[1998-11-27-ECW-TV] Taz & Shane Douglas vs Sabu & Rob Van Dam

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Story here is Sabu and RVD isolating Douglas to keep him away from Taz. Sabu attacks Douglas with a screwdriver and he eats the fall. He ends up looking pretty worse for wear when this is all done. Post-match, Taz does a Tazmissionplex and Joey Styles puts it over like death. Paul E. comes in and they make this look like some type of shoot even though it's so obviously an angle. They put a twist on it with Taz trying to attack Sabu again and RVD having to be restrained. RVD vs Taz as a big match is a much better direction but I don't think that was supposed to be the takeaway. This seemed to be some dumb attempt to turn Taz heel for intentionally injuring Sabu. Whatever.

[tim]

The "controversy" at the end is pretty silly. Turning a choke into a suplex is a reprehensible act of negligence and brutality ... in the same match where Sabu came off the top rope and smashed Shane Douglas' head between two steel chairs. I dunno about this. Agreed that RVD having to be held back from Taz makes the idea of a RVD/Taz match with RVD trying to get revenge a lot more interesting than whatever this seems to be leading to.

[soup23]

Pretty awful stuff as now after all year of having a pedestrian Douglas vs. Taz build, they want to rehash the Taz vs. Sabu narrative that didn't work out the first time. I did appreciate Taz kicking Sabu as he left and RVD and Fonzie getting pissed but overall this with somber Joey accusing him of trying to break Sabu's neck was ridiculous. Tim makes a good point that this was 5 minutes after Sabu did an Arabian facebuster as a business as usual spot. Really starting to dislike ECW.

[PeteF3]

At least the match was kept short with a minimum of near-falls, as Taz the invincible tough guy is taken out in easy fashion and is dead for the bulk of the match, and Douglas goes down soon afterward. RVD working heel against Shane Douglas working babyface is one of the most hilariously misaligned match-ups in wrestling history. Afterward Taz debuts the Tazmissionplex and this is sold like a Memphis piledriver onto a table in a rather pathetic attempt at emulating the Douglas-Pitbull angle. Except that angle had a clear good-evil divide and was something that people believed in--here it's an excuse for the trained seals in the Arena to do another E-C-Dub chant. So, what, are we double-turning Taz and Sabu AGAIN?

[Migs]

This is a really strange piece of business, with Douglas getting really badly dominated. I guess logically Taz wouldn't care if Douglas takes a beating? But it ends up sort of killing the match, and undermines what's left of Douglas' credibility a bit.

 

The end angle just really doesn't work. Why this would be Taz's temper "getting the better of him" when he's hated Sabu for years is unexplained, and why "clasping the hands" on a choke to become a suplex is somehow the worst thing in the world.