Guilty as Charged ‘99
January 10, 1999
Kissimmee, FL
There are two last hopes for ECW at this point: Taz and Rob Van Dam.
Guilty as Charged ’99 is Taz’s shot at the top title. After teasing this title match for about 18 months (back when Taz beat Douglas for the TV title in 1997) we’re finally getting the payoff.
There’s not much else to say. As I’ve written for two PPVs in a row there’s nothing special about ECW anymore. It doesn’t have the best storylines, the best angles and definitely not the best matches. The best hardcore matches are in the WWF with Stone Coldand Mankind. The best wrestling is in WCW with the Cruisers, Benoit, Malenko and Guerrero.
But that’s no excuse for ECW. All they have to do is put on consistently good shows. November to Remember was really bad and there was no reason for it. ECW has shown me two good PPVs since they began running PPVs. Otherwise it’s been mediocre to really bad. 1999 could be the year ECW comes together if Paul Heyman plays his cards right and busts out some decent shows. He definitely has the talent to do so, even if some of them are leaving (like Bam Bam Bigelow).
The Card
Paul Heyman tells us right at the outset that Masato Tanaka is not coming in as previously advertised and Jerry Lynn is still injured. I do like that he does this, but I mean people already bought the show, no?
The FBI vs. Danny Doring and Roadkill
The FBI has Big Sal and Big Guido at this point.
While the FBI matches usually aren’t good, I do get a good kick out of Tracy Smothers and Little Guido doing the FBI gimmick.
A random guy in the crowd busts out a camera and Danny Doring poses for him on cue. I’m a bit of a Doring fan and wished he and Roadkill had an ECW ’06 run.
For some reason the Chair Swingin’ Freaks, Balls Mahoney and Axl Rotten, come out mid Doring strut and this turns into a Three Way Dance.
Axl Rotten calls this match in the ring a homosexual dance party. Gay jokes were par for the course in 1999 as the crowd erupts.
Guido impales himself on the guardrail when he misses a dive. Match really picked up when Rotten and Mahoney came in.
Joey Styles says Axl Rotten is the most underrated wrestler in professional wrestling. Hyperbole Joey. Hyperbole.
Mahoney flies off the top rope into a crowd of wrestlers. Didn’t expect that there and it got a great reaction.
“You love sheep!” Quite the chant towards Roadkill there.
Doring with a front Russian Legsweep. Probably the best one I’ve seen. A hell of a lot better than Jeff Jarrett’s.
Double Fisherman’s Suplex by the FBI takes out Doring. Nice move.
Sick belly to back suplex by Mahoney on Guido! Really liking this.
The Chair Swingin’ Freaks win by double pin in 10:43. Nutcraker Suite and Aerial Skullcrusher gets the win. Really fun brawl here and a good start to the show. Axl and Mahoney take out Big Guido and Big Sal too.
Yikes, we’re still doing this Terry Funk heel deal on Tommy Dreamer. Promo is interesting at least, about a jackass kicking his dad in the nuts and the dad got revenge. Funk’s upset that Tommy picked Jake Roberts at November to Remember as his mystery partner. I don’t remember a match to conclude this though.
Super Crazy vs. Yoshihiro Tajiri
This was when Tajiri was sane, had no beard and didn’t wear the Great Muta pants.
Joey Styles points out that Crazy wrestled in the WWF before…but doesn’t mention the same for Tajiri (who wrestled there a little bit in 1997 as well).
Fast paced start that leads to a Tornado DDT from Crazy!
Tajiri works on the knees with his kicks. Great psychology here as the idea is if Crazy’s knees are out, he can’t fly around. And Joey Styles says this too. It’s nice when the announcer’s tell the story of the match.
Tajiri’s Asai Moonsault has always been awesome.
Super Crazy just shows total disregard for his body and hits a suicide somersault plancha to the outside. He follows that with a moonsault off the guardrail. Everything is crisp from both men.
Great surfboard into a dragon sleeper spot from Crazy!
Corkscrew tope from Crazy. Great high flying spots everywhere in this one.
