Found Footage Friday: PUNK~! RED~! NUNZIO~! JUVI~! MARTINEZ~! HERMANN~!

Luis Martinez vs. Hans Hermann NWA Chicago 1960

MD: Another one that Charles posted a while ago that we're just getting to now. This one went through Lee first as the length would have probably had me deprioritize it. It's only five minutes but it's five very fun minutes with a few comedy spots that I've never seen before. Hermann had a foot on Martinez and was an evil German with a chin to match. He ground Martinez down early with nerve ("muscle") holds and the sort.

When Martinez took over, he never really looked back. He went for a waistlock and Hermann crashed his fists down to break it, but Martinez was gone and he punched himself. Legitimately funny spot. There were a few more like that, like Martinez darting out of the way as Hermann tried to club him in the ropes. That set up Hermann tied up in said ropes and the charging headbutts to the gut. The physics of Hermann going over for Martinez on things like a flying headlock takeover felt weighty to say the least (and Martinez accentuated it with a loud "Arriba!"). He put him down in short order after this flurry with a Thesz press.

Post match, there was a special spotlight segment with John Paul Henning (sic). This is third hand, as in I found it on the internet, but apparently Henning had to stop wrestling because during a riot, he slammed the door and locked it, leaving Sonny Myers out with the rioting crowd to get stabbed. 

Nunzio vs. Juventud Guerrera WWE 11/15/05

MD: The vault released this one fairly quietly a few weeks ago and we're just getting to it now. It was in Rome. Nunzio was wildly over. Juvi was more than happy to get heat in front of a crowd like that. This ended up being incredibly minimalist, way more than I would have expected, but they were eating up everything that happened so it worked.

Juvi was doing a thing where he'd go for a pin at almost every opportunity and it meant that every kickout got a pop and felt almost like a hope spot. He'd cut Nunzio off with kicks to the guts, nothing fancy, but they could do no wrong (and in my mind, they did no wrong). Eventually, Nunzio got the slice rocker dropper off the top and it felt like a finish but Juvi got a foot on the rope, which, in itself, felt like a signal to the crowd that Nunzio wasn't winning in the old WWE style. The Juvi driver that followed would have really signified that but Juvi picked him up at one and demanded another. That allowed Nunzio to slip up and over, get a backslide and listen as the place became unglued. Fun stuff with just an amazing crowd and two guys willing to just bask in the glory of it all.

ER: I'm not sure when it started, but at some point I started writing "Juvi" as "Juvy" and now there's no turning back. I think Matt's right on this one. He also goes Eddy to my Eddie so it's clear my Mexican nickname spelling is nowhere near as good as my taste in wrestling. But one thing I know is that people with real taste in wrestling think Juventud Guerrera is one of the greats. Now, 1997 Juvy is different than 2001 Juvy is different than 2005 Juvy and beyond, but they are all phases of Juventud and that attitude and insanity is lurking inside every iteration. In 1997 he was one of the most insanely athletic ring guys in history, an improviser with nutty ideas and offense that nobody else was thinking about, a guy outshining Rey Misterio on the weekend shows with a degree of danger. 

This was Juvy in 2005, in Rome, against an Italian man who reveals after the match that he can barely pretend to speak Italian phonetically. "Italia Numero Uno" is the kind of thing someone guessing at Italian would say, but for this match Nunzio is a regional hero fighting for a championship in front of 10,000 Italians. Except in no part of this match does Nunzio come off like the star, only the de facto star, because this is expert heel Juventud working a match in Italy in 2005 like he's heel Terry Taylor. Juvy is great at working as heel Terry Taylor. Don't go into this waiting for the springboard improv of 1997, this is Juvy being a smug prick and drawing real damn heat. There is absolutely no highflying in this (well, aside from Juvy taking a mighty high backdrop during Nunzio's fiery comeback) because Juventud is Terry Taylor. Nunzio is the only one who goes up top, and it leads to the greatest part of the match: while up top, Juvy sweeps his leg and Nunzio flies off the top onto his tailbone (a bump I don't really remember him taking) and then Juvy does the fucking funniest little strut that ends with a slow motion shoulder shimmy. Juvy's strut is everything and all I need to tell me how damn good this match is. Juvy could have worked all of this without a highspot - he does the Juvy Driver and picks it up at 1 - because he really didn't need them. He takes the Sicilian Slice perfectly and gets his foot on the bottom rope with expert timing and nonchalance, and you could hear the crowd realizing they wouldn't be seeing this ox-eyed prick defeated. Until he is, by his own smugness, and the roar is deafening. Juvy fully understood what could be accomplished within a stripped down "safe" WWE style, a totally different kind of star than he was a decade prior. 

