ECW 12.11.07

[Hawk 34 0]

Just days before his title defense in a Triple Threat Match at Armageddon, World Heavyweight Champion Batista will put himself to the test in the Land of the Extreme, taking on the always-dangerous Elijah Burke. Will Batista send a message to Undertaker and Edge or is he putting himself in potential jeopardy before his title defense?

 

ECW Champion CM Punk has a big problem – literally – as Mark Henry and Big Daddy V have amalgamated their massive bodies into a virtually impenetrable force. The Straightedge Superstar was credited with a win on the last ECW on Sci Fi against Henry, but he earned it the hard way as Daddy helped the World’s Strongest Man in the cause. Kane came to Punk’s side, but can the ECW Champion handle himself against this monstrous opposition in wars ahead? How much destruction can Big Daddy V & Mark Henry create together?

 

While things continue to heat up heading toward Armageddon, ECW on Sci Fi will get even hotter as Kelly Kelly faces both Layla and Victoria in a Handicap Match. In an effort to keep Kelly down, The Miz requested these poor odds for the blonde. It seems as long as the chick magnet owns her contract, the WWE Tag Team Champion will do everything he can to make Kelly's life hell. Can the Diva overcome these odds against her former friend and a former Women's Champion?

 

Speaking of Miz, he and Morrison have yet to lose a contest since winning the gold. Will they continue to leave their personal differences aside for the sake of retaining their titles? The champions' latest victims were the red hot Jesse & Festus in a contest on SmackDown. Will their success continue?

 

Shelton Benjamin has constantly proven there ain’t no stopping him now, and the last ECW on Sci Fi was no different. If the former Raw Superstar isn’t enough of a force to cause ECW veterans to be concerned, Kofi Kingston has revealed he is on the way to stir up trouble in the Land of the Extreme, as well. Only time will tell how the face of ECW will be impacted by these newcomers.

 

Find out where ECW is headed and learn the answers to all of these questions and more on the next ECW on Sci Fi at 10/9 CT on Tuesday night. Also, be sure to catch ECW in its entirety every week on WWE.com, available from Wednesday to the following Monday afternoon.

[Hawk 34 0]

That was a pretty poor match and the absolute dead crowd did no favors. I don't want to be HTQ here but Batista looks quite smaller then usual.

[death_by_burrito 0]

I didn't notice him being any smaller, but he did look like he spent the night in the tanning booth.

[Mecca 0]

Batista is trying to rip off that guy from prison breaks look.

[Thanks for the Fish 0]

Nobody cares about Deuce and Domino because their gimmicks are too cartoony. I think they should be broken up already - let Deuce become Snuka's kid and let Domino either head back to developmental, get cut or do his ADC rip-off.

 

I wonder if they'll try and do that "Spearbuster" spot again this week.

[Hawk 34 0]

Benjamin must have spent alot of time rehearsing this because it's one of the better promos I've seen him pull off.

 

Is Moore supposed to be a Bret Michaels gimmick?

[death_by_burrito 0]

Pretty good promo from Shelton right there, better than sending him out there live in front of the crowd. Don't know if the "Aint no stopping my now" catchphrase is gonna work though.

 

I know it's been said before, but Morrison's entrance is fucking awesome.

[Mecca 0]

Benjamin must have spent alot of time rehearsing this because it's one of the better promos I've seen him pull off.

 

Is Moore supposed to be a Bret Michaels gimmick?

 

I don't think he has a gimmick, other than small guy with bad tattoos.

[Hawk 34 0]

Kudos for giving this match all tons of time because they are all making the most of it.

[death_by_burrito 0]

That was a fun match. Gotta love the way Morrison sells that monkey flip. For a second there, I thought Yang/Moore were gonna steal that one. Hope they do that again soon.

[Mecca 0]

Morrison rules.

[Mecca 0]

So does anyone have any thoughts on Kofi Kingston?

[The Niggardly King 0]

Kofi has always given the vibe off of being a big time player in the near future.

[Thanks for the Fish 0]

He's very solid in the ring. It the developmentals he was on an other level it seemed. He is a true cruiserweight though - probably what took him so long to get the call-up.

[Open the Muggy Gate 0]

Have there been any other Jamaicans in the spotlight of wrestling? This might be the first.

