Cyberslam 1998

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We open with everyone in the ring to pay homage to Louie Spicoli, who wasn't all that great but died so now he is. The crowd takes forever to shut up because it goes completely against their nature. Paul E. does the talking and the bell rings 10 times.

Doring is possibly the least interesting wrestler I've ever seen. Charming "You fuck sheep" chant for Roadkill. How could the WWF possibly corrupt *these* minds? Stall-a-rama. We get going and it's a nothing match, the usual ECW quasi-match where they try wrestling for a couple of minutes and when that doesn't get over they brawl outside the ring. The fans ain't buying it here. Doring is awful. He fakes an elbow which allows Roadkill a chance to drop an elbow from the top rope. Why bother distracting the referee, everything is no-DQ anyway. You know, if I were a wrestler, I'd call myself Bruce Borring, and then put my opponent in a headlock for ten minutes. So the crowd would start chanting "Borrrrrrrring", and I'd go "thank you!". Great idea, no? Well, Lynn wins with a powerbomb off the top here. *

I'll spare you the ugly details, but my roommate assures me that there is exactly 15 minutes of stalling before we begin the actual match. So we fast-forward through, and damned if he isn't right. The FBI stalls, then Snow stalls, then they trade. We start the match and the arena is apparently on fire. It didn't burn down, sadly enough. Move, stall, move, stall, FBI interference, stall. Yawn. Snow didn't really do much in the ring to distinguish himself in ECW, it was all the Head.

Furnas can't draw heat to save his life. They're still pushing the lame-o "WWF Invasion" because ECW mutants are obviously so stupid that they think Vince gives a damn about ECW at this point. Furnas just destroys Chetti for about 8 minutes with his usual array of moves until Chetti hits a DDT and his double-jump moonsault out of nowhere for the inexplicable pin. What-ever.

The Triple Threat (with Francine and Sunny) come out to hype the tag match at Living Dangerously. Sunny knows who the partner is, you see. But she won't tell. Candido is upset at this and a near-catfight erupts.

The preceding match leads to a bet between Zenon and myself: 5 dollars says that Taz isn't the World champion at the end of Guilty as Charged. Zen thinks he walks out with the belt. Amazingly this actually goes into the ring for a bit. Joey actually calls an inverted DDT correctly! Thank you, it's about time someone did. I'll print the bit from the FAQ about the difference between "reverse" and "Inverted" until everyone gets it right. They beat on each other for a while, with shots that would have had either guy gushing blood in any other match, but it's first blood so of course it's dry. They each pull out their two wrestling moves and they're out of ideas so Beulah and Nicole get involved and the ref gets bumped. Tommy takes control and finds some barbed wire that was luckily at ringside, and wraps it around himself. Yes, he is that stupid. Dreamer does everything *but* actually cut Justin open with the barbed wire, and then Rob Van Dam gets involved, nailing Dreamer with a big kick and cutting him open with his own barbed wire. Then Beulah takes a piledriver from Credible (Overbooking? What's that?). The ref sees Dreamer bleeding and calls for the bell. Dreamer hasn't had a good match in years. -** Dreamer takes out Jason to vent his frustrations.

Taz Vs. Brakkus at ECW Cyberslam 1998

About five minutes of stalling and finally we're underway with Rob Van Dam against Shane. Fonzie and Rob have a whistle-off just to annoy me. The ring is miked and everything is REALLY LOUD. Van Dam and Douglas pretend to wrestle for a bit, which is really insulting because we all know that it's going to turn into a spotheavy clusterfuck in about two minutes. Maybe less if Sabu gets bored. Shane ends up playing Ricky Morton for the usual Sabu/RVD spots and makes the hot tag to Bigelow. Fans seem preoccupied with something else. Bigelow destroys Van Dam, who now assumes the obnoxious-punk-in-peril job. And here I thought it'd be a pointless spotfest. Instead it's a boring tag match. Six of one, half a dozen of the other I guess. Bigelow goes for Greetings from Asbury Park and Sabu makes the save with a chair, and the spotfest erupts. I hate it when they build one match for 10 minutes and then just abandon it and do a mindless brawl for the remainder. It cheapens the buildup from the first half.

A table gets set up between the railing and the ring, and they proceed to set up an elaborate spot which everyone manages to blow in their own little way. Bigelow sets up a table but powerbombs Van Dam BESIDE it, which of course is the signal for Sabu to put Bigelow through it. This is a mess. Rolling Thunder on Douglas, which only gets two, because Douglas is superhuman and all. Then in a supremely sad moment, Sabu puts Douglas on a table and it breaks. Big boos from the crowd. Live by the table, die by the table. Van Dam takes Greetings from Asbury Park for the Triple Threat win. Douglas is just not cut out for these types of matches. *1/2