One Night of Greatness
Normally I would put the following into the Extreme Puroresu section, but its something I really want to share with everyone since ECW was something that I like many held as something special in the pro-wrestling industry. You can read my "as I watched it" review of the show on the Puroresu blog if you haven't yet. So read on and enjoy.
I finally had some time to digest it all in, and One Night Stand last night truly was one of the best pay per views I'd EVER seen. They did a tremendous job of giving it that actual ECW feel to it, and I'm glad they went with it that way.
One of the things the crossed my mind before the PPV was if the WWE was going to try and control the fans, as we all know die-hard ECW fans are the most rabid blood-thirsty fans on the planet when it comes to the product. When something sucks, they'll let you know. When someone blows a spot like Super Crazy and Psicosis did, they'll let you know. And if they really hate you, by God, will they let you know. No doubt, the fans in attendance made this show and gave it more heat overall than any PPV I'd EVER seen. They were just great all night long.
A small complaint I would have was that the matches seemed rather short, save for the last two matches. It also didn't help I guess that the PPV ended rather early. They easilly had 20-minutes they could have given to some of the first 3 matches on the card, or even add another surprise match to the card. You'll also note that I didn't rate the matches in my review, because I was watching this PPV simply as a fan last night and not a critic.
Without a doubt, the best match of the show was Mike Awesome VS Masato Tanaka. Even Joey Styles who was bashing Awesome throughout the match for selling out to WCW was eventually won over by this incredible performance they put on, and you could actually see that the two weren't even in the best of shape to begin with! This match was so damn good that I even pulled myself away from my PC just so I could sit in front of the TV to draw it all in! There was also one really dangerous spot in this match I should point out, when Awesome did the top rope powerbomb through what was left of the table, there was a big steel spike or something sticking out from the table, and Tanaka was lucky not to get impaled on the damn thing if they had moved just a little closer to the right.
Next to that, the other best bout of the show was easilly Rhino VS Sabu! Sabu put on a performance that reminded everyone why he got the nickname of being "Suicidal, Homicidal & Genocidal", and the fact that he almost totally annihilated Rhino the way many would have wanted to see during the last days of ECW really made it something special. I was really happy to see that despite all the injuries he's taken throughout his career that would easilly have ended the careers of lesser men, or cause some of them to "lose their smile" *wink*wink*, Sabu can still go out there and work through the pain to entertain the fans and put on a solid performance while at it.
The main event was what you could call a "garbage match". No, not because the match sucked, which it by far didn't, but because of all the violence involved! You had weapons, blood, sick bumps and run ins. All vintage ECW!
And the ending brawl between the ECW stars and the WWE "superstars" was done just right with the ECW guys coming out on top since the logically had the numbers advantage. I only wished we could have seen Taz throw a few Taz-plexes during the brawl instead of just choking out Angle with the Tazmission. The crowd went nuts for Taz when War Machine hit on the loud speakers, and even I marked out for it!
Rob Van Dam is the friggin' man! He delivered probably the best promo I've probably ever heard! RVD reminded us all that he has a voice and a vocabulary that goes longer that just a simple laid back sentance WWE keeps giving him. It's just too bad they had Rhino interupt it to set up the match with Sabu, but it was cool to see RVD acknowledge Sabu after heeling him for all those years in ECW. It doesn't matter how WWE tries to bury the man, RVD will ALWAYS be more over and loved than any "creation" WWE can come up with.
Paul Heyman also gave a great interview, as he basically came out and said what the people wanted to hear. He tore into Bischoff, Edge and JBL, and it's probably lucky HHH wasn't involved in the whole invasion thing either, or I'm sure we would have heard a few choice words from Heyman concerning "The Game". Even if we never see Heyman on WWE TV again after this, for one night, the "mad scientist" had his say like many of the fans in New York, I thank you, Paul! And I salute you!
Whether your an ECW fan or not, this was a show that you MUST SEE. It's not perfect, but still the best overall damn PPV I've seen that didn't come from Japan. Get the PPV version anyway you can, cause the official DVD might be edited if the rumours are true, and rightfully since there was a ton of profanity on this show. This is one of those shows that you can truly lose yourself to and chant along and shout at the TV like I did here, and I ain't shy to admit!
