With The Dudleys tied up taking apart The Hardcore Chair Swinging Freaks tag team, and then feuding with their brother Spike now tagging with Balls Mahoney, The Impact Players didn't have a lot to do over the summer. They laid into Sid Vicious at Hardcore Heaven '99, after Sid beat Credible, and basically got to act tough having sneak attacked him, and beat him up based on numbers. At Heatwave '99, they were defeated by Rob Van Dam and Jerry Lynn. The Summer of '99 was not kind to the Impact Players.
But come September, Justin Credible was seeded into a match with the man he'd gotten banned in April in The Impact Player's failed bid to become tag champs, Sabu. Credible scored the victory here with That's Incredible, and was really enjoying the fact that he'd beaten "The Human Highlight Real" when his worst nightmare happened...The Sandman had come home, and he was looking to settle an old score. At The November to Remember that year, The Impact Players, with Rhyno, defeated the tag champs Tommy Dreamer and Raven, with The Sandman.
At Guilty as Charged 2000, Justin won his first major title as he and Lance Storm defeated Dreamer and Raven to become ECW tag team champions. Tommy Dreamer and Masato Tanaka defeated them on March 3, 2000 for the belts (my birthday incidentally. But the Players won them back defeating Raven and Awesome, and Dreamer and Tanaka in a 3 way Dance. In April, at Cyberslam '00 when Awesome left the promotion, and Dreamer won the heavyweight title from Taz, Credible stormed the ring, threw down the ECW tag team title belt in his possesion, vacating the tag titles, breaking up The Impact Players, and challenged Dreamer for the belt, Dreamer's response: "Ring the bell" and they went at it, Raven interfered along with Francine, seemingly to help Dreamer, but Credible took Raven down, and Francine nailed Dreamer in the balls, so that Justin Credible could hit That's Incredible and become ECW World Heavyweight Champion, with Francine portrayed as his gold digging bitch of a manager, in love with the title, and not Justin. This was the culmination of Paul Heyman's master plan, as he'd wanted to make Credible champion for awhile, and had been really grooming him for it since he started when you look at the list of people he'd beaten.
At Hardcore Heaven 2000, Credible was scheduled to face Dreamer, and the man he'd screwed over, Lance Storm. Dreamer was nixed from the match when Credible swore he'd throw the belt down in the middle of the ring and forfeit it if Dreamer was allowed to compete, Paul Heyman and Tommy Dreamer had no choice, Credible had them, as Paul E. said "by the fucking balls". So Justin Credible defeated Lance Storm, in Storm's last ECW match up, as he debuted in WCW a week or two later (very appropriate these two fought as they are both graduates of the Hart Dungeon, and Storm actually trained Credible). Justin had skirted Tommy Dreamer at Hardcore Heaven, he couldn't at Heatwave.
Dreamer and Credible engaged in a Stairway to hell bout (which we covered with Tommy Dreamer) and the cocky champ pulled off the victory. It seemed Justin Credible could not be beaten. In August, he participated in the ECW Tag Title Tournament at The Hammerstein Ballroom, tagging with Rhyno in an effort to win all the ECW gold, they failed, as Mikey Whipwreck and Yoshihiro Tajiri took home the gold.
At Anarchy Rulz 2000, Justin Credible faced Jerry Lynn in his hometown. The story here was that Jerry was in a big match situation in his hometown, and as we saw earlier on, Jerry had come up short in big match situations, but not on this night. With a cradle tombstone piledriver, Jerry Lynn defeated Justin Credible to become ECW Heavyweight Champion. Justin Credible's life would now become a living hell.
"Where's the belt Justin? How's come you aren't trying to get the belt back Justin? I bought this nice dress, these shoes, and it's all wasted because your loser ass can't win the belt back, no sex until you do!" This would be what Justin Credible would here from his...uh...manager, Francine, for months after his defeat at Anarchy Rulz. When he failed to win it back in a Double Jeopardy match at The November To Remember, he heard it, when he failed to win it back at Massacre on 34th Street, he heard it. It was horrible, Justin just sat in his locker room moaning "I've gotta win that belt back so she'll get off my back!". His last oppurtunity came at Guilty as Charged 2001, in a Tables, Ladders, and Canes match with The Sandman and Steve Corino. After gaining some...um...pre-match "relief", from Missy Hyatt, he was ready to go. Credible and Corino came up short and The Sandman took the win, only to be defeated by Rhino minutes later. The night wasn't a total wash, as the show went off the air, Credible and Corino announced an alliance, that they would now become "The New Impact Players" and let ECW beware...ah, what might have been if only ECW had gotten back on it's feet.
Credible wrestled The Sandman twice on the last ECW show in Pine Bluff Arkansas on January 13, 2001. He beat The Sandman in the first match, but then lost in the second (the final ECW match ever wrestled). Credible signed with the WWE a few weeks later, a huge blow to ECW, as Paul Heyman had identified Credible as a key player in his efforts to rebuild the company, after they found a new cable home (Rhino was another, I think Steve Corino and Jerry Lynn were also principal players). However it was not to be.
Credible will return at ECW One Night Stand, finally able (let's hope) to wipe away the bad taste that was left in the mouth of ECW fans after his last WWE run. There's quite a few possibilities for him, an Impact Players reunion with Lance Storm, another match with The Sandman and/or Tommy Dreamer, perhaps a rematch with Storm, or even another fight with Sabu. It's going to be very interesting to see how "The Hardcore Icon" is booked at this all important farewell show.