But first, Armageddon 2007!
Kane & CM Punk vs. Big Daddy V & Mark Henry
”One’s the size of a mini-van, the other’s the size of a convenience store!” I miss Tazz. Styles tells us no TV can cover all of Henry & V, which someone obviously listened to because this was the last 4:3 PPV. Punk can’t take Henry down so he drop toe holds him into the corner instead. Kane tags in and slaps Mark around with those cool uppercut thrusts (upperthrusts) but he also can’t take him down. Punk tags in and Henry knocks him down so V can tag in. V starts slapping him around and Punk bounces off him. ”That’s like running into a water tower!” Striker gets a cheap shot on Punk (explaining to him the Romanian Revolution of 1989 caused just as many problems as it fixed in the long-run) but V gives him a Gorilla Press Slam before Striker can inflict further damage. Henry works over Punk for a while as the crowd sits on their hands. Kane finally tags in and they wake up for Kane’s onslaught of punches and clothesline off the top. V tags in but Kane fucks with him too, until V nails the Baldo Bomb for two. V with the awesome super-heavyweight ground and pound that someone needs to steal. Kane gets squished in the corner and locked in a bear hug by Henry. He tries to escape so they squish him again until finally countering a backdrop attempt into a DDT (and doing it all wacky like Undertaker, which I never noticed before) and Punk comes charging in to absolutely no effect. He keeps on running and kicking though and eventually V is staggered. Henry charges in but Kane takes him outside. Striker tries to interfere but Punk kicks him and nails the springboard…right into V who Samoan Drops him for the pin.
Winners: The Half-Ton Of Hell (Wasn’t a bad match and if we’re thinking long-term then sure, the decision made sense. The idea of these two slugs beating the ECW Champion on PPV really bugged a lot of people when it happened. If only those people had been in the crowd when Punk was wrestling and cheered for him then maybe it wouldn’t have happened. But anyway, match was fine and The Two Big Bastards worked a long tag match fine.)
ECW On Sci-Fi 12/18/07 (somewhere in NY)
John Morison & The Miz vs. Jimmy Wang Yang & Shannon Moore
Moore has a cowboy hat as he realises cowboys are more over than punk boy bands (Good Charlotte?) The commentators explain that last week’s match was so close that the GMs decided they deserved a rematch. Hey, logic! Moore gets multiple schoolboy attempts on Miz which annoys him so he tags in Morrison who wastes no time busting out the Eddy Gordo leg-drop. Moore absorbs it and tags in Wang (with a ”yeehaa!”) to keylock Morrison before busting out a mega-ultra-tilt-a-whirl-headscissors to wake up the crowd.
”That reminded me of the old Ted Arcidi matches!” says Tazz who probably actually winked when he said it too. Both men tag out with Miz getting worked over some more until we get stereo baseball slide attempts, countered by M & M. We go to break and when we return, Morrison has Wang in a chinlock. Moore tags in and backdrops Morrison to see how many seconds he can spend in the air. Moore tries something off the top, but Morrison interrupts but Moore pushes him off causing the ref to DUCK to avoid a face full of Morrison, which allows Miz to sneak up and push Moore off. All this happened in like three seconds, Miz & Morrison are hard work for play-by-play. Moore gets pounded until he counters a second-rope nothing with a dropkick. Wang is a barn-on-fire and takes everyone outside where Moore follows with a Tumbleweed off the top rope. Back in, Wang lands a crossbody but Miz counters to what looked like a three count. As Moore jostles with Morrison outside, Wang lands the double-jump moonsault for the pin on Miz.
Winners: Jimmy Wang Yang & Shannon Moore (Another fine outing for MoMiz as they changed their formula slightly as they could hardly have the same match as they had last week with the same team. Wang & Moore were cheered more than last week, there’s something resembling a feud and the match was action-packed. No complaints here.)
Tazz is in ring with Shelton Benjamin and YES IT’S COLIN DELANEY.
A fan loudly shouts ”what is that?” He’s a local NY guy so the crowd cheers him until he reveals it’s his first match. Then it’s ”oooh.”
