What’s up wrestling fans? As we head back into the world of professional wrestling, I hope you all had a safe and wonderful Memorial Day holiday. I’m back once again with my weekly look at WWE’s ECW on Sci-Fi.
We start tonight’s broadcast with The Big Show vs Tommy Dreamer in a one-fall singles match. While this match was quick and decisive, I was surprised to see Dreamer get in more than 2 moves. I think it was 3 to be exact. I’m tired of what creative is doing to Dreamer. I’m not sure if this is the role he wants, but seeing the heart and soul of ECW turn into a jobber is depressing and ultimately predictable on a weekly basis. If this is the height of where Tommy is going on TV, then he’s better off using his skills backstage so that he can leave the ring with at least a small shadow of dignity. Out of a possible 9 stars, I give this opener 3 stars.
Back from break and the announce team is joined by The Gold Standard, Shelton Benjamin. After getting his name right, Adamle showed us footage of Benjamin defeating Kofi Kingston last week, and this brought out the “crazy Jamaican” for a singles match. We now have Kofi Kingston vs Mike Knox. This was a fun, hard hitting, albeit short matchup. Kofi hit a kick out of the corner when he countered a charging Knox that looked incredible. You could actually see some fans in the crowd mouthing “wow” on the hard camera side of the arena. This guy has got to be one of the most instantly impressive in-ring talents to debut in the company in recent memory. The finish saw Kofi pick up the 1,2,3 following the Trouble in Paradise, but he was quickly attacked by Shelton and Knox after the match continuing the heated feud between Benjamin and Kingston. I’d like to add that although I love Benjamin in the ring, and have said many times that he’s one of the best wrestlers WWE has, listening to him on the mic tonight just reinforced how terrible he really is in that department. His speech is choppy, his thoughts incoherent, and his statements repetitive and boring. This really must be what’s holding him back, because with years of wrestling under his belt, he seems to have done nothing to develop his character or personality behind the mic. 5 Stars.
This match is followed by what I suppose you could call our half-hour main event, CM Punk vs Chavo Guerrero. This was a great bout between two evenly matched talents that work very well together. There’s been a lot of speculation lately that Punk’s recent losing streak is due to heat from officials, and that the man holding the briefcase should be “winning more” because he’s Mr. Money in the Bank. Since when does winning money in the bank mean you are unbeatable? I understand that Punk’s luck hasn’t been great lately, but come on, nobody can win them all. I think it’s just an overreaction in my opinion. In any case, this was a great match which saw Chavo take the advantage after Bam Neely interfered. He was later able to pick up the V after a roll-up on Punk. 7 Stars.
A great outing by Chavo and Punk is now followed by a brief backstage interview with Colin Delaney conducted by none other than Lena Yada. Man, these two looked like paralyzed ventriloquist dolls. Both of them are just horrible on the mic. Lena can hardly pronounce words correctly and Colin sounds like he’s talking with a mouth full of retard-soaked cotton balls. It looked and sounded like he was reading off of cue cards written by a dyslexic. This guy needs a lot of mic work before he can start cutting believable promos. As for Lena, she is of no use to any broadcast. Backstage interviewers need to sound professional and competent, not monotonous and illiterate.
This brings us to our main event of the evening a 2 on 1 handicap match featuring the team of Miz and Morrison taking on the ECW Champion Kane. This was a pretty non-eventful main event. It saw Kane do his usual 3 moves and was ended about 4 minutes in after a double team by Miz and Morrison saw the ref call for a DQ. All participants in the Singapore cane match stormed the ring after the bell and brawled until the broadcast came to an end. 4 Stars.
Overall this was a semi-weak edition of ECW, especially considering it was the go home broadcast for One Night Stand. There was little creative intensity and only two matches were worth watching. Tonight gets a wrestling score of 4.5, and considering there was little in the way of storytelling I’ll leave it at that. Tonight’s edition of ECW gets a score of 4.5 out of 9 Stars.
Nick’s Notes:
-I have to say that this was the first broadcast I did not find Adamle to be terrible or distracting. He seemed to move along with no major flubs despite a few hiccups. As long as he can keep the ridiculous phrases to a minimum and learn something about the business we are all so passionate about, maybe he can one day become comfortable enough at the booth to pass as a legit play-by-play guy.
-I miss Paul Heyman.
-Mike Knox is a lot “fluffier” now than when he debuted with the company. Makes me wonder if there is any truth to the whole ‘roids-in-a-box thing.
-Kofi needs to get angry every once in awhile. You can’t smile that much when your job is to wrestle.
-Did Adamle compare Dreamer to a third-down NFL back? Does that make any sense? He can pick up that extra yard but he can’t keep a guy pinned on his shoulders for three seconds. Thanks Mike, keep the similes to a minimum and just learn the basics: For example, Kane is not in the Singapore Cane match (Sorry, I had to throw one jab in there).
-Since Vince was soliciting ideas for his fan appreciation announcement on Raw the other night, I thought I’d offer mine: keep the million, and spend it on writers who can keep us tuning in for the creativity, not the allure of money that 99% of us will never see.
-Why are all of our threads posted in red now? I feel like a third grade teacher has rolled through and graded all our columns.
Thanks for reading, and keep your thoughts coming in by emailing me at WZNick@hotmail.com
