With a card shuffled by unexpected no-shows, ECW's Guilty as Charged still managed to surprise and entertain.  The just-completed event saw Taz and Shane Douglas take each other to the limit in an intense affair that included mind-blowing interference from Sabu and the ECW returns of Chris Candido and Tammy Sytch; in the end Taz locked on the kati hajime (Tazmission) and forced Douglas to pass out and give up the ECW World Title.

The world title match was just one of the three superb, hard fought highlights of the PPV...  Yoshihiro Tajiri and Super Crazy lit things up with a fast paced and often-insane display of high flying and hard hitting action; and Rob Van Dam proved once again to be every bit as good as he says he is in successfully defending his ECW TV Title against Lance Storm in another stellar affair.

The show also featured surprises, as Pscyho Sid Vicious returned to a national promotion for the first time in over a year, winning a squash against John Kronus in his debut.  Also, the Dudley Boys called out former ECW icons, the Public Enemy, hinting strongly that the former ECW tag champs (and more recently, former WCW tag champs) may be coming home.

All this came despite travel and injury problems preventing Masato Tanaka and Jerry Lynn from taking their appropriate positions in important spots of the card.  An altogether strong show.

Complete results:

 
• Paul Heyman opened the PPV telecast by announcing the absence of Tanaka and Lynn from the night's festivities, but promised that the efforts of the hardest working locker room in the business would more than make up for it.
• The PPV opener started out as the Full Blooded Italians taking on Danny Doring and Angry Amish Roadkill...  but a few minutes in, Axl Rotten and Ballz Mahoney hit the scene and concluded that since the match resembled a "homosexual dance party," they ought to make it a three way dance.   And so the battle began anew.  After about 5 minutes, the FBI eliminated the Doring/Roadkill combo with a double team suplex on Doring.  Axl and Ballz then made the big comeback, simultaneously hitting their finishing moves on the FBI to get the win.   Nothing special, but a decent opener, for sure.
• They aired a canned Terry Funk interview.   Long story short:  Terry wants to see Tommy Dreamer bleed.
• Yoshihiro Tajiri and Super Crazy were all over the place in the next 15 minute long match.  Tajiri laid into Crazy with stiff kicks and cool submission moves; Crazy was launching all kinds of spinning planchas.   Both had tons of high flying moves and neat pinning combinations in their arsenals.   No way could a play-by-play do this justice.  Fans were into it early, but unfortunately, cooled down as it went on.  But the action was hot all match long.   Tajiri won with some kind of spinning submission move type thing into a full-nelson suplex.
• John Kronus was in the ring for a match when Jeff Jones came out with a mic, declaring himself "the Judge" Jeff Jones.   Kronus assaulted Jones last week, and now, Jones sentenced him to face his new charge, who just happened to be Psycho Sid Vicious.  Sid came out to a huge reaction and decimated Kronus.  After the squash was over, it was teased pretty heavily that Jones would not be able to "control" Sid, leaving the door open for Sid to ditch Jones and wrestle as a babyface (which is how the fans treated him).
• Dudley Boys were out next, which meant that Joel Gertner got to do one of his Five Star ring introductions...  the Duds basically called out "anybody in the building" to come fight them.  After the previous match's surprise appearance, I thought for sure the Public Enemy would hit the scene.  They didn't (but my premonition was partially on target!), but instead New Jack and Spike Dudley ran in to accept the challenge.  Typical New Jack plunder sequence.  Just crazy foriegn object shots and wild brawling.  Spike got tossed from the ring into the crowd twice.  Spike also took a wicked Super Bomb from Bubba.   In the end, the Duds were too much, and hit 3D on Spike to score the pinfall.   Wild action that is the protypical "ECW-style brawl."  After the match, Bubba got on the stick and said New Jack and Spike were "dead," that they broke up the Eliminators and the Gangstas, and sent the Sandman and Beulah packing from ECW.  They said there is only one mountain left to climb to prove they are the best tag team in the history of ECW:  they challenge the Public Enemy to come to the ECW Arena this Saturday and fight them.
• Lance Storm came out and announced he was stepping in against Rob Van Dam for the ECW TV Title Match....  he and Tammy Lynn Bytch got great heat.  Rob Van Dam hit the ring and was WAAAYY over as the babyface.   Great spots in this one, including one extended sequence outside the ring that included Storm and RVD both taking insane chances to hit high-flying moves.  Again, too much to do justice with a blow-by-blow here... suffice to say that after 20 minutes, RVD hit a sequence of moves, climaxing with a German Suplex, bridged, and got the pinfall win.
• Justin Credible hit the ring with his entire entourage (but not Terry Funk); Tommy Dreamer followed with a ladder in tow.  The two started their Stairway to Hell match (where a Singapore cane was suspended above the ring)....  just absolutely brutal action here.  Stiff and creative ladder spots dominated, and Tommy was bleeding pretty good before too long.  After about 12 minutes, they introduced a second ladder and set up an awesome spot where Credible was straddling the two ladders about 10 feet up and Dreamer grabbed him an hit a wicked variation of the Stone Cold Stunner on him.  Tommy was eventually the first to get to the cane, but before he could do much with it, Terry Funk ran in and pasted Dreamer with a trash can, opening the door for Credible to his the jumping tombstone piledrive on the ladder and get the pinfall win.  After the match was over, Funk continued abusing Dreamer.
• Shane Douglas and Taz hit the ring for their main event match for the ECW World Title... after a slow "old school" start, these two kicked things up several notches by taking the brawl into the crowd and up into the rafters.  Along the way, there were tossing and suplexing each other into anything and everything in their paths.  Both men were bloodied.  As they worked their way back to the ring, Shane put Taz through a table; Taz returned the favor minutes later by suplexing Douglas through a table in the ring.  But before Taz could capitlize, the lights went out and Sabu made a grand entrance complete with Goldberg-esque fireworks.  Sabu was red hot, hitting an incredible sequence of moves on BOTH men, including putting both men through tables.  Sabu left after his 3 minute spot, satisfied that he punked out both men.  At this point, Douglas began calling for the help of the Triple Threat (who, of course, don't exist anymore); Chris Candido and Tammy Sytch appeared out of the crowd, and had words with Douglas and Francine.  In fact, Tammy and Francine scuffled briefly, further electrifying the crowd.  Eventually the guys pulled their ladies apart, and Candido and Sytch left ringside (Candido taking off and disgarding his Triple Threat t-shirt).  Douglas was obviously distraught, as well as distracted, by the turn of events, and was quickly locked into Taz's kati hajime.   Shane would not tap out, but eventually passed out and lost the match.  Taz is your new ECW World Champ.

A definite Thumbs Up, as ECW puts together a really good show despite no-shows and recent talent defections.  Douglas and Taz get special commendations for such a hard-fought main event match, while RVD, Storm, Tajiri, and Super Crazy all busted their asses in stellar undercard matches.