ECW December to Dismember PPV Review

This review is being written as the content is being watched, this format is subject to change depending on how it turns out, but I want the reader to be able to get my first impressions of everything as I see it. I don't know if reviews typically tell the results, but for now I won't spoil anything (except for the eliminations in the chamber match down to the final two men).

ECW's December to Dismember pay-per-view was the only PPV by the short-lived modern brand of Extreme Championship Wrestling. It is also considered to be one of the worst PPVs of all-time, due to it's complete lack of advertised matches and poor content. As far as I know, only two of the matches on the card were ever advertised, and this PPV came only 2 weeks after a previous WWE PPV. With the help of the WWE Network, I decided to see why this particular show got so much hate from wrestling fans. Surely a Pay-Per-View advertising an EXTREME Elimination Chamber Match must have some solid qualities. I suppose that it is time to find out!

The show opens up with a great crowd reaction after the ECW music hits, and we get the usual commentating that hypes up the event. The crowd doesn't really know what it is about to see, but they just seem happy to be there. In the shots of the arena I see at least one patch where there is a surprising number of empty seats in a corner, though it is entirely possible that those seats would be filled as the show gets started. If not, then I am surprised that the WWE didn't manage to sell out what appears to be a relatively small venue, because it is in fact a WWE Pay-Per-View.

Our first match is MnM vs Team Extreme (The Hardys). This seems to be a promising match. I really like The Hardys and Nitro and Mercury are pretty good, and I doubt that they will screw up a simple tag-team match. As far as I can tell, there wasn't much build-up for this particular match but the fans seem excited about it. The Hardys get a good pop when their music hits, and I have to say I am a bit of a mark for those guys when their original tag team music hits as well. It's good to see that the fans are happy to see Matt and Jeff together. The commentators are saying that this is going to be the last match the Hardys team up in together for a while because they are going to focus on singles competition. Hopefully that inspires them to put on a great match together.

The bell rings on top of Hardy chants throughout the arena. My immediate thoughts are that it is strange that at ECW's first PPV, "Team Extreme" will only battle in a normal tag team match. Maybe things get extreme somehow, but with the Hardys' history of extreme tag matches in the Attitude Era I am disappointing that this match is treated as if it were on any weekly TV taping. All of these men appear to be in good shape at this point, even Matt Hardy who struggled with his physique later in his WWE and short-lived TNA career. The crowd is bringing great energy for such a simple match, and the performers are doing a very good job. The Hardys have the upper-hand for the first portion of the match and a lot of quick tags seem to be getting the fans excited. At one point Matt has a nice power bomb time move on Nitro from the top rope that makes Matt look very strong.

MnM is really easy to hate and they do a good job of getting the crowd against them. The match is fast-paced and very back and forth, and is very fun to watch. As carnage begins to build up outside of the ring, we hear "E-C-Dub" and "Holy SH**" chants from the crowd, who appear to be enjoying the show thus far. I wonder if the wrestlers ever forget who is legal when all of the four-man action begins, because I certainly do. This appears to be one of the longest matches in the show and these guys are doing work. This really heat up towards the end of the match and it ends in really nice fashion. Great opening match for ECW December to Dismember. If this is going to be one of the worst PPVs of all-time then things must REALLY go downhill from here.

Next up is... Matt Striker vs Balls Mahoney? Ok, I really can't pretend that I care about this match in any capacity, but I will give it a go. Before the match, Matt Striker says this will be an "extreme rules match" in which the rules are extremely enforced. The crowd is chanting for Balls, a man I admit I have never heard of. He was probably on the original ECW, which I have almost no familiarity with. There is some mild cheering, but the crowd is far less excited for this match than the previous one, as am I. This really feels like something I would see on a Tuesday night ECW match.

Striker's ring gear is AWFUL. If you ever watch this match you will understand why. I don't want to describe it. I'm definitely noticing some empty seats throughout the arena, too, which is a really bad thing. How hard could it be to sell a relatively small number of seats (really small for a WWE PPV) under the guise of "Extreme" and ECW's first PPV. The One Night Stand show that ECW did before the show restarted was fantastic, so there would be reason to believe this one would be good too.