CM Punk vs. Amazing Red WWE 5/14/05 

MD: Not a ton to say here. I didn't think they were totally on the same page during the comeback and down the stretch and that felt a little more on Red, but he worked well from underneath before that and got to show off a bit in general. Punk stood out though, adapting to what he thought they were looking for like he always did in these situations. Just canny stuff. Lots of being vocal, wrestling for the last row, trying to get the crowd engaged. Yes, he had a couple of flashy things like the curb stomp and his grapevined DDT finisher, but in general, he was working this like it was fifteen years earlier as a way to show his mettle and that he wasn't some spot-laden indy guy. A worker working.

ER: I feel for Amazing Red here. I had no idea he ever even got a WWE tryout, let alone after he had already been done with his first several year run in TNA. It was clearly a case of them making him work a restrained version of whatever his match would have been in 2005. By the early 2000s they weren't really letting tryout dark match guys go out there specifically to Wow the audience, they wanted them to work a basic face/heel match with Young Boy restrictions. Hey Amazing Red, go out there and show every one your armdrags and dropkicks and your inside cradle. Maaaaybe a sunset flip. Red is a guy capable of Amazing things timed very nicely, and he was basically not allowed to be Amazing or use his timing. 

But - and I can't say "lucky for Red" as this tryout clearly went nowhere for him - CM Punk went out there and had a superstar performance that made this crowd fully get behind a generic Young Boy. Punk kept the crowd engaged the entire time and worked like an asshole from the second he appeared through the entrance. It's a super vocal performance that made me want to go back and rewatch all of that 2004-05 Punk that I haven't watched since 2004-05, just to see how much of this kind of heel wrestling he carried over from the indies. He sold loudly but not theatrically, yelling not to be funny but in a way that stood out as unique. Not like "Barry Darsow Unique", not hammy noise, but noise like nobody else was making on 2005 WWE cards. Seeing how vocal Punk was made me wonder if everyone else on the roster is given directives to be as quiet as possible. Rob Conway, Sylvan Grenier, the Bashams, I don't remember any of these guys making noise in a 2005 WWE ring. Punk kept people invested with great selling - vocals being a big part of it - and small movements. He came off like an asshole but kept them there with details, like that punch to the jaw after a rope break or the way he absentmindedly shook out his arm long enough after Red had driven his knee into it that it would have been understandable if he never referenced it again. 

Red wasn't allowed to be Amazing, and it didn't matter because people wanted him to shut CM Punk up. This crowd bit so hard on Red's swinging DDT, 100% convinced that Punk was going down, and I think it was all because he made himself out to be a guy who people wanted to see get beaten. 

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New Footage Friday: WWE MSG HandHeld 9/20/03

Full Show


MD: I was at this show. My college roommate was from the area and got me a ticket for my 22nd birthday right before I went off to grad school in England. This was the only time I ever went to MSG to see wrestling and as you can tell from the first few seconds of video, business was way down. That meant we ended with great seats, not ringside, but close. I'll be honest. Past the main event and the Taz surprise, I don't remember this card that well. While it was nice to see guys like Spanky, London, Mysterio, and Dragon in a setting like this and the main event felt special, I think, at the time, the main draw was just being in MSG to see wrestling.

