15 Y.C. Part 11: A One Night Stand that's remained for 7 years. Hold on that's a Relationship!

On June 12^th 2005 WWE held a PPV that no one thought they would, that show was ECW One Night Stand. The show was held at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City the same venue that held its final show. Let’s do some background on this show before we begin as there’s a bit. WWE had released a DVD called “The Rise and Fall of ECW” months prior and it was a massive success becoming one of the companies best selling DVD’s, Vince seeing obvious money in it decided to hold a one off reunion show. Now this show was announced and what happened? Shane Douglas announced Hardcore Homecoming for the night before in the ECW Arena however that was a far inferior show in comparison and had zero effect on this show. It should also be noted that no match was advertised for this show. So let’s begin. The show opens with Joey Styles being introduced he screams “Oh my God” and welcomes Mick Foley to be his colour commentary and we get the old school ECW video to officially start. From the get go the fans are insane, such a great atmosphere I’d ask why WWE don’t run it more for smaller shows but seeing how their ECW TV show went (with had CM Punk debut and Big Show vs. Batista) I can see why they don’t.

Lance Storm w/ Dawn Marie vs. Chris Jericho: Dawn is trying to hide the fact she’s heavily pregnant and fails. This was meant to be Storms book-end to his career, that was 7 years ago and he just did a program with Mike Bennett in ROH. Chris is in his old Lionheart gear. We get very quick chain wrestling and holds ending in a stare off after trading armdrags and the crowd pop. Jericho hits a very nice dropkick of the bottom rope after Storm floats over. Jericho jumps off the apron and goes into the railing when Storm moves. Storm comes back with a beautiful dropkick of his own. We get a taunting hanging suplex by Storm. At this point Mick is still on about Joey almost crying at the start, Mick was not good here. Storm jumps to the top rope in one leap and tries a back elbow but is met with a dropkick to the back. We get a “Chris Candido” chant while Jericho fights back, it was just weeks before that Candido suddenly passed away. Jericho does a Tiger suplex. Storm attempts a Cradle piledriver is back dropped but saves himself and nails Jericho with a superkick for a very near fall. We get the slide through Single leg crab by Storm, always loved that move surprised no one has stole it. Jericho goes for the Lionsault, Storm gets his knees up but Jericho catches the legs and gets the Walls. Justin Credible interferes while Storm is tapping behind the refs back. Jericho knocks them down, Jericho then gets a roll up and Storm kicks him off into a Cane shot by Justin for the win. A simply incredible way to open a show, this match is still one of my favourites and it set the tone well. We then see seats reserved for the WWE Invaders a show long story. We go to the back where Gary Wolfe sets up a tribute video for those ECW wrestlers who had died, one thing this video shows is how young everyone was when you think about it.

Super Crazy vs. Tajiri w/Sinister Minister & Mikey Whipwreck vs. Little Guido w/tons of FBI members-3 Way Elimination: I swear Tajiri never ages, you know he’s in his 40’s now, hard to tell when you look at him. Crazy’s head is a perfect circle, he has that D’Lo Brown thing going on when you can’t see their ears when they look at the camera. Guido jumps Crazy to start. Tajiri does the Handspring elbow on Crazy. Guido reverses a tilt-a-whirl into an armbar. Crazy rolls through a sunset flip and delivers a dropkick on Guido and on Tajiri after. Guido gets the Silician Slice on Crazy. They fight through the crowd and Crazy does a Moonsault off a balcony onto everyone, I can understand why so many people came out. Tajiri gets the Tarantula when Crazy gets back in. Big Guido gets Tajiri in a powerbomb but he mists Guido and the Minister takes Big Guido down, Mikey then delivers a top rope Whipper Snapper aka a Stunner to eliminate Guido. Tajiri reverses a powerbomb with a DDT. Crazy gets 2 of his 3 moonsaults. They mess up a spot and just stand there leading to a powerbomb by Crazy and the final moonsault for the win. Very fasted paced action and you get the feeling they wanted to do too much with the time they were given, not the best match these 3 have had but it pleased the crowd.

