ECW One Night Stand Thoughts

This was just a fun night out, plain and simple. In the theater we were watching the show at, we sat right behind WWE Canada President Carl DeMarco, whom we were trying to infuriate with comments like "You Screwed Bret!" and "De Marco Sucks!". Unfortunately, he didn't sell our catcalls at all.

In any event, I found that the matches were almost secondary to the nostalgia factor, which was fine. I think that's how you have present something like this; you can't pretend that the company has been in business all this time.

Briefly, the Mike Awesome-Masato Tanaka match was EASILY match of the night, and I can't help but think Mike's performance will land him a spot on the WWE roster again (perhaps in the Cabinet?). The Dudleyz-Tommy Dreamer/Sandman came in second for me; it was so ridiculously overbooked that it worked. Eddie Guerrero-Chris Benoit was fine, but they almost have to outdo themselves to get a higher rating these days. The two cruiserweight matches were fast-paced and fun, but nothing overly compelling over similar bouts. Nice to see Sabu back in action and as crazy as ever. And while Chris Jericho-Lance Storm was a tad underwhelming, I was at least happy Storm got the nod in what might be his final match.

Paul Heyman and Rob Van Dam's shoots were surreal, in that they both said what everyone was thinking, but what no one ever thought would appear on a WWE PPV. Joel Gertner was hilarious in his two brief appearances. On commentary, I wasn't crazy about the teaming of Joey Styles and Mick Foley, but I suppose it could have been far worse.

As far the invasion angle went.... it was well done. You could tell the ECW faithful to kick the shit out of Bradshaw, Bischoff, Angle & company, so having them appear numerous times was a given. Should they have had Austin as the guy who eventually orchestrated the attack on the invaders? Oh hell yeah! It's not as though Stone Cold was never with ECW or anything, and his appearance gave the show a nice push without seemingly overly "corporate".

So yeah, this one of the most anticipated PPV's in a number of years, and it delivered as advertised. Definitely one to go out of your way to see.