BRM Reviews ECW Guilty As Charged 1999

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Big Red Machine
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BRM Reviews ECW Guilty As Charged 1999

Post by Big Red Machine » Jan 10th, '22, 00:37

ECW Guilty As Charged 1999 (1/10/1999) Kissimmee, FL


Hello everyone, and welcome back to BRM’s Monthly “This Day in Wrestling History” Review Series! Last month we looked at a show from December 1998, so instead of jumping around, I figured why not just go to the next month and do January 1999? We are going to make a big jump stylistically, though, as we go from the all clean All Japan Pro Wrestling, to ECW, and from the practically named (if a little dry) Real World Tag League 1998: Day 16 to one of the dumbest show names of all time. Get ready for ECW Guilty As Charged 1999!

PAUL HEYMAN THANKS US FOR BUYING THE SHOW AND TELLS US THAT THERE IS A CHANGE TO THE CARD- fine
Masato Tanaka couldn’t make it, so he’s not challenging RVD for the TV Title tonight, and Jerry Lynn’s fractured pelvis hasn’t healed as expected, so he won’t be wrestling Lance Storm and Spike Dudley. I wasn’t fond of Paul using the word “performers,” but he did a good job of putting over his roster. Also, he said ECW would be guilty as charged of breaking all of the rules and working hard.

DANNY DORING & ROADKILL vs. THE FBI (Tracy Smothers & Little Guido) (w/“Don” Tommy Rich, Big Guido, & Sal E. Graziano)-no rating, pointless segment
I was not prepared to see Little Guido with facial hair. They did gaga for a bit. If I were the booker and promoter and had just given a speech about how my roster was “the hardest working crew in the business,” I wouldn’t have started the show off with a bunch of gaga.
After a few minutes, Axl Rotten and Balls Mahoney came out. You can add Balls Mahoney to the list of people whose entrance is completely destroyed by license issues. It’s not so much the lack of the song as it is the fact that you see Balls and Axl motioning to the crowd but you hear the crowd making no noise at all. If you didn’t know that there was dubbing here, they would look like total losers.
Axl said that this match “looked like a homosexual dance party,” so they want to make it a Three-Way Dance. This felt like one of those 911 segments where they would purposely open the show with something they knew the fans would find lame so that they could send 911 out for the big pop. Those were okay for non-televised shows when you’ve got unlimited time, but on TV or especially a live PPV, it’s much better to not waste any time and just start with the match you’re actually going to do. Anyway, this turned into a…

TAG TEAM THREE-WAY DANCE: The Hardcore Chair-Swingin’ Freaks vs. Danny Doring & Roadkill vs. the FBI (Tracy Smothers & Little Guido) (w/“Don” Tommy Rich, Big Guido, & Sal E. Graziano)- 5/10
This was early enough that the Danaconda Drop was still the Tea Bag. This started out as a brawl with everyone in the ring until the FBI eliminated Doring & Roadkill, at which point they seemed to start following the tag rules, but then finished the match with both Freaks pinning a member of the FBI at the same time.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- a pointless waste of PPV time.
The two big dudes on the outside tried to attack Balls and Axl, and both ate scary chairshots to the head.

TERRY FUNK PROMO- AWESOME!
This is the famous “jackass” promo, but I had completely forgotten that it stemmed from Tommy choosing Jake Roberts to be his tag team partner instead of calling Funk.

YOSHIHIRO TAJIRI vs. SUPER CRAZY- 8/10
Tajiri looks so young. This was match was excellent. It was a fast-paced series of spots, but not too fast that it felt like the moves didn’t mean anything, and everything was in a logical order, with one leading perfectly to the next. After the match, Joey emphasized that both of them were under contract to ECW and would be featured on future PPVs.

JEFF JONES & KRONUS SEGMENT- good
Jeff came out and cut a promo in his new judge gimmick and explaining to those of us who might have missed it why he is angry at Kronus (Kronus gave him a 450 recently). He said “guilty as charged” a lot. He said that he is the judge and the jury, and now Kronus will meet the executioner. This was corny, but it worked for me.

JOHN KRONUS vs. SID (w/Judge Jeff Jones)- no rating, good squash
Sid destroyed Kronus, and the fans all chanted “POWERBOMB!” like they were in a WCW mini-movie.
I usually don’t like squashes on PPV, but when there is a storyline reason for the match and you’re using it to introduce a big surprise, I’m fine with it, and that’s what this was here.