Chris Benoit vs. The Big Show

PAS: This was far enough away that I am going to go ahead and try to pretend this was Quiet Storm vs. The Big Show and review it as a match instead of talking about all of that. Mark "The Shark" Shrader vs. Big Show was always a really great match up because John Walters would always move forward constantly while bouncing off of Show. This was a pretty great Nitro length match with Dingo hitting a great looking top rope shoulder block, and locking in the Josh Daniels crossface for the tap.

ER: I didn't love the layout of this one. Big Show took his offense up front, Benoit took all of his in the back, and that might be my least favorite layout in wrestling. I enjoyed all of the work, especially liked Benoit's shoulderblock off the top. But too often this had the vibe of a formula Randy Savage match, where he'd sell the whole match, hit a bodyslam and then finish with the elbow. This was better than that formula, and I liked how the tracking line skipped when Big Show hit a legdrop. Cooler version of the rumble effect WWE always tries.

MD: I don't see a lot of Benoit these days. He was perfectly serviceable chopping from underneath and the timing and explosiveness of the finishing stretch (headbutt, chokeslam reversal into a crossface) was great. The crowd was as behind him as they ever would be too, but to me, this was all about Show. He'd gotten it by this point and the way he controlled the ring, even in just a few minutes, was perfect, absolutely larger than life. This was a victim of the number of matches on the card, much shorter than it needed to be to move the needle, but they gave us a very good TV C show sort of match.

Matt Hardy/Shannon Moore vs. Spanky/Paul London

PAS: Really fun TWA vs. OMEGA tag match you could imagine seeing on Break the Barrier. It was really interesting to see how much bigger the OMEGA guys were then then London and Spanky, how even a three year difference in indy juniors meant 3 inches and 35 pounds (and I am sure London and Spanky would look like giants against the Undisputed Era). Hardy and Moore were the heels here and did a nice job cutting off the ring on Spanky after he took a big bump to the floor (his crazy bump would be topped by Shannon Moore later in the match). I thought the London hot tag was cool including a nicely set up SSP after spring off of Spanky's back. Just what you wanted from this cool matchup.

MD: This was good. I didn't like it as much as the later tag but that was more of a structural preference than anything else. You really got the sense that Hardy was glad to be in there with these guys and that Spanky and London had a lot to prove. They fit a lot into a short period of time and everything looked good with people in the right position at the right time. Again, with a card this stacked, they needed contrast and this was there to get the crowd going after their appetites had been whetted by the early burst of size, spectacle, and star-power.

ER: This is really cool, as Paul London hadn't actually made his TV debut. He had done some Velocity job work, but I bet 90+% of the crowd had no idea who he was, and the reactions for his biggest spots really showed they liked what they were seeing. I also had no memory of Brian Kendrick actually working WWE as "Spanky". What a silly name to have used for so long, and another name to add to the list of "Wait so Bryan Danielson had to be Daniel Bryan, but..." I obviously remember London & Kendrick, I had no memory of a London & Spanky WWE team. I dug this tag, felt like something that would fit in perfectly on this era Velocity. There were a couple minor timing issues and a swinging neckbreaker that looked like it didn't really swing, but the fans were reacting big to London's dropkicks and flipped out for that shooting star off Spanky's back (which is a fantastic spot), and the finish was really great. Spanky goes for a pescado and Moore dunks him right into the floor, then runs halfway around the ring in time to shove London off the top into a Twist of Fate. I thought they added in a couple of good twists, like Spanky being unable to get to his hot tag while Moore got to his, the kind of things that add different gears to a fun spot tag.

Sho Funaki vs. Nunzio

PAS: The Bloodsport version of PWFG trainee versus UWFI undercarder would be pretty cool. The WWE house show version is a pretty basic undercard juniors match. Lots of dropkicks and armdrags. Nunzio did take a big backdrop which was pretty cool, otherwise this was pretty dry.

MD: Nunzio was really great here, just excellent at working the crowd and keeping people engaged, from having the ref mimic his mannerisms pre-match to mocking Funaki. Because of that, even though you had guys down the cruiserweight chain and basically your third-string Japanese guy on the card in a time where you'd be liable just to have one or two, they never lost the fans, which is saying something because this was a crowd that was capable of tuning out in the midst of a good match.

