It’s ECW, it’s November To Remember 1996 and the company is enjoying the last few months before it’s PPV era starts and people start to talk about how good ”it used to be.” Messing up (outside the ring) was rare for the company during these halcyon years and yet they uncharacteristically somehow managed to get everything wrong in this match.

The Eliminators are wrestling the superteam of Rob Van Dam and Sabu, which is almost a dream match as both teams favour the weapons-and-flips style. Should make for some good times, right? Even Kronus can do ”standing with a chair in front of your face so you can get kicked.”

http://youtu.be/oCaTsyrDoKg

It’s a mess. It’s a gigantic wet kebab of a match. It would have been alright if they’d been told to just have a match. All three men (with Kronus watching) could have put together something with at least some cohesiveness, but with the endgame being ”kill time”, they wrestle a twenty minute match of JUST SPOTS. No spot-fest should ever, ever be twenty minutes, especially with Sabu involved. You can’t. Spots only mean something when you sell them otherwise they’re just auto-fellatio and if you’re going twenty minutes then you’re either not selling anything and should have been pinned by now or the wrestlers aren’t going for pins so are obviously fuckwits.

There’s tons of sloppiness which actually adds to the match in my opinion, as the lack of anything that looks planned or remotely safe makes it seem more anarchic. Like G.G. Allin and Jackass, Perry Saturn stopping what he’s doing just so he can hurl Sabu through the crowd and then himself too has a visceral appeal because wrestling really shouldn’t be like this. It’s good in small doses even if you don’t want to admit it.

So the winners of the match get a shot at the Tag Team Champions The Gangstas later that night. Sadly the crowd is one step ahead of the booking (because they’re using wrestling logic) and when the time limit expires they immediately start chanting for ”THREE WAY DANCE!”

Instead, the wrestlers demand five more minutes and Sabu dies like a Jack Swagger mic segment.

After five more minutes neither team has won. ”THREE WAY DANCE!” erupts again. Saturn can’t be bothered to pull an audible so he ignores the crowd and demands another five more minutes. They go at it some more and Sabu falls like the Greek economy.

After a combined ten minutes of crazy moves missing and messing, Tod Gordon gets in the ring and announces (wait for it) a THREE WAY DANCE later that night with all teams. Some members of the crowd boo at the thought of watching the same teams wrestle for even longer later that night wheras the rest chant ”EC-DUB” because FUCK WCW.

http://youtu.be/Z4uUIb7909E

The second match is a weapons-based brawl that features the weird sight of Rob Van Dam brawling in the crowd with Mustafa and Kronus jumping out the ring after his tag team partner gets hit with a chair. But at least it was the type of match you’d expect from The Gangstas, namely mindless violence and Ice Cube & Dr. Dre.

Bam Bam Bigelow in his RF Shoot Interview apologised for the crappiness of his PPV main event with Shane Douglas because it went twenty-five minutes and he preferred doing short, explosive matches. Some people are sprinters, some people are marathon runners and I never want to watch Sabu or Rob Van Dam wrestle thirty minutes ever again.

It’s funny how ECW moments like this get ignored or un-remembered. If this had happened in WCW or WWE we’d all be pissing ourselves remembering it. Paul Heyman was amazing at damage control and protecting his stars. Hopefully he can use some of his skills to help CM Punk through this difficult personality change.

And maybe afterwards he can walk on water.