Sunday, June, 11th 2006
Hammerstein Ballroom
New York City, New York
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This one gets the TV-MA warning before the show. Paul Heyman is out to kick off the show. The crowd reaction really is something. He hypes up the new ECW and is greeted with lots of chants.
Tazz vs. Jerry Lawler
Lawler on his way to the ring confronts Joey Styles and slaps him. Styles jumps on his back in the ring. Lawler fights him off and goes for a piledriver. Tazz grabs him and puts him in the Tazzmission and that's all. This was obviously just fan service to kick off the show.
Match Rating: 1/4*
They show clips of the WWE vs. ECW special and how Big Show joined ECW. There are no TV screens in the arena or I'm guessing this would have gotten booed.
Randy Orton vs. Kurt Angle
I'm not a huge Orton fan, but he is the perfect guy to throw in this environment. On the other hand, Angle was also probably the perfect guy to give to ECW because it's impossible not to appreciate his talent. We get a lot of mat wrestling to start with Orton escaping out of the ring and the crowd cursing at him. Angle hits his shoulder in the ring post to shift the momentum in Orton's favor. It's pretty hilarious when they start chanting "You can't wrestle" at Orton. Got it, guys. After a lot of rest holds, Angle comes back with the trio of German suplexes. Orton hits his inverted neckbreaker and gets a 2 count. Angle runs into a back elbow and Orton goes up to the top rope. Angle meets him up there, but gets knocked off. Orton hits a flying crossbody, but Angle rolls through for a 2 count. Orton gets up and nails him with a clothesline. Angle goes for an Ankle Lock out of Orton's RKO attempt, but Orton turns it into a pin for a 2 count. This time Angle gets the Ankle Lock on and Orton taps. Well, there was no way Orton was winning here, so it was hard to buy any of his attempts here. I thought they went too heavy on the mat wrestling and it hurt the match overall. Orton sells the ankle injury after the match and asks for help walking to the back.
Match Rating: **
FBI vs. Super Crazy & Tajiri
Super Crazy and Tajiri will forever be two of the most underused WWE talents. They try their best to portray the FBI on the same level as Tajiri and Crazy, but it really just doesn't make much sense. Crazy drills Mamaluke with a dropkick and they have both of them in a tree of woe right now. They do a double dropkick and Tajiri gets a 2 count. Crazy goes for a moonsault, but Mamaluke pulls his partner out of the way, so Crazy hits one to the outside on both of them. Big Guido trips up Super Crazy behind the referee's back, as if that matters in ECW. Proof of that is just second later he attacks Crazy and the ref sees it. Mamaluke holds Crazy in a Camel Clutch and Little Guido hits him with a dropkick. Crazy makes a tag to Tajiri and he hits a spin kick on Little Guido. Tajiri hits the handspring elbow on both opponents and I am shocked this match is still going on. He and Crazy hit double Tarantulas and then in comes Big Guido. They hit him with a series of kicks and then a double dropkick knocks them down. The FBI knocks Crazy into the crowd and then hits a double fisherman buster on Tajiri for the victory. Yeah, it's safe to say the wrong team won here. As soon as the match is over, Big Show is on his way out. He kicks Big Guido in the crotch and then slowly attacks everyone in the ring. The crowd surprisingly cheers for this, which makes no sense. The match was pretty good, but I'm not sure why it got so much time, nor do I understand the FBI winning.
Match Rating: **1/2
JBL comes out from the balcony and starts insulting ECW, with a good amount of truth involved here.
Extreme Rules Match For The World Heavyweight Championship
Sabu vs. Rey Mysterio
Both men have chairs to start things off, but set them down after the bell starts. After a little bit of wrestling, they start hitting chairs, which leads to Sabu hitting a leg lariat in the corner off the chair. Mysterio hits a drop toe hold on Sabu into the chair. Rey hits a hurricanrana off the chair to boos. Mysterio misses the 619 and Sabu chucks the chair at his head. Nothing better than having your champ having chairs thrown at their heads. Sabu sets up a table on the ring and guardrail. He sets Rey up on it. Rey is able to move out of the way and Sabu legit slips and sells it. Mysterio hits a moonsault for a 2 count. Sabu fights back and hits a guillotine leg drop for a 2 count. Sabu sets up another table, but gets hit with a dropkick on his way back in. Mysterio hits a Lou Thesz Press through the table on Sabu. Back in the ring, Rey hits a springboard leg drop and gets another 2 count. Sabu hits the triple jump moonsault and that gets a nearfall. He landed right on Rey's face there. Mysterio sets up Sabu on a chair, but Sabu moves and Mysterio lands on the chair. Sabu then throws another chair at Rey's head. Sabu sets up Rey on the table and hits a springboard into a DDT through the table. The crowd goes nuts, but this leads to a no contest, which never happens so it makes no sense. The crowd is all over it, as they show the replay and the table definitely didn't break the way they probably had hoped. I really enjoyed this match minus the chairs to the head and the finish though. Sabu hit most of his moves here, which is always a plus.
Match Rating: ***1/2
Mick Foley cuts another promo about how he used to respect ECW and brings up the invasion angle. Edge and Lita join in on the fun, but aren't as effective. Beulah comes out and challenges to make this a 3-on-3 match.
