ECW Barely Legal, Philadelphia, PA
This is a request via Ko-fi. Storm and Van Dam are both youngsters in ECW, potential rising stars who would, in fact, become key players in the company over its final years.
Storm’s rattail is outstanding. Van Dam’s ponytail can’t even compare. Styles calls Van Dam “a young man who has an offensive style never before seen in the great sport of professional wrestling,” which is one way to describe Van Dam, and I don’t even mean that as a joke
Storm is announced at 230, Van Dam at 235. Monsters in today’s wrestling world, absolute behemoths, true hosses. “Big lads.”
ECW fans are mad at Van Dam for having “sold out.” Van Dam starts with a waistlock and Storm backs him to the corner with a clean break. C&E again, RVD pushes Storm to the corner and does not give a clean break, landing his JCVD strikes. Storm with a kick up in the corner, side headlock, off the ropes, shoulder, rope running crap, ends with Storm hitting a clothesline.
Storm with a forearm. These guys don’t exactly throw forearms you’d call “snug,” let me just say that once and hopefully have it summed up with that. RVD with an armdrag and a springboard crossbody for one, then he dumps Storm out to the floor. Van Dam flies with a somersault dive, wiping Storm out on the concrete.
Back in Van Dam hits a scoop slam, then shows his CAT-LIKE AGILITY with a springboard legdrop for two — AND A HALF. Rob Van Dam has no respect for anybody or anything.
Storm jumps up on a whip to the corner and hits a flying back elbow, then follows up by dumping Van Dam onto the top rope and dropkicking him out to the floor. Storm misses a pescado and since THIS AIN’T DISNEY WORLD they’ve got NO PRETTY BLUE MATS on the floor. Those are for PUSSIES and BITCHES.
Van Dam with a moonsault press off the guardrail. Back into the ring and Van Dam has a chair. Then he puts it down and kicks and forearms Storm in the corner. Whip to the other corner, Storm bounces out and Van Dam launches the chair off of Storm’s skull. I like any time someone throws a chair at someone else’s head.
Crowd is kinda split on their reaction to RVD in general. They clearly love what he does in the ring and his style but he also SOLD OUT on the TV show so they don’t know.
RVD takes time between moves with Storm down in the corner and hits a running dropkick, using the chair. Storm tries to fight back, but Storm butterflies the arms and plants him face-first on the mat. RVD springs up to the top, CAT-LIKE AGILITY, and he hits the five star frog splash. It wasn’t called that yet and it’s not his finish yet, so it gets two. Kinda like when you go back to Shawn Michaels hitting the superkick when it was just a signature move.
Van Dam has a chair again and uses it. RVD with another forearm, whip to the corner, and he’s got the chair again. He takes a moment with Storm wobbly in the corner, then Van Dam does a completely, utterly pointless somersault with the chair, leaving it on the mat, and clumsily misses a “splash” in the corner, then gets slammed onto the chair.
RVD back up with forearms. Van Dam misses a spin kick, Storm doesn’t. Van Dam into the corner, Storm hits a cartwheel splash and then a springboard forearm for two. RVD off the ropes, Storm takes him down and grabs the worst Boston crab in history. “Beautifully executed,” Styles says like a complete fucking idiot. The move is so bad that Storm just lets a leg go and grabs a half crab, which would later be his finish.
RVD gets the bottom rope to break and Storm stomps down on the back, then picks Van Dam up. Whip off the ropes, RVD holds on to the ropes and backdrops a charging Storm to the apron. Storm with a couple shoulderblocks, Van Dam trips him and hits a slingshot legdrop over the apron.
Storm trying to get up inside the ring, and Van Dam comes back with another chair. He tosses it to Storm, who ducks the kick, and then he hits it, the true highlight of this match, arguably the true highlight of ECW Barely Legal: the greatest non-Hogan chairshot in history.
Essentially what Lance Storm does here is touch Van Dam’s hair with the chair. Van Dam knows it’s garbage so he doesn’t go down or anything. Storm clearly also knows it’s garbage so he just moves on.
And to be fair he follows up with a terrific tiger driver on the chair, which does not get noted nearly as much as the hilarious chairshot. RVD kicks at two and Storm goes up to the top, where he flies off and clips a standing Van Dam with a legdrop to the head, while RVD tried to do something with a chair.
Van Dam off the ropes, waistlock switches, Storm with a weak enzuigiri to the back of the head. RVD comes back with a mule kick to the balls and weakly drops Storm down on the top rope, then springboards with a blown back elbow. Crowd jumps on it quickly. RVD covers for two.
Storm comes back with a German suplex for two. Storm with ANOTHER terrible chair shot. Then another terrible chair shot. Then Van Dam hits the Van Daminator. This makes people happy. RVD follows with the standing moonsault for the win.
After the match Van Dam gets on the mic and he’s DISRESPECTFUL.
Rating: 2.5/5. It’s watchable enough, which makes it better than most of this pay-per-view, but it’s not actually good. Worth a look if you’ve never seen it for Storm’s three delightfully bad chair shots, basically, and I guess as a look at these two developing into ECW mainstays and stars.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 
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