Fro

Nash had to "go over" because you don't build up a big storyline with Nash running his month for 2 months about the X-Division and have him lose his first match in. He did more than enough to make it look like he wouldn't have beaten Sabin one on one, he needed Shelley to cheat seven or eight times. As far as Joe v.s. Steiner, Joe won 100% clean after powering out of the Steiner Recliner, and the match was booked to keep Steiner strong (since you still have the match with Sting, Christian, etc left to do with him). The fact that it didn't come after a finisher doesn't make it less effective. I'm interested in seeing where they go with the title situation, but I think this was a good finish as the KOTM match was really good (and wasn't overbooked at all, since it's supposed to be a clusterfuck of a gimmick match in the first place). I'm not mad about Jarrett winning since he isn't the champ and it should tie up a lot of loose ends that have been hanging out there for months if they play it right. It also built towards towards singles matches between all five guys pretty strongly. Plus you had a good X-Division match and AMW v.s. Styles/Daniels was really good. Easy thumbs up. I know all sorts of people bitched about Nash, Steiner, and Sting getting signed, but they all held up their end of the deal tonight and were in great matches. Sting in particular looked really good.

It was a great ending, particularly since you saw a storyline that they've been building up all year come to fruition.

Larry Z let Jarrett out of the penalty box early, then Earl Hebner knocked the ladder over when christian/sting were fighting on it trying to hang the belt. Jarrett climbed the ladder and hung the belt (with a huge amount of trash flying into the ring), then Rudy Charles came out and took the belt from Jarrett and gave it to Cornette.

Steiner has looked better than 2003 in his TNA run, but a lot of it was Joe and the fact that they worked real stiff with each other. Joe's style fits Steiner a lot better than the WWE style does.

Yea, Nash made Sabin look like a million bucks and it took Shelley cheating probably 7-8 times for Nash to win.

- Garbage Wrestling/Brawling (with "extreme" or strange weapons, tables, and occasionally, barbed wire/fire) - Crazy highspot based matches (see Sabu or RVD) - Hardcore, cult-like fans, who interacted with the wrestlers during matches by giving them weapons - Technical wrestling at times (when WWF/WCW weren't doing it to this level, particularly WWF) - Some MMA-influenced guys like Taz - All the wrestlers generally worked real hard - Big role in bringing Japanese/Lucha guys like Benoit, Rey, Eddie over - Adult storylines and edgy angles that didn't insult your intelligence (lesbian kiss, lots of F-Bombs, etc), at the time WWF was marketing to little kids and WCW was as well with Hogan - Used real, hip music - Heyman's gritty production of the show and style of shooting backstage segments, etc - Booking built characters, emphasized strengths, hid weaknesses So basically it was something totally different than the Big Two at the time, while WCW and WWF were still trying to recreate the late 1980s WWF in 1994/1995.

Popups-Insider: About as good as one could expect for this setup, I guess.

Anyone who thinks there will be chants like the crowd on Sunday with a Smackdown crowd is crazy.

Heyman didn't pay for most of his music as they were too low profile for people to notice until they got on TNN. WWE is a high-profile company and artists would know. As far as ECW just being WWE with a different name, it certainly seems that there will be some differences already.

Absolutely, because the ECW show will have the typical 5 minute overrun (a 47 minute show instead of a 42 minute show), plus they don't have another ECW PPV to hype for another 5-6 months Whereas with TNA's shows, they always have to rush to try to build up 7-8 angles for the PPV in 4 weeks. The real question will be how much power Heyman has, and moreover, whether they let him produce promos and angles his way or force him to do it the WWE way (prescripted BS from hollywood "writers"). They've certainly shown they're going to let the guys wrestle ECW-style, so that's a plus.

It's pretty small right now. I'd expect about 10 more guys or so from OVW/DSW up. You need about 25-30 guys on the roster to have a full-time touring schedule, a decent tag team division, etc. Keep in mind TNA has a "one hour show" and has like 50+ people on their roster.

Internationally, it's replacing Velocity. So if you got Velocity on TV, you'll get ECW now in its time slot.

Yeah, they could have fixed it by having Cena kick out during a pin attempt after Edge's spear. I would have liked to see Fonzie come out and count the pin too.

Yeah, actually it's a better way to retain credibility for both belts this week, but it sucks that there will be Raw/ECW shit going on.

Angle works into other moves from the headlock, Orton's chinlock is just a lazy rest hold. Angle is the king of slapping on a superfluous chinlock late in a match because he doesn't know what else to do. Yes, but he didn't do that last night.

Angle works into other moves from the headlock, Orton's chinlock is just a lazy rest hold.

After Tuesday night, RVD will be the ECW Champion and Cena the WWE Champion

With 7 matches on the card, I don't think they have time to debut much new talent.

Is Scorpio in Japan right now?

Yeah, that's great about Shelly getting the call up... she fits in perfectly. Good mic skills and plays her character amazingly well. Not to mention gloriously slutty.

http://www.steveswrestling.com/info/ecwthemes.html

The most encouraging thing is those two "ecw.com exclusive" promos both have Heyman's fingerprints all over them. Totally like what he's been doing in OVW lately.

You do realize that match is pretty heavily clipped, right?

PWInsider on Big Show in ECW:

Get some USWA tapes. Lawler in WWF/E is just a shell/joke of the man he is in Memphis.