 

Everyone is putting in THE EFFORT tonight. Kelly Kelly's effort there made that not as bad as it coulda been.

[Thanks for the Fish 0]

Here's a Kingston match vs TJ Wilson - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1DKkM47dBY - You have to stomach a pretty bad interview segment at the beginning of the clip. Nattie is horrid in that role.

 

TJ Wilson should probably be in the show as well, teaming with DH Smith as a new Bulldogs tag gimmick.

[Mecca 0]

I like Jillians selling there she sounds like a chick in a porno...

[Ginger Snaps 0]

How can anyone complain about how awful Edge's spear is when Batista is right there.

[Hawk 34 0]

Edge's spear is always bad. That was just bad timing by those two right there. Batista can hit good spears, far better then Edge ever could. However, they should really just let Lashley be the lone spear-er in the company.

[Ginger Snaps 0]

Batista is trying to rip off that guy from prison breaks look.

 

No way. Dominic Purcell is actually handsome.

[RedJed 0]

Damn, ECW has really just turned into a glorified version of Sunday Night Heat, Velocity, etc.

 

While the in-ring action at times on particular shows has been decent, ECW currently has basically nothing for storylines other than a very non-developed feud w/ Punk v. Henry and BDV. I can't even really call that a program since it seems thrown together just for a filler ppv match.

 

I know this is beating a dead horse but it's really pathetic to see what the show has become.

 

At first it was a WWE filtered version of ECW, I felt. Heyman was doing what he could with what he was given to do, and we saw brief glimpses of old ECW, examples like Holly/RVD comes to mind. The "rules" of ECW were played upon intially with most matches pretty much being given anything goes/extreme rules, or in the least that we wouldnt get that typical "WWE style" that, when played upon three seperate shows a week, gets old fast.

 

As Heyman fell out of grace, the show turned into a lost identity that was filled by it becoming the Bobby Lashley show. Week upon week of ECW at this point (approx. a year ago up until around Mania) was pretty brutal to watch some weeks. Some of the exact same shit one would expect WWE to make out of their ECW product happened. Nothing "extreme" was really occuring, they got rid of no-dq matches for the most part and alot of really bad ideas on who they felt represented ECW and whatnot were pushed hard here. In no time, the show clearly became WWE's C show with no really advantage or unique identity to stand out against Smackdown or Raw. It was clearly, at this point, that it became a true "C" show that was hardly must-see.

 

Around the springtime, things seemed to start to click from a booking standpoint, even though at this point we all knew what to expect here and it wasn't anything like the old ECW. Most of the old ECW "originals" either left the show, left the company, or were severly de-pushed, with the exception of a few. New blood though was brought in here and there to make the show more of a feel of what ECW, in theory, always was - a place to showcase talent that they have a plan to push, likely up to the other shows. But it was a nice balance of everything for a good while, good wrestling, decent storytelling, and each show seemed very tight and cohesive in its presentation. They put a guy with a ton of upside with a title run (of course Punk), so no complaints there.

 

Now, the last few months has seen this show turn into randomness central. Punk hasn't had anything close to a program with basically anyone but Morrison all year, with a little small dose of Miz. This should be a no brainer, you need to constantly have a suitable challenge to a champion (actually this in theory should apply to every belt in WWE, but the main three world titles should be a given) to make people CARE about the champ. Then they apply the Smackdown merger in essense and damn near any ECW talent that was going somewhere before the merger have all but been eliminated from damn near even showing up on TV at all. And we get Smackdown lower card talent all over this show, and on Smackdown, you get your random ECW appearance here and there. In a nutshell, manueving a Smackdown/ECW "talent exchange" could have and should have made for some great feuds, storylines, and whatnot, even from a simple standpoint of ECW v. Smackdown, but we have not seen anything close to the potential a move such as they did could have made.

 

Anyway I kind of went on a tangent there, but just really getting annoyed with the direction of this show, or the lack thereof. ECW is basically consisting currently of a roster of not even a handful of people they just want to showcase as the brands stars - Punk, Miz, Morrison, and Kelly. You need a yin to the yang. Again I go back to the fact that you can't really create stars without suitable competition against them. Bringing in Smackdown low card guys to "put them over" and as vice versa, bringinig in your random Smackdown higher level guys to squash other ECW roster guys is just a bad formula that makes this show ultimately pointless and just continues to emphasize not just now little the company cares for ECW, but also brings back the fact that Smackdown really is treated in much less regard than Raw.