Bashams vs. Ultimo Dragon/Jamie Noble

MD: Enjoyable southern tag, with Dragon playing face in peril and the Bashams dismantling his arm with perfect precision. Here, they did lose the fans, though it wasn't necessarily the fault of the match. It certainly wasn't Noble's fault, since he was working the apron hard and expressing real indignation in his attempts to get in there, even at his partner's expense. The Bashams had only been on TV for a few months and they didn't have Shaniqua to get them heat here (not that she would have necessarily helped). While they were sound in everything they did, it was the opposite of Nunzio. They barely acknowledged the crowd. When the boring chants started, Noble redoubled his efforts on the apron and Dragon went right into hope spots, but it didn't really work out. Noble was fiery enough that the comeback more or less worked out and the finish was effective and elaborate but the crowd just didn't want to come along for the ride of the match. Shame.

PAS: I thought this was spectacular. The Bashams were really great at making a heel beatdown interesting, and they really worked over Dragons arm in cool ways, while feeding him some nifty comebacks and hope spots. I am sort of a low voter on Ultimo, but he can really be breathtaking when he gets on a roll. Noble was really awesome in this match too, knocking out some cool quick takedowns early, being a killer house of fire, including jumping into a guillotine, and then eating that killer super spine buster for the pin. This is a show with some of the most talented wrestlers in wrestling history on it, and it takes a lot to stand out, and he really did.

ER: I'm with Phil, I thought this was great. Bashams were always a team that I was fine with but never fully got into them, always thought they didn't live up to all of the OVW hype Meltzer gave them at the time. There would be flash standout performances, but I also remember them being tied down with Tough Enough manager Linda Miles and I don't think the act worked. But everything about this tag worked for me and made me want to go back and revisit a ton of Bashams. This was easily one of the best Ultimo Dragon performances I remember seeing in WWE (a stint I thought was super disappointing overall). Dragon was the reason for me to buy WAR tapes back in the day, and at this point in my life there are probably on average at least 15 guys on any given WAR show that I would rather watch. But this was the ideal version of WWE Dragon, all his combos landed and I flat out loved the missed strikes between he and Danny Basham. Danny Basham was full of awesome missed strikes here, I don't remember him cutting so low on missed lariats and punches; he really made Ultimo duck and was throwing them super fast. Noble really did look like a much better and more interesting version of Benoit here, everything he did looked fantastic, that running low knee especially was something that I don't think any current worker does as well. But everything he did was done with such exciting speed and impact. There are plenty of guys with speed on the 2020 roster, but Noble was using his speed to make his impact look greater, not using it to work out overly complicated dance routines based around missed your opponent a bunch. Great tag that I would have loved to see get more time.

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Tajiri

MD: Everything hit, but I wanted a little more out of this, just given who was in there. I liked how they didn't dally in getting to the transition (which was smart and flowed, as Mysterio went up one too many times and ate a kick), but past one roll-up out of nowhere, there weren't any hope spots and and cut offs. This is the sort of match that needed a few extended comeback spots where Mysterio could get a few things in. The finishing stretch was as good as you'd expect and I liked how they protected Tajiri's kick for the post match, though it was a little weird that Mysterio would rather celebrate with the crowd than go after the guy who snuck in a cheapshot.

PAS: I thought these guys worked really well together, for a pairing you don't necessarily think about. It felt like Tajiri was trying to out Rey, Rey almost trying to one up him in slickness and speed especially at the beginning of the match. The fact he kind of pulled it off is pretty amazing. Loved how Tajiri went after the ribs, using the big kick as a cutoff spot, and then peppering in little body shots and additional kicks. Great stuff which really makes me want to track down all of their other matches against each other.