The match between Striker and Mahoney was short, and I am glad. It wasn't particularly bad, but I just never cared about it and there was no reason to. Very average to below average match.

Sabu is unconscious in the back of the arena and is being taken away by medical officials. The crowd chants "bullsh**" and I don't disagree. He was meant to be in the Extreme Elimination Chamber match but maybe he was at too much of a risk for injury to put into it.

Now we have Elijah Burke and Sylvester Turkay (who?) vs FBI (who?). Another basic tag team match, and two matches in a row that nobody cares about. Burke and Turkay get no reaction on their entrance, probably meaning that the crowd doesn't know or care much about these guys either. FBI gets a bit of a reaction but nothing special. Nothing has come anywhere near the pop the Hardys got. This match actually isn't bad, although it is really short and comes across as yet another weekly match. The crowd isn't completely dead but aren't especially excited either. Two matches that would have been average at best on a Tuesday night showing of ECW in a row, and I'm starting to get worried that maybe an Elimination Chamber match sucked up too much of the talent they could have used to make a stronger card.

Now we get Daivari, the manager-type guy of The Great Khali vs Tommy Dreamer. Seeing Dreamer should be fun, but who cares about Daivari? Certainly not myself. Mid-way through the match the most exciting thing to have happened has been Khali being ejected by the ref. The crowd is now chanting "we want hardcore", as they should, because they have seen none of it. I also want to point out that I do not like the combo of Tazz and Joey Styles as commentators. Maybe they are just having a bad night here, but they just aren't working for me, which is surprising because I really liked Tazz on Smackdown! back in the day.

This is just another quick, forgettable match. If it weren't for the star power of Dreamer I'd probably be mad by now. The ending was more disappointing than the last 3 matches, too. I have to also point out that we are already halfway through a 2 hour PPV. All of these remarks I have made about these matches seeming as if they would be on a regular airing of ECW make sense now, because this show seems to have been booked as a regular show. If it weren't for the elimination chamber match I know is coming at the end, there wouldn't be anything about this show that is reminiscent of a PPV.

Oh, and after the match Khali slams dreamer on the top of the ramp, and it probably was very painful. Dreamer refuses help and crawls backstage.

Now we see Heyman tell Hardcore Holly, who is dressed in his ring gear even though he wasn't supposed to have a match, that he will replace Sabu in the Extreme Elimination Chamber. The crowd isn't happy about it, either.

Now we have a mixed tag team match between the teams of Mike Knox and Kelly Kelly, and the team of Kevin Thorn and Ariel. I have honestly never heard of anybody in this match other than Kelly Kelly. Why are we seeing our third tag match of the night? This is pretty ridiculous, and I still don't care. I feel bad for the people who probably spent a good bit of cash to get into this event. Ariel is strange, but hot as well so I can handle this for now.

Ariel's outfit is not very modest, not that I expected it to be. We basically get to see her bare butt on the side of the ring, which is more entertaining than the match itself. The crowd is dead now, and rightfully so. Why is this on a PPV, and why is it so deep in the card? Was ECW this starved for talent?

This match was legitimately bad and I didn't enjoy watching it at all. I really hope the Extreme Elimination Chamber holds something good for me.

After the match I just discussed, The Sandman comes in to stop Ariel from beating on Kelly Kelly. He beats Thorn with his cane, and this is the first thing that can compare to "extreme" in this show. Too bad Sandman isn't in the main event!

