INTRODUCTION: I downloaded this entire match (in one file) offline from XPWTV.com's Discussion Board. It sees Rob Van Dam defend his ECW TV Title against Taz. This is from November To Remember '99. RVD is in the midst of his what would become 23-month TV Title reign. At this event, "The Human Wrecking Machine" stands in his way.

EVENT: ECW November To Remember 1999 (aired LIVE on Pay-Per-View)
DATE: November 7, 1999
LOCATION: Buffalo, New York
VENUE: Bert Flickinger Center
ATTENDANCE: about 3,000

COMMENTATORS: Joey Styles & Cyrus "The Virus"

Joey Styles and Cyrus are on commentary.

ECW World Television Title Match: TAZ vs. ROB VAN DAM (C) (w/ Bill Alfonso)

Referee: Jim Molinneaux (sp?)

THE ACTION: My webcast version of the match begins immediately, with the two locking up as soon as the clip starts playing. Tieup. RVD tries a wastelock, but Taz uses a standing reversal to apply his own. RVD drops down and out of it, and then sweeps Taz's left leg out from under him with his left hand. Taz falls to the mat, and RVD covers. Taz immediately kicks out (the ref gets to 1). RVD charges Taz, who grabs him in a headlock and transitions into a side headlock takeover. RVD quickly counters with a leg-scissors, and Taz's shoulders are down on the mat. He immediately perks up (the ref gets to 1), then escapes the hold and climbs to his feet. RVD is up, too, and Taz ducks an attempted spinning calf kick, and RVD, in turn, ducks Taz's attempted clothesline. Halt in the action. The fans give them a nice ovation. An "RVD!" chant begins, so RVD, of course, plays to it, climbing up onto the second-rope and saluting his massive fan following with his signature double tumb point. He jumps off, and then squares off with Taz, who walks out of another corner (he had been laying back and relaxing).

Another squareoff. Tieup. RVD locks on a side headlock. Taz whips him into the ropes. RVD bounces off and rolls over Taz's back (like Scotty Too Hotty does), who had bent down. RVD lands on his feet and hits a weak gutkick, but another attempt sees Taz catch his foe's left foot. RVD tries to escape with an enziguiri kick (w/ his right leg), but Taz ducks. RVD lands on that right leg, maintaining his balance, and tries a reverse enziguiri, but Taz again ducks and lets go of the left leg, so RVD lands face-first on the mat. RVD quickly rises, and Taz locks on a side headlock for a split second, but uses his judo experience to quickly transition into a nice bulldog clothesline (w/ a legsweep), slamming RVD to the mat. Taz keeps his hold on RVD's head, now with an inverted grounded side headlock (with the opponent looking up at the ceiling, instead of down at the mat) submission. RVD pulls toward the ropes within about three seconds and wraps his legs around the middle onces, forcing Taz to break the hold, which he does.

RVD stumbles up to his feet, while Taz waits. He mocks RVD with the thumb taunt, and once RVD gets to his feet, a "Fuck You, Taz!" chant begins, but dies down after about six rounds or so. Another squareoff. RVD attempts a swing kick, but is a few feet short. Taz gutkicks him, and then gives him a hard forearm. RVD stumbles into the corner, where he receives one gutkick and and a whip to the opposite corner, where he hits hard. As Taz charges, RVD shows incredible balance, quickness, strength, and timing by springing up onto the top turnbuckle (in one motion) and leaping off over the incoming Taz, all within about one second. RVD gives him a gutkick and forearm, but his whip to the previous turnbuckle they were at is countered, and he slams into the corner. As Taz is coming in, RVD gets his right boot up in his face, sending his foe a few feet back.

Both stall for a few seconds before RVD flips Taz off and then runs in and gives the monster heel a gutkick, forearm, and another gutkick. Taz finds himself in a facelock (under RVD's armpit), so he muscles RVD back a few feet into the corner, and then whips him into the opposite corner, which RVD slams into. Taz charges, and all in one motion, RVD lifts him up into a splitlegged (split) position on the top-rope, and as Taz comes in close enough, sunset flips over his opponent and brings him down to the mat into a pinning combo, completing the beautiful off-the-top-rope splitlegged sunset-flip powerbomb/pin within only about two seconds. Taz escapes the pinning combo at two, and the action pauses. RVD looks toward out toward the crowd, who give him some cheers, as Taz climbs from his knees onto his feet. He does the thumb taunt to the fans, and then backs up and does it to Taz.

Taz gets too close, and RVD gutkicks him. Both have an exchange of blows, with RVD getting the last one, and then a gutkick. He whips Taz into the ropes. Taz holds on to them, and RVD does a nice splitlegged leapfrog, but lands on his feet. RVD charges him, but Taz ducks down and uses his right arm to back body drop RVD up and over the ropes. RVD gets great hangtime and lands hard on the blue protective mat on the concrete. In the process, he knocks down a camera man, who rose pretty quickly and seemed to be fine. The ref tries convincing Taz to wait inside of the ring, but the challenger decides against it and climbs to the outside, where he picks up RVD and hammers him. He whips the champ down the ringside aisle toward a guardrail. RVD tries to slow his trip down a bit by vaulting off of a chair and flying off of that, but the contact is minimally changed, as he still crashes into the steel fairly hard, bouncing off and down ontot he blue mat.

