Five matches in one hour. Are you seeing this, Raw, Smackdown, and TNA?
Say all you want about ECW, but it’s a sports entertainment show which is, refreshingly, centered around actual wrestling. Tonight’s edition was no exception.
Tommy Dreamer and Colin Delaney challenged WWE tag champs, The Miz and John Morrison, in the night’s opening contest. It was fun to watch Colin Delaney actually get some meaningful offense in. He hit a bunch of moves, in fact, including a double DDT with Dreamer and a somersault plancha to the outside on both of the champs. Morrison took Delaney out of the match after moonsaulting on to Delaney on the floor – all the while holding on to a trash can for extra impact.
The finish was pretty sick looking, with Miz and Morrison giving Dreamer a double “T” spinebuster on to the UNDERSIDE of a table propped against the turnbuckles. I was a little nervous watching that, thinking Dreamer might get hurt by one of the table legs. It seemed unnecessary to put him in that kind of risky situation. Nonetheless, this match had me really involved, cheering the babyfaces on and wanting to see a rematch after all was said and done.
ECW GM Armando Alejandro Estrada announced that there will be a 24 man, tri-brand battle royal at WrestleMania 24, with the winner earning an immediate title shot against ECW champion, Chavo Guerrero. Yes, this smacks of a lack of a storyline for Chavo, but I was very, very pleased to hear the announcement. For one, this is some nice, unique thinking for WrestleMania. Secondly, it’ll give a bunch of wrestlers the chance to compete on a ‘Mania card who, otherwise, might not have the chance. Who knows…maybe Stevie Richards will even have a shot!
Speaking of Richards, he was absolutely dominated by The Great Khali (a confirmed battle royal participant) in the night’s second match. Afterwards, Mike Knox came out and attacked Richards. Apparently, Knox attacked Richards backstage last week, and the video was shown exclusively on WWE Mobile. It’s pretty bad that it only gets that limited amount of exposure but, hey, remember when The Hurricane was turned heel on WWE Unlimited? We’ll see where the Richards-Knox feud goes in the coming weeks.
Kofi Kingston faced off against Deuce of Deuce and Domino fame. Kingston definitely has charisma, and this was a good match. Kofi won with the 540 kick. Hopefully he’ll be entered into a feud with somebody soon, even at the risk of ruining his undefeated streak on ECW.
Festus defeated Elijah Burke. Not too sure I understood the point in this. I mean, really…Festus and Jesse should be wrestling tag matches since they’re a tag team. Pair Burke with somebody – anybody – and this would’ve been fine. The tag champs are heels. Why not give Festus and Jesse a title match? They defeated Miz / Morrison on Smackdown a few weeks back. This segment was no good for Elijah Burke, who has lost a lot of momentum despite his immense talent. Then again, that may just be my opinion.
Shelton Benjamin provided color commentary for the night’s main event, which was a Money in the Bank qualifying match between CM Punk and Big Daddy V. Hmm…did anyone really think that Big Daddy V might’ve been inserted into a high spot ladder match?
Shelton definitely has a lot of verbal charisma. His commentary was good. Hell, it was a lot better than the commentary by Cena on last week’s Raw. (I’m not saying Shelton’s better on the mic, because that’s not even remotely true, but Cena was saying some absolutely irritating stuff during that segment.) It’s good to get Benjamin into situations where he can comfortable verbalize – like these and the backstage segments. I’ll bet he gets really good at the standard promos, eventually.
The match itself was what you’d expect – V using his incredible strength and size, with Punk trying to cut him down and level the playing field. Punk went for the Go to Sleep, but Vis fell right on top of him. For the finish, Punk dodged a V running attack, which sent Big Vis to the floor for the count-out. Ten seconds later, and Punk was officially in the Money in the Bank match. Matt Striker hit the ring, but was given the Go to Sleep for his efforts.
I’m not sure why they couldn’t have had Punk pin Viscera. I don’t usually buy into the “this guy has backstage heat” thing when someone isn’t being pushed very hard, but Punk’s fallen a long way awfully quick. With that said, he’s just been put into one of the most exciting matches, guaranteed, on the entire WrestleMania card. Glad to see it.
The March 11th ECW on Sci-Fi score an 8 / 10.
The Best Moments in Wrestling History
I’m looking for your favorite wrestling moments of all time: matches, title wins, debuts, returns, skits, feuds…anything wrestling!
Submit your favorite moments. Up to 10 (or a few more) will be fine. Rank them yourself, or I’ll rank them in the order you submit them. Using a weighted point system, I’ll be calculating the top vote-getters and posting the top moments on WrestleZone sometime during WrestleMania weekend. Votes must be submitted by March 27 – the night of TNA’s first live, two hour Impact.
A fair warning to fans of old school wrestling – particularly the NWA, WCCW, AWA, and the various territories – your favorite moments are going sorely underrepresented in the voting. Also, moments from around the globe (Mexico, Japan, Europe, etc.) are garnering very few votes. Want to change that? Be sure cast your votes to get your favorite moments on the list!
Email me HERE!
Kevin McElvaney is also a contributing writer for Pro Wrestling Illustrated and The Wrestler / Inside Wrestling. Send questions or comments to kjmcelvaney@yahoo.com.