Psicosis vs. Rey Mysterio: Psicosis comes out with his mask and then removes it when he gets in he had lost his mask in WCW. Rey also lost his mask in WCW but WWE wanted him to put it back on. What I don’t get here is that at next year’s show Rey would wear his old school looking gear, why not do it here? Chain wrestling to start and this leads to them messing up a wheelbarrow spot mainly because Rey is short and Psicosis should not have been the wheelbarrow! We get “Put the Mask On” chants. Rey tries a crossbody but Psicosis rolls through and plants him with a facebuster. A pin out of an Irish whip leads to “Boring” chants but only a few. Rey is set up on the railing and Psicosis does a top rope leg drop onto him in just an insane spot which turned the fans around. Psicosis attempts a corner dropkick but Rey moves and he lands high on his back. Psicosis shoulder blocks the corner and flies out into the crowd leading to Rey doing the seated senton into the crowd. A springboard dropkick leads to a 619, and boos, and then a great looking West Coast pop for the win. I’ve never seen the hype for these 2 working together, they have this legend of having amazing matches and while this was Ok I think even the crowd expected more. After we see the Smackdown invaders coming in, everyone’s in Smackdown shirts apart from JBL. If you have the DVD at this point you can listen to JBL do commentary from here on. Interesting fact out of the 7 invaders a total of zero work in WWE now although Matt Morgan is rumoured to be coming back.

Promos: Joel Gertner appears near the WWE invaders and JBL pushes him and kicks him in a rough looking spot. Kurt then talks, fans chant “You suck dick” and he replies “Your Mother taught me how” maybe rethink that Kurt. Kurt just screams for the rest of the promo, hands the mic to JBL and its just gold he’s such a great talker. Kurt suddenly takes his shirt off, he must be proud of something. The mic starts breaking up and Rob Van Dam comes down. He talks about his ECW past and how important tonight is and how he hates that he’s injured. Considering how bad RVD’s promos are this was great. It ends with Rhino goring him, the lights go out and out comes Sabu leading to.

Sabu w/RVD & Bill Alfonso vs. Rhino: Rhino gets a Belly-to-Belly on Sabu. Sabu nails Rhino with a chair while Rhino is seated on the ropes. Sabu does a Triple Jump Plancha. Rhino gets the advantage after he pulls Sabu down while he attempts a springboard. Sabu hits a Frankensteiner and then a slingshot seated leg lariat. Rhino gets a TKO and then an Overbomb into the corner. The ref gets Gored when Sabu pulls him in and Rhino hits a piledriver. RVD comes in and hits some moves which is insane considering how bad his knee was at the time. Sabu hits the Atomic Arabian facebuster through a table for the win. Nothing but big spot after spot here it was a nice stunt show but not much of a match. We then get the Raw invaders coming in out of this group of 10 only 2 are still in WWE that being Christian and William Regal.

Chris Benoit vs. Eddie Guerrero: From the moment Eddie steps out there’s just something about him, you can tell that he didn’t want to be there. The fans chant “I F**ked Lita” how have I only just noticed that? Eddie seems in legit pain and they’ve done nothing, he even left the ring this was just months before he would pass away. Back in the ring Eddie hits an impactful back elbow. Eddie is somehow bleeding from his nose and the fans finally notice the match in the ring and not Edge. Oh wait the fans are now focussed on Eric Bischoff. Benoit charges and Eddie ducks resulting in Benoit flying to the outside, Eddie then hits him with a chair on his back which got more railing than Benoit. Eddie gets a Superplex that looked great. Eddie goes for the Frog splash but misses. Benoit then gets a Superplex this is followed by the 3 Germans and diving headbutt, a move Harley Race has regretted ever inventing or using. Benoit gets the crossface, Eddie does nothing at all in terms of selling and just taps. Surprisingly a pretty bad match between these two, like I said you just got this feeling that Eddie didn’t want to be there and was in great pain before starting. The fans didn’t help either here. We then get Joel back and he asks Bischoff for a job and he says “Hell no”. He then does a promo which doesn’t involve much at all.

Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka: Joey Styles is so painful to listen to here because Mike left for WCW, even wishing he took his own life on a suicide dive a line I bet he regrets right now. But let’s focus on the match. Chop exchange to start and this leads to a Belly-to-Belly by Mike and then a slingshot Shoulder block. Mike then hits a Suicide dive and the infamous Styles line is here. I wouldn’t mind but tons of guys left ECW to actually make money. Tanaka does a running chair shot to Mike. Mike sets up a table, slightly slated on the railing, the two fight on the apron and Mike does a running Awesome Bomb and Tanaka lands extremely high in a sick spot. Mike hits his great looking splash when they get back in. Mike gets a deadlift Awesome Bomb. Mike then kills Tanaka with 3 chairshots, which destroys the chair. Tanaka gets the Diamond Dust after the chairs did nothing and then hits the Tornado DDT onto chairs for a near fall. Tanaka puts a chair on Mike’s face and nails the chair with a chair and then does a top rope chair elbow for a near fall. Tanaka goes for the roaring elbow but is hit with a German he gets up and is speared. Mike hits a top rope chair shot. Mike breaks a table when trying to get it in which forces him to kill a little time but not a lot. Mike sets up the table and they fight on the top rope ending with a Tornado DDT for a near fall. Mike then hits a top rope Awesome bomb onto the broken table for a near fall and the fans go crazy and applaud them. Mike goes for a running Awesome bomb over the top rope to the outside on a table, Tanaka counters but Mike gets it and then does a plancha where he lands pretty much on his head on Tanaka for the win. These 2 always had great matches, they started off hot and just continued to get hotter here. I love this match and it would win Match of the Years in 2005 in some votes & magazines.

