25 Best Wrestling Shows EVER
12. ECW One Night Stand 2005
ECW One Night Stand 2005 wasn’t just an astonishingly authentic emulation of the ECW of old; it was the best ECW event ever.
Scan the match card, and recall the action, and you might be unmoved. Chris Jericho Vs. Lance Storm was more neat than good; Sabu Vs. Rhyno was a very cool sprint, but hardly Match of the Year calibre.
The vibe and atmosphere elevated the show into this conversation. The emotion was so palpable that JBL worked himself into a shoot; he beat the piss out of the Blue Meanie in the show-closing WWE Vs. ECW brawl. Wrestling promotions have attempted to bottle this inter-promotional energy, variously, for decades. WWE either harnessed it or were swept up in it.
Tinged with lawlessness and danger, One Night Stand was noise, novelty and surreality. The jarring context of the show was insane. WWE, of all promotions, imitated the inimitable. It shouldn’t have existed, and yet it did. In much the same way as WrestleMania matches are often better purely as a result of the backdrop, Super Crazy Vs. Little Guido Vs. Tajiri was enhanced by the setting. It was a brief greatest hits match, but a rabid crowd, one of the loudest ever, wanted to hear ‘em.
Mike Awesome Vs. Masato Tanaka was perfect. Utterly psychotic. The way you remembered it and missed it.
The Dudleys Vs. The Sandman and Tommy Dreamer was vintage garbage, so artless that it almost became artful, and that Sandman entrance, Jesus Christ. The most skeevy house party ever.
Wild, unforgettable, and great when it peaked, One Night Stand was a triumph.