 

If they aren't going to actually do any cool matchups with Smackdown v. ECW, I'd rather see them pull back away from this "talent exchange" shit and just get a bunch of the lower card guys from Smackdown and Raw, get a new ECW roster more cohesive, put together three or four good storylines on this show, MAKE THE SHOW ECW RULES FOR EVERY MATCH TO MAKE THIS SHOW STAND OUT A BIT (and that doesnt mean every ECW match has to be some hardcore street fight, as I understand WWE doesnt want to ruin the hardcore gimmick when needed for some of their other feuds to blowoff a program, etc), and go from there, it certainly can't hurt at this point. You got a title in the CW belt that is basically defunct and why not bring that title over to ECW to give them some sort of uniqueness. Create a television title as a secondary belt as well. I dunno, just throwing some thoughts out there on the brand as its just going nowhere fast.

 

-----

 

Regarding tonight's show, I liked the effort Yang and Moore gave in the tag match, but otherwise, this show was about Sunday Night Heat level as you get. That women's match was awful, the opener was an effortless squash, and then you had Batista/Burke, which went absolutely nowhere and should not be treated as any "main event" by any stretch of the imagination. Pretty much the highlight of the show was a good Shelton Benjamin promo. Speaking of him though, they keep talking like he's going to do something to make him stand out on this show, but what the fuck? Far from that. Tonight's show just left a very unsatisfied feel for me by the end of it, maybe it was HOW it ended (Batista squash). There is no fucking need for having that Burke/Batista match on ECW whatsoever, much less as the last match of the show.

[King Cucaracha 0]

MAKE THE SHOW ECW RULES FOR EVERY MATCH TO MAKE THIS SHOW STAND OUT A BIT

 

This would not help.

 

What point is there in making, for example, the Yang/Shelton match from last week an ECW Rules Match? Would it have made the match any better? Absolutely not. Would it have helped put Shelton over as the great athlete he is and is finally, apparantly, being pushed as? Absolutely not. Would it have made the main-event that week which was actually an ECW Rules Match any less meaningful? Yep.

 

Having blood and weapon shots and wacky crazy death spots for the sake of blood and weapon shots and wacky crazy death spots... that was great, in 1997. Besides the arguements of making actual stip matches that are built up over weeks (like Kane/BDV), the arguement that booking a 'legit Paul Heyman ECW style show' with 1 hour of TV would make Impact look like Wrestling Challenge and the arguement that an entire show full of extreme matches each and every week would get pretty old pretty quick... I would think the LAST thing the company needs in light of *certain events not so long ago* would be to increase the number of chair-shots half of the roster takes.

 

As far as the talent exchange goes... the entire point of it was to strengthen the 'ECW roster', because they simply don't have enough people to fill out three rosters now. So you either have an hour of the same select group of 10-12 guys like it was before, or you bring in yet more people who aren't ready and watch them all get lost in the shuffle. Bad idea. And I guess I stand corrected. The ACTUAL last thing the company needs is to make more title belts. They have, what, 9 already? Of which how many mean anything? ECW is a one hour show. They don't need their own TV Title or the CW Title or even really their own Tag Team Title.

 

ECW is easily the best wrestling show at the moment. At the moment they're short on storylines, I agree with you on that. But it's still easily the best show.

[Thanks for the Fish 0]

I have no problem with ECW being SD! equivilant to Raw's wwe.com Heat. Hell Velocity was a pretty damn good show back in the day, and ECW is a pretty damn good one hour wrestling show right now. I've said all along that ECW wrestlers wouldn't get better working with each other every week, and now they don't have to. I'll take "Heat/Velocity" level matches like last nights Wang/Moore vs M&M, CM Punk vs Jamie Noble and CM Punk vs Dykstra over a lot of the stuff they force on us on Raw and SD! any day of the week.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

I have no problem with ECW being SD! equivilant to Raw's wwe.com Heat. Hell Velocity was a pretty damn good show back in the day, and ECW is a pretty damn good one hour wrestling show right now.

 

Thank you! I still contend that Velocity > "ECW" on Sci Fi.