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Somehow, this novice and worst poster of all time candidate chose one of my favorite little ECW matches ever.
One of my favorite ECW matches ever and one of the best ECW matches ever is the Van Dam vs. Bam Bam Bigelow match from April 1998 in which Van Dam begins his famous World Television Title reign. It’s a match that works for the same reasons that this does, and that much of the best Van Dam matches work. RVD trading spots with a Sabu or Lynn is fun once or twice, but loses its charm the more it happens. The same with any match that’s entirely just about offense. Give Van Dam something to fight though, and the acrobatics turn into something done out of desperation when he’s not big or strong enough to fight against something normally. It’s the sort of change that transforms the entire routine and makes for the best work of his career.
Furnas isn’t as big in either direction as Bigelow. Few were.
He is, however, a complete god damned maniac and a perfect fit for ECW here at the peak of what it was.
A physical freak capable of all types of violence. Hurling Van Dam on his head on a chair on the mat feels as correct as a walk and brawl through the crowd, with enough unprotected chair shots to the top or back of the head to always keep it interesting. He spends the match teetering between stuff I love and stuff I hate, but it’s both short enough and feels pure enough that I can’t ever totally commit to the latter. There’s an earnest stupidity to this compared to later RVD matches that I just really appreciate, a brawling stunt show but without a lot of artifice to it beyond that.
Furnas brains Van Dam with a chair a few times in revenge, after all of Van Dam’s goofy and showier acrobatics have either fallen short or wound up getting RVD even more severely beaten. Furnas can’t help but stand and celebrate with the chair in a way that, again, feels completely natural. Van Dam’s flash Van Daminator at the end for a sudden victory feels both less obviously set up than usual and also like the only possible way that Van Dam could ever beat a guy like Furnas after a performance like this.
Not one I’d put in a top ten or maybe even a top twenty five, but just a ton of big stupid fun. Real dudes rock style pro wrestling in a different sense than just pure slugging and meatheaded wrestling, as they mix in a few acrobatic moments from Van Dam and five to ten of the grossest possible chair shots into the usual Furnas formula. It’s a wonderfully rewatchable sort of a thing that holds up nearly as well now as it did some eight years ago when I saw it for the first time, and as it did five or six years ago when I watched it again on a whim.
A true god damned hoot.
HANDWERK 