I’ve been writing for the site for two years as of September 1st. Who’da thunk it?
Welcome to another week of BLATT vs. ECW. We’ll start off this week with some bad news:
– Balls Mahoney has violated WWE’s revised Wellness Policy (details unknown) … receiving 30 days’ suspension. While [he won’t] be paid, Balls will remain on TV to keep his storyline going.
Balls, it’s a shame about that push you were going to receive. Now you’re most certainly going to job to Kevin Thorne when it comes time to finally have a match. He’s going to work without pay though. Don’t worry Balls! Just pretend it’s the last few months of ECW and you won’t notice the difference at all except the crowds are 10x bigger and keep chanting for some dude named “Batista”. This will spell out how meaningless violating the wellness policy actually is. Even though he’s not going to wrestle at house shows, they taped two weeks of ECW in a two day period. Bang, there’s 14 days already; two more shows and that’s it. Oh well.
There’s an obvious joke there: “His opponent from last night (Rene Dupree) isn’t violating the drug policy in some way yet Balls is?” or “Yeah, he really LOOKS like he’s on steroids.” But it’s a safe bet that he was suspended for smoking something rather than injecting it.
Do you thin Balls follows the dress code, walking around in a collared shirt and–
Onto the show:
ECW on SciFi – September 12, 2006
Heyman thanks himself for ECW’s recent success
It’s a shame that Heyman’s new gimmick prevents him from getting to give the speech that he probably wanted to give. Instead we get a watered-down Vince McMahon speech about how it’s all Heyman and once he stopped listening to the fans then he started really making ECW succeed. How about this buddy – once you can sell out the Garden with ECW fans that are there for an ECW show, then we’ll talk about the success of ECW. Until they stop piggybacking ECW tapings on top of RAW and Smackdown! tapings, then we’ll talk about the success of ECW.
Sabu crashes the in-ring masturbation of Paulie, kicks the shit out of the enforcers and is told that his match later on would be under XTREME RULZ. Now, I know this first hand because I posted the news bit earlier in the day, the match was ALREADY announced as XTREME RULZ. To me, that’s shitty booking. XTREME RULZ benefits Sabu as much it does the Big Show. How about these for punishment Paul, pull Sabu off the show. How about revoking his title shot? How about not giving us a main event we’ve already seen in the show’s short life span?
Rob Van Dam over Sparky Plugg by DQ
Again, why do we need rules in this kind of match? OMG! HARDCORE HOLLY GOES XTREME111!!!1 HE’S 1337 H4RDC0R3! A plancha is not extreme. Nor is it hardcore. If he wants to impress me, he can do a plancha from the top rope into the crowd onto a crowd of guys. He might as well be named “Lumbering Sashay Holly” because it wouldn’t make much of a difference anyway. Basically, the match goes nowhere fast and RVD is quadruple-teamed by Stevie Richards, Test, Mike Knox and Holly. This brings out Dreamer and Sandman who clear the ring with Sandman cane shots, a DDT on Stevie and five-star on Stevie. This match was kinda like trying to have sex with a muffin. It seems like a good idea for a little while but it ends in a mess and wondering if you just actually got anywhere.
CM Punk over Shannon Moore by Anaconda Vice
Here’s what you need to know about this match: CM Punk is hugely over at MSG, and Shannon Moore just got his ass handed to him. Kinda makes me wonder if this was what they were waiting for with Shannon Moore. they built him up for nearly the entire run of ECW until now just to have him get slap-bitched by CM Punk and squashed in his debut match?
Rene Dupree is going to debut
Odd they needed him to tell us that his first televised ECW match is tonight.
Kelly as a feud vehicle
Kelly Kelly congratulates CM Punk on the win, says she’s underage and wants to go out on the town with him. Kelly? He’s straight edge. I just don’t see CM Punk as someone who loves to dance. Oh well. Mike Knox gives him the cold shoulder when pulling Kelly Kelly away. And the FBI gets more screen time for talking to CM Punk than they have in weeks.
Rene Dupree over Balls Mahoney by vampirical interference
Thorne and Ariel are at ringside again for this one. So I’ve pretty much figured out that one day I want to see Balls as ECW champion, but I’m not entirely sure that’s ever going to happen. He’s two years younger than Van Dam (38) and six years younger than Sabu (42), but I still think that they aren’t going to push an extremist whose name isn’t RVD or Sabu into the title picture.
If this match was any indication of what Dupree’s character will be like then moving him to ECW was an absolutely brilliant move. A bottom rope elbow drop? Amazing. I’m almost waiting for the return of “I’m Hardcore” “I’m Hardcore.” Give this guy a mic and a video screen with this match on it and let him talk about how hardcore he is and how hardcore his elbow drop was. Put him outside the ropes and have him do a plancha from the first step of the ring steps. Once again, I’m excited about this “frog” being in ECW.
Matt Striker’s Classroom
Striker is a good fit in ECW as well. The show provides enough material for him to run with for a long, long time. I just hope he stays away from the Test/Mike Knox group.
The Big Show over Sabu by Showstopper
Okay, now Sabu is out of the main event picture, right? He should be. Let’s put him with someone whom can take some abuse and keep up in the ring with him now, okay? I have no idea who the hell they are going to push as a main event face now, RVD is tangled with Hardcore Holly, CM Punk isn’t ready for the main event, and they proved that the Dreamer/Sandman Knox/Test feud isn’t over yet as much as I’d love it to be and Sandman has another feud going with Striker too. Balls is about to get into a program with Gangrel II, and no one else is a credible threat. I think we’re about to see another influx of RAW and Smackdown! guys fighting for the ECW title. What fun!
Overall: ***1/4 Bonus 1/4* for not including any RAW or Smackdown! guys on this show. They hopefully got Sabu out of the title contention for a little while, and moved the rest of the angles along. Next week (I don’t read spoilers) maybe we’ll see an 8-man tag with RVD, CM Punk, Dreamer and Sandman vs. Test, Knox, Richards and Holly. Easy elevation for CM Punk getting him in the ring with these guys, it incorporates most of the main focus of the show, and can last a good 25 minutes if booked correctly. Maybe replace Richards with Striker or Big Show and replace Punk with Sabu depending on how the stories work themselves out. Last week scored a 2.1 as I predicted correctly, this week we’ll see a dip to 2.0.
Check spoilers for the next week (plus Smackdown) here.
Don’t forget to leave your opinions of the show here…
…and of course send your e-mails to blatt@4sternstaging.com.
See you next week, same Blatt time, same Blatt channel.