After a lot of promos and talking, the chamber is down and the entrances begin. World champ Big Show comes out to little reaction, and I don't know if that's because the fans don't care for Show or are just bored, or maybe they're depressed. Show has quite a gut on him here, but I guess that's good for the World's Largest Athlete. The fans are pretty excited to see CM Punk, who they have been cheering for all night. I'm interested to see how he does in this early part of his career. Test comes out and nobody cares. This is probably the most dead the crowd has been for any entrance. He looks pretty good here, sad to know he died so early. Lashley doesn't get much of a reaction, but it is better than Show or Test. I wish he would have stayed with WWE longer, he obviously would have been given the opportunity to have a really good career. Hardcore Holly comes out to dull boos. People don't seem to be booing him because he is a heel, but because they really just don't want to see him. Show, Test and Holly all appear to be on the same side here as they have all applauded each other upon entrance. RVD gets an okay reaction, but by RVD standards it was really lame. The crowd is really down at this point.

The match starts off with Holly and RVD. There aren't going to be any weapons until somebody is allowed out of his pod, because there are only 4 weapons and they are all in the pods. That is pretty disappointing considering that this is supposed to be so "extreme". I was expecting the whole chamber to be armed with weaponry. I'm not sure that a chamber match is the best for RVD to showcase his ability, but I may be wrong and I'm really glad he is here. I hope that Holly and Test get eliminated quickly, because I really don't care about them and they obviously won't win this match.

There is really no chemistry between Styles and Tazz here. Other than a couple of neat stunts by RVD, nothing interesting happens in the first 5 minutes before the release of CM Punk into the match. He brings with him a steel chair and the support of the crowd which goes off for the first time since early in the show. Punk brings in some much needed energy, but I don't know that his steel chair is going to be extreme enough to make up for the rest of this mild-mannered show. For some reason, RVD's kicks seem really slow in this match. Watching him in 2014 seems much better than what he is doing at this point in 2006, and that doesn't make sense. Was RVD injured or what?

Van Dam is the first to bleed in the match, and shortly after is whipped head first into and through a steel chair positioned on a turnbuckle. MAN. That was intense. Heyman is yelling outside of the chamber, and he seems to be in the allegiance with Holly, Test and Show.

On an unrelated note, it is funny that any given episode of RAW now is longer than this PPV.

Next into the match is Test with a crowbar. I think the crowd is happier to see the crowbar than they are Test. Holly is the first to be eliminated, and surprisingly, CM Punk is  eliminated after a frog splash from RVD. After some chair shots at the top of Big Show's pod from Test, he is slammed head first into a chair and onto the mat. Test eliminates RVD with 2 minutes until somebody else is released into the match. Who booked this? Not only are the two most exciting superstars eliminated, but Test is one of the final three and is in an alliance with one of the 2 men in the pods. That means that either Big Show is just going to stand there for five minutes with Test waiting for Lashley to come out, or Lashley is going to come out. Seriously?

For some reason some SWAT-looking guys stop Lashley's pod from being opened, so Test just stands out there and taunts him while Lashley throws a tantrum. Luckily, the table in Lashley's pod is strong enough to bust through the steel chains on top of the pod in only a couple of light taps. If the whole thing was like this then I could probably rip it apart. Lashley climbs out of the pod and into the match, but without the table that was in his pod. If Big Show really wants into the match, why doesn't he just try and do a pull up on the chains in his pod and climb out? Lashley eliminates Test before Show is released, and so now we get to wait until he can come out.

For some reason, Heyman is telling Show that he is going to be ripped apart by Lashley. During the wait, Lashley got his table out of the pod, so that is good. Finally, Big Show enters the match with his barbed-wire baseball bat. I'm pretty sure the crowd is chanting "TNA", which is funny. Show doesn't manage to get a clean hit in with the bat before it gets stuck in the side of the cage. There is a cool moment where Lashley throws Show through one of the pods. Show busts himself out of the other side, making both men look pretty cool. Show's head is busted open.

The winner is predictable, and the show was pretty bad. December to Dismember wasn't a terrible show because the people in it did a poor job, but because the matches were all booked terribly for a PPV and there were very few people on the show even worth listing on a card. If I had to give this show a rating out of 10, I think I'd give it a 4. This just isn't worth watching unless you really want to see the reincarnation of ECW by WWE. I feel bad for everyone who had to be involved with this.