I finally had some time to digest it all in, and One Night Stand last night truly was one of the best pay per views I'd EVER seen. They did a tremendous job of giving it that actual ECW feel to it, and I'm glad they went with it that way.
One of the things the crossed my mind before the PPV was if the WWE was going to try and control the fans, as we all know die-hard ECW fans are the most rabid blood-thirsty fans on the planet when it comes to the product. When something sucks, they'll let you know. When someone blows a spot like Super Crazy and Psicosis did, they'll let you know. And if they really hate you, by God, will they let you know. No doubt, the fans in attendance made this show and gave it more heat overall than any PPV I'd EVER seen. They were just great all night long.
A small complaint I would have was that the matches seemed rather short, save for the last two matches. It also didn't help I guess that the PPV ended rather early. They easilly had 20-minutes they could have given to some of the first 3 matches on the card, or even add another surprise match to the card. You'll also note that I didn't rate the matches in my review, because I was watching this PPV simply as a fan last night and not a critic.
Without a doubt, the best match of the show was Mike Awesome VS Masato Tanaka. Even Joey Styles who was bashing Awesome throughout the match for selling out to WCW was eventually won over by this incredible performance they put on, and you could actually see that the two weren't even in the best of shape to begin with! This match was so damn good that I even pulled myself away from my PC just so I could sit in front of the TV to draw it all in! There was also one really dangerous spot in this match I should point out, when Awesome did the top rope powerbomb through what was left of the table, there was a big steel spike or something sticking out from the table, and Tanaka was lucky not to get impaled on the damn thing if they had moved just a little closer to the right.
Next to that, the other best bout of the show was easilly Rhino VS Sabu! Sabu put on a performance that reminded everyone why he got the nickname of being "Suicidal, Homicidal & Genocidal", and the fact that he almost totally annihilated Rhino the way many would have wanted to see during the last days of ECW really made it something special. I was really happy to see that despite all the injuries he's taken throughout his career that would easilly have ended the careers of lesser men, or cause some of them to "lose their smile" *wink*wink*, Sabu can still go out there and work through the pain to entertain the fans and put on a solid performance while at it.
The main event was what you could call a "garbage match". No, not because the match sucked, which it by far didn't, but because of all the violence involved! You had weapons, blood, sick bumps and run ins. All vintage ECW!
And the ending brawl between the ECW stars and the WWE "superstars" was done just right with the ECW guys coming out on top since the logically had the numbers advantage. I only wished we could have seen Taz throw a few Taz-plexes during the brawl instead of just choking out Angle with the Tazmission. The crowd went nuts for Taz when War Machine hit on the loud speakers, and even I marked out for it!
Rob Van Dam is the friggin' man! He delivered probably the best promo I've probably ever heard! RVD reminded us all that he has a voice and a vocabulary that goes longer that just a simple laid back sentance WWE keeps giving him. It's just too bad they had Rhino interupt it to set up the match with Sabu, but it was cool to see RVD acknowledge Sabu after heeling him for all those years in ECW. It doesn't matter how WWE tries to bury the man, RVD will ALWAYS be more over and loved than any "creation" WWE can come up with.
Paul Heyman also gave a great interview, as he basically came out and said what the people wanted to hear. He tore into Bischoff, Edge and JBL, and it's probably lucky HHH wasn't involved in the whole invasion thing either, or I'm sure we would have heard a few choice words from Heyman concerning "The Game". Even if we never see Heyman on WWE TV again after this, for one night, the "mad scientist" had his say like many of the fans in New York, I thank you, Paul! And I salute you!
Whether your an ECW fan or not, this was a show that you MUST SEE. It's not perfect, but still the best overall damn PPV I've seen that didn't come from Japan. Get the PPV version anyway you can, cause the official DVD might be edited if the rumours are true, and rightfully since there was a ton of profanity on this show. This is one of those shows that you can truly lose yourself to and chant along and shout at the TV like I did here, and I ain't shy to admit!
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