Taz comes over, lifts him up, gives him two punches, kneelift, and another punch before dragging him down the aisle a bit and ramming him head-first into the rail. They're now in the main aisleway, and are heading back up toward the entrance stage. RVD pulls away from Taz and rams his foe's own head into the rail. He nails a gutkick, and then crotches Taz on the guardrail with an inverted atomic drop. He for Alfonso to hold up a chair, and the annoying whistle-blower comes over and holds it in front of Taz's face. RVD springboards up onto the guardrail on the other side of the aisleway (with his back to the others), but he stumbles off and lands on his feet in the crowd, just as Taz climbs off of the rail into the crowd, grabs the chair, and grabs Fonzie by his shirt's collar. He releases, though, and catches RVD flying in from out of camera range with a vertical plancha from off the opposite guardrail, across the aisleway, and over this rail, where he catches Taz, causing both to fall into the fan's area.

The hardcore fans, of course, get as close as possible to mauling them without getting thrown out. We get a closeup of Fonzie shouting for RVD, who is the first to get up. He then climbs over the rail and into the ring, where he bows to the crowd. Taz can be seen climbing over the guardrail and into the ring, and as RVD responds to a crowd chant for him by doin ght ethumb taunt, he doesn't see Taz sneak up form behind and clip his left leg, causing him to collapse. He grabs at his leg and sells the injury, while Taz recovers, climbs to his feet, and begins stalking his foe. RVD retreats to the corner, where Taz stomps on his limp body four times, and then spits at a ringside fan. He picks up RVD, who tries fighting back with two gut punches, but the comeback is ended when Taz gives a hard forearm to RVD's back. Corner whip. RVD is shot toward the opposite buckle, where he tips up, only for Taz to catch him (with his [Taz's] face facing toward the opposite buckle) with the champion's limp body draped over the challenger's back. Taz quickly slings RVD up and over his back, slamming him onto the mat with a double-leg slam. RVD grabs at his back, grimmacing in pain, and Taz covers him, but gets 2.

RVD tries to escape Taz's clutches, but to no avail, as he receives three of Taz's vicious crossface punches (from behind). RVD crawls into the corner, but Taz pulls him out and uses a kneelift. RVD reverses the whip, sending Taz into the ropes. RVD leapfrogs over his incoming foe, who ducks under, but stops his run. Taz locks both of RVD's arms and - WOW! - uses a stiff double underhook-like german suplex (no, not a dragon suplex [a full nelson german suplex]) (w/ out a bridge), folding RVD up like an accordian. =The move took a lot out of Taz as well, and he therefore doesn't cover. He instead rolls outside, takes a table out from under the ring, and slides it in. He crawls in himself and delivers a stomp to RVD before going back to the table and laying it up against the second corner turnbuckle. RVD by now has stumbled back onto his feet and is receiving tips from Fonzie (on the outside), and when he gets close enough, nails Taz with a weak-looking midsection blow. Taz uses a hard punch, but RVD fights back with a forearm and a 360º spinning dropkick (a two-legged Van Daminator with no chair). Taz hits the mat, and RVD lands hard on his back.

With both down, Fonzie starts banging the apron with both hands, which begins an "RVD!" chant. This rallies RVD into climbing to his feet (using the rope), run off the ropes, and deliver a diving double-leg dropkick to the midsection of Taz, who's still lying on the mat. RVD again runs off the ropes and this time lands a beautiful handspring backflip splash onto Taz. Cover. 2. RVD climbs to his feet and follows his previous manuever by running off the ropes and hitting Rolling Thunder (a rolling somersault back splash). Cover. Another 2 count. Taz is now laying on his chest, and RVD gets up and drops a corkscrew (360º spinning) leg drop, before climbing back to his feet and doing a single thumb point. RVD lifts Taz up and delivers a forearm and a gutkick before whipping him into the corner. RVD grabs a steel chair that's sitting on the apron and shows it to the fans. He charges at Taz, dropping the chair about in the middle of the ring, rolls forward, leaps high up into the air and - OUCH! - is floored with a hard clothessline by Taz's mammoth arms, a stiff lariat that Taz called the "Angry Man's Clothesline." Incase you were unaware, RVD was attempting to monkey-flip Taz onto the chair, but the sequence was countered.