Charlie Haas vs. Billy Kidman

MD: I haven't seen either of these guys in a long time. There were some things I really liked: Haas' initial intensity with the mat wrestling (though it didn't last long enough; the way he jammed Kidman's outside-in shoulder to set up the posting and the heat, then how Kidman had to work to get that shoulder for a hope spot later; the back-work in general which was intense, and the comeback took effort and the finish was solid. They had the crowd early, probably due to Haas getting promo time, and lost them midway through, but not for long. I outright laughed when Haas tried to power bomb Kidman, because I didn't think that was still happening in 2003. So I liked the brunt of the storytelling here. Some of the spots were awkward and Kidman's offense in the stretch wasn't great but you couldn't have wanted much more from a cold house show match between these two.

Eddie Guerrero vs. John Cena vs. Rhyno

MD: As triple threats go, I thought this was pretty good. They kept the laying-on-the-outside to a minimum. Cena was definitely full of star power and willing to throw himself into everything. Eddy had this way of creating chaos so effortlessly and then taking advantage of it. You should have been able to see the strings but you never did.

PAS: Three ways are far from my favorite kind of match, but you put two of the most charismatic wrestlers of all time along with a fine utility man like Rhino, you are going to get something really worth watching. I just love watching Eddie move, even in a minor key house show match like this he just exudes something. It is like watching Prince or Richard Pryor, really that kind of kinetic star power was supremely rare. Cena has it in smaller doses, but this was before Cena was Cena really. I did like his squat press suplex, and he didn't look out of his depth in there with Eddie. Rhino was shaped like a cardboard box, and I always enjoyed him bouncing around like a Box Troll.

Brock Lesnar vs. The Undertaker

MD: It's hard to ignore the complaining from the fans. All of the heat here was ultimately on Vince, and yes, the match did come alive in that back third when he was involved. Before that, though it was more of a traditional WWF cage match, lacking hate, lacking blood, not nearly enough violence, with a lot of transitions and spots based around trying to escape the cage, peppered with good use of the cage to do things their size wouldn't usually allow and a few bits of matwork that you know Taker was excited to be able to work with Brock. Vince brought so much energy and excitement relative to the actual wrestlers, which is weird to think considering how the entire world seems to buzz when Brock is in a ring now.

PAS: These guys had an all time great Hell in the Cell match around this time. This wasn't that, but these guys do match up really well. Brock is such a freak athlete and even on simple bumps is just flying around the ring. They also laid in their shots which is really what you want from Matt is right about the match really picking up when Vince comes in. Vince can really emote to the last row, and takes some big bumps for an old man with a lot of money. I really loved his post match celebration only to get ripped by Taker. Fun stuff, although it really could have used the plasma which livened up the Hell in the Cell.

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WWECW 10/30/07

Elijah Burke vs. Jimmy Wang Yang

ER: I don't remember the Yang ECW run, but he's a fun big bumping ECW archetype, and here he dies with a great spill from the apron to the post onto the stairs and into the barricade, and a later shoulder first bump into the ringpost that sets up Burke's great double knees finish. His offense was mostly defensive, like when he hit a hooking spin kick to knock Burke out of the air (replays show Burke jumping face first into boot). But I dig the way Burke moves, like a kind of proto Velveteen Dream, a lot of flair to even the simplest things. Burke works chinlocks and other grounded holds with nice energy, bends Yang's elbow, drops a knee on his triceps, does some nice glancing stomps to Yang's face, and bigger things like a cool shoulderbreaker and an even cooler diving elbow to Yang's back. This was fun, if inconsequential.

Nunzio vs. Tommy Dreamer

ER: This is billed as a Trick or Treat match, with Nunzio dressed as Count Dracula and Dreamer doing a spot on Paul E. Dangerously impression. At least there wasn't a situation where Dreamer has no said in interview that he was going to bumrush a WWE event to murder Paul Heyman and then blow his own brains out live at a PPV. I'm sure Dreamer's accurate and public Paul Heyman costume has nothing whatsoever to do with Dreamer wanting to share Paul Heyman's skin. A Trick or Treat match is apparently two men dressed in good Halloween costumes, hitting each other with items that you would find at a Peanuts Halloween party. There is a table with pies (nothing but pumpkin, it would seem) and an apple bobbing station. There isn't a ton to it once you get past the costumes, but Nunzio bumps around way more than he should have in a stips match designed to be immediately forgotten. He takes a great running banana peel slip bump on the floor, slipping in reddi-wip that Dreamer had already sprayed, then getting the apple bobbing bucket kicked into his face before spiking himself for Dreamer's DDT.