Paul Heyman Promo: Paul thanks the fans and then basically makes some shoot comments on the WWE guys. He tells Bischoff that it’s not a WCW PPV that’s being held. He tells Edge he was 2 words for him “Matt Friggin’ Hardy” and Edge points out that’s 3, this was when Edge & Lita just became public. And my favourite comment is he tells JBL that “The only reason you were WWE champ for a year is because Triple H didn’t want to work Tuesdays”.

The Dudley Boyz (Bubba Ray & D-Von) vs. Tommy Dreamer & Sandman: Bubba looks great here and he’s gotten in better shape lately in TNA. WWE had to redub the Dudley’s and Sandman’s theme but you can clearly hear it still. The BWO then come out, Stevie’s voice is ridiculously low. Stevie than Superkicks Sandman and every ones on Tommy, Kid Kash comes out and throws himself out in a botched spot. Balls Mahoney & Axl Rotten come out, two of the ugliest people in the history of ever they proceed to nail Nova with sick chairshots. Everyone brawls into the entrance and Kash does a flip plancha and gets lots of distance on everyone. Fans chant for New Jack thankfully he doesn’t show. Match officially starts. Bubba gets a high Belly to back suplex on Tommy and then kills him with a road sign. He rubs a cheese grater onto Tommy’s face and he’s a bloody mess, Bubba then rubs the blood on his face. We get the reverse 3D by the Dudley’s. Tommy does the Terry Funk ladder spin. We get the Tommy crotched spot on the railing. Sandman hits a rolling senton on D-Von who’s under a ladder. D-Von hits Bubba with a cane when Sandman moves and we get the White Russian Leg Sweep. Duel Figure 4’s lead to the Impact Players coming out and That’s Incredible on a barbed wire sphere for Sandman. Francine comes in a low blows Tommy some serious back story there! Beulah McGillicutty comes in and takes down Francine. Beulah & Tommy DDT the Dudley’s, Beulah’s was just awful but she’s not a worker. Bubba canes both guys and you can clearly hear him say “F**k this”. Sandman is powerbombed through a table, Tommy then gets the 3D. We get another table and Spike comes out and lights it on Fire, Tommy is powerbombed through it and that lead to the win. A really good ECW style brawling match to end the show, the fans loved this and it was good.

Post-match: Sandman is calling for a beer and this leads to Stone Cold coming out. He calls out the ECW locker room and the ring is filled including guys like Danny Doring, Roadkill and Johnny Swinger all in their ring gear even though they weren’t even on the show or shown on camera before right now. They call out the WWE Invaders and they do a massive brawl, this is the infamous fight were JBL legit went crazy on the Blue Meanie and really beat the hell out of him. As they face off Taz comes down and he takes out Kurt Angle with the Taz Mission. The ECW guys clear the ring and then Mick brings Bischoff to the ring and he gets hit with several wrestlers finishing moves. At this point I notice Eddie Guerrero is not there proving my point he didn’t want to be there. Show ends with a Stunner and everyone drinking beer.

Overall: One thing I’ll mention is that between matches they would show highlight videos of the past, these got so annoying as they felt like they lasted forever some didn’t have any infamous moments at all. Now the show, the fans were insanely good and a lot of the work in the ring was great including two of the best matches I’ve ever seen. I was not a fan of the Invaders storyline because let’s be honest if you were there to ruin the show why would you wait for the show to pretty much end? The other thing this did was start the rain of ECW reunion shows that still go on to this day. This was the perfect time to do a reunion show as many could still work but now it’s beyond embarrassing. Now this show did so well that is was one of the key factors in Vince McMahon bringing back the ECW brand a year later and that One Night Stand show was great as well. For a diehard ECW fan this is a must watch and for those who don’t know much about it it’s a great way to get a feel of what ECW was.