree of woe baseball slide, crowd still going crazy. Lynn delivers a sitout powerbomb. Tajiri with a small package.. 1..2.. Lynn’s foot is just barely on the ropes. Crowd buys it though. Lynn hits a lariat, and delivers the CRADLE PILEDRIVER (5) for the win! Commentator Joey Styles is shocked at this move, I guess this is when Lynn switched his finisher from the tornado DDT to the Cradle.

Winner: Jerry Lynn

Now THAT is a sweet opener! Not much in the way of psychology or whatever, just a bunch of awesome stuff that holds up pretty well to this day. You could show this to a non-wrestling fan and they’d probably think it was pretty good, just because of the innovation, molten crowd and fast-paced action.

SHENANIGANS: Lance Storm comes out to the ring with the bubbly Dawn Marie. She’s hot, I don’t care what anyone says. Storm is wearing a WCW Jericho shirt, which spawns a massive “Jericho” chant. Apparently Storm is feuding with Tommy Dreamer, with Dreamer accusing Lance Storm of using steroids. Storm has a challenge – he’ll take a urine test if Dreamer agrees to do the same. Dawn pulls out a full specimen jar from her purse (ewww) and has an empty one for Tommy. Dreamer comes out, slides into the ring – and Storm attacks! IT WAS ALL A RUSE! HOW FIENDISH! Dreamer quickly gains the upper hand, and DDTs Lance. He gets in Dawn’s face (crowd loves that), takes the urine and dumps it on Storm’s face. Crowd loves this despite it being vaguely homoerotic.

Nova/Chris Chetti vs. Rod Price (pictured)/Skull Von Crush: Skull is, I think, Big Vito. Joey Styles calls him a “young and budding star”. He’s still budding, people. Skull also leads a faction called “The New Movement”. This starts as a singles match and becomes a tag because that’s XTREEEMMM and Chetti and Nova both hit dives and Nova wins with a frogsplash. Crowd loved it but it was basically nothing.

Winner: Nova

Super Crazy vs Mosco de la Merced: Mosco is the guy in the yellow mask. I guess ECW was trying to recreate the classic series of matches they had in 1996 involving Mysterio, Juvy and Psicosis. They open by trading lucha armdrags, the awesome fans bust out a “LUCHA LIBRE” chant. Some ringside brawling leads to a freaking CRAZY SPECIAL (Mosco is lying on the concrete, Super Crazy gets in the ring facing the ropes. Crazy jumps and twists OFF THE TOP ROPE into a SPRINGBOARD MOONSAULT!). Back in the ring Crazy hits a moonsault and his knee is driven right into Mosco’s cheek, gets a two count. Crazy mounted punches are counted IN SPANISH! Mosco turns the tables with a ballsy slingshot senton out of the ring onto the concrete. Back in, Mosco goes for a moonsault but Crazy raises his legs (see pic above)!! OUCH! Eventually they trade pin attempts, Mosco hits a twisting 450 (which doesn’t get much of a reaction for some reason) for only 2. Crazy hits a NASTY powerbomb for 2. Mosco powerbomb gets 2… Crazy finishes it with a Frogsplash. In the tradition of Scott Keith’s Muta scale of grading bladejobs, I will grade frogsplashes on the Art Barr Scale. I give this a .3 on the Barr scale, as Crazy was all wobbly, didn’t get a lot of air and kind of landed with his stomach on Mosco rather than his chest. Fun match but the crowd is going numb to all these crazy moves.

Winner: Super Crazy

We get a look at Taka before Vinnie Mac was able to completely infect him with the WWE SLOW MOTION VIRUS. Make moves “MEAN SOMETHING” by DOING ONLY ONE PER MINUTE! Papi Chulo became better known as Essa Rios (where Lita basically overshadowed him). Now he wrestles as Mr. Aguila in AAA and appears on TNA as part of Team Mexico. Anyway, this is another spotfest. These matches are having no build or story, guys just trading moves. It’s still fun to watch though. The finish comes with Taka hitting the move I pictured above where he sets his victim up vertical and drops into a sitout. Is this the Michinoku Driver 2? I don’t know what it’s called but good GAWD it’s awesome!

Winner: TAKA Michinoku

Rob Van Dam vs 2 Cold Scorpio: Oh God this is going to be STALLERIFIC. RVD’s manager, the hobo called Fonzie, blows his whistle through the whole match like he did for about 2 years through some of ECW’s best matches. I remember Fonzie once saying he had nothing bad to say about Vince McMahon because Vince paid for his rehab. Anyone notice how Vince pays for EVERYONE’s rehab? It’s probably alot cheaper to just pay for the occasional rehab than to treat your workers like human beings and give them insurance. FUN FACT: Mick Foley says Scorpio is a “genitalactic freak of nature”. Little something for the ladies.

