For fans of the original Extreme Championship Wrestling, June of 2006 seemed like a dream come true. Not only would ECW get another PPV, it would also get—in a move unthinkable since the failed 2001 invasion—its own cable TV show.
Rob Van Dam even won his first ECW World Title.
But even on a show as well-received as One Night Stand 2006, there were some troubling signs of things to come. Besides the abundance of WWE Superstars on the card, many of whom had never even sniffed an ECW ring…
…there was also the baffling new match stipulation called, “Extreme Rules”. ECW fans were puzzled—Weren’t all ECW matches contested under “extreme rules”?
Supposedly, an Extreme Rules match meant “anything goes”…
…yet the very first one ended via medical stoppage after the first big bump. What was WWE was thinking? To this day, it remains one of the show’s great mysteries.
But the real disappointment began as soon as ECW premiered on SyFy…
…and continued for the rest of the summer.
That spelled big trouble for their August 1st return to the Hammerstein Ballroom.
In the two months since One Night Stand, the show had been overrun by vampires and lame parodies, Mike Knox and Test had taken the Land of Extreme by storm, RVD had been suspended for weed, and the Big Show had won the ECW title.
So to win over the notoriously tough crowd, WWE booked an ECW title match in the main event. The challenger? Batista.
It wasn’t a terrible idea; after all, his fellow WWE star John Cena had been booed so heavily against RVD just weeks earlier, it made for one of the most legendary moments in ECW history.
Except, as mentioned earlier, RVD was serving a suspension, and the hated Big Show had taken the title. Which meant the fans were supposed to cheer Batista.
It wouldn’t be a WrestleMania-worthy event as Joey Styles claimed, but it would have been well-received at, say, a SmackDown taping. Why it headlined the one episode that *wasn’t* a SmackDown taping, we’ll never know.
Now, this crowd wasn’t completely stuck in the past; just minutes earlier, they had overwhelmingly cheered as CM Punk demolished former ECW champ Justin Credible.
But a hoss fight for a main event? That was a big no from the crowd, many of whom had travelled from Philadelphia or farther to see what was advertised as an ECW show.
Predictably, Show was met with heavy boos and arena-wide chants of “RVD”.
It was an unlucky break, then, that Van Dam was a mere 28 days into his 30-day suspension, and thus nowhere to be found.
Also predictably (to everyone but WWE), Batista was received just as poorly…
…getting into an argument with a fan seconds into his entrance (and making him sh*t his pants).
Sure, the hardcore fans in the front row might have given him the finger, but everyone else would surely pop for his turnbuckle pose, right?
They did not. But, the announcers assured us, Batista was very popular on all the other WWE shows.
During the introductions, both men got what the announcers called, “a mixed reaction” (consisting of both boos and the odd obscenity).
Regardless, promised Tazz, the fans would still see a great match.
In terms of strength, Batista proved to be every bit Big Show’s equal in the early going. The fans, too, felt the two were equals, chanting “You both suck!”
Batista booted the champion out of the ring as the match headed to a three-minute commercial break…
…which concluded with the Big Show still stalling outside the ring.
In response to chants of “Boring” and “Sabu” (who was actually there that night, but had been sent home earlier in the episode without wrestling)…
…Big Show audibly yelled, “F**k you!”, then grabbed the mic to remind fans that he was the champ, not RVD or Sabu, so they could all kiss his ass.
Remarkably, the additional two minutes of stalling did not quell the “Boring” chants…
…which subsided only when fans switched to chanting, “F**k this match!”
In these days of insufferably positive wrestling crowds, with their chants of “Both these guys” and “Fight forever”, it’s refreshing to go back and hear the exact opposite from the fans in 2006.
“I’ve f**ked bigger women than you, p***y!” said Show to one fan while stalling even more.
At last, the action started up again when Batista met Show on the arena floor and traded punches.
You’d think this would placate the fans just a little bit; instead they booed even louder, then chanted, “We should riot!”
In an astounding bit of wrestling logic, Big Show then rolled in and out of the ring to avoid being counted out… in Extreme Championship Wrestling… after having stood on the outside for six minutes straight.
ECW immediately cut to commercial.
When the match returned from its second break, the crowd was in the middle of a “Same old s**t” chant.
Further antagonizing the audience, Big Show did the finger thing and flipped off the crowd. This distraction allowed Batista to fight back, which somehow drew even more boos.
Once again insisting it was the crowd that was wrong, Tazz assured the viewers at home: “There’s no way you could satisfy this audience here in New York City in ECW right now!”
But the crowd had a message of their own to those same viewers: “Change the channel!”
“Change the channel?” asked an incredulous Tazz. “But we like it here on Syfy!”
Batista then suplexed Big Show to finally, finally get a pop.
This good will lasted three seconds before fans started booing again.
Playing off the reactions as ECW fans being deliberately silly, Tazz suggested they’d soon cheer for the referee.
Big Show’s immovable object routine certainly didn’t win over the crowd.
“Now this crowd is chanting ‘Boring’”, noted Tazz, “and this match is anything but boring!”
Fed up, Big Show picked up the ECW belt to wallop Batista. “This is not Extreme Rules!” protested Joey Styles. The same guy who’d called barbed wire spots and a thousand chair shots to the head (often in the same match) was utterly panicked that a competitor might use a foreign object in an ECW match.
But Batista ducked and hit Big Show with a spinebuster—kind of—which the crowd didn’t buy.
In fact, the crowd booed each near-fall more than the last.
Fed up, Big Show hit his opponent with the belt and got immediately DQ’d. Classic ECW!
Irrational as ever, the same fans who desperately wanted the match to end, now took exception to the laziest, most bulls**t finish there was.
The reigning king of extreme then picked up the belt once more and grazed Batista. “That second one might have been worse than the first one!”, said Tazz.
At long last, Sabu showed up, garnered a thunderous pop, and laid out the Big Show to send the crowd home happy. Could the violent, profanity-laden crowd reactions have been WWE’s plan all along?
Well, they never returned to the Hammerstein Ballroom, so no.