Greetings all. I’m here for the Morning After report. Tom Pandich, you should know me by now. I’m doing the whole ECW post day recap. Boss Matthew Michaels suggested I stay away from doing news right now mostly because the ECW brand is more WWE then ECW. I think that he’s pretty much right with this one so until ECW does something to distinguish itself as a truly independent brand, this stays a TV report.
I got a little bit of feedback through e-mail, but one was going after me for making fun of TNA (which was meant not to make fun of TNA, but to make fun of TNA’s awful music), the other agreed with me except he said I was too lenient with the grade. I probably was, but hell that was last week on a rather awful show that I just didn’t want to add my voice as another Negative Nancy. Thankfully, this week’s show was much better.
The Good
More Wrestling- Out of all of the complaints about last week’s show, the most legitimate complaint must have been the absolute lack of wrestling. This week though, over half of the show was relatively solid wrestling. The longest promoish thing was between Tommy Dreamer and Big Show setting up a nice little feud. The wrestling wasn’t great, but it was a heck of a lot better then last week’s pitiful effort.
Dreamer/Big Show (The Good)- Let’s dwell a bit on Tommy Dreamer and the Big Show’s little tiff. Big Show is going to be ECW’s monster. On the other hand, Tommy Dreamer is… well… Tommy Dreamer. He’s a good start for Big Show as it’ll set Show up as ECW’s first major heel seeing as how that is how matches against Tommy Dreamer always go. Also, it’ll provide a nice bit of brutality that the current ECW seems to be lacking. For all the sick shit that Sabu, Terry Funk, and Mick Foley have done, Dreamer might be just as insane as all of them combined. Finally, this sets up Big Show to be the big heel contender after RVD and Sabu f*ck around with each other for the ECW title throughout the summer. It’s a good fit.
The Little Things- RVD talking about “rolling out”. Heyman talking to the refs in the back saying only call submissions and pins. Kelly mentioning how retarded she is for not getting her bra off. Sandman’s look of disgust when destroying the jobber of the week. To infringe on Haley’s gimmick (then again, what writer on Inside Pulse hasn’t), the Little Things clicked tonight in a way that they didn’t last time. It was a much more entertaining show.
Macho Libre- Nice to see that WWE has decided to go after both the horrible Nacho Libre, that some assface on IP reviewed this weekend, and the equally horrible Macho Man. I like Sandman’s current gimmick. I like him beating up goofy jobbers, but this week, he was outshined. Macho did a great Macho Man imitation mixed with Spanish that even I could understand. I’m really hoping for a handicap match next week where Macho Libre teams up with the Zombie to both get their asses kicked later by Sandman.
The Main Event- The ECW vs Raw tag match was relatively entertaining. The real draw of this though was the fact that it was given a third of the show. Giving Angle 20 minutes of real time on TV is really all you need to say. Rob was motivated, Edge was mean, and Randy was uh Randy. Three out of four wasn’t bad. I wish that Orton did the job rather then Edge as it telegraphs the ending to Vengeance way more then needs to be done. Still, it was a fun match ending a fun show.
Trinity- Holy hell she looked hot tonight.
The Bad
The Tarot Recapper- Ugh. Way to start the show guys. Can we get a cursed frogurt with that shit intro too?
Nothing Says Hardcore Like Lumberjacks- Out of all of the bad ideas for the Sabu/Cena match, a lumberjack match rates right up there. Not only is there nothing hardcore about a lumberjack match, but now when Sabu does the job, it’s not just Sabu doing the job. In essence, John Cena will beat every member of ECW besides Angle and RVD barring a WWE ring rush during the match. Even if Sabu wins, Cena will be protected as he is surrounded my enemies. The big criticism of John Cena right now is that he’s portrayed as invincible for no real reason and can’t do a job without shenanigans. This is a perfect example of the bad booking behind ECW.
Kelly’s Build- 1. She’s a horny girl. 2. She’s stripping but stopped by her dad/jealous boyfriend/brother/stalker. 3. This guy is confronted by, most likely Balls Mahoney and they fight. 4. They feud until Kelly joins with Balls and turns heel betraying him or joins up with Balls and acts sexy until she turns on Balls a few feuds later. I really hope ECW does something different here as right now, I’m very bored with where this is going.
Ever Hear of “Brawling,” Big Show?- As much as I think that Big Show being matched up with Tommy Dreamer, I think it is equaled by how awful Big Show’s brawling was. He did the whole rag doll thing with Tommy, tossed him into a post, and used what hopefully will be his new finishing move. The way to play this angle is to have Dreamer come out next week and say, “you call that an ass kicking, I’ve had my ass kicked harder by blind children” and have Show give bigger and bigger beatings each week until Dreamer starts fighting back. Still though, clubbing blows are not ECW.
Hi, I’m the Sandman- Initially I thought that tossing Sandman cutting a promo up in the middle of his entrance via a video box was a good idea. Then, I thought a bit about it. It reminds me of a video dating service much more then a hardcore icon. Give Sandman’s beatings a bit more variety to establish his character, not a lame, half assed promo.
Lita- Christ, she was ugly as hell tonight. I’ve been getting some serious Chyna vibes from her.
Well, that was it for attempt number two. Go to the forums and leave me some feedback or shoot me an e-mail for comments, criticism, and what not. Thanks for reading.