Sky Twister Press misses from Crazy! Wow!
Tajiri wins by pin in 11:37. Dragon Suplex gets the win. Spotfests can be awesome and this was a prime example of that. Sure the psychology early on was forgotten, but who really cares here. Really fun and really good. If ECW just got some more talent they could have rivaled WCW’s Cruiserweight Division. Unfortunately we’d just get these two and Little Guido for the next few years…although Tajiri’s gimmick change would get a short main event run in the summer.
John Kronus comes out. Judge Jeff Jones comes out (the judge deal is a new gimmick) and he’s here to get revenge on Kronus. Jeff Jones was a referee that Kronus beat up. Admittedly, this is a cool payoff early on to this.
John Kronus vs. Sid Vicious
Sid is a pretty good surprise here, a hell of a lot better than Mabel two months ago.
Two seconds in and Sid chokeslams Kronus over the top rope through a table.
Sid pins Kronus in 1:31. Some chair shots and a Powerbomb wins it for Sid. Bringing in Sid as an ass kicker who chokeslams and powerbombs people would be awesome. Leave it to Heyman to book Sid better than the WWF and WCW did and would. Of course, as soon as one of the Big Two saw that Sid had something in the tank he didn’t stay in ECW much longer. He was in WCW by the summer.
By the way, ECW fans would spend all their time mocking the Sids and Hogan’s of the world, but Sid shows up in an ECW ring and he gets one of the biggest reactions in the history of the promotion. Can’t help but laugh at that one.
We see what happened at November to Remember ’98. I don’t like that they are already building up Sabu as a title contender even though we haven’t done Douglas vs. Taz yet. Apparently Taz broke Sabu’s neck as revenge for stealing the pin on Douglas at November to Remember. Then Taz let Sabu pin him to win the FTW Title, making the point that he only wants the ECW World Championship at this point.
The Dudley Boyz have made an “unscheduled” appearance. Open challenge is made. Of course, New Jack answers.
The Dudley Boyz vs. New Jack and Spike Dudley
When I was younger I enjoyed these New Jack brawls, but looking at them now this has to be the worst aged thing in the entire promotion. It’s just New Jack and Spike hitting the Dudleys with random weapons and that’s it. There’s nothing of substance in these things.
Bubba throws Spike into the crowd and Spike bodysurfs for a little bit. This is always a cool spot, although it was cooler when Bam Bam did it to Spike.
Bubba throws Spike into the crowd again. Aren’t ECW quite lucky fans never got hurt in these spots?
Joey had to throw in some dick jokes for Big Dick Dudley.
3D on the ramp is totally botched. New Jack’s whole torso landed on Bubba.
The Dudley Boyz pin Spike in 10:01. 3D for the win. A really messy brawl that was a lot less fun than the opener. Not much else to say about this…but New Jack would be attacking the Dudleys all the way through the end of the Dudleys tenure in ECW. Dudleys beat the hell out of New Jack at the end.
Joey Styles tells us we’ll get a replacement for Masato Tanaka in the upcoming ECW TV Title match. We get some RVD highlights to hype us up for that.
ECW TV Championship
Rob Van Dam© vs. Lance Storm
Storm gets some mic time first. Still a bit wooden, but not too bad at all.
Storm says he’s not the whole F’N show, just the best damn part of it. I like that line.
RVD goes for a springboard moonsault, but Storm dropkicks him off the top rope and he goes flying into the guardrail.
Unfortunately, the crowd is more interested in chanting things at Tammy Lynn Bytch.
As RVD crawls back to the ring after getting hit with a reverse DDT on the floor, he has a whole conversation with the camera/crowd. It’s perfect for the RVD character too.
Second surfboard of the night!
Referee eats a Van Daminator!
Storm hits a superkick into the chair into RVD’s face…but the ref is out afterall…
Rob Van Dam pins Lance Storm in 18:50. Great wrestling sequence ends with RVD hitting a bridging German Suplex for the win. I really like that being the finish as sometimes it’s pretty cool to see something that’s merely a good move and not a finisher end the match (you never see this today). While it was a bit sloppy, I enjoyed this for the most part. Great athleticism from both guys and I really liked how cocky RVD was in this one too.