SHANE DOUGLAS VS. TAZ VIDEO PACKAGE- good

JOEY IS INSTRUCTED TO TALK ABOUT THE DUDLEY BOYS EVEN THOUGH THEY’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE- weird. I don’t get what the point of this was. Why waste time trying to make the show feel more spontaneous when the alternative (the Dudleys were just scheduled for a promo) actually works better because Joey doesn’t have to get duped by some unknown force in the company, and it’s not like a Dudleys promo would be out of place on a show.

DUDLEYS PROMO- Entertaining, but this was an unnecessary waste of PPV time. They all did their schtick. Bubba ended it by issuing an open challenge to anyone in the building, and we wound up getting…

SPIKE DUDLEY & NEW JACK vs. THE DUDLEY BOYS (w/Big Dick Dudley, Sign Guy Dudley, & Joel Gertner)- 6.5/10
While ostensibly a tag match, they mostly stayed separated by race. This was all of the highlights you’d expect in this era. They hit each other with stuff, Spike got thrown into the crowd, Big Dick no-sold a big weapon shot (an El Kabong from Spike, which looked awesome. Then New Jack hit him with one and he went down, at which point Joey said “Big Dick has gone limp,” and I couldn’t help but giggle), Spike got to be the giant-killer, etc.
Unexpected was New Jack getting taken out by a 3-D on the ramp, and the fun series of spots where first New Jack and then Spike caused the Dudleys to keep hitting each other. The Dudleys got the win, pinning Spike.

POST-MATCH SEGMENT- good
The Dudleys handcuffed Spike to the rope, then beat New Jack up while Devon recited the Dudleys’ commandments to him. Bubba then cut a promo about all of the teams they had beaten and all of the people they had put out of ECW. Then Bubba challenged the Public Enemy to show up to at the ECW Arena on Saturday night to face them.

JOEY STYLES SAYS HE SURE HOPES THE PUBLIC ENEMY SHOWS UP- He also promises us that a suitable replacement for Masato Tanaka will be found to challenge RVD for the TV Title tonight, and pitches to an RVD video package. This felt like filler. The video package in particular went WAY too long.

LANCE STORM PROMO- meh
He wants the TV Title shot. Other than the Calgary stuff (which came across as lame), his words were good, but Lance’s delivery was… well… a Lance Storm promo in the 90s.
Rob Van Dam came out, apparently accepting the challenge, so we got a replacement…

ECW WORLD TV TITLE MATCH: Rob Van Dam(c) (w/Bill Alfonso) vs. Lance Storm (w/Tammy Lynn Bytch)- 8.5/10
I had assumed that Rob was the babyface and Lance was the heel, but the first big spot they did had Lance get the Calgary Crab, and then Fonzie ran across the ring to accost Dawn Marie, and Lance had to release the hold to go save his non-wrestler valet from the man who was grabbing at her. The actual spot they did was really brilliant (Lance slid across the ring to grab at Fonzie so he wound up with his feet in the ring and his upper body out of it, with his arms grabbing Fonzie, allowing Rob to hit Lance with a guillotine legdrop), but the psychology was ass-backwards, as this was essential Rob cutting Lance off to start the “heat.”
That one issue out of the way… holy sh*t how is this match not talked about?! The action here was tremendous. Lots of great counters and big athletic moves, with everything looking crisp while never (other than the ref bump) looking more like a performance than a fight. You can even see the beginning of a lot of “next-level counters” type of stuff that RVD and Jerry Lynn would perfect later in the year. I can see the finish (Rob won with a German Suplex) taking away from the match for some, but I thought it did a good job of playing into the story that Lance was constantly a step ahead of Rob, by showing Rob being forced to use something not in his usual playbook to get the win.

STAIRWAY TO HELL MATCH: Tommy Dreamer vs. Justin Credible (w/Jason, Nicole Bass, & Jazzmyn)- 6.75/10
There was a Kendo stick suspended above the ring that you had to use a ladder to get to… but in the meantime, you could beat the sh*t out of the other guy with ladders and chairs and so forth, which made the Kendo stick feel unnecessary and made trying to go for it feel a little silly, even if it has been an important part of this feud.
Justin was running around WAY too quickly after getting kicked in the nuts. Similarly, it felt like Tommy as using his arm WAY too much after the damage that was done to it early on. The violence in here was good, but the match was quite slow at times.
Dreamer eventually got the Kendo stick (after what might well have been the first “wrestlers fighting from different ladders” spot) and had Justin tied up in the ropes, but Terry Funk came out and attacked Dreamer, allowing Justin to hit That’s Incredible on a ladder for the win. This actually did a great job of negating the negative that I alluded to earlier of the Kendo stick feeling anticlimactic when you’ve been watching guys hit each other with chairs and ladders for eighteen minutes, by substituting the emotional punch of Terry Funk attacking Dreamer for the anticlimactic Kendo stick shots that Tommy surely would have delivered to Justin.
Joey pushed the idea that Dreamer “wouldn’t” put his hands on Funk, but to me it looked like Tommy just didn’t have a chance because Funk kicked his as so quickly and viciously.