Shelton Benjamin vs. Colin Delaney
”This is like a Maserati vs. a stagecoach!” T-Bone Suplex appears to kill Colin but he gets one shot on Shelton which gets a nice pop. Yakuza Kick, Sting-Killer Powerbomb, Paydirt, end.
Winner: Shelton Benjamin (This is exactly what Shelton should be doing, beating up jobbers that don’t have a chance against him while showing off his athletic prowess. Colin would become an entertaining staple of ECW On Sci-Fi and it was so good they re-did the whole thing with Ellsworth.)
THIS IS JAMIACA, THIS IS MY HOME. I GREW UP HERE. THIS IS A SLICE OF A PARADISE. *some guy steals some woman’s purse right in front of him* OOOH LOOKS LIKE WE HAVE TROUBLE IN PARADISE. *beats up some guy off-camera* I AM KOFI KINGSTON AND from Ghana JAMAICAN!!
Kenny Dykstra vs. Nunzio
I get ready to fast-forward but Nunzio comes out dressed as an elf giving out presents to the front row. Crowd doesn’t care about the match until Kenny throws the candy cane on the floor. Styles says ”not even flying reindeer can save Nunzio” and Tazz gets annoyed because Nunzio isn’t really an elf and feels Styles is being insensitive to all the reindeer that can’t fly. I love Tazz. Eventually Kenny finishes with a top rope legdrop.
Winner: Kenny Dykstra (Match was so impressive, Kenny would have one more televised match on Smackdown then wouldn’t be seen on TV until August 2008.)
RAW RECAP: If Flair loses, he retires. He manages a count-out victory on Umaga as the Samoan Bulldozer missed a charge and took out a barricade. Flair celebrates with HHH so Vince makes it Flair vs. HHH next week. The FLAIR MUST WIN run definitely helped Flair’s last months memorable.
CM Punk vs. MVP
ECW Champ vs. United States Champ. Why? Why not. MVP’s reign would be the longest in WWE history (343 days) until Dean Ambrose beat it in 2013 (351 days) with only Rick Rude (378 days) and Lex Luger (523 days) having longer reigns in WCW/NWA. Those interesting factoids saves me typing ”Punk and MVP exchange mat-wrestling for a few minutes to start.” It was something but doesn’t make for exciting readin. MVP floating out of a single crab to lock in a headlock which Punk floats out of was nice and the mat-work ends after Punk lands a dropkick. Back and forth action that is nearly all cravats and holds with short flurries of offence. A jawbreaker from MVP gets two until MVP goes to a camel clutch. Punk powers out of it and falls backwards onto MVP, something I haven’t seen before. Running Clothesline/Bulldog combo connects, as does the follow-up Springboard clothesline but it only gets two. MVP gets a low German Suplex with a wicked bridge for two.
Punk gets stuck in the Tree of Woe and the ref has to stop him from beating him up but MVP ignores him and gets DQ’d because everyone loves that finish.
Winner via DQ: CM Punk (Well this was a pointless match but they tried to make it as hard-hitting small-style strong-style while it lasted, your enjoyment of which will depend on how much you enjoy fine mat-work in front of a silent crowd.)
MVP looks upset then Yakuza Kicks (or Black Panther Kick, sorry I don’t have my Big Book Of Gang Kick Names at hand right now) Punk and leaves. Then from out of nowhere, Chavo Guerrero shows up and destroys Punk with a slow, evil version of Three Amigos and a Frog Splash.
Crowd made absolutely no noise for it.
Overall: So we started off with Punk losing to Big Daddy V & Mark Henry which was fine if they’re carrying on their feud. Then we get no Big Daddy V or Mark Henry on ECW and instead we see Punk beat up by Chavo Gu-fucking-rrero. I know their feud would have some moments of entertainment but what the fuck, did we skip a page? That’s some sudden change of direction from creative to miss out the main attraction (well one of them, Kane’s pops have been bigger)’s revenge and going straight to the next feud.
Outside of that confusion (ECW goes through more creative directions than a Terry Gilliam production), Morrison & Miz are still the highlight of the show and we got Colin Delaney’s debut so it’s not all bad.
I’ve been Maffew and there’s no new video yet because I haven’t been sent a certain something that was promised to be here by now so everybody bar the people reading this can go fuck themselves quite frankly.