ECW December to Dismember, Augusta, GA
A request. It’s the EXTREME Elimination Chamber for Big Show’s fake ECW title. These Extremists will be extreming all over the ECW hotbed of Augusta, Georgia!
This Chamber is different from normal: It has weapons. Extreme weapons!
(Requests open and tips always appreciated!)
Big Show’s held the ECW title since July, when that dastardly Paul Heyman helped him defeat Rob Van Dam, ending Van Dam’s three-week reign that kicked off the rebooted ECW as a WWE “brand.”
The match was originally supposed to have Sabu, but they replaced him with Hardcore Holly after Sabu was injured backstage. Story-wise, it’s an obvious Heyman ploy, to give Big Show backup in both Test and Holly. Holly had been originally set for the match but Lashley stole his spot, and now he’s back in. The real story was just that Sabu predictably was not fitting well in WWE, even on the little “hardcore” “third brand,” because they felt he was pretty worthless outside of weapons and highspots, which was pretty much true by 2006 but also could still be rad if allowed to just be what he was. But WWE didn’t really want a guy they thought couldn’t do fuck else. He wound up released in May 2007.
Van Dam and Holly start with a five-minute period. The crowd favorites are definitely Van Dam and the rising star CM Punk, who was the one guy who came into the rebooted ECW and felt like a guy who would have wound up coming through the original ECW if it were years earlier or if ECW had managed to survive for real. By 2003-04, Punk would have been in ECW, as working in this fantasy, Ring of Honor never exists. There’d have been no reason for that pervert criminal to start a promotion to sell tapes.
RVD and Holly do some fun, somewhat awkward stuff together, a genuine style clash that is fun to watch because they’re both willing to throw and eat a shot. The first pod opening gives us young CM Punk, who has a steel chair that gets whipped at Holly right away.
Van Dam winds up busted open pretty good in short order after CM’s arrival in the match, but when Punk tries a flying rana (for some reason), he’s caught by Holly and just whipped into the chain link.
Heyman barks orders to Holly from ringside in case you forgot he was there for 20 seconds. The art of how Heyman does that is very special; he makes things about himself, but then he is always able to make you think he’s really doing it for everyone else’s benefit, which in turn basically works, so for all it matters, he is doing it for everyone else’s benefit. Everyone else is getting a little something from the Paul Heyman association, and Paul Heyman always makes sure that Paul Heyman is over. There are very few managers ever who can really do that the way he always has, even most of the great ones couldn’t really pull off what Heyman does. If you look at the way others have been great managers as a guidebook of sorts, Heyman breaks some rules, badly bends some others. But he gets away with it because he’s that good at it.
Now Test is in. Test is juiced out of his gourd and would be dead two years and change after this match, at age 33. He had gotten really solid as a big, mean brawler. He had carved out a spot for himself. The big man comes in with a crowbar and takes it to Van Dam’s busted open head. There’s a viciousness he tapped into in the ECW run that really kicked him up a notch.
Van Dam goes on a run of violence that ends with a five star frog splash that eliminates Punk, which is not a decision the crowd cares for at all. Test “turns on” Holly with a big boot that gets a two count, but the referee decides it was three anyway. Van Dam then goes to eliminate Test with a five star frog splash from the top of Big Show’s pod, but this is a dumb idea, as Big Show is able to grab his foot through the chain holes, and Test does damage with a chair.
Now it’s Test up to the top of Show’s pod, and the big fella hits a flying elbow onto the chair and Van Dam to eliminate RVD, too. So the guy a lot of people wanted to win is out, the guy a lot of those people would have accepted as a backup plan is eliminated, and the crowd is chanting, “Bullshit, bullshit!”
Test gets to hang out by himself for a little over a minute. Joey Styles and Taz are trying desperately to fill time on air and ignore the crowd. Lashley’s in next, of course, but before he can enter, his pod door is locked by Heyman’s Goons in their riot gear. The crowd isn’t into this, either. Eventually Lashley uses a table to punch through the chain link up top, then climbs through and into the match.
Lashley hits a flying clothesline and we’ll get a few minutes of Lashley vs Test in your PPV main event. It is Lashley beating Test’s ass, and Test is taking the ass-kicking as well as he can, as the two of them try to reel the crowd back in, but any hope at enthusiasm wanes as soon as Test gets the advantage back.
These big boys are roughhousing, but the crowd is just not with them. Lashley’s spear finishes Test, so we’ll just have a however-long Big Show vs Bobby Lashley singles cage match, for all it really matters. And there’s like 70 seconds to wait for Big Show to actually enter the match.
Heyman screams at Big Show, which is entirely about putting Lashley over and hyping Big Show up. He gives Big Show several reasons to be scared of Lashley, and then turns to making Big Show believe in himself.
Lashley has a chair when Big Show enters, and Big Show is carrying a base ball bat wrapped in barbed wire. The chair works as a shield as a few people in the crowd chant “TNA.”
Watching this now, I really feel bad for these final few guys, because they’re all trying SO hard and working SO physically, but the crowd was fully lost as soon as Van Dam was eliminated after Punk was taken out of the match. Lashley and Test really went at it, and Lashley and Show are, too.
Bob counters a chokeslam attempt with a DDT. Tazz suggests this is a “textbook counter,” and I would like the textbook that covers how to combat The Chokeslam. It becomes a battle of Lashley using his athleticism and speed against Big Show’s raw size and power, and it’s the athleticism/speed that wins out, as Lashley drops Show with the spear and wins the ECW title.
The show and this match are most notable for Paul Heyman — who wanted rising star CM Punk, whom he believed in deeply, to win — dipping for a couple years, having been overruled on several things. I’m not saying Heyman is some historically flawless booker, but wanting to go with Punk to try and spark something real in “the ECW brand” was absolutely the right call. The fact that Punk would, against the odds, go on to become a legitimate top guy in WWE while Bobby Lashley peaked at “guy you’re told is a legitimate top guy,” would indicate that Heyman was right. Lashley is a good worker and I get how WWE looked at this He-Man action figure and compared him to a guy who gets action figure logos tattooed on his shoulder and thought Lashley was the better bet, but it misunderstands how wrestling works to have ever thought Lashley had the higher star upside. And if it’s not Vince McMahon: Genius misunderstanding wrestling, it’s simply him doing his other usual thing, insisting this isn’t wrestling and that he can “create” mega draws, something he was so good at convincing his freelance workers of that even most of them wound up believing they were nothing without him, propping up their egos just enough while more crucially breaking down their self-belief. And that’s how you wind up with Seth Rollins.
I don’t actually think the match is all that bad, and I really loved the effort put in by Lashley, Test, and Big Show down the stretch. They didn’t book the fuckin’ thing. But it is paced questionably and booked horrendously. The only wrong-er idea would have been Holly or Test winning. The stupid “brand” would go on a while longer, but any hope that they were really going to let it “be ECW” under the WWE umbrella was pulled from life support right here.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 
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