Background: With Taz gunning for Shane Douglas and the ECW World Heavyweight champion, “The Human Suplex Machine” found the enemies of his enemies were his friends as he teamed up with Sabu & RVD to take on the entire Triple Threat faction.
November to Remember ‘98
New Orleans, LA
November 1, 1998
Shane Douglas, Bam Bam Bigelow & Chris Candido vs. Rob Van Dam, Taz & Sabu
Before Sabu & Van Dam could make it down the aisle, The Dudley Boyz attacked them from behind. It was a three-on-one assault on Sabu until the lights went out to signal the arrival of Taz. The FTW champion wiped the floor with both Dudleyz and Chris Candido before Bigelow got a hold of him. Candido and Sabu were fighting in the ring as RVD took the fight to Shane Douglas. The Triple Threat was taking control early by isolating Sabu as Bigelow kept Taz and Van Dam at bay on the floor. Bringing a chair into this fight, Van Dam was able to rock “The Beast From the East” and give Taz the chance to tag in. But Sabu felt like doing this job on his own. Almost losing his balance was Sabu when diving on top of Douglas and Candido on the floor. Sabu was outdone by RVD and his highflying abilities, but the damage was still beneficial as Sabu was able to follow up with the triple jump moonsault on Douglas. Before Sabu could finish off “The Franchise”, Bigelow caught the flying Sabu to execute a gut-buster.
It seemed Taz and Van Dam could get anything started as The Triple Threat continuously worked over Sabu’s neck while pitching his partners to the floor. Things finally resembled a regular tag team match as the Douglas led faction kept Sabu on their side of the ring while continuously attacking the neck of Sabu. Taz’s anger was getting the better of him as the referee decided to finally start enforcing rules usually not applicable to an ECW match. Reversing an Irish whip Sabu threw a leg lariat that finally put the nephew of the original Sheik in the figurative driver’s seat. Taz was reaching out to tag out as Sabu was doing the same. RVD tagged himself in, but the referee didn’t see it and demanded Van Dam to leave. Rob didn’t care about the rules and just let loose with kicks as Candido pulled Taz off the apron to put him through a table. The referee eventually forced RVD out of the ring as Douglas pulled Sabu back to the Triple Threat’s side of the ring. Candido’s Bigelow assisted rocket launcher missed and allowed RVD to reenter to Frog Splash Candido.
Bigelow’s power bomb was countered by a Van Dam face buster, only for Taz to come in like the suplex machine that he was. After Douglas pitched Sabu to the floor, Taz got a hold of “The Franchise” to wear him out as RVD dove into the crowd from the top rope on Bigelow. Taz locked in the Tazmission on Douglas, but before the ECW champion tapped out, Sabu utilized the Arabian Face Buster to knock out both Taz and Douglas. Sabu took the pin fall on the champ from Taz before Douglas tapped out.
Winner: Rob Van Dam, Taz & Sabu (12:57)
Is It A Classic: That was a real disjointed affair. It was chaotic, but not in a good way. It was made worse by not having enough time to develop an emotional story after the first few minutes and featured a rushed ending after an unintentional episode of “Botchamania”.