The Miz vs. John Morrison

ER: This is like the last match up I'm interested in seeing from this old WWECW, so the fact this is a #1 contender's match means they're both lingering around the title picture. This is not the kind of wrestling I am nostalgic for. This is the worst elements of 2007 Edge offense combined with the worst elements of 2020 Athleticism Wrestling. They nearly win me over at least two times: Once, when Miz throws three hooking left hands - the first an excellent worked punch - in a better way than he throws that similar punch now. Here he was making it look like a punch; now, he makes sure to make it look like he's throwing a fake punch. That weird bloated theatricality is a thing that keeps me from buying into any Miz hype today. These punches were a good thing, that he should still be doing. The second way they almost got me was a cool sequence with the two fighting in and around the ropes and the apron, stuff they gave a little struggle to, ending with Miz kicking Morrison into the barricade with both legs. But their tendencies always butt their way in and take me back out of things. Mix bunny hops into a hotshot like a goober, there's silly Edge offense where one guy grabs an arm and the other guy falls onto his face, and a general "we learned wrestling from Matt Sydal trainees" vibe.

CM Punk vs. James Curtis

ER: James Curtis is the last name used by KC James, one of those 2000s Smackdown workers I liked, the kind that would show up for 6 months and then never be heard from again. There were a lot of those guys during the 2000s who either worked like or were Cornette fed trainees, and they always stood out as "not quite WWE style" just enough to make me like them and also make sure none of them went anywhere. He's the kind of guy who can throw a nice corner clothesline and a good shoulderblock, who wrestles like a cross between Tim Horner and Kendall Windham. This was a quick Punk showcase, just 90 seconds, and Curtis is a good guy to have a showcase opposite. Punk during his WWECW run was such a pastiche of the worst parts of indy wrestling: Virtual Pro Wrestling 2 puro move aping with sloppy movement. It's weird seeing a guy do Kawada forehead kicks somewhat well on WWE TV, but it's a thing that I sure hated as it continued spreading over the indies. Punk at least keeps his floor high by keeping things like the running headlock bulldog as a presence on TV, when most had switched to the awful hand on back of head method. The match is good for 90 seconds, and Morrison (winner of the earlier #1 contender match) lays Punk right on out with a diving forearm to the back of the head while Punk was still pinning Curtis. It was the coolest offense Morrison threw on this episode, and if there was going to be just one well he picked a good time for it.

Monster Mash Battle Royal: Great Khali vs. Mark Henry vs. Big Daddy V vs. Kane - FUN

ER: What a concept! Throw your 4 biggest goons into the ring at the same time on your Halloween episode, one giant Monster Squad all turning on each other. It's great. It's a great visual to get 4 mammoth guys in there all at the same time, total no brainer booking move. V and Henry crash into each other, Kane throws a potato shot to V's cheek, V misses a big charge into the corner and then takes a big bump to the floor. Khali takes his own impressive bump over the top, and we get a quick violent Mark Henry/Kane interaction: Henry lifts Kane up and flings him over the top! Kane getting manhandled usually isn't a thing that happens in a match, so Henry definitively chucking him to the floor was a great finish. There was a little messiness, V drops Kane on his big spinning slam, and the whole match barely goes 4 minutes. These 4 together is such an impossibly rare treat that I needed twice as much time with them crashing into each other, but what we get is giants gold.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWECW


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

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WWECW Workrate Report 5/15/07

Vince starts us with a sit down interview wearing a white doo rag (to match his suit) and doing a kinda bonkers promo about how much he likes his "skull caps", and thinks they look cool, but what he likes more is not wearing anything on his head at all and how Bobby Lashley took that privilege away from him. For anybody that was sick of MacMahons on TV, I think Vince is so incredibly awesome once you're removed from the situation.

