Welcome back to the ECW report.  You love it, and I do too.  Love it like a husband loves his wife.  In Alabama.  *Taps fists*

 

So, how about last week’s show?  Boy, I sure was angry, wasn’t I?  The girlfriend thought so, but a few haymakers convinced her otherwise.  YOU MADE ME DO THAT, WWE.  I eventually shook it off, and I’m definitely glad I did.  Why?  Well, if I went into last night’s Raw angry, I may have misjudged and said it sucked.  Which it didn’t.  My friends, Bob Barker on Raw last night was AWESOME.  Probably one of the greatest shows by them in a while.  Hyperbole?  Maybe.  But lack of PPV build aside, I was consistently entertained last night.  What more can you ask for?  Barker was just a natural out there, mainly because he’s been riffing in front of live audiences for like over half a century at this point.  Certainly, he’s been the best host since this whole guest GM has happened, simply because he was in his natural environment.  I’ll even take it one step further, and declare if you thought last night’s show sucked…well, wrestling has officially drained your soul.  Congratulations!  You should write here.  Let’s get to it.

 

 

Still standing here in Rockford!  Might as well be a padded cell after the shit from last week, but I digress. First match, go!

 

The Hurricane Vs.  Paul Burchill w/ Katie Lea Burchill

 

I don’t know if I mentioned/noticed this before, but I just did – Hurricane’s opening is actually pretty cool.  It has one of those movie trailer guys doing the opening before he comes out.  Probably not that one that died recently though.  Aaaaaand now I’m rambling.

 

Paul predictably gets his ass handed to him in the early going, scoring with one (of probably many) cross-body for two.  Paul takes over for a second, but Hurricane locks in an octopus hold of all things.  Not exactly something you see every day in the WWE.  Burchill responds with, um, spinning Hurricane out of it.  Didn’t exactly look too graceful.  I assume Striker took a bet backstage, because he’s going for the record of most comic book references in one match.  Some actually made sense (such as name-dropping Doctor Octopus when Hurricane locked in that hold), some didn’t (calling Hurricane the son of Jor-El for instance).  Burchill meanwhile is taking it to Hurricane this whole time, until Burchill gets low-bridged to the outside.  This is where magic happens.  After Hurricane hits a pescado on Burchill, Paul takes a page from AJ Styles’ playbook and hits the PELE OUTTA NOWHERE going into the break.  Given the size of the guy, pretty damn impressive stuff.

 

Back from the break, Paul’s locked in the chinlock, only for Hurricane to get that coming out of commercial second wind that seems to be contagious among faces nowadays.  Paul tanks it into the steel post off of a missed corner charge, and Hurricane follows up with the slowest Lou Thesz press plus punches I think I’ve ever seen.  This gets another two, regardless of Matthews saying it was the first pin attempt by the Hurricane in the match.  Watch that nerd flag fly!  Speaking of fly, Hurricane hits ANOTHER cross-body off the top for another two.  Hurricane goes up one too many times though, and gets caught and NAILED with a top rope powerslam for a very close two count.  Hurricane turns it around with a hurricanrana, but before he can capitalize some more, in comes pirate hooker Katie Lea with the distraction.  Hurricane has none of it (though why not man, you DID dump Velvet), but misses with a roundhouse.  Burchill shoves him towards Katie, but he puts on the brakes and dodges out of the way when Paul charges, causing the Burchills to get a little touchy feely with each other.  Eye of the Hurricane follows for the win.

 

Winner:  The Hurricane

 

What Stood Out:  Damn good match, with the PELE and top rope powerslam standing out.  Probably one of the best Burchill matches I’ve seen.  Also, Hurricane NEEDS to lay off the cross-bodies.  Seriously.

 

After a quickie recap of Dreamer and Christian sending Ezekiel and Kozlov packing last week, TO THE BACK, with ANOTHER new interviewer.  Her name is Savannah, and she’s quite Asian.  So, don’t expect her to be on Raw anytime soon, seeing how apparently the higher-ups think all oriental women look alike.  Anyways, Christian and Dreamer give a basic promo about NUH UH NOT IN MY HOUSE BITCH towards Regal, Kozlov, and Jackson.  Gay jokes abound, of course.  I just wanted to focus on Asian reporter Trisha Takanawa  (actually FCW grad and critically acclaimed Angela Fong).  Maybe they got rid of the mysterious blonde lady already?  YEAH, HOW DARE YOU LOOK KIND OF LIKE SOMEONE ELSE.

 

 

Shelton Benjamin and Sheamus Vs. Yoshi Tatsu and Goldust

 

So, are they going to make up their mind on whether Shelton’s a face or heel yet?  Just curious.  On another note, are they ever going to let this boring-ass Sheamus/Goldust feud DIE?

 

The brothers Gold (dust and standard) start off, with Goldust getting the momentary upper hand before tagging out to Sheamus.  The pale bastard gets also a momentary advantage, but in comes Yoshi Tatsu to do lots and lots of kicking.  However, that shit’s stopped cold when Shelton throws up the distraction, allowing Sheamus to LARIATO his face off.  Shelton takes over, for a little while anyway, until he gets leg flipped to the outside. So, to keep the hot tag from happening, Shelton tangles with Goldust on the outside.  It’s all for nothing as the tag happens anyway.  Hooray.  Goldust runs wild on Sheamus, with some more of that offense that was stale a decade ago.  However, things break down from there, and even though Sheamus puts down Goldust AGAIN, Shelton makes the blind tag to pick up the win for the team.

 

Winner:  Shelton Benjamin and Sheamus

 

What Stood Out:  Eeeeeeebony…and Iiiiiiivory…live together in perfect harmony…

 

After the match is over, Sheamus is bitching over how it was his win, so they proceed to brawl magnificently.  So, can we please say that Benjamin’s a good guy now?  Please?  Regardless, this should be a good feud, as long as Goldust is not in it.