Mixed Extreme Rules Tag Team Match
Mick Foley, Edge & Lita vs. Tommy Dreamer, Terry Funk & Beulah McGillicutty
Unsurprisingly, this quickly turns into a brawl between the men. Dreamer kicks a trash can into the face of Foley and then Edge hits Dreamer with a cookie sheet outside the ring. Funk and Foley begin to brawl down the entrance ramp and Edge hits Dreamer in the face with a ladder. Edge goes for a Spear into the ladder, but Dreamer counters it into a hip toss. Funk grabs the ladder and does the airplane spin with it. Funk starts climbing the ladder, but Edge tips it over and Funk falls on his back. Keep in mind that the ladies are just standing on the apron here. As I say that, Lita runs in and kicks Dreamer in the crotch. Beulah just stands there. Edge and Foley go under the ring and pull out a piece of plywood with barbed wire and slam it on Dreamer. They then go to suplex it on him, but Foley grabs them by the ankles and it falls on them instead. Foley gets thrown into the board and we get the dreaded "This is awesome" chant. Funk gets his turn into the board and Foley takes some barbed wire from Lita and starts shredding Funk with it. The medical staff and Skinner come out to take Funk to the back while Foley and Edge attack Dreamer with a barbed wire baseball bat. Foley then puts the Socko variation of the Mandible Claw. Dreamer comes to her aid, but then he gets the Claw as well. Edge hits him with the Spear and then turns his attention to Beulah. Out comes Terry Funk with his head bandaged up and a 2x4 with barbed wire on it. The distraction allows Dreamer to hit a double low blow. Funk has some issues, but eventually gets the weapon on fire and starts hitting Foley with it. Foley ends up falling off the ring and into the barbed wire plywood. Dreamer hits Edge with a DDT and then chokes him with barbed wire. Lita kicks him off and then Beulah attacks Lita. Dreamer pulls Lita off of her and hits a Dreamer Driver on her. Edge attacks Dreamer with the barbed wire. He hits the Spear on Beulah and pins her for the victory. Man, 2006 me loved this match. 2021 me, not nearly as much. This was really disappointing. There was some fun, but it mostly came off as them trying way too hard. I like all of these guys, but this just felt a little too much like garbage wrestling.
Match Rating: **1/2
They show Cena hanging out in the hallway and then RVD warming up.
Balls Mahoney vs. Masato Tanaka
We get some pretty standard wrestling to start. Tanaka hits a running fist in the corner and Balls comes back with a powerslam. We then get the Balls punch chant thingy. Balls charges at Tanaka, but he ducks and Balls falls to the floor. Tanaka leaped over the top to try and hit a DDT on the way down, but Balls for whatever reason didn't go along with it. Balls hits Tanaka with cups of beer because that makes sense. Tanaka tries to hit him with a chair, but Balls avoids it and throws them in the ring. They both climb up top and Tanaka hits a superplex. They climb again and this time Balls hits the superplex. They both grab chairs and start dueling. Tanaka loses his and Balls drills him in the head for the victory. I like Tanaka, but Ball is not Mike Awesome and this match was pretty weak overall. Plus, I don't need to see a guy get hit that hard in the head with a chair.
Match Rating: *1/2
After a lengthy hype video, the ring announcer is about to announce the competitors and out comes Eugene. I think we all know where this is going. He reads a poem to rile up the crowd and out comes Sandman. After a 20 minute entrance, he finally gets to the ring and hits him with the cane. This was flat.
Extreme Rules Match For The WWE Championship
Rob Van Dam vs. John Cena
Cena keeps trying to throw his shirt into the crowd and they throw it back. They go for a slow start while the crowd shouts obscenities. Cena is able to clothesline RVD over the top rope and Cena hits a top rope ax handle to the floor. They start brawling into the crowd for a little until Cena throws RVD back over the guardrail. They get back into the ring and RVD is able to hit the guillotine leg drop. RVD uses a chair to hit the skateboard dropkick into the corner. RVD then hits a Rolling Thunder with a chair on the chest of Cena. RVD goes for the split legged moonsault, but Cena gets his knees and chair up to counter it. Cena catapults RVD into a chair in the corner. RVD did a nice job on that. Cena hits the Five Knuckle Shuffle and then goes for the FU. RVD counters and hits a kick to the face. RVD leaps up top, but Cena grabs him and hits a one armed powerbomb for a 2 count. RVD goes for some sort of suplex off the ropes, but they have a messed up spot. RVD ends up dropkicking Cena off the apron into the guardrail. RVD sets up a table in the corner, but Cena is able to put him in the STFU. RVD gets to the ropes and the ref forces him off, which makes no sense because there are no rules. Cena and the ref start getting into it and Cena levels him. RVD goes up top, but Cena crotches him and hits a superplex. Cena brings in the ring steps and smashes them into RVD. Nick Patrick comes in and counts to 2 before RVD gets his shoulder up. Cena hits a FU over the top rope and to the floor. In comes a guy dressed up in a motorcycle helmet and Spears Cena through the table. He takes off the helmet and it's Edge. RVD comes back into the ring and hits the Five Star Frog Splash. He tries to wake up Nick Patrick, but has no luck. Out comes Paul Heyman and he counts to 3. RVD gets announced as the new ECW Champion and that is all. RVD celebrates into the crowd, including up in the balconies. The ECW wrestlers then celebrate with him in the ring. The match was pretty good, but it was more about the moment. RVD was long overdue for this and it's kind of a shame that it took Edge and Paul Heyman for him to win it here.
Match Rating: ***
If you would have asked me where this show ranked for me prior to re-watching it, I would have said it would easily be in my top 25 WWE shows. Here I am a couple of hours later and I'm not sure it would make my top 100. It wasn't bad, but it just doesn't hold up that well. I am probably the only person who liked the Mysterio/Sabu match the best, but to me it was the one match that hit the high notes more than anything else. Anyway, this wasn't a bad show at all, it just feels completely out of date.
Overall Rating: 70%
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