STEVEN PRAZAK INTERVIEWS TAZ- great
Taz told Prazak “Mic, camera, camera, Taz. We don’t need you!” AWESOME. Then he told Shane “beat me if you can, survive if I let you.”

SHANE DOUGLAS PROMO- AWESOME!

ECW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE MATCH: Shane Douglas(c) (w/Francine) vs. Taz- 4.75/10
They started off with what felt like the opening few minutes of a classic world title match as Joey told us what great technical wrestlers both men were. Then they abandoned all of that and went and brawled in the crowd for about ten minutes, and unless they do something really crazy, crowd brawling always sucks.
Eventually they got back into the ring and Shane whipped Taz through a table head-first and started to work on his neck. Taz managed to turn things around with a Taz-plex through a table. Then the lights went out… but unlike usual, we also got FIREWORKS. Then Sabu ran out through the entrance rather than using the magic of the lights to teleport. Sabu (in a neckbrace, as Taz had recently broken his neck at Shane’s behest) attacked both men.
Sabu put both guys through tables and then left. Shane crawled into a cover on Taz, but Taz kicked out. Shane made the Triple Threat sign, but, as both Joey on commentary and Francine in the ring pointed out “there is no more Triple Threat.”
Then Tammy Lynn Sytch jumped the guardrail. Francine shoved her and they started to have a catfight. Chris Candido came out to pull Tammy off of Francine, but Francine took advantage of this and speared Tammy. Shane pulled Francine off of Tammy and handed her off to one of the Atlas Security guys to take her to the back. Candido then punched Shane and left, throwing down the Triple Threat t-shirt. Shane questioned Candido, which allowed Taz to come up behind him and get the Taz-mission for the win, making Shane pass out.
This was a clusterf*ck, and a BIG mistake by Paul. First and foremost, he took what should have been Taz’s moment, and made it about everyone else. Did Sabu attacking both men play into the storyline? Absolutely. And if it had just been Sabu running in and attacking both guys until his neck couldn’t take it anymore, I wouldn’t have had much of a problem with it (I think the storyline actually would have worked better if he had dragged Taz onto Shane and that was the finish, as now Sabu would have robbed Taz of his moment glory as revenge for Taz injuring Sabu to steal this title shot from him, but I wouldn’t have done that finish as the main event of a PPV).
Does the Candido turn help set Shane up for the babyface direction they were about to start pushing him in? Not really. Shane calling for Candido’s help is Shane trying to cheat. If anyone is the babyface between those two, it’s Candido for refusing to help Shane cheat. But even if they had done this in a way where it really did set up a babyface turn, it still would have been a mistake, because it destroyed Taz’s moment. The guy who kills everyone couldn’t get his big title win cleanly? Are you kidding me? Taz was going to become the new top guy (hell, he arguably already was). Give him the big win CLEANLY. Then do everything you did here (you know, except do the Candido-Shane stuff right) at House Party, and do what you did at House Party on some other show.
Yes, this is all worse in hindsight because the Shane-Candido feud never goes anywhere because Candido goes to rehab soon, and by the time he’s back, Shane has left for WCW, and we never get any real Shane vs. Sabu fallout from Sabu attacking Shane because Shane turns babyface and Sabu is busy nit just feuding with Taz but also defending the tag titles with RVD, but even if all of that goes to plan, this still robbed Taz of his big win. Yes, he got to beat Shane cleanly later this week at House Party 1999, but that’s not a PPV, and that’s not the big title win.


This was an okay show from ECW. It had two awesome matches, but everything else was disappointing for a PPV match, including a horribly underdelivering main event. Still, I’m definitely glad I saw it, as that Storm vs. RVD is probably my favorite non-RVD vs. Jerry Lynn match from this era. Look… the crowd wasn’t great, and there was a lot of “SHOW YOUR TITS!” and “SHE’S A CRACK-WHORE!” chants rather than paying attention to the matches, but if you’re someone who can tune that sort of thing out, you’ll definitely enjoy the show. I enjoyed it so much, in fact, that next month we’ll stay with an ECW-style promotion and take our first look at one of the promotions that attempted to fill the void they left behind.
Hold #712: ARM BAR!

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