 

 

Zack Ryder Vs. Rory Fargo

 

Too…easy…can’t…resist…ah fuck it.  Sack Ryder and Rory Faggo.  You know you would’ve typed that too.

 

Rory gets some shots in here and there, but SQUISH SQUASH is the noise this match makes. OH SHIT.  Ok, there was one other noise this match made, and that was the scream of horrified children and parents.  Looks like the jobber had a bit of a wardrobe malfunction, because I SWEAR I saw a quickie blur pop up in the crotchular region when Ryder grabbed the tights to sling the guy into the turnbuckle.  Hilarious.  Time to sum up the match in 11 words!  Zack hits some rough looking moves before hitting the Zack Attack.  Not that I can say that positively, seeing how the camera work pretty much missed each hit to the jobber.  So yeah.  Jobber gets pinned.  Shocker.

 

Winner:  Zack Ryder

 

What Stood Out:  Hands down, shitty camera work.  Wow, way to fuck it up guys – though, maybe they did it in post-editing to minimize the blurring needed.  Maybe they pay by the second for that effect, I don’t know.  Oh, also Striker was softly singing along to Zack’s music as he was coming out, which made me chuckle.  Thought you would like to know.

 

 

After running down the PPV card this Sunday, TO THE BACK, as Tyler Reks is discussing things with General Manager Generic Blonde Tiffany.  Probably what he has to do to keep his job.  Regal, Kozlov, and Jackson butt in to tell Reks to take a hike and bitch about what Dreamer and Christian did last week.  GMGBT tells them fair is fair, so Regal busts out a basic promo about how he’s going to win Sunday, going to make ECW proud, blah blah blah.  I get that it’s the last minute build for Breaking Point (since Raw didn’t do too much of it last night), but man the talkers have been BORING tonight.

 

 

Vladimir Kozlov and Ezekiel Jackson w/ William Regal Vs. Tommy Dreamer and Christian

 

Once again, the heels can NOT stop wearing bright red to the ring.  It’s starting to hurt my eyes.

 

So, in the story of the plucky faces against the big ol’ mean bad guys, the good guys are out on top in the early going.  Kozlov overpowers Christian at the start, but Christian eventually comes back and rallies all over the Russian.  So, both guys tag out, and IT’S THE SAME EXACT THING.  Ezekiel powers Dreamer all over the place as well, but Dreamer is eventually able to send Jackson to the outside.  Dreamer immediately tags out to get Christian to dropkick the guy as he tries to climb back in, and hit a cross-body off the apron for good measure.  However, the Canadian gets caught, but here comes fatty Dreamer to hit a cross-body of his own to topple Jackson over going into commercials.

 

Back from break, Dreamer and Christian double Russian leg-sweep Ezekiel, and Dreamer is in now.  But, because it’s Dreamer, Jackson is quick to take over with a shoulder block.  Kozlov comes in to give more of the same, with the two guys in red taking turns back and forth whooping Dreamer into oblivion.  This eventually comes to an end though (only after like five minutes I’d say), and Christian gets the hot tag to run wild on Kozlov.  Multiple Missile dropkicks finally put the big fella down for two, but a quick intervention gets Christian nailed with a headbutt for another two.  Jackson comes in now to SCREAM AS LOUD AS HE CAN with every single thing he does.  Backbreaker? Scream.  Clubbing punch?  Scream.  Pin?  Yep, Scream.  Kozlov comes back in, and hits a nice fallaway slam for two to stop the tag attempt.  Jackson in afterwards to hit a nice double underhook hold into a butterfly suplex for another two count.  Now it’s Kozlov in, because apparently these guys planned to tag out after hitting one move each.  But oh wait!  Kozlov misses with the headbutt to the corner, and a SHORYUKEN gives Christian the opportunity to get another hot tag, which gets Dreamer to wail on Jackson.  Running cross-body, frog splash, neckbreaker, these all get two.  Things break down from here, with Christian and Kozlov spilling to the outside.  This gives Regal the opportunity to trip up a running Dreamer, which lets Ezekiel pop off a quickie Negronage for the victory.

 

Winner:  Vladimir Kozlov and Ezekiel Jackson

 

What Stood Out:  Good stuff, and everyone played their part well.  Faces were able to hold their own, but the bad guys played their role of being dominating to perfection.  By the end of the match, I really did believe that Kozlov and Jackson were a pair of immobile lumbering oafs that need more experienced and talented wrestlers to carry them!  Oh wait.

 

Post-match, Regal is in to provide the victory Regal Stretch to the fallen Dreamer, but has enough time to kick Christian in the face for good measure.  Well, you can’t complain about them pushing someone new in the title scene as a legitimate threat.  THE END.

 

Uppers:  I approve of the goings on this week, as every non-dick exposing match was entertaining somehow.  Burchill/Hurricane got lots of time and let Paul shine big time, the first tag match probably ignited a new feud in Shelton and Sheamus, and the main event did deliver, along with building the match Sunday nicely.  Considering that wrestling matches were the VAST majority of the time used tonight (lack of recaps and Abraham Washington), can’t ask for too much more than that.

 

Downers:  That being said, the backstage antics were quite dull tonight, with Christian, Dreamer, and Regal delivering some of the most cookie-cutter shit I’ve ever seen.  Also, I really could’ve done without seeing some jobber wang tonight…

 

Overall:  MUCH less aneurysm-inducing than last week, and I really am thankful for it.  Good good show tonight, so feel free to watch it.  However, feel free to skip the squash match.  You can thank me later.

 

 

OK, that’s enough of this.  Back to constructive things, like watching Adult Swim and playing Fat Princess!  I truly am a banner member of society.