WWE SummerSlam, Boston, MA
This is for Big Show’s ECW title, so it’s Extreme Rules. This is the first ECW title match on a WWE pay-per-view. I mean, it isn’t, but it is.
Fast start with Sabu chucking a chair at Big Show and whacking him with it a few times, but Big Show trips him up going for the triple jump moonsault and then smushes the chair, then takes over, just physically dominating Sabu with headbutts, a big overhand slap to the chest, and a bodyslam.
Crowd wants tables, Big Show tells them they’re not gonna get it. Big Show bearhugs Sabu, who bites him on the nose but then springboards right into trouble again, and gets fuckin HURLED with a fallaway slam.
Sabu gets a comeback with another chair, then he drops it trying to climb up top with it, because he’s Sabu. So he goes and gets the chair quickly enough. Anyway Sabu flies in with some sort of slop ass chair attack, then takes an hour or so to set up a table in the corner. Big Show gets him in the GOOZLE but Sabu pokes the eyes and gets free. Sabu up top with a bulldog of sorts. Sabu hops off of a chair and drives Big Show through the table leaning in the corner with another bulldog of sorts.
But Big Show is back in control on sheer strength, and hits a Vader Bomb. Big Show legitimately looks too heavy here. I don’t mean even his appearance, he’s so huge that it’s hard for him to look fat, but you can see on his face that he’s laboring physically.
Show brings the stairs in the ring and balances a table between the two sides eventually, at which point Sabu runs over, tries to jump off it or something, misjudges, knocks the table off the steps, but recovers and hits a DDT through the table after putting it back where it was.
Sabu with that shit reminds me of Bill James talking about Lonnie Smith in the 1986 edition of Baseball Abstract:
“You have to understand that Lonnie makes defensive mistakes every game; he knows how to handle it. Your average outfielder is inclined to panic when he falls down chasing a ball in the corner; he may just give up and sit there a while, trying to figure it out. Lonnie has a pop-up slide perfected for the occasion. Another outfielder might have no idea where the ball was when it bounded off his glove; Lonnie can calculate with the instinctive astrophysics of a tennis player where a ball will land when it skips off the heel of his glove, what the angle of glide will be when he tips it off the webbing, what the spin will be when the ball skids off the thumb of the mitt. Many players can kick a ball behind them without ever knowing it; Lonnie can judge by the pitch of the thud and the subtle pressure on his shoe in which direction and how far he has projected the sphere. He knows exactly what to do when a ball spins out of his hand and flies crazily into a void on the field, when it is appropriate for him to scramble after the ball and when he needs to back up the man who will have to recover it. He has experience in these matters; when he retires he will be hired to come to spring training and coach defensive recovery and cost containment. This is his specialty, and he is good at it.”
Sabu goes out and gets another table. He tries to jump off of it, sorta, but is caught and chokeslammed through it for the finish.
Rating: 2/5. I mean, it’s not very good, but it’s kinda fun to watch, and at the very least it’s interesting. Big Show had been in big league wrestling for over a decade at this point, his entire career, and I think it’s fairly safe to say he’d never been tasked with wrestling someone like Sabu. Sabu is not just wild and crazy, he’s also clumsy and lacks any of the polish of the guys Big Show had been working for so long. By the end of it Show just looks relieved that it’s over.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 
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