Stairway to Hell Match
Tommy Dreamer vs. Justin Credible
I’m sorry but Nicole Bass doesn’t need to be here. What was the point? The WWF didn’t learn from this either.
Some back and forth brawling with some spots using the ladder. Nothing great but nothing bad either.
Nice flip from Justin Credible after hitting the ladder. Say what you want about Credible, but he did try.
Jazz, who I think is making her debut here, actually suplexes Dreamer.
Justin uses a ladder to dump Dreamer through a table, which I find to be a creative if not unnecessary spot.
Dreamer hits a Diamond Cutter off the middle of the ladders. While the first half of this was merely okay, this did pick up.
Justin Credible pins Tommy Dreamer in 18:45. Ok, this finish sucks and ruins the entire point of the match. Dreamer gets the Singapore Cane and hits Credible with a DDT. After he fails to tie Credible up in the ropes, he goes to hit Credible with the Cane for the big finish. Only Terry Funk shows up and nails Dreamer in the head with a garbage can. Credible hits Dreamer once with the cane then hits That’s Incredible for the win. Despite the whole point of the match being getting the cane (which is a lame weapon here even if it fits the story. At least Sandman-Sabu got barbed wire in theirs), the guy who gets it never uses it and the weapon itself is used once. While the match did pick up, I wouldn’t call it good or anything. This was merely okay and a bit long with a bullshit finish. Funk beats down Dreamer for good measure. I did not like this Terry Funk heel turn…and once again I don’t think this ever paid off with a match either.
Quick Taz promo that’s nothing new (Beat Me if you can…). Douglas has a promo too where he randomly calls out Sid and tells him its easier up north or down south to win the World Title…then botches the Immoveable object vs. irresistible force line (he says indestructible force). Not the best promo from either man.
ECW World Championship
Shane Douglas© vs. Taz
This had a real big match feel to it. This really was about 16, 17 months in the making.
Early on Taz hits a belly to belly and Douglas rolls to the outside. For some reason, the ref starts a count like he’s going to count Douglas out. I’m sure that was going to be the ECW PPV main event finish.
They fight all over the arena now, but to be fair that’s pretty boring. This whole thing has been pretty boring so far.
We get our first exciting moment where Taz hits an overhead belly to belly over a railing onto a platform. Other than that, this has been awful so far.
Taz finally gets a Taz-plex through a table in the ring. After the two count we get Sabu’s music. Sabu runs n and takes out both guys.
Sabu botches his springboard dive to the outside and turns it into a moonsault…but he only gets Taz and Douglas sells it anyway.
Sabu drives Douglas through a table!
Taz is next as Sabu drives him through a table too!
Douglas calls for the Triple Threat…even though the group had been disbanded as Bam Bam Bigelow left the company. Chris Candido and Tammy Lynn Sytch show up though and Tammy and Francine have a cat fight in the middle of this World Title match. Candido turns on Douglas as well, knocking him down with a punch.
Taz wins the title when Douglas passed out in 22:15. With Douglas calling out to Candido, Taz locks in the Taz-mission and Douglas passes out. This was absolutely terrible and an embarrassing main event. The most action packed part of the match involved Sabu. The crowd segment was boring and took up nearly half the match. We had a silly run in with Tammy and Candido. Taz didn’t even get a good win as Douglas had been beaten up by both Sabu and Candido. Absolutely terrible. Why couldn’t this just have been Taz beating the crap out of Douglas for 10 minutes? Why all the stupid stuff? The focus was barely on Taz!
The show wasn’t too bad overall, but an atrocious main event ruined that. Shane Douglas had been quite a letdown as champion in big match main events, citing back to the match with Al Snow and the six man back in November. The world title main events would get better throughout 1999 for sure.
I’ll give some credit for the solid undercard. But ECW still showed to be in a lot of trouble
Final Grade: C