Taz stumbles around the ring, and Fonzie crawls up onto the apron, leans into the ring, and tries to resuccitate (sp?) RVD until Molinneaux shoo's him off. Taz kicks a chair a few feet and comes over to RVD, who's about on his knees by now. He starts to lay RVD down on the mat, but decides the better of it and picks him up. RVD tries to mount a comeback with two punches, stumbling all the while to the next corner. Taz follows him and delivers a punch as a small message in white text appears on the screen in the top left corner:

"PLAY Hi-Fi
SP"

It disappears after a few seconds, and in the corner, Taz attempts a corner whip, but RVD stops his run and swings into an armringer. He locks on a bulldog headlock and charges the corner-mounted table, but Taz stops him and attempts a backdrop suplex, which RVD flips out of, landing on his feet. Fonzie climbs into the ring with a steel chair, and is now behind RVD. RVD delivers a punch to the gut and to the face on Taz, just as Fonzie (on his knees) tosses the chair to Taz, who catches it. RVD spins into a Van Daminator (a 360º spinning roundhouse kick) but Taz ducks. RVD lands on his feet and attempts a kick, but Taz, who has dropped the chair, catches his leg and head. RVD tries to escape, but to no avail, as Taz hurls him through the table with a Head-and-Leg Overhead TazPlex! Both are down now. Taz slowly rolls over and weakly covers RVD, who dramatically kicks out at 2. Behind Taz, who's slowly rising to his feet, Fonzie is in the ring with a chair, and looks to be ready to swing it. Taz turns around and sees his former manager, who drops the chair and is scared into backing up a bit Fonzie gathers up the courage to slap Taz across the face, just as RVD is slowly rising behind Taz.

Taz picks up the chair, which Fonzie scares out of the ring. RVD has now climbed up onto the top-rope, and when Taz turns around, he absolutely flies off of the top and soars across the ring, delivering a nice single-leg missle dropkick which bashes the chair into Taz's face. Fonzie climbs into the ring and, while on his knees, does the double thumb point, which begins a loud "RVD!" chant. Fonzie rolls out of the ring as RVD crawls over and covers Taz, who powers out at 2. A drowsy (sp?) RVD does a single thumb point before rising up and springboarding up onto the top turnbuckle. He's now facing the ring. Taz has now climbed to his feet and walks over to RVD, who he chops the feet out from under. RVD falls groin-first into a crotched position on the buckle. Taz hammers him in the midsection and climbs up onto the top-rope. RVD fires back with two punches to Taz's midsection, but the big man eventually stands his foe up on the top-rope. With both now standing on the top turnbuckle, Taz looks to be trying for a head-and-arm tazplex off of the top-rope. RVD, though, drops off the buckle and plummets down to the concrete, but while descending downward, brings Taz's head down with him, bashing it onto the ring post. Taz bounces off and onto the mat.

Fonzie helps RVD rise back up, and within three seconds, he's climbed up onto the apron. A " You F*cked Up!" chant has begun, so I guess I may be wrong and the off-the-top-rope bump may have been a mistake. Anyway, RVD uses a nice catapult slingshot splitlegged moonsault (catapult Arabian Press) and covers, but Taz kicks out at 2. Both combatants climb to their feet, and we see some blood trickling from Taz's mouth, apparently due to getting slammed face-first into the post. I guess it was a mistake. Taz ducks RVD's clothesline and applies a waistlock. RVD flips out of his attempted german suplex, and albeit landing sloppily, quickly climbs back up to his feet and downs Taz with a nice spinning heelkick. Taz goes down and rolls around a bit until he's about in the middle of the ring. RVD springboards up onto the top-rope, now facing toward Taz. Wasting no time, he immediately proves that humans can fly, as he soars even higher than usual off of the top-rope and absolutely squashes Taz. Joey says it best: "Five Star Frogsplash!" RVD bounces several feet up into the air, and after selling the pain by gripping at his midsection, covers Taz (no leg hook). Molinneaux counts: 1...2...3! The bell rings (14:13).

WINNER and STILL ECW World Television Champion: ROB VAN DAM

- The fans cheer for their hero, and Fonzie climbs into the ring and raises RVD's title belt high for all the fans to see, while the ring announcer makes the announcement: "Your winner of the match, and still..." - Oops, the file cut off right here, so I guess we didn't get the rest of the announcement. Oh well...

POST-MATCH THOUGHTS: I've seen better from both of these two superb athletes, but this was a solid performance by both. The technical exchanges in the beginning were good, and while the brawling could've been better, it was acceptable. I'm not in the mood to go too far indepth, so I'll say that the sequences after that were also acceptable. It lacked some of the intensity, creativity, etc. of some other matches featuring these two (as RVD didn't get in all of his aerial stunts, and the same went for Taz and most of his suplexes), and this one did drag at some points, but the match was good overall.

The finish was overworked, as RVD should've just hit the five-star after hitting the missle single-leg kick. The action after that caused the ending to be a bit anti-climatic, but the stuff before that was enjoyable. There was some nice spots (RVD's Rolling Thunder, missle single-leg kick, and especially his cool arabian press). Some stalling and botches spots, along with some timing mistakes, didn't help, but in the end, the acceptable matwork and couple of aerial stunts will give this one an acceptable rating. There certainly wasn't anything very special, though.
RATING: **1/4