OK I better recap this thing. They feel each other out for a few minutes.. Then Joey Styles starts commentating and scares the crap out of me. A few more minutes of nothing, then Scorpio hits a nasty superkick. Scorpio takes control of the match with his aerial offense, and dominates RVD, almost winning it with a legdrop on a chair. Then Sabu runs in and puts Scorpio through a table. Scorpio still looks like he’s going to pull it out, but Fonzie crotches Scorpio on the top rope. RVD hits a top turnbuckle Van Daminator and then hits his frogsplash (.6 on the Barr scale, sound but not nearly as devastating looking as Barr’s). Match started out boring and got OK.

Winner: Rob Van Dam

As a side note, Sabu’s jaw was taped. No matter what is wrong with Sabu, he just puts some tape on himself and keeps going. If he had a punctured lung he’d just put some tape on his nipple and go for ten more minutes.

ECW World Title Match – Chris Candido vs Taz (c): Candido is accompanied by Tammy Sytch (WWF’s Sunny) and a young-looking Steve Corino. He cuts one of those exciting SHOOT PROMOs where he says he never tapped out to lame gimmicks, alchohol or somas (painkillers), and he won’t be tapping out to Taz. Match starts and they brawl into the crowd for awhile. They get back in the ring and Candido dominates. Taz finally hits a few suplexes. He suplexes Candido through a propped up table and the ref stops the match. Joey Styles acts like this is a SHOOT and says: “I’ve had differences with Chris as a man – AS A HUMAN BEING – but noone wanted to see this.” The medical staff put Candido on a stretcher, but as they wheel him out Taz drags him back into the ring and gives him the Tazmission. Candido taps out quick. Old ECDUB Taz was cool. If this match was clipped it would have been entertaining, but then, so would almost any match.

Winner: Taz

OH NOOO. This is going to be PURE SUFFERING. Shane is accompanied by Francine. Justin has Jason and Jazz (!) with him. Shane cuts a profanity-laced promo, apparently Credible wants to be the new “franchise”. The bell rings and Shane GOES TO TOWN with a series of rolling vertical suplexes and a gourdbuster. Man that was awesome, Douglas is super intense. Douglas lays Credible out on one of those paper-thin tables and goes up top, but Jazz grabs his leg and Credible ends up chucking Shane off and through the table. Justin takes over on offense and God is he boring. Choke, chinlock, fistdrop… CHINLOCK… BRAWLING… Douglas blades in there somewhere. Douglas finally retakes the momentum by tossing Credible through a table propped up in the corner. Shane locks in the figure four. Jazz comes in and breaks it up, and Francine has seen enough and the crowds goes mad for the catfight. Eventually Shane and Justin trade NASTY cane shots, and Douglas lands a THESZ PRESS (wow it’s been awhile since one of those, huh?). Douglas hits the Pittsburgh Plunge for the win.

Winner: Shane Douglas

Man that was pretty good! Credible’s offense is boring but Douglas had enough energy for both of them. Crowd ate it up. After the match Lance Storm runs in and serves a beatdown on Douglas. Dreamer runs in for the save, but Credible and Storm beat him down too. I think this may have been the birth of the Impact Players.

This cage match has some kind of stipulation where it starts off with two guys, then another is added every two minutes. It’s still just a bunch of guys walking around and hitting each other with flimsy aluminum objects. They tease that New Jack isn’t there, but he comes out eventually. Balls Mahoney sends a fireball in the face of Mustafa, and right after that the Dudleys hit Balls with the 3d for the win. The Dudley Boyz – boring fans since 1999!

Winners: Mustafa & The Dudley Boys

Afterward, Mustafa gets laid out on a table, New Jack climbs the cage and does one of his patented SICK DIVES! And he gets RIGHT BACK UP. Crowd loves it. End of show.

Overall: I’m having a hard time deciding if this show is a 2 or a 3 out of 5 (5 being the best). So many matches were just kind of thrown out there with nothing but random spots. Kind of boring after awhile. You KNOW there’s a problem when the crowd ignores a twisting 450. And geez, you’d have to be numb to table spots after seeing 30,000 of them on one show! This is certainly not an essential show, with no real standout matches. Mostly filler fodder. But Douglas vs Credible was much better than expected and Tajiri/Lynn was really cool, so I give this bitch-ass mother a:

Top 5 Moments of the Show:

5. Whatever that finisher was that TAKA used.

4. The brutal caneshots between Credible and Douglas

3. Scorpio’s GHETTO BLASTER – because the name rules.

2. The CRAZY SPECIAL

1. New Jack’s dive – he will do ANYTHING and LOVE IT!

Match of the Night: Jerry Lynn vs Tajiri – Shane/Credible had the place rocking, but this match was just insane from start to finish.