1. RVD vs. Snitsky

On paper this does not look great, but RVD's best opponents are usually immobile roid guys. He bumps around big for their moves and makes them look better than they really are (and bumping has always been his strongest suit). When he's against another "athletic" guy they just become mindless jerkoff sessions. RVD still has plenty of problem spots in this match (his forearms have always been a train wreck) but this match is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. They've both been in with "better" workers, but this is a good match up. It's not a good match, mind you, but a good match up. All of RVD's spin kicks land nice and snug and he peppers them in at the right times. Snitsky doesn't blow anything and controls with acceptable power offense. Match ends when Snitsky hits RVD with a chair, so apparently that is not a thing you can do in the new ECW.

2. CM Punk vs. Steven Richards

They do a Punk video before the match highlighting all of Punk's martial arts expertise, and it shows footage of him just hitting his awkward spinning mule kick and slapping somebody. He also calls jiu jitsu "jits" which is just about the most annoying 'breve you can use. I did not realize Richards was still a WWE employee at this point but I'm stoked as I always liked his WWE work. The Bob Holly matches from Heat were two of my favorites from that time period. This match was really great and about as awesome a match as you could do in 4 1/2 minutes. Punk has his ribs taped up from getting hit with the Pounce last week, and Richards immediately eye rakes Punk and starts ripping at the tape. He starts working the body with punches and stomps, snapmaring Punk and just booting the shit out of his back. Nice, satisfying THUD there. Richards works him over with a cool bow and arrow and keeps to those ribs. Richards always had really great body part specific match layouts, depending on what the match called for. Punk's comeback was nice and quick, with Richards getting into place for everything really well and flying face first into the GTS. God I wanted like 2 more minutes at least, but they filled the time they had really well.

3. Kevin Thorn vs. Nunzio

Thorn seems pretty boring, just making a bunch of scowly faces and plodding around. Nunzio looks GREAT here. His bumping was always pretty spectacular, but his evasive offense here was really satisfying and his stick and move style worked nicely. He had a really great dropkick to Thorn's ankle and then hit a sweet dropkick off the top. Then Thorn just kinda brushed it off and hit his admittedly cool finisher (like a Stunner but with the guy draped over the top rope, called the Dark Kiss). I imagine most guys don't take it as well as Nunzio, though.

Extreme Expose is up now, and okay Kelly does legitimately seem out of place during a bunch of this, and even takes a kick to the head from Layla at one point (Layla does a lot of high kicks and was lying on the apron doing them, when Kelly tried to walk through the ropes mid-Layla kick. Whoops.) which they admirably move on from somewhat smoothly. Layla looked so damn tiny and skinny during this, much less curvy than present.

4. The New Breed (Matt Striker, Marcus Cor Von, Elijah Burke) vs. Bobby Lashley

Boy, sure are a lot of 3 on 1 handicap matches on the new ECW. They're even building one up throughout the show for the upcoming Judgment Day PPV. This match is pretty much nothing until Cor Von hits the Pounce a few minutes in and Lashley spills spectacularly over the top rope to the floor. For a move that seems really hard to make look good, a lot of guys seem to make the Pounce look really good. Burke looks really good working over Lashley. He had a bunch of nice body blows, a cool Kabuki right uppercut, and a great fistdrop off the top to Lashley's ribs (was Burke a guy getting pimped in 2007? He looks really good here). Lashley's come back kind of comes out of nowhere, like they just got the call to go home. They go from Lashley selling a beating to just immediately going back on offense, dispatching Burke and Cor Von, and then hitting his finisher on Striker. Striker gets more height on a chokeslam/power bomb type move than anybody I've ever seen. Holy lord. This match could have been really good if Lashley's transition to comeback was worked in sensibly. Instead they just flipped a switch and it was "Okay, my turn to do stuff" and the whole thing ended up rushed.


WWECW MASTER LIST

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